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Almost Famous

Writer's picture: Tom PiperTom Piper

This month’s blog was planned to be an exciting announcement: that your humble blogger, moi, was now a professional writer. That’s right. My musings will no longer be merely a naked grab for attention. Henceforth, they will generate actual cash money when I type big words into my laptop.


There was going to be a hyperlink in this post to a real article, written by me, in a genuine magazine that people have to buy a subscription to read. I was even going to include a photo of the check, for two-hundred whole dollars, that I was paid to write said article, the first of many such checks, one could only assume.


Technically, this would not be my first publication. I have appeared in a variety of newspapers (The Fort Dodge Messenger probably being the most prestigious of those) and of course my best-selling book Just a Game... My Ass about youth sports. But Harper Collins did not give me a hefty advance for that. In fact, I had to self-publish it and I think the only people that paid cash money for it were those obligated to do so by blood or friendship. So it was minor leagues.


But now, no more free blogging (flogging). I'm getting called up to The Show. My literary life will be book tours, Terry Gross interviews, and hangouts (and hangovers) at Jonathan Franzen’s Upper West Side apartment with hipster literary types.


Thus, it was with bated breath that I finally opened the long-awaited June/July edition of (Title Withheld) Magazine (‘The Magazine for Epic Road Trips’) and flipped to the table of contents to see my name in (digital) print.

 

“Hmmm, let’s see here, we’ve got:”

 

  • On the Road to Healing – about a recovering co-dependent getting well on the road (I can never remember what co-dependency is exactly, but it sounds less serious than like, I don’t know, meth dependency)

  • When Strangers Become Sages – about opening yourself up to things and people whilst out on the road (makes sense, but I’m not sure how you get an entire article out of this, lots of first person examples I suppose)

  • Wine and Then Some – about how wineries offer more opportunity for spiritual growth than just merely drinking the wine (debatable)

  • Etc.

  • Etc.

  • Etc.

 

“Ummm, Dude..., where’s my article?”

 

I checked it three times just to make sure. Not there. I even flipped through the actual pages on the screen, one by one, in case they accidentally left me out of the table of contents. Not there either.

 

I quickly fired off a cordial email to the editor, Emily (not her real name), delicately querying as to whether they had to bump me to the next issue due to space issues, or they ran out of digital ink, or whatever. My email had the same pitiable whiff of desperation as when in 6th grade I inquired, through intermediaries, to my girlfriend of one-week Carrie Foisy if we were still going out. (We were not)

 

No response from Emily. Crickets. Ghosted. Have I been cancelled? I was totally kidding when I suggested on Musky X that cats clearly have superior intellects to that of dogs (though this still seems self-evident when you see a dog happily rolling around in some dead thing).


I’ve already cashed the check... do I have to send the money back?


“Emily talk to me. I thought we had a relationship... I thought we had a good thing going you and me. I was just about to send you a list of new, super-hot takes about healing and wine, and healing wines that you would want to send me more $200 checks for. And what about Jonathan Franzen???”

 

I’m not sure where this leaves me now? Nearly, briefly professional writer? A no-hit wonder?

 

Maybe I just need to spin this thing. Get my publicist on it. Workshop it a bit. Something like: I just got so completely fed up with all the deadlines, the editing (censorship), and politics of the magazine merry-go-round (or is it a treadmill?). So, I said “f*ck this” and struck out on my own. Now, I write whatever the f*ck I want (including cuss words with the letters replaced) and publish it in my own blog! A blow for freedom is what it is. Damn straight.

 

Still... if Emily calls I’ll come crawling back in a New York minute. I ain't too proud to beg.


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Tom Piper hard at work on travel planning

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Hi. I'm Tom and Lori is my travel partner and better half.

We love to travel. Ramble On is your resource to learn how to avoid doing all the dumb things we do and only do the especially wonderful things.

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