Was reading her interview with Eckhart Tolle before getting discharged from the hospital this morning. Thought about that tonight (middle of the night, home, but wide awake at 2:30 am), and decided to write to Oprah.
This is what I wrote before whittling it down to 2,000 characters.
I was sitting in a hospital this morning, waiting for my discharge, reading your interview with Eckhart Tolle. Don’t worry, I don’t have some fatal disease, just a chronic one: Chrohn’s. Anyway, the interview made me think about my novel, which is exactly the kind of book that you don’t normally recommend, because it’s not inspirational — quite the opposite. It’s satire. What it does, though, is tell the other side of the story. “Fear and Yoga in New Jersey” is all about ego, it’s about the thinking traps Tolle warns about — in this case, a stressed-out yoga teacher who thinks she’s better than everyone else because she’s so politically and ecologically correct. Her week goes terribly, comically wrong, starting with a flood caused by her chakra meditation fountain overflowing. This leads to a wild goose chase for feng shui cures, but the more Nina tries to control things, of course, the worse it gets.
I’ve been having a hard time getting traction with this book (published in March by St. Martins), because nobody loves a second novel, but I think it follows in the tradition of Jane Austen and Edith Wharton and that, while funny, it actually tackles big ideas. It’s not chic lit, it’s not inspirational. It’s about the way we women sabotage ourselves. I would love to send it to you. I really think it deserves to be read, and not just in New Jersey.
A little about me. My illness led me down a path of freelancing, but when a successful freelance career left me empty, I did “The Artist’s Way” and went back to my childhood dream of writing novels. Most journalists don’t have any idea how to get back to that childhood place where they can invent things. But it is possible. I’m now working on my third novel, under contract.
In addition, I’ve started a community news blog, baristanet.com that’s been named the #1 placeblog in America. We really kick the local newspaper’s butt and are getting a ton of local advertising. And I’m very proud to say that I’ve helped many local entrepreneurs launch businesses through baristanet. (My colleague calls us “venture humanists.”) So I live a very rich and full and connected life.
Anyway, I’m glad my Mom found “Oprah” in the hospital gift shop. Tolle has given me lots to think about.
So will this make all the difference in the world and set me on the path to fame and fortune? Well, Eckhart Tolle would tell me it’s just ego to want that. To be attached to that result. No, what I wanted to do was to write Oprah. If she thinks I’m worth a nanosecond of her time, that’s winning the cosmic PR lottery.
What I did was put 45 minutes into pitching my story to the most powerful popularizer in the world. It’s like a message in a bottle. Or a ship in a bottle. As I whittled and whittled to get down to 2,000 characters (and they count spaces!), I was crafting a miniature of my life. Better than tossing and turning or taking a sleeping pill, right?
A worthy effort IMHO. Certainly it beats most of the requests they must get at Oprah MegaIndustries Ltd. (“Please recommend my book, The Zen of Whittling. It’s everything you ever needed to know about whittling! And zen!”)
And you avoided the obvious approach. (“Hey! Over here! Personal friend of Dottie Frank!”)
I wish you luck with your novel. Sorry to hear about your chronic illness. My brother suffers from the same one.
The title of your book intrigues me enough that I plan to check it out.
Meanwhile, I fell in love with “Enlightenment for Idiots’ by Anne Cushman; a novel about the journey to India and back of a young yoga teacher from San Francisco.
So much to read! There are lots of avenues to get attention and they are not all named Oprah.
I am so greatful to Eckhart Tolle and Oprah for turning me onto Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor and her beautiful book “”My Stroke of Insight”". Her story is amazing and her gift to all of us is a book purchase away I’m happy to say.
Dr Taylor was a Harvard brain scientist when she had a stroke at age 37. What was amazing was that her left brain was shut down by the stroke – where language and thinking occur – but her right brain was fully functioning. She experienced bliss and nirvana and the way she writes about it (or talks about it in her now famous TED talk) is incredible.
What I took away from Dr. Taylor’s book above all, and why I recommend it so highly, is that you don’t have to have a stroke or take drugs to find the deep inner peace that she talks about. Her book explains how. “”I want what she’s having”", and thanks to this wonderful book, I can! Thank you Dr. Taylor, and thank you Eckhart and Oprah.