I Made John Grisham Famous!

Now wait, hold on. Don’t leave yet, just because you think Beth has finally driven me over the edge. I’m telling the truth, this really happened! Well, in a sorta kinda roundabout way anyhow. And pssst, it’s a secret, just between you and me! Don’t go telling him, I’m sure he thinks he did it all by himself and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. Also, I may need him for a blurb one day. He’ll probably do it, too. After all, just look what I did for him.

A few years ago Beth and I had started writing a book called MURDER ONLINE (you can read the first chapter and reviews on our books page.) We got three chapters written and since we had a completed synopsis, confident thing that I am, I talked Beth into doing the agent search thing. We’d already had three books published by major publishers so we figured we could sell on proposal. We looked at a lot of agents, then picked five names out of Jeff Hermon’s book, completely unaware that the agent, who for some reason sounded most interesting, was John Grisham’s agent (at the time). We sent five queries out and settled in to write the rest of the book while we waited.

Four days later we got a call from this agency, which I won’t name. A lady there with a very nice voice told us that our book sounded lovely and could we send the full, because The Big Agent would like to see it.

Thud!

We explained that we only had the three chapters done, but we knew from experience that we could write and edit a full chapter a week, so it would be several weeks. The nice lady said to hurry up and finish it, the market was hot for this kind of book, so get it to them as soon as possible.

At the time, Beth still had a full time job. Out of necessity, you understand, she has to be here when I’m writing my parts. But she told the lady they’d have it in their hands within a couple of months.

During this time, Beth mentioned the agent’s name to a couple of writer friends and they said, “My God, that’s John Grisham’s agent, didn’t you know that?”

Thud!

No, we didn’t. But now that we did, fame and fortune was On The Way!

You never saw anyone write so much so fast. Every evening and all day on weekends we plowed on, daydreaming, when we had the chance, about walking down the Trump Towers stairway toward all the adoring fans waiting on the main floor with champagne, toasting us as we glided, not walked actually, in our shimmering gold gown cut up to HERE and down to THERE, while heading straight for the draped podium where our Pulitzer was waiting.

(Trump Towers IS where they hand them out, right? Well maybe not, but for us maybe they would. Never hurts to ask.)

We finally finished the book. It took us about three months, but finally, off it went.

Meantime, we were, well, at least in our minds, hobnobbing with The Greats. Talk about an ego trip! I think it was about then that one of our writers’ club members handed us a pair of torn thongs at one of our meetings and said, “This is JUST to remind you that WE knew you when you had HOLES in your pants.”

Thud!

The irony was, we were sitting there with holes in our (cotton) pants anyhow. Just wearin’ ‘em out until we could afford our new satin Victorias Secrets.

Well, that comment did puncture our shimmering gold balloon just a little…

Now you understand, by this time we had developed, we thought, a good relationship with The Big Agent’s office staff. We had, while we were writing, kept them updated on our progress. We were friends. Good friends. Drinkin’ Buddies. Our children would meet and marry. We would all vacation together. That kind of friends, you know what I mean.

(That’s always a mistake. But I make those all the time, nothing new there.)

Late one afternoon we heard a thud! at the door. We knew what it was before we hit the living room (we’d heard it before) (we still hear it) and opened the door. But just for kicks, since even in our idiotically blind state we knew a returned manuscript isn’t a good sign, we figured we’d open it anyway. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always say. Although wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said it first? Anyone know?

Anyhow, there was no note. No nothing. Just the manuscript.

We called the agency to find out what happened. Now, we’re not sure of the exact sequence here, but we were told that the agent, who was living in Florida, had died, so someone down there had sent the manuscript back. Without a damn rejection letter. I mean, it’s a simple thing, isn’t it? “We cannot represent this book because the agent just died.” Or, God forbid, “We can’t represent this book because it ______ . (You fill in the blanks.)

We have to figure our manuscript killed him. We take full credit. Makes sense to us. At least, to me.

Right about that time we heard that John Grisham had left that agency. THEN, and ONLY THEN, his career REALLY took off bigtime. And he owes it all to me. Because my book killed his old agent and the new one did everything right.

Well, using Hotclue logic, he does owe it all to me, doesn’t he? After all, if it hadn’t been for me (us)….

But hey, don’t tell him. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. He thinks he did it all by himself.

So that’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it. Thanks so much for stopping by, y’all! Come back again soon. You never know what you’ll find here. We love you all, you KNOW we do!

Cheers, Hots and Beth. Sarge says tell y’all hey, and she’s getting anxious to shoot a few more commercial Furballs your way.

Where Has Hotclue Been Since Last Weekend?

Pulling my hair out, that’s where, ever since Beth’s original Micron eight-year-old keyboard died a probably long overdue death while I was typing an email to Count Babbalallapaloozo about six weeks ago, when all this started:

B, Shrieking: HOTS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

H, Dumfounded: I don’t know, this thing screamed and then quit working. Can’t you fix it?

B: Probably not, but I’ll try. Move over.

I move over and Beth, the family’s unofficial computer guru, checks everything, finally gives up, goes to Best Buy to buy a new keyboard. Now mind you, this is only three weeks after she had to replace our mouse, which had been misbehaving worse than I ever thought of doing. The new mouse was wonderful. Plugged it into the USB, it installed itself, no problem. Nice job. We had a working mouse.

But when it came to replacing our keyboard, she couldn’t find anything that wasn’t cordless. Cords, she was told, have virtually disappeared (like Carl Rove’s emails?). She wasn’t sure that was true, about keyboards with cords and normal plugs (she knows Rove’s missing emails aren’t missing), but she was in a hurry so she bought the cordless, which came with its own cordless mouse. Now mind you, we still HAD a brand new mouse, so she easily installed the program with its disk, plugged in the keyboard and the NEW, new mouse, and it all installed itself just fine. But the OLD new mouse that we already HAD, which had worked just fine, was no more, at least not on our computer.

The real trouble began soon after that. The cordless keyboard was dicey and so was the mouse. Finally, the control thing just gave up the ghost and refused to work. Dead as a doornail, even with new batteries. Kaput. Bought the farm. Whatever. Clearly, we had a bad keyboard and mouse set.

B: I give up, Hots. You take all this crap and go return it and buy a new one. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

H: It’s hot outside. I just did my toenails. I don’t have a bra on.

B: I don’t care. It’s your turn. Go.

H: You want me to return this for credit and buy a new one, right?

B: That’s what I said.

So I go to Best Buy, return the dead keyboard and mouse, give them their installation disk back inside of the plastic holder we’d put it in, leave the new batteries we’d just installed in it. No problem. It’s still under warranty. Best Buy is really good about that. We get full credit. So far things are lookin’ good.

But wait.

I pick out a new keyboard and mouse set, this time one that costs roughly twenty five bucks more. The way I look at it, I’m buying a whole new set, a nicer one on top of that, for only twenty-five bucks. I just got a full sixty-nine buck credit on our credit card, so counting that, this one actually only cost us twenty-five bucks. Right?

I take the new set home. Open the box. Look at everything, read all the instructions. Start to install it.

Only problem is, I had returned the keyboard and mouse, not that it would have helped us any because it was dead anyhow.

Guess what! There is NO way to install the software, which you have to install first, before you can plug in the new stuff.

I haul out the old new mouse. Plug it in. No dice. The software for the new keyboard and mouse we just returned to Best Buy has uninstalled the old one.

Beth’s sitting there staring at the monitor, which is still on. I’m staring at her. Neither one of us knows what the hell to do.

Before I go any further wiith this little Mini-Saga of Desperate Housewives turned Authors, I have a question for Microsoft, who first masterminded Plug N Play, which worked just fine, only to replace it with cordless, where you have to first install the disk whether you can or not:

Does anyone at Microsoft seriously think that ordinary people think, hey, I think I’ll go buy a new keyboard and mouse, and install it just for the hell of it, because I’m bored? Doesn’t it occur to anyone there that when most people buy new sets like that, it’s because the one they already have doesn’t work any longer?

Apparently not. Microsoft, you’re doin’ a great job. I’m gonna have Bush order your Medal of Honor.

SO I call Best Buy and ask for the Geek Squad desk, ask them what to do. They tell me to call the main Geek Squad number so I can have them come out and install it for me since they have stuff to do that in their cute little cars. OR I can bring it in and they’ll do it there.

Problem with that is, though, the computer itself is so heavy only a Samaurai Warrior could carry it anywhere, so that ain’t gonna work. Not in this life.

(And to add to my woes, I just now, while I was typing this, remembered the water and tea bags I had put on to boil so I could make iced tea. I went in the kitchen just now and found all eight teabags AND the pot I was using burned beyond recognition. Beth is gonna KILL me when she finds out about that, because it was her favorite pan. But it’s definitely toast. It even smells like toast. The teabags have segued INTO the pan and are now part of it.

This would never have happened if I’d stuck to making a pitcher of martinis, which was my first thought.)

Okay. Back to my previous tale of woe. Clearly, I need Geek Squad. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Since I don’t know any reasonable facsimilies thereof and Beth is furious at me and insists I handle the whole thing, which is always a mistake, I call Geek Squad.

This adorable guy in this adorable Volkswagon comes the next day, does his magic, and lo and behold, a hundred fifty eight dollars and about forty or so minutes later, our new keyboard and mouse are installed.

Works fine now. (Thank God for credit cards.) But I have a question.

When this keyboard gives up, which it will eventually, do I have to go through all this all over again?

Apparently so. Geek Squad, rejoice!

What IS Microsoft THINKING?

Any of you ever have that same problem? What do you do, other than call Geek Squad? Not that I have anything against them, the guy was cute as hell, efficient, adorable and he did a great job, he really did. I’d use them again in a minute. My only complaint is, now with cordless, every keyboard and mouse I ever buy again will cost me oh, let’s see, what’s 89 or so plus 158, probably more with inflation? I don’t know, I can’t find our calculator.

This is almost like my quandry a while back: Were we REALLY going to pay ChemLawn to make our grass grow, then pay lawn dudes to cut it?

I guess we are, since we did.

Only in America. It’s no wonder Europeans think we’re so dumb.

Or maybe it’s just me…

The real kicker in all this is, we both hate the keyboard. You think you’ve seen typos before? This thing slips so much that a lot of the letters repeat over and over. But if you think I’m buying a new one anytiiiiiime soon, that ain’t happppppppening.

We’ll both just have to learn typing all over again.

But I am gonna ask Count Babbalallapaloozo to buy Microsoft so he can make someone fix this whole Catch 22.

Oh, and one more thing. PARIS HILTON, stop. Just stop.

Ciao for now, my darlings! Please come back and see me again next week. I should have a lovely new teapot bubbling on the stove by that time. I’ll even make brownies.

Love,
Hotclue Herself