cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I Had to Pee Lots of things managed to happen in the last few days without feeling like it. I'm doing a fairly in-depth thing with M0ther Jones. They are sending a (hot) editor down to meet me in GA next month and come along on a 4 day pig and @rmadill0 hunt. She will actually be pulling the trigger, which means that I have to teach her rather a lot between now and then. Also, this chick at Tru)))))TV who is in charge of developing new shows just got in touch with me and is sniffing my ass or whatever. They want to develop a show with me. Snore. Get in fucking line. I have heard this way too many fucking times. A year ago I'd have been over the moon, since in this case the interested party has an actual network rather than just a production company. However, things have progressed. Simply put, I'm not sure that I need the TV stuff anymore. 'Reality' TV pays shit. I mean really shit. Like, maybe $16k for 5 months of working 18 hour days, 7 days a week, to film a full season. I can spend that same time writing a book and having more fun in the process and getting paid 3 times more money. The reason why people take those shitty TV deals is because they hope that the publicity from the TV deal will lead to lucrative book deals and getting paid as a speaker and so forth. I don't need that anymore. I get written up in the NYT every 5 minutes and have something like half a dozen major magazines with articles in production about me at the moment. I've got the publicity thing covered, thanks. I've got the clout to command big boy book deals now, as soon as my agent gets up off of her lazy ass and does her job securing them. So why would I want a TV show now? Seriously, why? By making a show with people like this I'd be putting my image in the hands of various committees of morons and film editors who don't give a shit about honesty or education or conservation or about whether or not I continue to have a career. They will make me look like whatever they think will be immediately profitable. For less than twenty thousand dollars. Whoop de doo. Right now its more important to me that I build a long term, sustainable career as a serious writer with a loyal audience. I would do a TV show under one condition: That its MY fucking TV show. We do this shit documentary-style, in the vein of 'Long Way Round.' Anything else and I'm just not interested unless maybe I'm getting $5k per episode for a full season or something. This idea that I threw out the other day about paddling the entire length of the J@mes River has been getting traction. Bob is trying to worm his way into the crew, even volunteering to do the illustrations for a book on the expedition. He just gets so whiny when the going gets tough. Every time. If there is rain, or swamps, or anything challenging he just melts into a petulant mass of complainyness. If he was 20 years younger then I'd leave him behind, but as it stands I'll probably have to take him along. He's pushing 60 and if it wasn't for the fact that his daughter married me then his adventuring days would be over. The only way that he'll get to go on any more really big adventures is if I bring him with me on the crazy shit that I do. It would be a shame to watch one's self marching towards arthritis and immobility and boredom without having done half of the things that one meant to do before death. As it stands he is coming along with the pig hunt in 3 weeks or whatever its going to be. Which is problematic, because to be perfectly honest I would like very much to fuck this editor from M0ther J0nes and that will be dashed awkward with my wife's father right there all the time. I don't really see her explaining our situation to him before we leave. His shoulder gives him trouble all the time and can he really paddle a canoe for 8 hours a day, 2 weeks straight? So he wants us to do a book about it. I dunno. That was a book that I wanted to write 10 years ago and still sort of want to, but I don't think that there would be enough of a market for it. I'm trying to build a career as an author right now. I can't afford to have a dud book on my resume at the moment. Maybe I could write the book and just sort of shelve it for a few years and see if maybe later in my career I get to the point where my name can sell the book well enough, regardless of the location of the subject matter. I had been figuring on just squeezing the river trip in between travel to finish the new book and maybe writing a few magazine articles about it to make a bit of extra money on the side and make the whole endeavor tax deductible. Turning it into a whole book is not something that I think is a totally viable business venture. And that is unfortunately something that I have to constantly consider if I want to succeed in this career. No matter how good a book it would be, I just don't think that it would sell right now. I have to pee, so I'm stopping now. 11:29 p.m. - 2011-01-18 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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