Dirty Books

My entry last week called "I Didn't Know I Was A Pornographer" reminded me of my first paid writing job. It was for a company in Greenwich Village that published dirty novels. This was before dirty books got promoted to "pornography." I was determined to be a writer and I didn't care what I had to write.

There were four of us. The editor was a guy with colorful shirts and earrings. This was before colorful shirts and earrings made you a hip attorney. There was a very tall woman writer with severe glasses (who I was not really sure was a woman at all), and a pathetic bearded nerdy writer. Actually, counting me, there were two pathetic bearded nerdy writers.

There were two rules. First, each of us had to write a 150 page book every week. That's 30 pages a day. I can't type 30 pages a day.

Second, when some ecstasy-crazed woman screamed "Ooooooooooooh....", we were not allowed to use more than three O's. Apparently, they previously had trouble with lazy writers filling pages with "Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh's....."

I lasted exactly one day.

It just reconfirms the first rule of writing -- write about things you know.