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Much Ado About Publishing

Date-a-Ghost.com ... plus: Nina's annual Holiday Parody Tribute to Publishing

by Nina L. Diamond

I have a new hobby. I didn’t set out to do this, I just sort of fell into it one night while gabbing on the phone with a friend who has completely lost her mind and thinks that Internet dating might be a good way for her to find Mr. Right.

So far, she has only met a series of Mr. Wrongs. To be more specific, she has met a series of Mr. Schmucks. She no longer refers to her pastime as Internet dating. She now more accurately calls it Schmuck Shopping.

So, where do I come in?

Well, I’ve inadvertently become her ghostwriter.

It started out innocently enough when she asked me if she’d spelled a couple of words correctly. The next thing I knew, I was getting pretty carried away dictating what I thought were some pretty amusing responses to the e-mails she’d received from various men who seemed interesting at first, but would later prove to be the aforementioned schmucks.

I shouldn’t completely rule out the value of said schmucks. After all, it was through one of them that I met my friend in the first place. This is silly. I can’t just keep calling her “my friend,” but she’d clobber me if I used her real name. She’s on the phone with me right now as I write this, and in a brave moment of honesty, she just said, “You should probably just call me Dumb Ass.”

Well, anyway, I met Dumb Ass back in May, although both of us figure that in some parallel universe we’ve actually been friends for decades. Just as I didn’t set out to become her Schmuck Shopping ghostwriter, I also didn’t go looking for a new best friend on the day I happened upon her.

A guy whose book I was editing flew into town to visit his sister, and he and I went out to lunch to go over some new chapters in his book. I suggested that we go next to this terrific independent bookstore in town, and my life hasn’t been the same since. On the way, he’d mentioned that he’d been e-mailing a nice woman through an Internet dating site, and that she happened to live in my town.

“Will you get to meet her while you’re here?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I spoke to her last week, and I was supposed to call her back before I flew in, but I didn’t.”

When we got to the bookstore, I told him that I’d meet him in 10 minutes at the new releases table by the front door. “Don’t forget to go upstairs,” I said. Well, actually, insisted. “This place is amazing.”

A few minutes later, I heard him calling my name from across the store. I turned around, and there he was, strolling down an aisle of books with a tall brunette at his side.

“Look who I found!” he practically shouted. “This is the girl I’ve been e-mailing. The one who lives here. I went up to the second floor, like you said I should, and there she was at the top of the stairs! I recognized her from her photo, and called out her name.”

Guess what he said to her next.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m the schmuck who didn’t call you back!”

See? They know they’re schmucks.

Anyway, that’s how Dumb Ass and I met. Although she and the self-proclaimed schmuck called it quits after an intense couple of months of long-distance dating, Dumb Ass and I bonded for life, and we figured that this particular stop on her Schmuck Shopping Spree hadn’t been a complete loss.

Ever since, I’ve listened patiently…okay, no so patiently…to her tales of horror (this is her word, and I admit that she chose wisely) as she schmuck shops. One guy is worse than the next. And she wonders why I’ve never dated online and why I never will. I know you should never say never, but in this case, I feel confident that the word “never” is safe to use.

“I prefer to meet my schmucks the old fashioned way,” I’ve told her. “Live and in person.”

Not long after she broke up with Schmuck #1, she met Schmuck #2. After they broke up, I fell into ghosting her Online Schmuck Shopping e-mails.

It’s absurd as I play the role of “fly on the wall” and watch these literary exchanges unfold. Actually, I hear them. Although she lives in town, we do this on the phone. I talk and she types. They write, she reads it to me, and I tell her what to write back.

Mostly, I figure I’m offering a valuable public service as my journalistically-honed words and conversation strategies help her to screen out the schmucks as quickly and painlessly as possible.

For the record, since I began ghosting for her, she hasn’t had a date. That’s just how good I am. I screen these schmucks out literally within minutes. If we ever run across a guy who doesn’t prove to be a schmuck within the first round of instant messaging, perhaps she’ll actually get to meet him.

I’m hoping that she gives up Online Schmuck Shopping, if not for herself, than at least to preserve my sanity.

But, ever the glutton for punishment, Dumb Ass continues.

She recently corresponded online with some creep who immediately tried to entice her into having phone sex, another guy who’s had more cosmetic surgery than the folks on Extreme Makeover, and tonight’s Schmuck Supreme: an arrogant SOB with an irrational fear of lobster.

Lucky me, I got to ghost her out of all of ‘em.

A weird thought just wiggled its way up my spine: What if some of these schmucks have ghostwriters, too?

When will all this madness end?

And if she marries one of these guys, do I have to write their wedding vows?

* * * * * *

And now, Nina’s annual Holiday Parody Tribute to Publishing:

A WRITER’S JOY TO THE WORLD

Joy to the world, my book is done!
I birthed a manuscript!
Let every word
Make editors swoon,

And critics and agents sing,
And cash registers ring,
And critics and editors and agents sing!

GOD REST YE, BUSY EDITORS

God rest ye, busy editors,
let authors have their say.
Remember they’re the ones who wrote
the books you have today.

Where would you be without them?
You’d be nowhere, that’s for sure.
You’d have books that are empty on display…today.

WRITER’S WONDERLAND

Cell phones ring, are you list’nin’?
On the line, agent’s whistlin’.
The contract’s all right,
We’re happy tonight,
Welcome to the Writer’s Wonderland.

Throw away all the old drafts.
Now today, here’s the last half.
I’ve met my deadline,
The manuscript’s fine,
Welcome to the Writer’s Wonderland.

In the office we can proof the galleys.
Then we’ll send them all around the town.
They’ll say, “We’ll review this.”
We’ll say, “Wowee!
As long as you don’t give it two thumbs down.”

Publicists, they’ll be hired.
On the tour, they’ll be fired.
The publisher’s done
Promoting this one.
Welcome to the Writer’s Wonderland.

* * * * *

Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

* * * * *

Logo image courtesy of George Glazer Gallery, NYC georgeglazer.com

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