Would a million people read my book if I wrote one

Dear Mike,

Stephen Pate, online words

Thanks for writing and best wishes to you in the land of the longest night.

I’m writing up a storm as usual. Someone asked me if I would write a book instead of blogging. I might but this satisfies half of a writer’s need for love.

Last year I broke my previous records with like 290,000 readers, 2.2 million pages read and 8 million hits. Would that many people read a book I wrote? I don’t think so.

My sort-of-brother in law publishes and once he gets passed 50 friends, it’s a slog to sell a 1,000 copies. I would be depressed schlepping books near the remainder bins at Chapters or, should I be so lucky, Borders.

I could get that many readers perhaps millions for steamy sex novel…why not?  My sister who is toeing the line Jehovah’s Witness-wise has a mixed family – don’t we all. She is a paragon of squeaky clean virtue amidst a modern world.

One of her boys who had otherwise been a loser up to then, hitched across the States. He got stuck in Nevada where he landed with some girl with large life-preservers and even larger sexual appetite. After a month or two in the desert with her, the lad had drawn a book – cartoon or something similar – of his sexual escapades which landed him a publishing contract.

The drawing talent is in the family since his father can paint and my sister is musical.  Our shared mother, from those days when a family was nuclear without the explosion, once painted my portrait on a plaster wall with a 4 inch paint brush. I was sitting on a stool watching her paint my bedroom walls at the time. The sense of pride, wonder and self-adulation met a sudden end when she slapped the wall paint over it within minutes.

My mother has never seen the book – and neither have I since he keeps its actual contents a secret – it’s “Jay’s book”. Well the old gal who deplores my sex life does nothing but brag up “Jay’s book”.

“He’s working on another one? Did you know that?” she told me excitedly before Christmas. The irony is she is still pissed at me for not attending the KH these last 30 years. So Jay gets a publishing contract, an adoring grandmother and a good excuse to practice the horizontal bop as part of his job.

I need to write a book and become infamous like my nephew but I’m sure there would be a catch-22 somewhere. Could be I don’t like the desert.

Better still, this winter will be spent recording my music. No more delays, no more wait until I get another piece of expensive gear in the studio. Hook up the mic and sing. I promise to have something done when you return.

Keep warm and do come back to Canada sometime. sp.