i'm working on a poem called 'i just networked the shit out of you'

and also a poem called 'melodrama infused the evening'

these are from my next poetry-collection which for now is called 'success felt stupid'

melville house is publishing my story-collection, BED

melville house

BED

posting this here makes it harder for anyone to get out of this

i'm happy melville house is publishing BED

the village voice took me off their 'OTHER LIT BLOGS' list

but people there still come here, i see from my statistics

i will post blurbs of my poetry book soon on the poetry book blog

but i need some 'bad' blurbs, so people who don't like me... email me some blurbs that shit-talk me; you don't need to have read the book to blurb it

i want to have it so everyone can say what they really think

email me, 'i read tao lin's book and vomited on my dog; and cleaned the dog'

reader.of.depressing.books [at] gmail.com

this is in the poetry book

read it and blurb me

i like blurbs

i am going to mention now that kevin sampsell is publishing a chapbook of me in a few months; i never mention that but it's happening, we just haven't started working on it yet and have no title or anything

old friends by stephen dixon

melville house published that and i read it and liked it

noah's book cover looks good

dennis loy johnson linked me a long time ago

i fired my literary agent

people are too protective of their information, i feel

even if your identity gets stolen, i don't think that matters, ideally

homeless people do not worry about their social security number, so why are you?

if something is true, then let that information be out there, in the world

identity is not even real

but wait

if someone steals your identity and kills you, that's bad

like in that movie

i'm not talking about that; i'm not talking about crime

i'm talking about being careful not to offend people

or about people being afraid that they might alienate themselves from people who might get them more success in the future

success

everyone wants success

i just want assholes to pay; not to pay any more than they should, but to pay the amount that the information that is usually withheld for purposes of getting more success will cause them to pay

if something is true, then that information should exist, and offend

gradually everyone will be more honest and less of an asshole

finally everyone will do what they say; or not and suffer 'being offended' or 'warned' from other perspectives

my agent isn't an asshole, though, really

no one's an 'asshole'

there is just information that exists

Hi, Sam,

I'm going to not have an agent from now on. I think I like having more control than I do with an agent. Choosing where things go, sending things out myself, getting the rejection letters myself, knowing exactly what is happening, etc.

I'm satisfied with your work (except for not ever getting any rejection notes after those first ten; and maybe a little dissatisfied at email responses taking longer than a day sometimes), and am sorry neither of us made any money from BED.

I'd be happy if you sent me those rejection letters, though, so I know which places have rejected BED and why. My novel... I'm going to send it out myself. Editors have been receptive to this, so it would be agitating for me to be required to go through an intermediary.

Sorry if I've caused any trouble right now. I'll email Melville House and whoever else and let them know to deal with me from now on. I really do appreciate the twenty-five or so submissions you've made, and am on good terms with you right now (except on those rejection letters; though, going by my experience with people, in general, i'm sure other agents are even worse on these matters--not doing what they say--and you weren't horrible, or whatever, really, just not perfect).

But now you know not to take on a story-collection if every story is race-despecific and about people who feel depressed.

Thanks again for your work.

Sincerely,

Tao

please look at the post right below this in order to pre-order my book

thank you

any extra money i have will go to homeless people, to buy books, or to buy a CD sometimes

i feel good

firing my agent feels like i just got a book deal

it's strange

it feels good

some people right now are thinking, 'tao lin is really stupid'

these are the same people who are secure and eager to get on with their goals in life, which are probably success, advancement, money, enough money to ensure that they do not have to deal with anything not the things i just listed, having kids, and getting their kids to also get all those things i just listed

these are facts

i said 'probably'

that is a fact

if you are offended, then that is because the information exists, not because i exist

pre-order my book

do it

other sites tell you to give them money for free

one site, they get paid $500 a month for typing about chick-lit, james frey, j.t. leroy, and award ceromonies

they're not allowed to type anything about anyone who isn't famous and who isn't oprah, salman rushdie, or james frey or else they don't get paid $500 anymore; and they agreed to do it

ron hogan and sarah something

send me money and you get a book

don't buy things from mcdonald's

i only make 7% if you buy it from someone else in the future

i'm not greedy, i just don't really have a job anymore starting tuesday

richard grayson taught my poetry to 10th graders

richard grayson

he also tried to become the president of the united states of america

and he asked if anyone knew who nietszche is

'god is dead!' said a girl named zoe

everyone said i was really depressed

but one girl said i was hysterically funny

i want to replace wallace stevens in middle school

instead of that penguin poem

i think the word 'poetics' is stupidly pretentious and just stupid and if you use it without irony then you're harmful, you're actually hurting people's emotions and damaging them, which makes you an asshole

melodramatic

i think most punctuation is melodramatic

why should i put a period there, it's a waste of everyone's time, to have to look at the period

someone blogged about how they couldn't use uppercase because they had low self-esteem

the reason i don't use uppercase here is because it's a waste of time

upper case takes longer to type and it takes up more space on the screen, and you have to look at more line segments to get the information from it

wasting people's time is like being pretentious

symbolism is pretentious and melodramatic and it wastes people's time

when i say 'waste people's time'

i'm wasting your time

because 'waste' implies you have a goal in life

and you probably do

therefore when i say that i'm wasting your time it's true that i'm wasting your time

i disown this post

saying 'stupidly pretentious' is harmful to other people

people who use the word 'poetics' will have their feelings hurt, which makes me an asshole

sorry

thank you for reading my blog post

sincerity

7500 word story

less real people will probably read this story starting now

than interns have already read it since a year ago

missouri review (2.03.05 rejected 2.18.05)
one story (2.03.05 rejected 6.15.05)
mcsweeneys (2.03.05)
oxford american (2.03.05)
the new yorker (2.03.05 rejected 3.14.05)
swink (2.03.05)
mid-american review (2.04.05 rejected 5.31.05 with note)
night train magazine (2.06.05 rejected 2.25.05)
prairie schooner (2.10.05 rejected 5.10.05)
chattahoochee review (2.10.05)
a public space (6.03.05 rejected 7.01.05)
hobart (6.19.05 rejected 9.06.05)
spork (7.27.05 rejected 9.09.05)
post road (8.10.05 rejected 10.28.05)
the new yorker (9.13.05 rejected 12.12.05)
pindeldyboz (9.14.05 withdrawn 1.02.06)
opium magazine (10.10.05 todd never read it)
american short fiction (10.19.05 rejected 11.13.05 with note)
monkeybicycle (10.21.05 rejected 11.27.05)
nerve (11.13.05 withdrawn 1.02.06)
new york tyrant (11.30.05 withdrawn 1.02.06)
one story (12.04.05 withdrawn 1.02.06)
dirt press (12.04.05 accepted 1.02.06)

i'm tired

i have a story in the next mississippi review prize issue

it's the saddest story i've written

i want salman rushdie to read it and hide in his room with saul bellow's corpse in the closet and a turtle that is more powerful than salman rushdie but salman rushdie doesn't know and he tries to exploit the turtle and salman rushdie is then fucked

i want to move to mississippi and drive around like mary robison and play blackjack

punk planet never sent me a contributor's copy or a thirty-dollar check and larry brown died that month and they printed his death-bio instead of my bio

i'm reading at kgb monday; i'm reading one poem called 'i'm tired' and that's all i'm reading

people will look and go, 'oh, he's tired,' and be satisfied or get drunk

i'm reading 'i'm tired,' 'i'm a vegan,' and 'homeless'

the last two poems will make people uncomfortable and they'll just get drunk

i have one story left unpublished in my story-collection and it's my favorite probably and no one will publish it because the publishing world is stupid

i'm tired of narrative arcs, plots, and 'focus'

i was bored and i copied and pasted sections of my novel and created a story and one story rejected it:

Dear Tao Lin:

Thanks for trying us again with "Sara." We're sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

The writing in this is fierce, and funny--we especially liked the repeated 'with cunning and speed.' But in the end some here felt the story seemed more like a piece of something larger, rather than a contained short story. I'm afraid we're going to have to pass.

Hope you'll keep trying us.

Best,

Hannah

i was bored the other day and i sent my poems to the paris review

charles simic will never accept me

he doesn't know what AOL instant messenger is or if he does he'll reject any poem with that in it because it's too new

blurbs

i like blurbs more than people

i will never start a press

if you are going to start a press or a magazine please devote your entire life to it or don't do it at all

i don't trust any publishers to publish my story-collection even if they wanted to

i don't trust anyone

they just want to edit out what i like and put in exciting narrative arcs

if jean rhys starts a press i'll let her publish me

i think she'd answer my emails in a day and we'd hug each other like every day

i like juked

people need to reduce their lives until they are able to do what they say

homeless people, blurbs, and rereading my own blog posts are better than real people

i've been bothered to post links

noah was interviewed in 3 a.m. magazine; he is a fiction editor there now

rockstar games had a $3000 contest for fiction and i lost when i should've won; richard nash was a judge and i should've won

todd zuniga of opium magazine works there and he didn't use his influence to make sure i won or was at least a finalist

soft skull won't look at my story-collection because they are bad at story-collections, they said

opium's fiction contest is only worth $555

kitchen sink said they'd link my site from the story i had there and they never did

what else can i complain about

a lot of things just went in my head when i looked at that sentence

i'm posting rejection letters soon for my story-collection; one called me a genius or a solipsist (it wasn't sure)

pre-order two thousand copies of my book

for twenty four hundred dollars and i'll use the time to finish my novel and you can sell my books for twenty dollars each when there's a shortage because moby will say on his web site for people to buy my book

pre-order my book

it comes out in october but i need money now

paypal binky [dot] tabby [at] gmail [dot] com twelve dollars and your address

spork

my story is the last one and long, like 7000 words, and has no plot; thank you, kevin sampsell, for accepting it; a lorrie moore character said plots are for dead people

this issue was edited by kevin sampsell, who is publishing a chapbook of me this summer; he called it 'the summer of tao'

i have a eight page poem and i'm trying to find a contest it can win at least $500 from and the contest should have a judge receptive to something nihilistic and funny, with hamsters in it; anyone know anything?

i just read kevin sampsell's notes, where he says i will find 'my favorite kinds of writing here,' then names all the different kinds, and my story isn't targeted; i'm sad; no just kidding, i'm indifferent; i stare at the words and i'm indifferent, but in a good way

i'll sell this poem to moby for like eighty dollars

also, moby, let me sell my book when it comes out in your tea shop

it can go by the tea in a box and people will buy it and read it drinking tea

but you use natural flavors in your tea

and my poems are against natural flavors

but my friend saw you laughing but said jonathan ames was 'stone-faced' when i read

a poem written by a bear

life is boring

let me go eat some salmon

why are there coke cans in the river

what if i wore a bullet proof vest during hunting season

i’m a bear; i walk around in the forest and look at the river and the river is cold

i saw some campers today and they ran away and i was alone and i destroyed their tent

let me go scratch my paw on a tree

let me go eat a salmon

last night i cried onto my salmon

the salmon was sad but it still wanted to live

it wanted to swim and be sad and i ate it under moonlight

i saw a moose scream the other day

it screamed quietly under a tree

i felt embarrassed and sad and i thought, ‘oh, no; oh god, oh my god’

sometimes i climb a tree and sit there and sing very quietly

sometimes i want to go to a shopping mall and chase the humans and claw them

i’ll ride a moose into a shopping mall and ram the humans

the moose and i will ride the escalator and i will hug the moose and the moose and i will cry

i will eat the moose

i don’t care

i will scream and throw a bubblegum machine from the second floor to the first floor

i don’t care anymore; i felt compassion for the salmon and now i don’t care anymore

i’ll walk into a parking lot and chase a large human and hug the human and cry

i’ll walk into a house at night and push the humans off the bed and i’ll stare at the bed

i’ll stare at the bed and i’ll feel fake