Sorry, We Can't Use Funny

There was no other choice. I had to do it. Somehow, I had managed to snub a minor deity, and I had to set things right.

True, I did want to write. Always have. But not a book. I don't have what it takes to write a novel. I'm missing a few of the essentials: a plot, a plan, an intimate relationship with a bunch of interesting characters, vocabulary, discipline, etc. But enough about my personal life.

I wanted to write something less dramatic, something more useless, something that lets me get away with gross grammatical gaffes like, for example, the previous paragraph. I wanted to write a weekly "look-around-and-comment" piece, and then try to find some newspaper willing to carry it, so I could get out of the numbing habit of actually working.

And so, for a while, I tried to do just that - writing stuff and contacting newspapers all across America. But the newspapers kept telling me to get out of the way so they could finish dying.

Like every other industry that hasn't yet been bought by our government (or sold to the Chinese one), newspapers are struggling. I soon realized that I'd picked the worst possible time in 3 decades to ask newspapers to spend money they didn't have to spend, or just didn't have.

So it didn't go well, and now I focus on writing other things, shorter things: online columns, internet articles, pay-per-view short stories, long parole violation rationalizations, extended grocery shopping lists.

Everywhere I go, thousands of people stop me and ask, "Where do you come up with these ideas?" (Okay, not thousands. My parents ask. And a close friend, who reads my columns and is concerned, asks. And, for some reason, one weird guy who is always curled up just outside the door at the grocery, deep in conversation with invisible minor deities.)

But the answer is simple. When trolling for column ideas, I have several things working in my favor:

• My television has a functioning "on" button.

• I haven't bothered with actual facts since the Nixon Administration.

• I have constant access to Earth, known throughout the Milky Way as "That Weird Blue Planet With All Those Gods."

Did you know that, on parts of our planet, people have to keep up with some 300 million deities? That's some serious specialization. Imagine trying to remember who handles what, whose bell is whose, which candle is which, who's been acknowledged already today and who hasn't. Undoubtedly, some minor deities are bound to get snubbed, here and there, now and again.

300 million. Hard to imagine. Even in our own Congress there are only 535 deities. And none of them are actually omnipotent - they just act that way. And of course, they snub us.

So the challenge is not in finding writing material. The challenge is writing fast enough to keep up with it all. For example, while working on this column, the following headlines yelled at me from the TV:

• Cat Obesity Is On The Rise

• Feds Impose Strict Standards On Things Sold At Garage Sales

• Nancy Pelosi Calls Health Care Bill A "Christmas Present To America"

I rest my case.

But I still couldn't find any takers in the print media, maybe because I had inadvertently intoned to the wrong minor deity, or snubbed the relevant one. Maybe I had lit a candle to the one in charge of Car & Driver, Holiday Editions, Back-Issues Only. Mistakes can happen. With a staff directory of 300 million, it's easy to end up in the wrong cubicle.

When the newspapers responded at all, responses ranged from "No thanks" to "Nice stuff, but we're broke" to "I write all our humor, thank you" to "We only use local writers, but if you move to Bean Blister, Idaho, call me!" to my very favorite: "Sorry, we can't use funny."

Then, one day, I read an article that suggested something new: Why not pay buckets of money to publish a book, and then include a free copy when you contact comatose, near-death newspapers? That way, you'll not only be snubbed - you'll be broke, too!

Hard to argue with logic like that.

So I wrote a book. Bad idea. Because now I couldn't help myself. Now I wanted to sell the book. How hard could that be, right?

Turns out that over 500,000 book-shaped things are published, every year, or about one book for every 600 minor deities.

Turns out that the average author sells a whopping 250 copies of her/his book, unless the book describes a new diet, or discusses all 300 million minor deities, or outlines how you didn't kill your ex-wife, but if you had done it, which you didn't, here's how you would have done it, which you didn't.

Regardless, I wrote and published a book, listed it online, and tackled the task of trying to actually sell it. Counting my parents, I could be sure of selling two copies. Adding my close friend, I could be sure of selling ... uh ... two. And I had no idea what the guy outside the grocery liked to read.

Time passed. Sales inchwormed along. I remember the day when I cracked the ceiling - the day that my stories and I earned our very first dollar. Top o' the world, Ma! I immediately broke out a picture of a bottle of champagne. I lit a little candle to the minor deity in charge of Online Paperback Books, 250 Pages Or Less, Sales Of Exactly One Dollar (deity 12,615,411, if you're wondering). I opened a magazine to a photo of rich people, and stared at them, memorizing faces for future reference. I was lost in the reverie. I stared at my new friends for so long that I developed an ocular tic, and had to schedule with the eye doctor.

A whole dollar! As I leaped into this new tax bracket, with my one good eye, I knew I had to readjust for such staggering wealth. Maybe it was time to consider a down-payment on a new hat. I instructed my broker to begin investing heavily, maybe go long on re-usable minor deity candles.

I know that one single dollar is, well, nothing. But annualized? Well now, that's ... that's ... well, that's still nothing. But then, one day, things began to bubble up. According to the online "sales rank," my little book was the 256,609th most popular book in America, just ahead of "How I Lost 50 Pounds And Partial Eyesight By Eating Pictures Of Food" and just behind "Harry Potter And The Curse Of A Whole Bunch Of Snubbed Minor Deities."

So, naturally, I went insane. I started checking the online sales rank every 11 seconds. And my book rose and fell within those sales rank numbers, bobbing and weaving like a minor deity jockeying for position on the prayer shelf.

Should you ever publish a book, here's a little Rookie Writer Sanity Tip: don't check your online sales rank every 11 seconds. During one day, my book's ranking dervished from 30,000th place, up to 15,000, then 9,000, back down to 12,000, back up to 6,000, and back to 20,000. Apparently, every hour of the day, thousands of people are busily writing books, and then un-writing them.

And I plan to start writing another book as soon as my eyesight returns. I'm just back from the eye doctor and need a while to, literally, re-focus. I'm so dilated right now, I may go into labor.

By the way, here's the working title for new book: The 'I Didn't Snub My Ex-Wife's Minor Deities, But If I Had, Here's How I Would Have Done It' Diet.

The perfect gift! Order your 300 million copies today!