Enough!!

I'm in a mood and a half today. I want to hold up my hand and say enough of the bullshit!

It kind of snuck up on me. I have been working away at my second novel and found myself stuck around page 200, something someone warned me might happen if I didn't flesh out my second storyline, which I am doing. I am also not done yet, there are still some hard scenes to write and I have been struggling to find my way in. In addition, I am anxiously waiting for my first novel to find a publisher as it sits on the desks of some great editors, but I am a new novelist, not a celebrity and it is always hard to launch a new author, especially these days, when celebutantes and reality stars are "writing" books and having them turned into films quickly, before anyone can forget who authored them. I am grumpy about the lack of auditions that are available to me this pilot season, again, due to the fact that I am not a celebrity. In case you didn't know, it is true, I am not a celebrity, or a model, or the star of my own accidentally leaked home porno. No, I am woman who looks like a woman, (and I like the way I look) and who was raised to believe that in order to be something, someone, I needed to study and work hard, a strategy I still believe to be true, in spite of that fact that I live in a city at a time in the entertainment industry, where I honestly think that if I had just been born looking like a supermodel and never went to school, I'd be rewarded...especially if I made my own sex tape.

I nearly screamed this morning when I read that Brooklyn Decker, the wife of tennis star Andy Roddick, and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, will be starring opposite Adam Sandler in a film with Jennifer Aniston next year. Now of course I don't know B.D, and honestly, yay, yay, yay, good for her...but I kind of just hoped that someone with a few less, adjectives to describe their celebrity could be cast in leads. You know, like...Jane Smith, actor, NYU Grad. I'm griping I know, but honestly it is making me crazy these days. A friend of mine told me a story about a publisher who wouldn't take an established authors book, because it would be published on the heels of Sarah Palin's and the numbers wouldn't measure up! Come on! Sarah Palin? You know she didn't even write that book that she was given millions for, and why should a well respected author even be put in the same category?!

Maybe I am just tired, (no, it's more than that) but art takes time and effort and skill and HARD WORK and brains, and perseverance and talent, and HARD WORK, and brains, and did I mention BRAINS and HARD WORK?!! It's one of the reasons I started writing novels in the first place, because I knew that it didn't matter how skinny, or pretty, or young I was. I loved stories and want to tell them and I knew that writing a book, couldn't be done in a day or two, or season of TV, it would take years...years, and not a lot of people are willing to make that kind of effort. A lot of people say "Oh I could do that!" when they look at artists, and I always say, yes, you can, if you study and pay your dues and build your career, but that's just not really true anymore is it? All around us, we see examples of how just being an obnoxious fame whore gets rewarded. But a novel, when people say, "Oh I could do that!" I just smile. Like I said, writing a novel takes years, and then it can take a few more to get published, it's like pushing a large boulder slowly uphill, and by the time one gets to the top, all those chippies and celebutards, will be forgotten and a new crop will have already come and gone, and those of us who have stayed and slogged it out, all the smart girls and boys, all the talented writers, and actors, and artists, who never thought of doing this for a swag bag and 15 minutes of fame, will still be here. We'll be older, (and hopefully we'll look it), and wiser, and what we have done, will remain.

So, a big shout today to all who toil away at what they do, because they love it, and believe in it and know no other way to make it happen, than through hard work.