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Thursday, January 16, 2025

To Kill a Williamsburg Watchman

Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman - and I use those words lightly since we know her agent barely waited for her dead body to get cold before sending it to the publisher despite Lee insisting it never be published - was pretty shitty & a complete waste of time but when reading it you can point out the exact paragraph that her agent pulled in order to urge Lee to write To Kill a Mockingbird & therein setting it in motion as an absolutely faucets-clearing cash cow for centuries.

My questions are 1) which paragraph from my first book will some publisher pull out to get me to write what will one day be MY absolutely faucets-clearing cash cow for centuries and 2) will it be this one:

    Once inside the classroom, I was startled to see three other men with kids. I’d never seen one other guy in class before, much less three. I quickly determined that they’d just lost their jobs, meaning here were three more dudes I’d have to compete against for a job when my Manny tour of duty soon ended. Great. Perfect timing. I’d be going up against their Wall Street-packed résumés by having the goddam Cookie Monster as a reference. And of course along with silent nods of acknowledgement they each gave me the "so, you too, huh?" look, as if I too was a victim of corporate downsizing and in their little country club. I didn’t even bother giving them the "this is my two-hundred and fourteenth straight class - if the teacher gets assassinated in the middle of arts and crafts, guess who takes over?" look.

 It really IS too late for this little dream, unfortunately:

I hope she realizes that at 85 there's not a lot of time left and really needs to get moving if she and John Grisham are ever gonna get together and give us A Time to Kill a Mockingbird. - XMASTIME

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