Emo artist is all emo.

Sometimes my cat will let out these heart-wrenching meows that sound like “Goodbye cruel world!” and will make me run in from another room expecting to find her holding a tiny gun to her head or weaving a rope to hang herself with from torn bedsheets.  But she will just be sitting there in the middle of the floor looking at me with big soulful eyes, waiting to be picked up and petted.  It’s a power trip, really: she wants to know that I will come to her.  And because I am a sucker, I always do.  I pick her up and coo, “Are we having feelings?  Is emo kitty all emo?”  Then she purrs like a diesel engine, and all is right with the world.

Sometimes I wish someone would pick me up from my writing desk and say, “Is emo artist all emo?”  Then massage my ears and make everything okay again.  (Kitty loves a good ear rub.)  I’m just saying, sometimes trying to write this book feels like peeling my skin off.  All these mini allegories I’ve been posting lately are my attempts to psych myself up.  They seem to be working, I think I can feel something coming up through the undertow.  At least I hope so.  I need it to.  My last conversation with my agent was about something annoying, and it ended with me saying, “Well, that’s disheartening.  No matter how little you think of the human species, it is–” (Here I paused.)  She filled in, “It is not little enough.”  Then we both laughed.

Well, at least my agent is awesome.  Know why else she is awesome?  She’s never asked me about my “author platform” or advised me to “build my personal brand.”  That latter turn of phrase especially must make poor Bill Hicks puke in his grave.

Let me leave you now with my Zen Koan of the Day:

So, if this blog is part of my author platform, is my author platform an anti-platform platform?