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--Dave Fox

Dear Vice President Cheney, I Don't Love You, but Will You Marry Me Anyway?

Attention Writers! I have just unlocked the secret to writing a guaranteed best-selling book! All you need to do is include some red hot lesbian love scenes. Oh, also, you must be married to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife, is sitting on a literary goldmine, yet she is failing to capitalize on it.

Let's recap: Virginia Democratic Senate hopeful Jim Webb came under fire last week after his incumbant opponent, Republican George Allen, attacked Webb for writing novels with sexually explicit passages.

Webb lashed back, and told Washington Post Radio, "I mean we can go and read Lynne Cheney's lesbian love scenes if you want to, you know, get graphic on stuff."

The vice president's wife is now denying she ever wrote anything sexually explicit. Reporting on her out-of-print novel, Sisters, however, CNN had this to say:

Reviews have long described the book as "racy" and "steamy." Excerpts highlight a love story between two women and talk of sharing a bed.

Hmmm... sure sounds like red hot lesbian love to me.

Personal note to Ms. Cheney: Relax! Red hot lesbian love is nothing to be ashamed of. Seriously, you would win the hearts of many Democrats, especially red hot lesbian Democrats, if you would stop hiding such things.

Here's what I don't get: With all this controversy brewing, Ms. Cheney could be making millions of dollars in book sales; however, CNN reports she has convinced her publisher not to re-release the out-of-print book. As a result, used copies have been selling on eBay for hundreds of dollars.  Hundreds of dollars for a book the author says isn't very good. Also, she says, it contains no red hot lesbian love scenes and nobody should read it because, really, there's nothing inside worth looking at; please move along.

What I'd like to know is: What exactly has Ms. Cheney done to "convince" her publisher not to re-release the book? The reality of the publishing industry is if a publisher owns the rights to a book that is a guaranteed best-seller -- even if the book totally sucks (or the red hot lesbian equivalent thereof) -- the publisher is going to publish the book whether the author wants it out there or not. It's about money. What have Ms. Cheney and her husband done to convince the publisher not to publish a guaranteed insta-success that is currently selling for hundreds of dollars per copy?

As for myself, I am seriously considering changing the next edition of my own book, which flirted last week with Amazon's 10,000 mark but never topped it. My book is autobiographical, and I wanted to keep it clean; therefore, before it went to press, I deleted all of my own personal red hot lesbian love experiences. Next edition, I'm putting them back in. Also, I am going to ask Vice President Cheney to dump his wife and marry me. He's not at all my type,  but it's a small price to pay for literary stardom. 

Breakup Babe's Breakout Novel

While you sit around like the rest of the world, pondering how tragic and unfair life is because the release of my first book has been delayed, here is something else for you to read while you wait:

Breakup Babe: A Novel, by Rebecca Agiewich.

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may recall a day that lives in infamy, a day I call Black Thursday. It was on that day, April 14, 2005, that I was unceremoniously left by my surrogate cat, dumped by the girl I had just started dating, and kicked out of the band I was playing in, all within three hours.

Rebecca Agiewich was innocently linked to one of those events, and if you read her most excellent blog, your first assumption might be that she was the person who dumped me. After all, it seems from her author bio ("Rebecca Agiewich lives in Seattle, where she has dated some of the cities most eligible bachelors and almost all of the ineligible ones....") that she has dated every single man in this city. But actually, I know Rebecca because she plays keyboards in the band that expelled me.

Rebecca, however, knew nothing of my pending musical doom. It was others in the band who decided my travel schedule did not meet their rock star needs, and informed me via e-mail that my presence at rehearsal was no longer welcome. When I happened to bump into Rebecca the next evening at a comedy improv show, her face filled with shock and horror when I informed her that others in the group had sent me away.

It just so happened that Rebecca had recently landed her first book deal, though, so in spite of my musical demise, she and I became writer pals. We get together from time to time to consume adult beverages and marvel at the mysteries of the publishing industry. Her novel has just been released -- based on her blog -- a hilariously honest look into the mind of a single 30-something female in the cyberage.

"Breakup Babe" is the absolute funniest writing to hit the so-called "chick-lit" genre since... since... hell, I have no clue. She is the only "chick-lit" a man like myself who oozes machismo from every pore one or two pores would ever read. Seriously, I don't love her writing because she's my friend. I love her writing because she is a brilliant writer whose snarkalicious chick-lit wit can even make men cackle with delight.

So there! There's another brilliant book for you to amuse yourself with for the next few weeks until my own book finally sees the light of day. Go buy Rebecca's book! Hurry! Then go buy my book! You can pre-order it and receive one of the first autographed copies off the press.

97,275

97,275 words on the wall... 97,275 words... take one down, pass it around... 97,274 words on the wall.

97,274 words on the wall... 97,274 words....

[Everybody sing!...]

...take one down, pass it around... 97,273 words on the wall.

[Very good. Please keep singing while you read the rest of this.]

The rough draft for my book is officially finished. 97,275 words. 373 double-spaced pages. 29 nervous breakdowns. And a partridge in a... wait, no, that's Christmas.

Parts of it I am happy with. Parts of it are utter crap. All of it is now in the hands of an editing group that will draw big red circles around the parts that are utter crap and tell me to fix them. I will then sit down with their comments in front of my word processor, attempt to reduce the final manuscript to a more slender 80,000 words, and have approximately 17 more nervous breakdowns.

Life has been odd these past few weeks as I have pushed to finish the manuscript in time for the editing workshop that's critiquing it. I have not eaten with such flagrant disregard for my health since college. I have sucked down more caffeine than anybody with a caffeine sensitivity should. I have learned to tolerate soy milk when it's diluted with espresso and chocolate syrup. (Lactose intolerance is a bitch.) I have cut back on social activities, television, showering, alcohol, and heroin. I've laughed. I've cried. I've eaten way too much pizza.

In a moment of premature jubilation, I announced last week that I would be unveiling a special promotion in which you, the shameless consumer, could read my crappy rough draft online. (My plan was to provide the password to a hidden website for anyone who bought my audiobook.) I have since decided that my crappy rough draft is still too crappy for human consumption, so the world will have to wait... though I will try to post a sample chapter sometime in the next week or so. (A couple of sample chapters are already available on my main website.)

I'll receive the editors' comments in about five weeks. My hope is that the final draft will be done in late December, and the book should be available four to six months after that.

'Twas an odd feeling printing out all 373 pages and actually holding in my hand a copy of the manuscript that has only existed in my computer before this week. Slowly, friends have started contacting me to inquire as to whether or not I have come out of hiding yet. People have been congratulating me for finishing my crappy rough draft, which feels very strange -- because parts of it really truly are crappy (as a rough draft should be), and I have never been congratulated for crappiness before.

Anyway... I am reemerging now after this brief hiatus -- back into blogland. But first, if you will excuse me, I really must go clean my kitchen. Those pizza crusts are beginning to sprout extra mushrooms.

[Please continue singing. By the time you are finished, you will probably be able to buy my book.]

96,997 words on the wall... 96,997 words....

Harry Potter and the Wizards of Sleep Deprivation

J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter Does Dallas and all those other bestselling children's books, has just announced she will give a special reading of her new book for aspiring journalists between age eight and 16. The reading will take place at Edinburgh Castle on July 16, beginning at one minute past midnight.

So what's with all these people who keep whining that Sony Playstations are corrupting the youth of today? Rowling wants to keep a bunch of eight-year-olds awake for an event that doesn't even begin until midnight? My parents would have had none of that.

Madonna: Probably not the next J.K. Rowlings

Madonna's third children's book, Yakov and the Seven Thieves, is scheduled to hit bookstores on June 21.

Why is Madonna writing children's books? It's like Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird making porn films.