Hello, Hello, Hello

For once it is not night. Just now I look out of my window and see a rainbow. Pretty. Typical for the weather in April. Rain, sun ... Everything is still half-baked.

The same is true of the publishers' answers. Droemer/Knaur turned me down and the small publisher from Switzerland can't use 'Das Mal' in its present form either. Quote: "The main character of the story has some fundamental weaknesses. [...] Delete the 'werewolf' element. (You have to decide whether you want to write a thriller, or a mystery - horror) [...] Delete the lesbian element. It has already appeared in several thrillers and thus unfortunately seems hackneyed."

I then came down hard on the manuscript. They are right. Ruth Marx really deserves to be better characterised. In my revision, I hope I succeeded quite well. But as for the other points ... I'm not as good as J.J. Abrams (Not yet ... Haha! ) However, like him, the producer and creator of 'Alias' and 'Lost', I think I'm quite good at bringing new, interesting sides to a genre. All the reactions of my first-time readers so far support this thesis. Moreover, after dropping the werewolf and lesbian themes, all that remains of 'Mal' is a straightforward, simple crime novel. Then it would even be a good plot for a quite respectable 'Tatort'. But I think there are already enough good straight crime stories out there. But very few good stories about werewolves. As far as Ruth Marx's sexual orientation is concerned, it is only a means to an end: if I write a story about the 'beast in the woman' that then breaks out of her, then it can be told better if, in addition to external conflicts, there are also internal ones - i.e. ... love. No werewolf, no lesbians and the 'Tatort' with local colour from Lower Saxony would be finished. Do you really want this, folks? I don't think so.

What made me very, very happy was that I was encouraged by the publisher. (Just a few years ago I would never have believed that I would one day suffer from a lack of seemingly self-evident things like courage, self-confidence and ... yes, love. It seems as if there is a small hole in my 'shell' from which all my positive qualities slowly escape. The bigger my personal problems become, the less I feel able to give courage, self-confidence and love to other people. I hardly contact friends and relatives any more because I tell myself that I wouldn't be much help to them at the moment anyway ... I'll probably soon turn into a misanthrope with obsessive behaviour, like the Jack Nicholson character of the writer in 'As Good As It Gets'.)But back to the publisher's encouragement: "Since you have a very good literary language, which is rather rare in German-speaking countries [...] Since you undoubtedly have writing potential ... "Wow. Not bad. These are sentences you can cling to in the abyss, as Ian McKellen likes to say.Alrighty. So back to the drawing board. 'Die Haut' will be exactly what the Swiss envision (even if you couldn't make a Tatort out of it ;-) )

Favorite Line:

Woman: "How can you write so well about women? "Author: "I imagine a man and subtract reason and sanity. "

As Good As It Gets (1999)

Reminder:

Five months ago I started to put my literary skin on the line. Now, in April, I already wanted to have a contract in my pocket ... and there it was again, the self-confidence ;-)