Chapter 13

Other Stuff You’ll Want to Know

All That Other Stuff? It’s in This Chapter

In every book, there has to be a catch-all chapter. A place where all the stuff that wouldn’t fit in any other chapter can live. Maybe it’s stuff that actually belongs in another chapter, but maybe the author was too lazy to put the technique where it belongs because he’s finally on the last chapter, and books are hard to write. It’s a lot of long lonely hours, just you and your friend Jim Beam, throwin’ ’em back in a dimly lit concrete room with little ventilation, where your publisher (to protect their identity, we’ll call them “Rocky Nook”) locks you up until you’re finished. Oh sure, you do get one hour a day out “in the yard” to see some daylight and maybe work out, or try to fashion a small shiv out of the bar of soap they give you, small enough to slip inside your belt, so the guards don’t find it when you’re heading back to the “library,” where you create your work for “The Man.” By the way, that’s how they insist I refer to them (even during contract negotiations), especially when I’m talking to other guys on the outside (authors who finished their books by their deadlines). When they ask how I’m doing, I say stuff like, “Still working for The Man” or “The Man is always watching” or “Why am I always out of soap?” and stuff like that. But, you know it’s all good because when you get to that last chapter, even “The Man” wants you to get it done, and he says stuff to you like, “The Man wants you to get it done,” and I don’t know about you, but when you hear words like that—words you can tell are from the heart—for me, that just makes it all worthwhile (and it makes me feel bad that I shanked one of my editors on visitor’s day last month. That cost me two packs).