The Guilty Pleasures I Watch and Second, Third, and Fourth Chances

Do any of you watch The Rachel Zoe Project? Okay, I do. This year, I have turned into a major Bravo junkie. Pretty much any show they put on the air, I will watch. My favorites are The Real Housewives, Flipping Out, Top Chef Just Desserts and The Millionaire Matchmaker. Yes, I watch way too much reality TV, and it all comes from Bravo!

Anyway - back from that tangent - back to Rachel Zoe. On the last episode I saw, she was getting ready to launch her new clothing line. Do I know anything about fashion? Nope. Which is why the show fascinates me. But Rachel said something along the lines of, "If no one buys my collection, that's it. I'm done. I'll have to stand on a street corner and ask people passing by if they want to buy a jacket from me."

Rachel Zoe has her own TV show. I think it's safe to say she's established. But even she was freaking out about putting her creation out into the world. But the part that caught my attention was that if she failed, that was it. She got one chance to sell. ONE. (How true that is for her, I don't know, but from what I can gather from also watching The City, it seems to be this way in the fashion world. One chance.)

At least we get more than one chance. In fact, we get many chances. If one book fails, we write another. We aren't shut out of the publishing world forever. Agents will look at a new project.

Another example is from the movie Airheads. For those of you who have not seen this classic piece of cinema, I suggest you turn off your mind and rent it. It's about this band called The Lone Rangers (yes, that is meant to be plural) and they want what any band wants: A Record Contract.

At the beginning, Chaz (Brandon Frasier) sneaks into a record company and tries to hand off his demo to a record executive, who, of course, won't take it. And then some things happen and la-dee-da before you know it The Lone Rangers are holding up a radio station (with water pistols, however) until the radio station plays their demo and hilarious and idiotic things ensue.

Publishing is hard. But at least publishing professionals give aspiring authors a CHANCE. They give our demo a LISTEN...and then reject it (kidding, um, but not really?). And there are so many contests and opportunities for writers. There's self-publishing. It seems the chances are endless for a writer to get work out there.

PLUS you can always hand out your manuscript on the street corner to people passing by! Hey, the options are endless!