3.10.2009

By any other name...

Declan McManus, Paul Hewson, William Bailey, Tracy Morrow—why do I like these fellas so much? First, for their contribution to (in no particular order) (a) good music, (b) good deeds, (c) the completely unexpected popularization of male redheads in white biker shorts, and (d) the fusion of gangster rap with serial television programs. But more importantly, I appreciate their artful adoption of some of the best pseudonyms ever. Sometimes I wish I had a pseudonym…

On a completely unrelated note, have I told you about my good “friend” Riley Noehren? She looks kind of like me except that she wears glasses and I wear contact lenses and if you ever see a fat picture that looks like me, it is actually of her, as I am naturally photogenic while she has a nasty tendency of being snapped with red cheeks and quadruple chinnage. Like me, Riley wrote a first-draft novel for nanwrimo back in 2007. Then she edited it into a full-blown book entitled Gravity vs. the Girl. Then she sent the resulting manuscript off to four agents, but got too lazy to send it to more after that, so she decided to self-publish. Then, after spending months editing and laying out her tome to perfection, she realized it would have been easier to send it to a few hundred more agents instead.

Anyhow, Riley’s writing style is eerily close to my own, so if you at all enjoy reading this blog (and I'm not assuming you do), you might want to check out Gravity vs. the Girl, which is presently available for purchase on Lulu, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and various online book retailers, such as this one.* Soon, Riley will be starting her own blog on her self-publishing adventures. Eventually she will throw up an author’s website.

Of course, Riley and I aren’t completely alike. For one thing, our names are way different. For another, unlike me, Riley is not paranoid that writing crazy books under her real name will result in the loss of future job opportunities and political appointments. And unlike Riley, I would never, ever engage in shameless self-promotion.

* If you buy it and even relatively like it, a review posted on Amazon or the like would be greatly appreciated. By Riley, of course.