It took me far too long to get hip to the value of secrets. I could never share enough--even things far better kept to myself:
--The incredible sex I enjoyed with my girl.
--Great ideas for books I was planning to write.
--New ideas for marketing.
--Fabulous good fortune.
This was far worse than simply bad form: wanting to be admired came across as boasting. Worse still, since I'd blathered, real bastards felt no compunction about helping themselves to my luck. Or my girls.
Years ago, a company sponsored a cross-country trip I needed to take for a book in progress. At that time I belonged to a large group of writers. Naturally, a proper fool, I rushed to share the news. Soon I began to receive requests from relative strangers about how I'd gotten sponsored. And years later, when I re-approached the same company, they did not respond. The odds, I knew, were way better than average that they'd been flooded with queries.
A few years later, at a dinner with a powerful writer I knew--an older man with Hollywood connections--I told him that I wanted to approach John Travolta to sell him on Nobililty, which I'd written with him in mind. Now, Travolta had been down for years and was just regaining some of his lost heat after Pulp Fiction. My writer friend laughed. Travolta? But a few months later, the writer told me that he was approaching JT to star in his own new book.
I could go on, but why bother? It took me far longer than most to understand why veils of secrecy shroud many new movies and books...why cunning Asian women often say of the men they adore, 'Oh, he's okay but kind of stupid'...why some never reveal their good fortune until the event is a wrap...why some never answer the question 'What's new?' except with 'Same old same old'...
So I here I sit today blessed with good tidings that I'd love to share with all of you.
And I will.
Tease.
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