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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Creative Blurbing

A famous writer once sent me the following backhanded blurb ostensibly to use on the back of my book. As you can see the quotation is so unusable that the famous writer might as well have not bothered at all. A more honest response would have been: No, I don't really want to. Anyway, the publishers thought it was funny, an example of how jealous writers can undermine each other. And no matter how we twisted the thing, we couldn't come up with anything that might seem like a good review.

"Writer, Rejected conveys the stark bitterness of those perched continually on death beds, whose only relief is gazing into the eyes of false lovers. This author knows the desire for a revelation to transcend the burden of history and knows that no vision will ever completely satisfy."

Huh?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not even a teensy hint at who the FW is? A weeeensy clue?

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know if FW is a man or a woman.

It appears that FW was experiencing the glee of calling WR a bitter bitch, concealed as this nonsensical "review" that transcends nothing, esp. not FW's petty contempt.

What I like about this, WR, is that anyone could review anything by selecting a miasmatic series of words and stringing them together, making sure to include "bitter" among them. I almost have a feeling that FW did not really read the book in question, had a jealous snit, and wrote the most ridiculous thing he/she could think of, hoping to get the last laugh on the jacket cover.

Asshole.

Monica said...

It's not all bad; that's how I write (after a couple drinks).

Writer, Rejected said...

I don't think it was as conscious or as hateful as you suggest, and I don't think the mysogyny you infer is really there for a variety of reasons. And I'd like to think that women (as a class of people) are not quite as evil as you imply. But then again what the hell do I know?

Anonymous said...

I'd settle for initials, in any order, and maybe one noun from a book title.

Anonymous said...

"Writer, Rejected conveys... (the) relief (of) gazing into the eyes of... lovers. This authors knows the desire... to transcend... history and... will... completely satisfy (anyone who buys this book looking for the Next Great Novel)."

That's how it's done!

Writer, Rejected said...

<<"Writer, Rejected conveys... (the) relief (of) gazing into the eyes of... lovers. This authors knows the desire... to transcend... history and... will... completely satisfy (anyone who buys this book looking for the Next Great Novel).">> Amazing!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE, LOBSTY?