Book Tour Virgin is Will Clarke.com

Soliciting Advice For My, Um, Friend.

I need some advice. Well, I don't. A friend does.

See, I have this friend who used to work at an advertising agency. This friend of mine left the agency for another opportunity. And she has recently found out that a TV script that she wrote was produced, and now it is being entered into award shows, but the Creative Director at the shop has, for whatever reason, omitted her name from the credits.

Granted, there were probably changes made to the script and another writer had to cover the shoot, but in my opinion my friend should at least be credited as a co-writer since it was her concept to begin with. Since advertising awards can make a big salary difference and provide better job opportunities for a copywriter, I think it kind of sucks that the "powers that be" were so careless about this. But let's not jump to conclusions. 

Perhaps my friend's just worshiping a golden calf, duped by the illusion that awards and bigger salaries really matter. I mean, who's to say the spot is even going to win an award. Plus, my friend's life is going pretty well. My counsel to her is just let karma take care of the situation. We reap what we sow. Right? But other ad people have been outraged by this and counsel her differently.

If you were my friend, how would you right this situation?

 

Sample The Goods

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"Mommy, where do Psychic Cows come from?" "Well, honey, when two web designers love each other very much...."

A lot of people have asked me where PsychicCow.com came from. It's a game that I came up with when I was writing LVLH. The main character plays it way too much and gets into all sorts of trouble.

Anyway, my two good friends, H.O. and Meredith, after being inspired by the mystery, comedy and tragedy of India, created an actual Psychic Cow game just as it was described in the book. They are geniuses. Meredith's cow illustration was even used for the cover of the book. Aside from being bad-ass geniuses, H.O. and Meredith are two of the brightest souls I have ever met. I am lucky to count them as friends. (P.S., H.O. and Mer, I still need to mail your wedding gift. I totally suck at things like that.)

Anyway, may Vishnu flood their web design firm with oceans of clients and may He send them directly to emby.org.

Herpes Not-So-Simplex

This is a brief tale of karma.

Before I sold Lord Vishnu’s Love Handles to Simon & Schuster,  I worked as a copywriter at DDB. And about two years ago, I was on a commercial shoot with my two good friends, Matt and Lisa. Lisa was the producer. Matt, the art director.

It was one of those star-crossed shoots where everything was going horribly wrong—the kind of jacked-up mess that only a client and an agency could create. Every call that Lisa got on her cell phone was worse and worse. She became so stessed that she got a cold sore—a big oozy cornflake that seemed to grow bigger and throbbier with each bad phone call. Matt and I of course made endless fun of Lisa for the herpes outbreak. So much so we eventually made her cry. I think we were somewhere on Melrose when she broke down. I know it was somewhere in public. And she is not the type of person to ever cry. Actually, Matt is the one who made her cry; I just sort of snickered when it happened.



Matt and Lisa at the Viceroy, just before the outbreak, and just days before he would make her cry.

So now the joke’s on me. Or rather the herpes outbreak. The day before I was to fly up to New York to have my author photo taken by  Sigrid Estrada, I get a big, oozy cornflake in the exact spot that Lisa got hers. Except my cold sore was bigger, oozier, and throbbier. And because Sigrid was totally booked up and they had already bought my ticket, we couldn’t reschedule.

If you look very, very closely in the right corner of my mouth (your right, my left), and squint, you can sort of see my karma.

Lots of Being Naked Dreams

I'm having lots of being-naked-in-public-places dreams these days.

Here's why:

THE 2005 LOVE HANDLES TOUR

7/6, Dallas: Barnes & Noble (Northwest Highway) 7:30 PM.

7/11, Austin: Book People 7:00 PM.

7/18, Houston, TX, Borders (Kirby Rd.) 7:30 PM.

7/19, New Orleans: Garden District Bookshop 5:30-7:30 PM.

7/21, Baton Rouge: Barnes & Noble (Citiplace Court) 7:00 PM.

7/24, Shreveport: Books-A-Million (Bossier Corners) 3:00 PM.

7/26, Jackson: Lemuria Books  5:00 PM.

7/27, Oxford: Square Books 5:00 PM.

7/29, San Antonio: Borders (E. Basse Road) 7:30 PM.

This is the book tour that Simon & Schuster has been so kind to send me on for my book,  Lord Vishnu's Love Handles.

It's also why I started this blog. I probably shoudn't, but I am going to clumsily document what it's like to be the guy behind the card table with a stack of books that he desperately needs to sell.  You know the guy in the bookstore that everyone is ignoring while they slurp on their Frappucinos and browse through the DVD section.

Who even goes to booksignings these days? I do sometimes, but I can count those "sometimes" on one hand. And I am a huge reader.  I mean, I have a costly book habit equivalent to some friends' drug habits.  So if I have only gone a handful of times, what does that say about the less-addicted reading population?

Actually, typing this is making me so nervous that I just threw up in my mouth a little. Be back later.