They Want You
Here’s
something to try: spend the next day actually noticing every
ad that features a photo of someone looking at you. Magazine
ads, bus station posters, billboards: all these. Now think about
what kind of situation you’d have to be in for this person to
be looking at you like that in real life.
If where you live is anything like where I live, you’ll find that for a very high number of these, the situation would have to be one of:
- They want to have sex with you
- You just told them the funniest joke in the world ever
- You just told them the funniest joke in the world ever and now they want to have sex with you
This is an entertaining exercise not just because it’s amusing to think about Kate Moss wanting your body, but also because it reminds you how far the arms race between advertising agencies and your brain’s perceptual filters has advanced. The more ads there are, and the more they try to get our attention, the better we get at not noticing them, so marketers have to continually up the ante. Apparently we’re now in a state where most ads are full of people looking at us in a way that would heat us up down to our toes if it happened in real life, and we don’t think anything of it.
24 commentsNow for an elephant stamp
(Wow, she’s an effective little time sucker. Sometime soon I am going
to have to get my life back.)
First reviews! Two are in for Company ahead of the January ‘06 release, and they’re pretty great. Kirkus Reviews gives me a starred review, which means they think the novel is “of unusual merit,” which I’m assuming is a good thing. They didn’t star up Syrup or Jennifer Government, so this is my first one, and, clearly, a sign that certain dunderheads in the editorial department have been fired. Kirkus says:
A raucous black comedy… enters some sublimely Kafkaesque territory
while Publisher’s Weekly says:
As bitter as break-room coffee, the novel eviscerates modern management techniques
I always wanted to eviscerate something. But, perhaps oddly, even more important to me than these is an e-mail I got from a long-time reader who somehow managed to get his hands on an advanced copy. Jason says:
Just wanted to drop you a line and say that I just finished reading Company. I gotta say that at first, I was afraid you’d lost it. The spark that was there in Syrup and Jennifer Government wasn’t there for me, but then, out of nowhere, you did it again. I read the book over three days (only because I had to sleep at some point). You were right, the plot isn’t there from the beginning, and I think that’s what got me at the beginning. In the other two, there was a hook, in this one, if you wanted to know it you have to wait. Anyway, bravo. I loved it.
It means a lot to me that I delivered for this guy. Reviews are important, and will do a lot to determine what sort of career I have, but they’re written by people who read me as part of their job. The people I want to impress are the ones who found me on their own, and saw a connection. When someone thinks, “I liked his last book, I’ll hope this new one is good” and shells out their hard-earned, I fervently want that person to be thrilled.
Who’s Your Daddy?
Oh,
I have got it bad.
I think she’s cute when she’s screaming in my ear. I think her poos are cute. I love her to death even when I’m getting out of bed for the fourth time that night.
Yes, I think I’m about done as a contributing member of society. It’s all about obsessing over my kids now.
Here’s what has surprised me so far about being a parent:
- The amount of time I spend staring at her butt. I mean, not just from a distance. Up close and personal. Usually wiping things off it. And I realize that my parents must have spent plenty of time staring at my butt. That’s a little disconcerting.
- When I’m carrying her down the street, I expect everyone I pass to drop to their knees and cry, “Dear God, that’s the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen! Please, tell me how I can join the religion that you must be founding to worship her!” If they don’t, I get a little miffed.
- I’m suddenly saying things like, “No, I got a good sleep last night, six hours all up.” Previously, six hours sleep would have left me with barely enough energy to drool. Now I’m functional on four.
- How fast I got used to being called “Daddy.” I knew it was coming, of course, but it felt completely weird. And then suddenly it didn’t.
- Her smell. Why are companies not duplicating this and selling it as perfume or air freshener or something? It’s the most incredible thing.
- The amazing frequency with which she waits until the split-second when there’s no bib/nappy/diaper and then spits up/poos/wees/all of the above. I mean, come on. This is way past coincidence. It has to be some kind of baby in-joke.
- How scared I am that something might happen to her. Before she was born, I saw ads for products like the electronic monitoring sheet you put under baby’s mattress to sound an alarm if she seems to stop breathing, and thought they were just nasty attempts to turn parental fears into cash. I still think that, but now I also think I might buy their products.
- How few photos I have of her when she’s awake. Because when she’s awake, I’m doing something with her. So I have about a hundred photos and they’re all of her sleeping.
Thanks so much for all your congratulations. I love being able to share this. More photos to come! I’ll even try to get some with her eyes open.
Update: Added one of my favorite pics. And I thought of two more things:
- She didn’t look familiar. For some reason, I expected her to look like someone I already knew… I guess because by the time she was born I’d spent so much time talking to Jen’s belly and imagining what she’d be like, I felt I did know her. Instead she just looked like a totally real but completely unfamiliar baby.
- How strong she is! If I had that kind of strength-to-body-weight ratio, I’d be out solving crimes in a leotard.
A Brand New Girl
Back
from the hospital for a few minutes to do some vital jobs,
like announce that I am (at last) Daddy to a heartbreakingly
beautiful baby girl, Finlay Jo Barry.
Here are her vital statistics: she is 3.36kg (7lb 7oz), was born at 9:19AM on August 27th, has the sweetest, most intoxicating smell ever, and likes it when you stroke her hair.
I am, genuinely, the luckiest guy in the world. I get to go back to her now.
Retrospective #6: Reviewing the Future
BabyWatch 2005:
Still nothing! It’s incredible. It’s like waiting for a
toaster to pop. Of course, the second I stop staring at Jen’s
belly, she’ll have the kid.
Of blurbs and blogs: You’re right. You’re right! I shouldn’t give away Company’s first plot twist on the back of the book. I’ve written a new blurb that doesn’t, and I think it’s a big improvement. If it gets through the publisher, I’ll post it here. Thanks for the feedback. I think this is the first time I’ve altered a book based on what you guys told me. So it’s an occasion! Soon I’ll be putting up polls to choose between plots, and then it’s a short stop to accepting anonymous contributions and stapling them together while I sip margaritas on the deck of a Pacific cruise ship.
Syrup: I finished my Syrup screenplay draft! I think it rocks. Not that I’m biased or anything. I don’t know what the producers think yet.
A Chat with Max: There’s an interview with me up on GreatWriting.co.uk. Possibly of interest if you’re a writer, or I take my eyes off Jen’s belly and end up spending all my time feeding, bathing, and entertaining a newborn instead of posting new blogs.
The Book of Revelations
I have this novel, Company, due out in January,
and the author in me wants you to read it without knowing a thing
about it. Not who the characters are, not the theme, and definitely,
definitely not the big plot revelation that comes about a quarter
of the way through. The author wants you totally blind, so everything’s
a surprise, just as it should be.
The marketer in me, though, wants to tell you everything. Because if you don’t know anything about it, you might not buy it, and then where am I? Selling computer systems for Hewlett-Packard, that’s where. The marketer will spoil the whole plot if that’s what’s necessary to arouse your interest.
This wasn’t such an issue with Jennifer Government, because the biggest plot development happened in the first few pages. But Company starts with a mystery, and you don’t find out what the book is really about until you’re a way in.
I’m resigned to the fact that practically every review of the book will give this away. It would be too hard to describe it otherwise. But here is my dilemma: do I put it on the back of the book?
(Yeah, and you always thought blurbs were written by someone else. In truth the author usually writes it, or at least tweaks it. For example, the current draft of the US hardcover flap copy currently says Company is “bitingly funny.” I didn’t add that bit, but I bet I could delete it. And I’m not going to.)
It’s an odd transition when you go from trying to write the best story you can to trying to sell it. But around this time is when it happens. I think I need to give away my plot twist, although I’ll be as vague as possible. And hope that people who have already decided they’re going to buy it will avert their eyes.
(P.S. No baby yet. But it’s a day-to-day proposition. Maybe next blog!)