RIP, El Chalupa

I am going cross-eyed from reading about Nigerians.

I just finished a new draft, which I have to send to the publisher by mail. Evidently, they can publish things, but they have a hard time printing them. I have a crappy Samsung printer which farts out ten sheets per minute, and the one my editor relies on goes about a third that fast.

I hope the books print faster than that.

I have about 61,000 words, and I have to cut it to 50,000. Generally, cutting a work isn't so bad. You can usually find a lot of dead wood. But cutting this book is heartbreaking.

Remember the guy who said he was a starving refugee and needed money for food? I told him I was at a spa for underweight people, and that they were making me eat seven candy bars a day. I may have to cut that.

Also, there was the time I said I had a criminal record, because I had released a bunch of monkeys who had been used in very successful trials for a penis-enlargement drug. I said they had assaulted a dwarf and gotten to "third base." I'll die if I have to leave that out.

I already left out the story of the racing Chihuahua, "El Chalupa," who won Chihuahua racing's "Quadruple Crown." I said "He stunned Indiana Derby crowds in 2003 by finishing the half-mile in a blazing twelve minutes and nine seconds!" That really hurt.

I also had to leave out some of the best Adolf Hitler emails. And how about this:

Dear Father Luke:

I must say, it is refreshing to receive an email from a man of God.

The Lord must have guided you to me, because I am engaged in a holy pursuit in need of funding. Of
course, I am referring to the extermination of midgets.

It's going to kill me. It's like drowning your children.

I expect to ship it off on Tuesday. I ought to go ahead and start work on the sequel.