Anna David's Blog, page 16

The Jeff Garlin Book Soup Event!

 

You know who Jeff Garlin is. If not, allow me to explain that he’s on one of the most popular current shows (The Goldbergs) as well as what’s widely considered the best TV show of all: Curb Your Enthusiasm. And, while this isn’t QUITE as remarkable, he’s also been on the podcast before.

So why is he back? Because Book Soup hosted us for a virtual event to promote my re-launch of Party Girl, where we had a hilarious chat about how we met, why traditional publishing sucks and so much more. Because so many people told me they wanted to attend but couldn’t, Book Soup gave me permission to release a recording as a podcast! Enjoy the party in this week’s episode.

RELATED EPISODES 

What I Learned From the Party Girl Re-Launch

How Do I Get My Book Made Into a Movie?

Should I Give Up on Traditional Publishing?

Jeff Garlin on the Difference Between Selling a Book to a Publisher and Selling a Book to Readers

How Do I Throw a Book Launch Party?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

Ashlea Hearn on Getting Books in Stores and Finding a Mentor

 

Ashlea Hearn is not only a 1st Lieutenant in the Army Reserves but also the author of Genesis Mortalis, Book 1 of the Take It Trilogy.

We met when she reached out to me about the upcoming release of that book. But here's what's relevant: by that point, I had noticed this lovely person named Ashlea Hearn reviewing me wherever she could—different books, this podcast, on Google...everywhere. But here's what I really noticed: she wasn't just slapping a review up there in order to "do the right thing" but crafting thoughtful, in-depth analysis that showed she really had taken in and appreciated the work. (Her review of Party Girl still comes up as "Most Relevant," which is Amazon speak for "the most thoughtful one.")

Because of all this, not only was I delighted to speak to her about her book but when she declared me her "mentor," I happily took on the role. And it's been nothing but rewarding as I've watched her jump into life and authorhood with enthusiasm and gumption. Then, like the amazing mentee she is, she flew out for a book party I had for one of my clients and made so many friends that when I showed up for breakfast the next morning to meet some, she was there!

So that's our back story. Here's her back story.

She started writing as a little girl because it was a fascinating escape from what she considered to be a mundane life of a girl from the Midwest.

At an early age, she fell in love with the suaveness of James Bond, the action of Mission: Impossible, the gore and badassery of Kill Bill: Volume 1 and the relatable female characters of Totally Spies!—all of which influenced the Take It book series.

Listen in on this chat between a mentee and a thoroughly delighted mentor!

Find Ashlea here:

On Instagram

Author site

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

 

Brian Meeks on How NFTs Fit Into the Writing World

 

Brian D. Meeks writes under his name and the pen name Arthur Byrne. He’s currently working on his 20th novel and has six non-fiction titles, including Mastering Amazon Descriptions: An Author’s Guide. Additionally, he has a thriving author copywriting business.

His digital art began 17-years ago, when he was building corporate spaces in the virtual world of Second Life.

Now, he’s turning that contemporary art passion into a new brand by creating daily NFTs.

In this episode, we talked about how his NFT project has inspired him to love writing again, why he writes some of his books on Facebook and how we can all start selling our writing as NFTs on bitclout, among many other topics (he's what's known in the talking world as a "digressor").

RELATED EPISODES 

How Do I Re-Launch a Book?

How Can I Use Social Media to Promote a Book?

How Did Alex Strathdee Get 40,000 Students to Read His Book? 

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

 

Ed Kressy on Meth Psychosis and Landing Big Blurb-ers

 

Ed Kressy is not your average human.

He's much sweeter than your average human and his sweetness emanates from him.

He also has a much crazier story than your average addict with a crazy story...and this is coming from someone who's heard every crazy addiction story over the past two decades.

The short version: he went into a meth-induced psychosis for 14 years that left him convinced he was involved in 9/11. The longer version is in his memoir, My Addiction & Recovery: Just Because You're Done With Drugs Doesn't Mean Drugs Are Done With You, which you can get here.

He is one of the most exquisitely talented writers I've come across in a long time—something I found, and tell him in this episode, surprising. I've read almost every book out there about addiction and recovery and few are as brilliantly crafted as this. Please get this book. Not only will you be exposed to some of the best writing around but all proceeds are being donated to prisons.

And that relationship with prisons, for those here for the marketing tidbits, is how Ed was able to get the great Seth Godin to blurb his book. 

In this episode, we get into Ed's crazy story, how many drafts he wrote of this book (you don't want to know) and his mission to get the book into every prison he can (so far, it has been accepted by 108 facilities in nine states, serving an estimated 132,000 incarcerated people). Listen in to find out more about the guy whose recovery-related work has appeared in the Washington Post and who's delivered criminal justice-themed talks for groups at Amazon, Cisco, Google, LinkedIn and MIT.  

RELATED EPISODES 

Jessie Krieger on Crowd-Funding Your Book Launch

How Do I Get Blurbs For My Book?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"Ed Kressy has a much crazier story than your average addict with a crazy story...and this is coming from someone who's heard every crazy addiction story over the past two decades."

What I Learned From the Party Girl Re-Launch

 

Ohhhhh, does your own book launch teach you some lessons and that goes double when it's a re-launch like my recent one for Party Girl.

In this episode, I broke down what went right (fun events out of town, asking someone I knew to help me get in a cool store), what didn't (Launch Squad, I'm talking to you if you said you'd review the book and still haven't!) and what was kinda ehh for the money put out (a publicist). That last question really comes down to...Is this story worth $5k?

Hear the whole rant in this episode!

AND PROVE ME WRONG ABOUT REVIEWS BY BUYING THE BOOK AND REVIEWING IT HERE.

RELATED EPISODES

 How Do I Re-Launch a Book?

What to Do 60 Days, 30 Days and 7 Days Before Your Launch

How Do I Get Reviews For My Book?

How Do I Get People to Buy My Book?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"Ohhhhh, does your own book launch teach you some lessons and that goes double when it's a re-launch like my recent one for Party Girl."

What Are the Exact Steps to Publishing a Book?

A Breakdown of the Bad Art Friend

"Bad Art Friend" is a story that ran in the New York Times last week and it has the publishing world abuzz in a way only the publishing world can be. I'll save you the summary because you can just go read it yourself but the long and the short comes down to three questions:

1) Who comes off worse, Dawn Dorland or Sonya Larson?

2) Who doesn't in a teeny way relate to Dawn (even if our actions wouldn't be the same as hers)?

but ultimately, and most relevantly if you're a writer...

3) If someone lifts another person's Facebook post, should that be considered plagiarism?

There's also a fourth question, from cynical old me: How much will they sell the movie rights for and will the two of them even be able to come to an agreement where they can tolerate splitting the rights?

I broke down my thoughts about this controversy, including some commentary from a meeting I had with the Inner Circle today, as well as a thought taken from Larz Marie's Sexy Unique Podcast, as well as complete paranoia over ever saying anything without crediting the original source, in this episode.

Who's side are you on?

RELATED EPISODES

Can I Get Sued for Writing About Someone?

How Do I Get My Book Made Into a Movie?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"'Bad Art Friend' is a story that ran in the New York Times last week and it has the publishing world abuzz in a way only the publishing world can be."

Erika Schickel on How Friends Make Your Launch

 

Erika Schickel isn't just a brilliant writer who's been published in Salon, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, Bust Magazine, Tin House, Ravishly and The LA Review of Books. She isn't just the author of the mucho acclaimed memoir, You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom.

She's also someone with a hell of a wild story. 

And she busts out with all of it in her new memoir, The Big Hurt, which is a profound statement on the power plays between men and women.

In this episode, we discussed her thoughts on the post-pandemic changing face of publishing, how political and cultural tastes can guide selling a book, the unique challenges presented to women authors, the legal hurdles in writing a memoir and much more.

Because this is a podcast about launching a book, and The Big Hurt was just released, we also, of course, focused on what she believes are the most essential elements when it comes to the launch. SPOILER ALERT! It really comes down to leaning on the people you know.

More about Erika:

Her website.

This is a great article on Erika in Vanity Fair. 

Follow Erika on social media:

Twitter: @ErikaSchickel
Instagram: @erikaschickel
Facebook: Erika Schickel  

RELATED EPISODES 

What Are the Exact Steps to Publishing a Book?

Samantha Perkins on the Anxiety of Launching Your First Book

What to Do 60 Days, 30 Days and 7 Days Before Your Launch

How Does Pat Flynn Launch a Book?

CLICK ON ANY OF THE LINKS BELOW TO HEAR THIS EPISODE OR CLICK HERE TO GET THE POD ON ANY PLATFORM~

QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"The publishing date is no longer what it once was. Back in the day, everything was pegged to your publication date and the three to four weeks that followed it and that would be whether you made it or not. But now because of the pandemic, the internet, the changing face of publishing, all of these competing sources of information, the rollout really is more like a year."

Party Girl Excerpt, Chapter 3

This week, I'm giving you the final excerpt from my recently re-released first book, Party Girl.

Chapter 3

I’m just finishing a “Where Are They Now?” story on Doc from The Love Boat when Chris calls. 

“What are you doing?” he asks, and I’m not sure if he means right now or in general.

“Trying to live down my post-wedding shame.” My answer is partially true and partially a complete lie. I haven’t wanted to admit it to anyone, but my mind has been a little fixated on the whole wedding ménage incident, wondering what would have happened had I not freaked out and left. Inappropriate as it was, it did turn me on. It also disgusted me, so though I’m a bit excited that Chris is calling, I had also been pseudo hoping that he would crawl under a rock never to emerge, knowing full well that he lived in LA and had my number. It probably would have been smarter to make sure that none of my ménage participants lived in my state, not to mention city, but who considers these things at the time? 

“Don’t be silly,” he says. “Nothing to be ashamed of. Just some good, old-fashioned fun.”

“Ha.” I sort of say it and sort of snort it. 

“I’ve been wanting to call you for a while,” he says. “But I didn’t want it to be awkward. See, I think you’re really cool, and would love to see you one-on-one but…”

Just then, the phone is snatched from his hand and I hear Mitch’s voice. “I’m in town,” he says. “I think the three of us should get together.”

Aha. So here we go. The opportunity to see this ménage through has presented itself. As I make small talk with Mitch, I can’t decide if this wedding reunion for our triumvirate is a good idea or an incredibly terrible one. It would make the ménage story even better, I think.

“Why don’t we meet at Jones at 8 pm?” I ask rather suddenly, surprising even myself. “If that works for you guys.”

“It works for us,” Mitch says, not even checking with Chris. “See you then!” 

***

The first lemon drop goes down smoothly, so I follow it with two more. Licking the sugar off my lips, I glance at my cell phone, wondering if I should call Stephanie. She’d actually been so excited by the prospect of my meeting up with my ménage partners that she begged to come along. Not to have drinks with us, mind you—that would be a bit too normal for Stephanie—but to be somewhere in the restaurant so she could spy. I rejected the pitch on the spot but am beginning to wonder if her presence might have been comforting.

But suddenly, before I even have a chance to call her for backup, Chris arrives. Or I should say a guy claiming to be Chris walks up to me. Was he really this short? Did he actually have this much of a receding hairline last month?

“Hi there,” he chirps, enveloping me in an awkward hug. Too late, he goes for the cheek kiss, but I’m caught off-guard, and he ends up inhaling a section of my hair. Had he developed horrific halitosis since the wedding, or had I just lost my sense of smell that night? I hope my hair doesn’t capture and begin to emit his mouth stench. “Mitch is dealing with the valet.”

I motion for the waiter before he even sits down. Sipping from my lemon drop, I marvel over how much drunker I must have been than I realized the night of the wedding.

“How have you been?” I ask him as he slides into the booth.

He’s looking me straight in the eye and grinning, and the look is altogether too intense. “God, it’s great to see you.”

I smile, trying to erase the image of him shoving his tongue down my throat from my mind, and take an enormous gulp. “You, too.” 

My mind is racing all over, trying to figure out what the hell I could have possibly been thinking wedding night. Had I been roofied? But wouldn’t I then be experiencing the pleasure of having my entire knowledge of Chris blocked out? I take another sip and tell myself that Mitch is going to show up and make Chris seem better. They had appeal as a duo, not as individuals.

“Hey there,” I hear from a deeper voice as Mitch slides next to me in the booth and wraps his hand around my waist so that it rests on my right love handle.

“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he continues, looking at me like I’m an enormous sandwich and he’s just decided to break his year-long carb-free diet. On my other side, Chris slides in so close to me that his breath seems to replace any oxygen in the vicinity. I notice that Mitch has the crater-faced complexion of someone whose adolescence was defined by acne that he attempted to pick off. I’m suddenly intensely grateful for Jones’s dim lighting. 

“Drink?” I ask them, motioning for the waiter and they both nod enthusiastically. They’re sitting so close to me that I almost feel like we’re a single unit. Had they decided ahead of time to act as aggressive as possible? Or were they both only children who had absolutely no sense of what the term “personal space” meant? There was only one way to deal with this: get wasted and see if they seemed any better.

*** 

I stumble out of Jones an hour later, marveling at the fact that my ménage à trois partners had turned out to be so creepy and lame. You’re supposed to have a ménage à trois with, like, a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Jane’s Addiction and your most outrageous girlfriend, not two dorky groomsmen from a wedding that took place at your mom’s house. Why am I always getting everything so horribly wrong?

Just as the valet guy hands me my keys, I hear a guy say, “Whoa—you’re not driving.” I look up and see Gus, this slightly pudgy party guy Stephanie sometimes hooks up with. He walks over to me with his friend and snaps the keys from my hand.

I grab my keys back, outraged. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “I’m fine.” My words sound slurred, even to me, which is annoying. Then I drop the keys, which doesn’t help my case, but seeing as Gus is the biggest drunk I know, I don’t appreciate being judged by him right now.

“I live eight blocks away,” I say.

“Most accidents happen when people are within two blocks of where they live.” This comes not from Gus but from his friend, a dark-haired guy with a receding hairline and glasses. He holds out a hand. “Hey, I’m Adam. We met at that party in the hills last month.” 

I shake his hand and nod but have no recollection of meeting him or, in fact, having been at a party in the hills last month. I’m fairly annoyed by his recitation of this fact we’ve all heard 800 times like he’s some driver’s ed teacher. His overall sobriety bugs me, too.

“Look, you guys, I appreciate your concern but I’ve got to get out of here.” I glance at the valet parker, who’s been standing here patiently the whole time. Though he doesn’t seem to speak English, the language of you’re-too-drunk-to-drive seems to be international. I lower my voice so that he can’t hear, despite his non-English speaking. “These two guys I had a ménage with last month when I was at a wedding at my mom’s house are inside, and I told them I had to go see a sick friend to get away from them. I really need to get out of here before they come out.”

Adam’s jaw drops slightly but Gus looks thoroughly nonplussed. Gus turns to the valet. “Her car’s staying,” he says. “She’ll come pick it up tomorrow.” Then he turns to Adam. “Can you take her home? I think my E just kicked in.”

***

“You can put it on any station you want,” Adam says as he quickly switches the radio from NPR to, essentially, static. “Although I must confess that I like this one, if only because it sounds so much like what’s already playing in my head.”

I laugh. Even though he’s the very definition of holier-than-thou, the guy seems kind of funny. I notice an asthma inhaler sitting in the cup holder, which makes me laugh again for some reason, and then I feel incredibly self-conscious about seeming like a cackling lush.

“Look, I’m really not that drunk.” As I say this, I’m looking up at the streetlights, which seem to be blindingly bright and a bit like the strobe lights we used to use for our dance shows in high school, and they make me dizzy.

Adam doesn’t say anything. He looks like such a nice boy, I think, the kind my mom would meet and wonder why I didn’t like. He must think I’m an outrageous slut. “I mean, the whole thing I was saying about the wedding and the ménage and all that—I wasn’t really serious.” I’m not sure why I care so much about what he thinks. 

“Hey, I’m not judging.” He says it the way that my alleged female friends from high school used to say, “No offense but…” In other words, he probably was.

“So, what do you do?” I ask him conversationally, but I kind of know what the answer will be. All of Gus’s friends are aspirants of some kind or another—actors, writers, directors, producers, whatever. They tend to, in fact, claim those careers in conversation, even though their rent is paid either by overly indulgent parents or some miserable job waiting tables. After only about a year-and-a-half in LA, I was already over everyone and their extravagant Hollywood dreams. Don’t they realize how few people are actually successful in these careers and that you can’t claim a career until you’ve actually made money at it?

“I’m an actor.”

“Really?” I ask. “Been in anything?”

“I had a scene in a Chris Kattan movie,” he says, “but it was cut out.”

“Oh.” I sort of feel bad for him now. 

“Right now I’m waiting tables at Norm’s.” I feel worse. 

“In West LA.” 

Oh, dear God. I snap the radio to a random station and the song “Cecilia” starts blaring out of the speakers. I’ve always loved that song. Truthfully, the name Cecilia has always sounded enough like Amelia for me to sometimes convince myself that the song is about me. I start singing along with it, remembering the drinking game my quad mates and I used to play senior year in college, where we had to drink whenever a singer sang a woman’s name. “My Sharona,” “Come on, Eileen,” “Oh, Cecilia”—we were big into ’80s music for some reason.

“Oh, Amelia, I’m down on my knees, I’m begging you please to come home,” I sing. God, it feels good to let loose. Adam smiles uncomfortably but I don’t care about that or about the legions of people in karaoke bars who have accused me of being tone deaf. Singing this song is the first thing that’s felt okay this whole night, besides those lemon drops. I continue to sing for the rest of the car ride, imagining Mystery Perfect Man who seems to resemble Jude Law but who isn’t a famous movie star and never slept with the nanny or was married but is just begging me please to come home to him while he’s down on his—

“Amelia.” Adam is sort of shaking me awake. “Amelia.” I open my eyes.

“Whoa,” I say. “I was singing.”

“You were, but you were also kind of sleeping. It was, to be honest, strangely adorable.” Even though he’s grinning in a I’m-laughing-with-not-at-you kind of way, I’m so humiliated that I’d rather be under the car than in it. Adam clears his throat. 

“This is where you live, right?” As my eyes focus on him, I notice that he looks quite anxious. “Are you okay?” he asks.

I smile brightly, defensively. “Never better.” I open the driver’s side door. “Thanks for the ride.”

“You’re welcome.”

I step out of the car and onto the sidewalk, almost tripping myself in my Miu Miu pumps as I add, “Even though it was completely unnecessary.” I make a mental note not to wear these shoes out at night anymore. 

Adam smiles and starts the car. As I watch him drive away, I marvel at what an asshole I can be sometimes. Of course the ride was necessary. I was a wobbly, dizzy, drunken mess. I’m so focused on beating myself up over being such an asshole that it doesn’t occur to me to wonder how Adam even knew where I lived.

LOVE THIS EXCERPT? GRAB THE BOOK HERE!

Party Girl Excerpt, Chapter 2

This week, I'm giving you another excerpt from my recently re-released first book, Party Girl. 

Chapter 2

Back in LA, Stephanie asks me about the wedding, and I regale her with my exploits. She laughs hysterically, the same way I did when she told me about twisting her ankle while dancing at the wedding she went to back East; at least she thinks she was dancing, as she was actually in a blackout and didn’t want anyone around to know and so was never able to determine how it happened. “They should keep us away from weddings—the way we behave is completely foul,” she says.

I work at Absolutely Fabulous, a celebrity weekly magazine that’s basically a glorified tabloid, and Stephanie works one level down, at American Style, a weekly magazine that devotes itself to dissecting the outfits and homes of celebrities in minute detail. And thank God for Stephanie. Most of my Absolutely Fabulous coworkers are about as cool as Sunday school teachers.

Because of its high circulation rate (five million and rising all the time), those who work at Absolutely Fabulous speak of it in the revered tone most might use to describe The New Yorker. “We, quite simply, have the best writing and reporting of any magazine out there,” our bureau chief Robert likes to say, and we all drink the Kool-Aid. Glimmers of reality peak into that otherwise glorious way of thinking—like the fact that I’m sometimes embarrassed to tell people I work here, that the constant note I’m always given about my articles is that I need to “make my sentences shorter” and that the big joke about the publication is that everyone reads it on the toilet, but it’s amazing how convincing a staff of roughly 30 people can be. People seem to stretch reality just enough to motivate them—but it’s a little weird, you know? Can’t they just say, “When I was little, I didn’t imagine that figuring out what Madonna eats would be my living, but hey, this is a successful magazine and someday I may work somewhere else”? I know that it takes a bit of denial for all of us to get out of bed in the morning, but sometimes the people at Absolutely Fabulous seem to be swimming in a whole river of it.

Stephanie absolutely hates her job—only works there for the party invites and free clothes, and willingly announces as much to anyone who will listen. Which makes it all the more difficult for me when she keeps rising on their masthead while I stay stuck as a low-level writer at Absolutely Fabulous. It’s not that I want Stephanie to fail—it’s just that sometimes I wouldn’t mind if my number-one partner in crime were sort of in the same place as I am.

Unfortunately, I seem to inspire a sort of figurative foaming at the mouth from my boss Robert. This could have to do with the fact that I was hired by his second-in-command, Brian, when Robert was on leave, or maybe I just remind him of someone he absolutely hates. I try most everything to turn him around, but when people make up their mind about you, you could save their mother’s life and they’d still think you were an asshole. Case in point: Brad McCormick, my high school boyfriend, who hovered somewhere around the 5’4’’ mark during our adolescent relationship. Though he’s now about six feet tall—a late growth spurt and, unfortunately, not one I was able to benefit from—to me, he’ll always be “little Brad McCormick.”

***

“You ready?” Stephanie asks me on a Thursday at about six. She’s standing at my cubicle, workbag slung over her shoulder, flashing the flask that I gave her for her birthday from under her coat.

I used to get really excited before going to premieres. I think I imagined that someone would see me there and discover me for God knows what—I’m not an actress, or I should say I only am in my personal life—but I guess I thought getting discovered for being so utterly fabulous that I would need to be immediately removed from my day- to-day life and deposited into an existence that revolved around being fabulous full time. I think I thought that rubbing up against movie stars would make me happy. But it occurred to me this one night that I found myself in a cigarette-fueled drunken discussion with Jeremy Piven at a premiere. Jeremy Piven didn’t seem too happy, so why should I be happy for having had the experience of talking to him all night?

We stop for drinks at some Westwood college bar beforehand. Or, if I’m going to have to be perfectly honest and specific about everything, I should say that Stephanie stops for drinks. And I stop for drinks and a few lines.

When I first started doing coke at parties, it was usually easy enough to count on being in the right place at the right time for a steady supply. But more than a few experiences chatting up thoroughly disgusting men only to learn that they were simply fellow coke-seekers themselves had brought me to a point a few months ago where I finally understood the necessity of having my own dealer. And the sheer joy I’ve felt over the fact that I can do coke whenever I want because I’m not relying on someone else to get it has made the additional expense seem almost irrelevant. 

I wander into the bathroom after a woman with gray hair in a bun leaves, and I shut myself in the stall farthest away from the door. Pulling a vial from my purse, I shake some coke onto the window ledge and chop it with a credit card, then take a rolled-up bill from my wallet and snort it up. I hear someone come in, and I hold my breath while she washes her hands and thankfully leaves. Then I pour some more coke on the ledge and snort it.

“I still have plenty left,” I tell Stephanie as I return from the bathroom and sit down in my swivel chair. The metal taste of cocaine drips down the back of my throat deliciously. Some people say they hate the drip, but I love it—that practical evidence that the drug is working its way through my body.

“Nothing could sound more foul,” she answers, as she tries to pour some of her vodka tonic into a flask. Stephanie doesn’t do coke—she used to have panic attacks and is convinced, probably correctly, that a few lines of cocaine would send her right back there—so I ask her more as a course of habit than as some sick kind of peer pressure.

“Ready?” she asks. I smile, nod and sniffle so I can swallow and taste more cocaine again.

***

“Leslie, over here!” the photographers all scream at once at a beautiful blonde who’s grinning seductively as Steph, and I move briskly down the section of the red carpet where the not-famous people walk. We seem to be surrounded by skeletal blond actresses, all shivering in their summer dresses on this uncharacteristically cool night as they smile obediently for the paparazzi. 

The way the photographers are jostling one another and screaming Leslie’s name with such glee, you’d swear they were trying to get snaps of Julia Roberts, or at least the president or the queen or something. The fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of Leslies with bit parts in movies like the mediocre one we’re about to see and one (if that) will actually continue to work in Hollywood after this current role certainly doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of the photographers’ collective minds. But Leslie handles her moment well.

Stephanie and I decide to make a run for it to avoid being caught in the back of one of these shots. It happened to Stephanie once—a picture of Lindsay Lohan was almost ruined by the image of Stephanie, an extremely unflattering image of her at that, doing a shot with someone the picture didn’t capture (that is, me) and the photo ran in about a hundred magazines. Stephanie has yet to live it down.

Steph takes off at a good pace, but I’m waylaid by Leslie, the actress, as she steps backward, lodging her seemingly 10-inch red heel into my big left toe in what feels like an instant toe decapitation—if toes had heads. She starts to trip backward, but her publicist catches her, glaring at me for daring to slide my foot under her client’s $700 shoe-slash-instrument-of-torture. For an anorexic who couldn’t weigh more than 98 pounds, Leslie sure knows how to put some weight into her shoe. Then again, the shoe probably weighs more than her. I limp up to Stephanie, who sympathetically hands me a bag of free popcorn with butter. 

“Is it bleeding?” she asks simply.

I shake my head. “Feels more like an internal thing,” I answer. “Like maybe she crushed the toe bone. Do toes have bones?”

“Sure,” she shrugs. “Hospital?”

“Oh, God, no,” I answer as Matt Dillon walks in and waves at me. I wave back until I realize he’s actually waving at the manly looking woman wearing a headset behind me. The humiliation and possible broken foot are far from inspiring but nothing a few lines can’t fix, at least temporarily.

Unfortunately, the bathroom is stuffed with wannabe actresses who somehow wrangled invites to this and are drowning themselves in makeup and perfume to go sit in the dark for 90 minutes, after which they’ll surely have to go through the whole routine again for the after-party. Once the movie starts, I venture back to the bathroom but some security-type woman is lodged there and seems not to be budging. Is she some actress’s female security guard? An employee of the movie theater? An insane stalker who somehow got hold of some security-type uniform? I’m certainly not going to ask her. One thing’s for sure—she’s a buzz killer, in every way.

LOVE THIS EXCERPT? GRAB THE BOOK HERE!