Losing my mind and getting a new one
from Brain Damaged News
Dear Imagined Agent:
I can’t read well, and don’t remember stuff for longer than 2.3 seconds because I was hit by a drunk with a truck. That makes me Diverse, Neuro-Diverse, and brain-damaged, too. A trifecta. I lost my phone, my mind and my agent. Make that “former agent.” Also my former career.
I am writing a book called either: Dispatch from Bewilderness, or Amnesic Memoir, or Partly Brainy, or something else. In my spare time, I have learned to walk, talk and build homes for birds.
The book is built with salvaged words. The homes are built with salvaged wood. The late Dr. Oliver Sacks and authors Dr. Steven Pinker and Dr. Rick Hanson liked excerpts of my work. As you know, they have sold a lot of books. Two of my favorite writers (who are also on Substack) like my work, too. A shout-out to Abigail Thomas and Joyce Wadler.
In my first life, I was freelance writer, ghosting on the side. My life intersected (not in this order) with Big Bird, Martha, Oprah, Elmo, Time, Life, the woman known as the Devil Wears Prada, Rolling Stone, Nova, Cookie Monster and a few icons I can’t name.
I know “brain damaged book by brain damaged writer” is not on your Manuscript Wish List, but hope you can muster one-zillionth of the faith in me that I have in you. If so, please let me send you an excerpt that will take ten minutes of your time if you like it, and one minute if you don’t.
There’s lots of white space on the pages to reflect the staccato way memories came and went, so 30 pages would have the word count of 10 pages in most books, and take about ten minutes to read. Ten minutes isn’t all that long to read what took 18 years to write.
P.S. I have been nominated for the 2024 Best American Essay and for the 2024 Pushcart Prize. I’ve also been published in a few fine publications since breaking my brain and won a few awards.
So, where’s the book?
thank you.