In order to sell a book to an agent or publisher, you have to show them how your book is different and better than anything already out there, which means you have to at least look at a lot of books on the subject. Let me tell you, several days straight of cancer memoirs is ... depressing.
There are lots of breast cancer memoirs -- and my advice to anyone just diagnosed with breast cancer is don't read any of them written before 2000, because the field has changed so much that you probably don't have to worry (or read) about uncontrollable projectile vomiting.
Then there are the very few written by men, the "I've got the balls to deal with this" school of writing. Cf Lance Armstrong.
And a few written by people with rare, nasty cancers. I actually enjoyed parts of Bald in the Land of Big Hair, by Joni Rodgers. From this:
A sample of doctor-speak: Testing indicates clankankorous miss moss pooniak slar.... Blah reeh moo noo spahsh mlork malignant planurtion. Woop woop dee jarmud oncologist immediately plinka meesh meesh chemotherapy....
And possible titles for books on cancer:
Chicken Soup for the Condemned to Hell Soul
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff -- and it's all Small Stuff Except for Cancer, Which is Godzilla
The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Doom and Despair
Death for Dummies....
Well, I thought it was funny. You should see what the depressing stuff looks like.
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3 comments:
Those are hilarious, Mom.
How can you be so funny when you don't feel well? You go, girl!
I like your title about doom. I think it captures something in the air. There seems to be a lot of doom going around these days. As a teenager I read a lot of stories where people proclaimed, "We're doomed!" In the world of Sci Fi people often confront their doom -- but equally as often they manage to escape being doomed just at the last minute. It stands to reason. If they escaped being doomed in Chapter 2, there wouldn't be much of a story line, would there?
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