Todd Floss here. A quick note about my future. I plan to write a few fiction novels now that there is a huge need for them. I’m shooting for high six figures for the first one. Toby Vonnegut’s book Ass in the Chair: Writing Your First Blockbuster was a big help to my thinking, so I’m way ahead of the curve. I have sixty-eight ideas as of noon today. My plan is to print the ideas and tape them on my living room wall. In that way, they will be staring me down. I’ve dipped into some fiction novels recently and made a few artistic notes. I want bold colors on the cover, and I’m aiming for 250 pages, but I could go 400 if the “characters keep driving the plot.” (Toby, thanks for that tip.) I already have some ideas about who to name on my acknowledgements page. My ex-wife Tanya will not be one of them. She is a real doubter when it comes to my dreams.

Once I get an agent who loves my work, I’ll be ready to write, revise and publish for the rest of my life—I’m aiming for Random House, or W.W. Norton, maybe Knopf. I’ll visualize the blurbs (I love that word) for motivation, aiming to turn out probably ten pages a day. Who needs a DELETE key? One of my strengths will be dialogue because I’m a great conversationalist. Having a party? Better invite Todd Floss.

Titles. No use being clever or inventive with titles since all of them have been used about ten times. I checked Amazon and it’s true. So, I’m just going with titles like Smash, Grab, Run, or Cocaine Casino, maybe Ten Tons of Silence or Once Upon a Time in Orlando. A blondes-and-bullets bombshell called That’s Why I Sewed You Up, but I admit Dashiell Hammett got that one first. By the way, what a great name for a writer: Dashiell. Dash. Call me Dash.

My best idea is about this guy who is dating a woman and finds out that she has an identical twin sister. Which one is he in love with????? Which one has he been having sex with? Is it a romantic con job and he’s their mark? The Champagne Sisters sounds like a great title. Comedy or tragedy? I think that’s where imagination comes in although I have some recent history with this very problem.

Another idea is a fiction novel about a guy who is the last man on earth and a bunch of women are chasing him because they want to get pregnant. Beverly, my chatty book-fiend friend at work, said that had already been done. I moped around for a week and then thought: get back on the horse, cowboy. I have a secret idea that’s not up on the wall. Let’s just say it will reveal a real truth about certain wealthy women who fly to Argentina for plastic surgery. Or I could use an idea my high school wrestling coach told me when he was drunk and defeated. His job in college was working as a bouncer at a strip club. He fell in love with Sparkle Nightly, but she snored and had a heart of stone. He fed me enough details that Sparkle came to life in my mind. (Lacey Floss is my sister’s name and that’s not funny.) Fiction lives on details.

I bought a new computer that I’ve nicknamed Sir Shazam. I have a new desk, chair and lamp—IKEA rocks. I can’t make up my mind if I want to write in longhand or leave it up to Sir Shazam. Creativity is a mysterious force. My cursive, by the way, is wretched. I’m going to do most of my writing in my lucky blue shirt with pink birds on it. Got it in Costa Rica. My ex-wife says the birds are pigeons but they’re clearly parrots. 

Music. I will probably need music to stimulate my emotions. Yo-Yo Ma? Bowie? Desmond? Mozart? Pachelbel? (I’ll give them all a try, Toby. You know your stuff.) Blind Drunk Pilots? (My brother was the drummer for the Pilots before the accident.) I bought new headphones and signed up for Spotify. No talk radio for sure because I’d be overwhelmed with new ideas.

I took a writing workshop last summer at a major university. Advanced Fiction: Crossing the Finish Line. The teacher, her name was Maridee Brunell but we were supposed to call her DeeDee, had published four novels and had a tattoo on her arm—five little bees buzzing down her arm. (If you want to write fiction you have to pay attention to symbols.) She seemed to know what she was talking about even though her examples were far-fetched. She was fond of using the word “genre” a lot. Plus, she never mentioned my go-to guy Toby Vonnegut; his advice is way cheaper. My six-page story s got a good response although some of the writers thought I should include a lot of profanity since it was about a guy named Trey Valente who found out his new wife had killed her first two husbands and now had her eyes on him and his money. (You got me: Catholic head to feet. I’m going to have to practice my profanity and probably go to hell!) My story was titled “Get the Point.” DeeDee said my story contained a lot of smoke but not much fire. Literary criticism will take some getting used to but now I know what a bad blurb might sound like. I’m aiming for “a masterful tale that’s off-the-wall and foot-to-the-floor” or “a penetrating riff on humanity.” To my mind, if you can’t say something good, say nothing at all.

I plan to write at night after work and full-throttle on Sunday afternoons. After I get a few books published, I can kiss my cubicle good-bye and write all day, every day. Cape Cod, Santa Fe, Manhattan, Key West, Brooklyn—home of Toby Vonnegut. I hear you calling T. I’ll eventually manage my brand, putting my business degree to good use. Suddenly, I’m thinking that I might start with a fiction novel about a world where the sun never sets. Something about climate change. Something like Shoot the Sun. (You can see I’m a fan of alliteration, a clever literary device—triple-thanks to Toby Vonnegut.)

I’m thinking about using a pen name. Something strong, catchy, bold!!! (Oops! Not supposed to use exclamation marks. My bad. DeeDee said they show your language is not working and that you’re an amateur.) John Grisham. Strong last name but a blah first name. (Sorry, John.) I was thinking something like Dirk Tarantino. Or Noah Harrison but I think that has been taken. Dashiell Something is still on the table.

So, tomorrow when I get home from nonstop managing of leasing contracts, I’ll have dinner, a glass of pinot and then ASS IN CHAIR. Select novel idea. Sketch major characters. Dive in. Novel number one will be underway. Title, author’s name, page one, Chapter One. “Margo waited until midnight to slip from the shuttered room overlooking the bland, blonde beach.” Great line. Margo is my mother’s name. Or “Pull the trigger once, the dead will dance forever. That line came to me in a dream. Momentum’s building already. Starting a sentence with a verb adds authority—thanks to Delmore Le Page’s E-Z Guide to Hot Prose for that tip.

My editor will take me to lunch. Over grilled bluefish with chipotle vinaigrette, we’ll discuss a possible trilogy, a screenplay, a TED talk, my cohort, my love life.

Author photo. Looking straight into the camera, arms crossed, turtleneck sweater? Side angle with a slight smile showing mastery? Glancing up to the heavens? No funky feminine over-the-shoulder stuff. I’ve lost some hair in the last year or two so a distant photo in a park with a New York Cityish background might be a good idea. I’ve started a beard because it adds a certain accomplished flair. A beard is something this writer has to earn.

Next stop: book signing, film rights and foreign rights, tote bags, blogs and vlogs, T-shirts, baseball caps, podcasts.  Kimmel? GMA? Colbert? Howard Stern, for sure.

OK, Sir Shazam. Let me run out and get a cappuccino or two, and then let’s make it happen. Bring on the blurbs. Bring on the fire.

– Gordon W. Mennenga