Once again, you absolutely blew me away like a dry leaf during a bad storm. Your seemingly unending generosity leaves me humbled and grateful.
Thanks to the efforts of ShoshannaD, a fund raiser she conducted on my behalf here means Prince – my Golden Retriever – and I will sleep with a roof over our heads for a few more months. Over the weekend of Sept. 8th and 9th, she coaxed, cajoled and coerced more than 100 of you into donating nearly $2,400 in cash, checks, PayPal deposits and even a gift card valid at a big box discounter. The donations started at $2 and went up from there; most were $10 or less.
The fact is that without the help of Kossacks, now and in June when ShoshannaD ran an initial event on my behalf, Prince would still be in foster care and I would be living in shelters or, on good nights, on the sofa or floor of someone's home.
I have to apologize for being so tardy in expressing my gratitude. I have an excuse although not a good reason: My literary agent in New York has kept me occupied over the past 10 days.
Thanks to him, there are several publishers who appear to be seriously interested in the book I am writing based in part on the Suddenly Homeless series I've been posting at Kos. But to sell a manuscript, an agent needs a "book proposal" from the author which includes everything from a brief summary to a detailed chapter outline and 40 or 50 pages of the manuscript – plus a few other things such as how the author will do the publisher's promotion job himself by flacking himself to the news media, book reviewers and anyone who might plunk down a few dollars to read the thing.
But each editor wants a proposal to say something different, and a bit differently, so it's nearly impossible to write one version and say, "Whew! Glad that's done."
So over the past week or so, I've been writing multiple variations of the same thing to make each editor happy and, I hope, the publishing company's editorial board that will have the final say on whether or not to buy my work.
When I started working on the book, I thought about self-publishing based on what friends who've put out books – some of them here and some who I know from elsewhere. If I had two spare pennies to rub together, I would but, frankly, I see it as a last resort. Self-publishing requires cash to pay an editor to ensure that my prose is truly as brilliant as I'm convinced it is, cash to hire a designer to do the front and back covers, cash for the software needed to put the manuscript into the several different e-book formats, even cash for Amazon or whoever I might choose to go with to put everything together and make it available.
When you aren't sure if you will have rent money, or a few dollars to supplement a food bank handout, spending money on self-publishing is much too risky. Besides, I genuinely need the advance a traditional publisher would pay, even if I only get a third of it on signing.
Although most of your contributions are earmarked for specific expenses, I did splurge a bit.
For example, Prince turned 13 last Wednesday so I used a few dollars to buy a new bone for him at a pet store as a b-day gift as well as doggie shampoo and conditioner to give him a much-needed bath and trim. (My head is shaved so I don't worry about special stuff to clean my scalp; soap does the job just fine, thank you.)
It'd been two months since I'd eaten any chocolate and really was Jonesing so I used three dollars to indulge my lifelong addiction to Hershey Kisses.
I spent $7 at a used book store and picked up three volumes I should have read when they first came out. Please don't do that to me if my book gets published!
The rest? It'll go for rent, fresh produce, cola – another lifelong addiction; I drink almost no coffee but guzzle cola the way other people down multiple half caf double double mocha latte supreme's during the day – paying my cell phone carrier, and stuff such as shaving crème, razor cartridges and other necessities I took having for granted not that long ago.
So, again, please accept my very deepest if very tardy thanks for your help, support and encouragement.
Please follow me on Twitter @SuddenlyHomeles
Charley
If my book on homelessness is published, I will donate a percentage of any royalties to The National Center For Family Homelessness.