As so often happens with projects that are started for all the wrong reasons, this one flamed out rather quickly. It wasn't an abject failure … I followed through in January and February, fell off a little in March, and then totally went to pot in the months after that. By June I'd posted 86 stories. That's not a bad total, and some of those stories are pretty darn entertaining. But it's still a far cry from 365, which is how many days there are in a year (in case you're one of those people who doesn't know about time and math).

The project wasn't a complete waste of time, because out of it came a series I consider one of my finest creations - Professor Blowjob and the Storm-Fighters of Courage. (You can read the series for yourself starting right here.) Prof. Blowjob embodies everything I enjoy about writing – ridiculous characters, absurd situations, juvenile humor, and gloriously awkward turns of phrase. It is most certainly not for everyone. But the people it is for, it is so, so for. And those people are, in my opinion, a criminally underserved market of readers.

A few months ago, I decided I would try to get Professor Blowjob published. It isn't a complete manuscript yet, mind you, but I figured enough of the saga was there that I could at least find an agent who'd be willing to say, "I like the roll of your spliff, son … let's keep in touch." Sure, I could have published it myself, on account of how I own a publishing company. But let's be honest … Awkward does not have two dimes to rub together. And daddy needs to get paid. So: commence the agent search.

I've never spent much time pursuing a literary agent, even though I've written and published a lot of books and stories and have a fan in Turkey, which are the three major requirements listed on most literary agents' websites. I figured I would start by sending out blind submissions and then narrow the list down when the responses came flooding in -- a very reasonable strategy.

After combing through the first list of agencies I found in a Google search, I settled on about 40 different agencies. I found the person at each agency who handled books or authors I admired, and sent that person the following introductory email:

Subject: The next Sophie's Choice, probably

Professor Blowjob and the Storm Fighters of Courage is a story of friends and how they come together to learn about life and murder bad guys. It starts with a simple question: where is Professor Blowjob? It quickly answers that question and moves on to other issues that are far more important than that. It's a roller coaster ride of things that are important and exciting and brand new ideas that no one has ever heard before. In short, it is a book about life and the people who are living it.

Led by legendary renegade maverick special operative Sargent Pat Hardy, the Storm Fighters of Courage take adventure by the balls and ride it like a giant poodle all the way into Action Land. You might think you've read about adventures before, but you've never seen adventure like this. Every page of Professor Blowjob and the Storm Fighters of Courage is soaked in death-defying testosterone and nail-biting fury. After you read it, you'll probably have to take a cold shower to get rid of all your hard-ons – that's how death-defying this action is.

The story of the book is about a bad guy named Mark Hazzard who fucking wrecks shit left and right. He has an electronic leg and he used to date Jacky Minx who also dated Sargent Hardy and he took Hardy's sperm and made a frozen baby out of it and all that stuff. So he's really got Hardy by the balls. How will Hardy get out of this mess? He'll have to rely on his friends, the Storm Fighters of Courage! They are: Beans, the marksman and naïve youngster with a tale to tell and a love of eating pizza. Lady Midnight, the demolitions expert and seductress. John Nightnight, the hand-to-hand king. Snog-Dog, the sky sorcerer. And of course, Professor Blowjob, the polymath. Together, they will get in so much adventure you can't stand it!

Professor Blowjob and the Storm Fighters of Courage is real. It's the most important novel of this generation or any other and it has been prelisted by the New York Times as the #1 bestseller of the future. People who have read it in its final form have used words like "good" and "quite good." Do you want to be left out in the cold with this important work of fiction? You shouldn't! Next stop: FUN!

And then I sat back and waited. And waited.

Out of 40 submissions, I received approximately 5 responses. Only one of those responses was from a human being. The guy who represented the author of Marley and Me wrote to say, "Let's pretend this never happened." I give him credit; that's pretty funny. It's almost as funny as Marley and Me is terrible.

The other responses were all form rejections. To those people I responded thusly:

Dear Emailer,

Please accept my sincere apology for the formulaic nature of this email response. I receive a tremendous amount of form letters and I am unfortunately unable to respond to each one individually. Although I am unable to respond in depth at this time, I appreciate the facsimile of human communication and I wish you the best of luck in your future rejection efforts.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Dinsmore

I still hold out hope that I'll be able to complete the Professor Blowjob saga someday. And I still would love to do my part in creating a marketplace for gonzo fiction. There are a few people out there, like the excellent Jon Konrath, who are working in a similar milieu and doing a wonderful job of helping to get this kind of work out into the world. It would be great if Awkward were a part of some kind of movement. But I don't even know if Awkward is Awkward anymore. Like I said, daddy's got to get paid.

Mostly, though, I just wish I could find a literary agent with a sense of humor.

Update: When talking about the people in the literary world who are on the side of the good guys, I should have mentioned my friend Joshua Citrak's site Slouch. Great writer, excellent site, NO BULLSHIT.

This made me sad. I worked hard on these books and I have a lot of affection for them. They are really, really funny. I've always wished they were still out there, lightening the world's mood in these dark days.

Well, now, with the magic of the eReader, I am pleased to say these books are finally available again. What's more, they're chock full of extra material for you to enjoy. What's even more more, they are only $.99 each!

Here's what your $1.98 will get you:

Johnny Astronaut by Rory Carmichael
(Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061RKDV2)

• the complete text of the original sci-fi-hardboiled-disco-dancing adventure!
• over 70 pages of bonus musings from "author" Rory Carmichael himself!

I An Actress: The Autobiography of Karen Jamey
(Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Z5F7BM)

• the unedited author's cut of the novel, including a never-before-seen chapter that was cut from the original pressing!
• a special essay from Karen Jamey on the James Frey memoir scandal!
• three short stories by Jeffrey Dinsmore, including cult faves "Faggy on the Streets" and "The Alcoholic Monkey Who Took Over My Mind and Turned Me Into a Cold-Blooded Killer!"

If I can sell enough of these books to make it into the top 100 in the Kindle store, I can get my work out in front of a whole new mess of people who don't know me. I'd really appreciate your support. All you have to do is follow the links and click the "buy" button, just as you would any other product on Amazon. You don't even need a Kindle to read it! You can download a free Kindle reader for your iDevices or Android phones. You can also download a free Kindle reader for your PC or Mac. You can even download the books and never read them! It's really up to you.

If you're still unsure of how this whole thing works, please watch the video below for more information.

Awkward Two: Front

Awkward Two: Back

Thanks millions to illustrator Aaron Newman a/k/a Baarbarian for the kick-ass cover illustration and designers Holly & Andy at Rumors for the amazing layout! Pre-orders will be accepted soon ... get your credit card ready!

I got tired of using the same damn cover photo every time I blogged about Awkward One. So here's a random page from inside the book.

From this moment forth, Awkward One will be available at Amazon for $9. Here's the thing about selling merch through Amazon: they only take a limited number of copies before they have proof that they could make a profit. 1, to be exact. I just sent them one copy, and I'd love for it to be out of their hands before they even receive it. So if you haven't bought your copy yet and need one more item to get the super saver shipping, toss this bad boy onto your order. If we sell the only copy immediately, they will know that Awkward Press is a force to be reckoned with and hopefully order up a buttload of the next edition. The future of indie-publishing rests in your hands! Order your copy right now!

Optionally, if you've already read Awkward One and loved it, please click on over to Amazon and give us a review. The more the merrier!

Next stop, the Kindle! Awkward Press is taking the Internet by storm!

ARTIST'S CONCEPTION

When we first came up with the idea of printing a bookazine called Awkward, we decided to do 26 issues from A to Z, each of which would feature 5 short stories based around a unifying theme. The theme of the first issue was “Awkwardness,” natch. “Hey!” we said, after the first issue came out and became an international bestseller and the focus of several investigative reports by 60 Minutes, “Let’s shake things up for the second issue!” We determined that the theme of the second issue would be “Brevity,” and that it would feature short, short stories by 25 different authors. After all, rules are meant to be broken, right? Even when they’re rules that have never really been properly established and are of concern to absolutely no one except the poor book designers (Holly and Andy at Rumors! Holla!) who had to reconceptualize the entire publication.

And then along came the iPad, and suddenly, Everything Changed. Those paper-filled things we once called “books” are now confined to the trash heaps of our imaginations, and also the trash heaps that are not imaginary. People no longer want to waste their time painstakingly leafing through burdensome collections of dead trees to ingest the printed word. Now, we can all simply fire up our hip-screens and dive into words in a far-more engrossing and efficient manner. No longer do we have to struggle with the physically demanding act of turning a page. Even hands have become obsolete; a single finger is all most people need to get through their days.

Awkward Press is not the type of organization to let the future pass us by. We have decided to dive right into this glorious new world order of literature by creating an iPad version of our next book, complete with Exciting New Content that will make paper books look like caveman forks. The kind with only 1 tine.

In honor of our future reading environment, we’re proud to announce that the next issue of Awkward will be a hybrid book-movie experience. Not only will you get 25 incredible stories by 25 incredible authors, you will also get filmed adaptations of a selection of the stories to be included in the iPad version of the book. In addition, Awkward Two will be available on the Kindle, through Amazon, and through our very own online marketplace. To honor the people who still believe in reading the old fashioned way, we’ll even put the movies up online for free. I don’t exactly know how we’re going to do any of this yet, but I can say that when we put our minds to something, we will make that thing happen.

When we started Awkward Press, people told us we were crazy for wanting to print books. We did it anyway. They told us we were idiots for thinking we could possibly design and maintain our own blog, that only scientists could accomplish a task so daunting. We did it anyway. We love our writers, we love our readers, and we love the idea of diving headfirst into experiments that should not be attempted by anyone on the kind of shoestring budgets we have to work with. Over the next few months, we’ll keep you updated on how we’re doing, and we would appreciate your support when the book is released in September.

We would also appreciate a rich investor who wants to set us up with generous salaries so we can do this full time. Please contact us today and we’ll tell you where to wire the money.

James Franco and Seth Rogen: Friends Forever!

However, there comes a point when writing is so egregiously bad, that an intervention must be staged. Such is the case with James Franco.

Now, I have always had a soft spot for Franco. I'm pulling for the guy. He seems like a good guy, he's a hell of an actor, and I love that he does whatever the fuck he wants to do. We need more actors like him out there, unconcerned with climbing the weird Hollywood ladder in which starring in a Roland Emmerich movie is the pinnacle of success. I love that he took a role on General Hospital, just because he could. And I love that he put his career on hold for awhile to get an MFA in writing from Columbia. That is a very respectable, decent thing to do if you are interested in pursuing a career as a writer.

Franco is still in college, but unlike most people who are still pursuing their MFAs, he already has a book deal with Scribner. Because he has an amazing agent. Because he is James Franco. See how that works? But no snark: I'm still pulling for you. We all use our connections to get what we want. And if I had as many connections as James Franco, you can bet to fuck that I'd have the best agent in the world.

But here's the thing: if the story he just published in Esquire magazine is any indication, James Franco does not deserve to have a book deal. I have no problem with someone using his celebrity to publish a book if he has worked his ass off and learned how to be a writer. But here's a bit of cold reality that your friends and family and book agent-with-comical-dollar-signs-in-his-eyes will not tell you, Franco: you are not ready. Maybe if you keep writing for a few years, you'll hone your craft. You are clearly not without ability. But you need more guidance than people seem willing to give you, and you need it NOW.

Since apparently Scribner cannot afford to hire editors, and apparently Columbia's MFA program does not offer much instruction, here are a few tips from a guy who's managed to successfully make ALMOST MORE THAN $20,000 PER YEAR for at least 5 years now. In other words: a professional.

All quotes taken from "Just Before the Black" by James Franco, published March 2010 in Esquire.

There is not much to talk about with Joe because he's such a moron. I don't know what he thinks he is, or why he thinks he exists. I guess in some lives lived, no one tells you what to be, and so you be nothing. In the olden days you were born into it, all decisions made, and you farmed until you died, or cleaned the royal toilets.

I guess they didn't have toilets. Just stuck their asses out and shat in the moat. But someone had to wash out the hole.

"There is not much to talk about with Joe because he's such a moron." This is a very college-y sentence. It instantly stops us from having any interest in the character of Joe, and it makes the narrator sound like an asshole. Revise.

"I guess in some lives lived, no one tells you ..." I see what you're saying here, and it's a somewhat interesting thought. But please take a few minutes and MAKE IT BETTER. Has no one ever told you to make it better? You need to make it better. First of all, "lives lived" -- unnecessary construction that is not as poetic as you would like it to be. Second of all, "be nothing" ... I know what you're doing here, and it is not 1952, so please stop doing it. Third of all, there is nothing profound about this character's thoughts about shitting in moats and you are therefore wasting our time by making us read them. Edit, please.

I am friends with a slug, and my other friends are pigs and wolves. I never make friends with nice things, just the shit.

First sentence: not great, but I'll let it slide. Second sentence: what? You make friends with shit? This is the laziest sentence in the history of the English language. Revise.

He smiles with rotten teeth like busted shingles, all climbing over each other, and yellowing gray teeth next to shit-colored gums just don't go together, and I think, Why don't you get some braces motherfucker and brush those dang things, but I don't really think about that too much because I'm thinking about something else, or at least getting ready to do something else, or already doing ...

First of all, WHY ARE YOU HANGING AROUND WITH THIS GUY?!? He sounds really gross. Second of all, don't tell us that you're thinking about something in one breath and then that you're not thinking about it in the next breath, particularly if the thing that you may or may not be thinking about is of no interest to anyone.

The building is beige, but the shadows make it shadow-color.

Okay, I actually kind of like this.

Ya' know what? I have to stop this. I'm only a few paragraphs in and I can already see my entire day being wasted on this post. But here's the situation: Franco, if you get this message, call me. You don't want to look back on this book and cringe. And from what I've read so far, you WILL look back on this book and cringe.

Am I being too hard on you because you're a celebrity? Maybe, but let's remember why you got a book deal in the first place. You didn't have to pay your dues. And if you're going to circumvent the rules that the rest of us writers live by (boxes of rejection letters, constant anxiety about where our next dollar is coming from), then you're going to have to accept a little public criticism. Good for you for trying to be a writer. But if you really want to be a writer, please try to have something to say and please try to say it better than this. Thank you!

Awkward One: Now only $7!

Consider this your sign, friends.

For a limited holiday time only, we've reduced the price on Awkward One to $7! That's less than 9 cents per page for a fantastic and handsome collection of short stories that most of the editors' mothers agree is "readable!*" With prices this low, we should be in jail!

Awkward One is soft and bendy and compact and it adds a lovely dash of sophistication to a Christmas stocking or holiday candy sock. It is absolutely impossible to swallow and makes a wonderful teething tool for infants. Hell, rip it apart and use it as wrapping paper ... we don't care! At this price, you'll still save money!

*not an actual quote

Order your copy now! Now now now now now now now! No, wait ... okay, now!

Even if you have already picked up your copy, Lit Drift is a great book site run by wonderful human beings and you must check them out right now because your life depends on it. Seriously. Lit Drift or death. What's it gonna be?

If you enter the contest and are not picked, don't despair. You can still totally buy one here. We have, like, 3 or 4 copies left.

A "public option", good sir? At long last, have you no decency left?

Speaking of, how about this healthcare thing, huh? Crazy. I don't really care what kind of "package" we end up getting, just so long as the status quo is maintained. If there's one thing about our country that's great, it's how I have to spend two hours on the phone arguing with my insurance company every time I go to see a doctor. That's how the founding fathers would have wanted it. There's that great story in The People's History of America where Thomas Jefferson goes to the doctor and he's like, "what is this? You bleed me without asking for recompense, sir? Back to England with ye!" (Little known fact: Thomas Jefferson was part pirate.)

I haven't rapped at ya' about Awkward for awhile, but we are still very much alive and needing your support. Sales have been pretty slow since our party in New York, I think partly because I have stopped talking about it incessantly. If you have not bought a copy yet, I truly recommend doing so. Not just because I have a hilarious and mind-blowing story in the collection, but because it is a cover-to-cover masterpiece that children of all ages and mental abilities can enjoy. To that end:

1) We're in a store! Just one. The one store that I happen to walk past on my way to work every day. Skylight Books, the best independent bookstore in Los Angeles, now has 5 copies of Awkward One. If you live in L.A. and don't own a copy yet, please stop in and buy one so they will think we're popular! If you don't live in Los Angeles, buy it here! Now! Now now now!

2) We are going to start working on Awkward Two soon. Here's what we discovered: the theme of the first issue is "Awkward Occurrences." I mean, we didn't discover that, that was our idea. But we decided that because the first issue begins with "A"," the second needs to begin with "B." You see where this is headed. 26 issues, and then we're out. Or, if things are going well, then we begin again.

So the theme of the next issue is "Brevity," and we're toying around with the idea of taking submissions. Not just toying around with it, actively pursuing it. But not actively just yet. Sort of under-the-cover pursuing it. If you happen to check this blog and happen to be a writer and happen to want to submit something that's less than 1,000 words long, we'd love to take a look at it. Email submissions@awkwardpress.com. And please, PLEASE, whatever you do, don't send us bullshit. We hate reading bullshit. We want a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. I don't care if you only have 1,000 words to work with. Make it count.

And if we read your story and reject it, please, PLEASE don't tell us we're idiots. These things happen. You're probably a lovely, wonderful writer. Trust me, I have been rejected more times than I care to count. Truthfully, I have never been accepted, which is why I started my own publishing company. And deep down inside, every time I was rejected I always thought, "those people are idiots! I am a genius and my story is the best." The truth is, none of us are idiots, we just all have very specific needs and sometimes your brilliant story just doesn't fit the vibe we're going for. My stories are still the best, but whatevers. The more people we reject, the more people we are encouraging to start their own publishing companies and help us bring reading back as a kinda cool thing to do.

And also, the people who have already sent me stuff, please know: YOU HAVE NOT BEEN REJECTED. I have not read anything yet. I'm sorry for taking so long, but I am looking forward to it, I promise!

3) After our smash coming-out party in New York, the good people at Happy Ending were kind enough to ask us to do a monthly reading series. I do not live there, so it seemed like a bit of a stretch. But my partner Clay has nobly agreed to take on this task. So soon, New Yorkers will have more Awkward than they'll know what to do with. I'll keep you informed on the details when the details is done!

Thanks for being patient!