A Few Modest Requests

All I want is a place to write.

All I want is a place to write and a pot of good coffee.

All I want is a place to write and a pot of good coffee until it’s time for a beer.

All I want is a place to write with a view.

All I want is a place to write with a view, say, of the ocean.

All I want is a place to write with a view, say, of the ocean or a mountain valley. If it’s high enough and I can see the ocean also, that’s fine too.

All I want is a place to write with a view where something is happening—out there. I’ve discovered I like to write while watching things move, like freighters chugging their way up the Strait of Juan de Fuca. I like to watch others work—or the effect of their work, like the boat moving—so I know how lucky I am that I get to write. (A spot on Vancouver Island would meet many of the needs listed above.)

All I want, once we have the setting established, is abundant hours for the writing to pour forth. And a handy couch for long naps.

All I want, now that we have the setting and the naps taken care of, is access to lightning-fast Wi-Fi. For research. Yes, for research and so I can watch any movie ever made for inspiration as needed.

All I want is writing friends who read my stuff quickly. Overnight is good.

All I want is writing friends who read my stuff quickly and provide the perfect insights that will lift my story and the writing within from the average level to the “publishers need this now” level. I will be happy to mention them in the acknowledgements.

All I want is a literary agent who reads my stuff very, very quickly. If he reads my emails within a week, that would be cool. For starters, I mean.

All I want is a literary agent who reads my stuff, say, overnight and provides the perfect, spot-on editorial insights.

All I want is a literary agent who, while I’m making the changes he has suggested, sells the book (or short story) to a major publishing house based on the fact that the book will of course be perfect when I’m done with the changes.

All I want is for my literary agent to not read those two requests immediately above. Yes I do. No I don’t. In all seriousness, he’s an amazing agent and I’m so lucky to have him that, really, a month is standard response time for an e-mail, don’t you think?

All I want is time to listen to all the book-related and writing-related podcasts. Or to re-listen to every interview Pamela Paul has ever recorded for The New York Times book review podcast or all of the New Yorker short story podcasts, the ones with the long discussions between top-notch writers and fiction editor Deborah Treisman.

All I want is a long dinner with either Pamela Paul or Deborah Treisman. Or both. Do they know each other? I can introduce them.

All I want is time to attend all the writing conferences from Bouchercon to Left Coast Crime to RMFW to Pikes Peak Writers and Northern Colorado Writers and Western Writers of America and every writing-related Meetup within a 60-mile radius of Denver.

All I want is for these conference planners to check with each other and not double-book a weekend that makes us writers choose. How hard could that be?

All I want is to have the time to read all the books written by my friends. Well, just the good ones. And time to write good reviews for them, too.

All I want is to have the time to read all the short stories written by my friends.

All I want is to have the time to read all the books suggested by my friends.

All I want is for everyone who has read (and liked) one of my books to post such a pithy review online that a thousand more people will be dying to read that book.

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Seriously, no seriously, am I asking too much? Please let me know.

If I am not asking too much, all I want to know is where I can submit these requests. Again, please let me know.