I’m utterly consumed by the query letter process. I owe too many emails, but the only ones I want to send out are to literary agents. I have no idea if the letter I’ve written is any good. I posted it on a forum for such things and have thus far received mixed responses- some from people who seemed to be offended by the very premise of the book, since it’s a post-Katrina novel that deals with white people. the blacks were the ones who really suffered, this guy said. Generally I try to avoid taking criticism on race relations all that seriously from someone who refers to people as the blacks, but I’m a little thin-skinned today. It’s not the point; there are certainly a lot of stories that were borne out of New Orleans that didn’t involve white people, but I’m not the guy to write them.

One thing I’ve always found interesting about New Orleans is the way people try to quest for authenticity there, to find the real city, the one that isn’t just a tourist trap. Like the tourist parts are less real somehow. You touch ‘em, the walls are solid down on Bourbon St too, man. Or London, for that matter- I live in Hornsey, which is real London, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Europe. But check it- it’s no more real than Trafalgar Square or Picadilly Circus. Maybe you get better fish and chips up here, but is that all people are really talking about? Is the quest to find the real New Orleans just about getting better gumbo? Because a huge percentage of the experiences that people have in New Orleans, or any city built largely on tourism (and New Orleans has always been built on tourism, even back when Napoleon was Emperor of Louisiana), is seeing all of these traps, all of the shit that gets derided as fake. But it’s there, and the ghosts that haunt Uptown or Mid-City or Hornsey or Brixton are fluttering around the Quarter and Leicester fucking Square, because there are stories that happen there, to people who leave their mark, who get marked themselves by a city with some sharp edges poking through even the cushy parts.

And I didn’t mean to get off on a tangent here, but I’m in a shitty mood because I hate this process. I always wonder, you know… I did everything myself. I’ve been proud of it sometimes, but it can be a liability. I’ve booked tours that have taken me all over America and I’ve put out records and I’ve published my books and all of the stuff that made sense, felt useful. But I never sent stacks of poems or short stories to stacks of literary journals that might look all right on a resume or in a cover letter. I never attended conferences or took classes at Gemini Ink or Spread the Word. I never went to college or applied to an MFA program or thought much about trying to study under Joyce Carol Oates or Sandra Cisneros or Tim O’Brien. But the people who do those things- they have an easier time with the query letters. Me, I can tell you how to find a free place to sleep in Iowa City or Ithaca, but the people who studied there are the ones who don’t have to sit in the slush pile. I could put together a book tour that would last months and cost nothing, but I can’t get fast-tracked to a publisher.

It’s a weird place to be. I guess everyone goes through it- every one-time punk rocker who is realizing that there’s something to envy about the establishment, anyway. Me, I’m just in the waiting place right now. Hanging tight and waiting to see if all the things I taught myself how to do were learned in a way that people who got it from school can recognize. And who the hell knows what the answer to that is.