man with a manuscript

i did want to add, as a PS of sorts from my previous "content that doesn't suck" hyperlink, that to the best of my knowledge, the esteemed ghost of elberry, whose name i could provide if called upon although i hardly know the chap (as in, we've never met), is not only a transient laborer in the teaching field of Business English, but also a man with an unpublished novel.

So, hey, check out his blog, publishers, and see if this isn't the kind of intellectual morbidity that you've secretly craved despite your Harry-Potter wannabeism and power-of-positive-thinking front and back lists.

Here's an excerpt to get you started:

"i contemplate the prospect of another Kiel-like ordeal with weary resignation. If i go to X-burg i predict i will fall foul of the Director of Studies, a wizened power woman on speed, a type i have met many a time in office work – they instinctively loathe me. i will probably be fired or just given the worst jobs, teaching Business English to 19-year-old engineering apprentices, etc. i'm not sure i can take any more of this. i feel dangerously close to snapping in half; though, then again, it is surprising how much one can take, when one has no other choice. And it is certainly a mistake to suppose life is essentially enjoyable, or that it is arranged for one's own convenience.


"i should welcome unemployment and destitution and debt, since Kiel was a valuable time, spiritually speaking – forced back on yourself, rejected by the world, you must consider matters without niceties. But in truth i just want a half-way decent job and a flat i don't have to share with a retarded hippy. However, lacking any worthwhile skills or qualifications (or money), i must make do with what i am given. In spite of everything i am still alive, aged 35, and that seems so improbable as to suggest things might work out, improbably."

and follow this for more from the aske man.