ΤΗΕ SUMMARY: My book, Drakon Book I: The Sieve, is coming out next week. I need your help.
THE IMPOSSIBLE MISSION: I have to convince you to buy my book it, read it and review it. Next week. But you are too busy, you don’t read and when you read it is only Ishiguro and David Foster Wallace. Or Fifty Shades of Gray and the sports pages.
THE CAST: ME and YOU
THE SETTING: You are about to enter a fancy wine store that carries all the best labels, from the top wineries you love. You don’t have much time and you don’t know me.
And here I am, an old guy with a strange accent and cargo shorts. I am standing outside the store with a plastic 4-gallon bottle (make that a cask) of some oddly-colored liquid.
I talk first.
“Will you please try my wine, pal? It’s really good, you know. Homemade!”
“What’s it called?”
“Drakon by C.A. Caskabel!”
“By who? Funny name.”
“It’s not even the real one, that one is completely unpronounceable.”
“I don’t drink books with misspelled dragons in them. Do I look like a kid to you?”
“There are no dragons in it.”
“Bad title then.”
“Thank you, I see we are really connecting here. Any chance?”
“Not a chance.”
“It is $0.99 cents. If you don’t like it I buy coffee next time we meet, if you like it, you buy coffee and cookie.”
“Still doesn’t sound like a good deal for me.”
“I am on a diet, you get to eat the cookie.”
“Ok. Better. What do you want from me?”
“Not much. Buy it from Amazon, visit my site http://www.caskabel.com , write a review in Amazon and Goodreads. There are only two pages of instructions to follow. It is easier than programming your VCR.”
“VC what? Aren’t you too old to be writing books for kids.”
“Have you read books from kids for kids? You don’t want to. They are too brutal.”
“Still, you’re too old.”
“Thanks, cheerleader finals are in Pensacola this year. Are you going? Anyway, the book is not for kids.”
“But I look at your summary here and it says that it is about a 12-year-old—“
“Well, the story starts with a 12-year-old, but he grows up.“
“Don’t they all?”
“Not in this story. Not really.”
“You confuse me. You were in marketing, right? What happened to you?”
“Read the damn book!”
“Is it funny like you trying to be right now?”
“No, it is a more like an ancient Greek tragedy. Without the Greeks. I replaced the Greeks with barbarians.”
“Not sure I follow the difference, but anyway.”
“Anyway what? Will you read it?”
