Good evening. I am writing in the evening. I like to say evening. Wasn’t there a Led Zeppelin song called “The Even Song”? Even so, it’s fun to say “even.”

So, I had a busy day. In the publishing world there is this document called “The Hot Sheet”. A hot sheet is Marketing’s way of not doing any work. They have editorial write the hot sheet and they give it to advertising who writes the ads based on the information contained within the hotsheet. When the book sells 10,000 copies on its first day, Marketing takes all the credit. Marketing is a bunch of doped up monkeys who should be whacked senseless with garden hoses.

(Not you Pam. Seriously, talk to my wife and you’ll find out what I’m talking about.)

I don’t really have anything against the marketing department. Specifically, I don’t have anything against the marketing department I’m working with now.

HOWEVER, the marketing departments I’ve worked with in the past have been a bunch of useless morons who played “what if” games.

“What if we gave out candles with our logo?”

Well, people would melt our logo.

“What if we put our logo on a whistle?”

Uh. Annoying.

“What if we gave out a heart shaped key chain and our tag line was ‘Get to the heart of the matter?’”

No.

“How about we use sandals as a marketing trinket? We’ll put the logo on the bottom and any time our customers walk through the sand they’ll leave our company logo!”

Right.

So, only one of those up there is made up. All of the others have either been said or actually executed. Sad, isn’t it? The marketing departments I’ve been associated with are obsessed with trinkets and trash. As if passing out useless tchotchkes are going to make people say, “MY GOD! X COMPANY IS THE GREATES THING SINCE THE BATTERY OPERATED VIBRATOR!”

Whoops. I suddenly got angry about something. Sorry about that. I simply intended to illustrate that I was busy today and instead I insulted three companies and an entire profession.

Actually, it felt pretty good.

Weekend was great. Kids were great. I finished the story for the short film. I think it turned out pretty good. It’s a rough first draft. But I’m looking forward to hashing it out with the rest of the group.

Next task is to edit my manuscript and finish the website. I like publicly stating my monthly goals. Makes me accountable to someone. Like, oh, everyone reading this.

Please don’t hurt me.