Yes, I'm spamming LJ this weekend

[leahbobet]

Urgent matter of import!

[Poll #1147327]

Needless to say, the best back cover blurb for Paul's Real Estate Novels posted in comments will win whuffie, the respect and admiration of your peers, and fabulous, fabulous internet prizes.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

"You'll never walk on Linoleum the same way again!" -- A.E. Housman

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"When Max Power, who is totally not a wish-fulfillment character for the author, starts house-hunting with the help of sexy real estate agent Bimbo Available, little does he know that he's pre-qualified...for death!"

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

That wins the water on the keyboard award this morning...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Also, when I was a child I thought it was, "Paul is a real-estate monolith." Which I guess shows you the sort of child I was. My mother eventually stopped laughing for long enough to explain it to me.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I am now somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2001: A Real Estate Odyssey.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That neighborhood's gotten kind of run-down in the last few years, but there's some really unique period architecture.

"I can't let you buy that rambler, Dave."

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

"You can't paint your fence blue in this neighbourhood, Dave."

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"FICO, FICO, give me your...aaannnnssssweeeeeerrrrr doooooooo...."

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what it says about me, but I read your first sentence and nodded and thought, "Yes, that would make sense."

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

"When Jane A. Goodsales started work at Dead Nice Homes Ltd., she didn't discover the dark secrets lurking in the depths of their property portfolio. Until the day she found her boss dead in a basement."

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

The real estate part has to do with Paul's impending fame; he'll need to buy enough of it to have his own zip code for when the fan mail starts coming in. Unfortunately, the real estate part stuck and his publisher wants him to start writing real estate thrillers as well as the inspirational love stories he was writing. (They weren't selling, anyway, so this'll be a good change for him.)

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Terrible to skew a man's creative vision like that.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the blurb would be, but if the book is the Home Owners Association of the Damned, it'd have to be about a bunch of yuppies who, in their quest to move into the most exclusive neighborhood in the city, have souled out. Literally.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

...y'know, I bet someone's written that.

[delta-november.livejournal.com]

Ever since I first heard “Piano Man,” I’ve wondered: What is a “real-estate novelist”?
JOULES, BROOKLINE, MASSACHUSETTS

It’s an invented phrase. When I was working in a piano bar in L.A., around ’72, everybody came and dumped their day on you. Paul was a real-estate broker, and he would say, “I’m working on this book.” But he was there every night, crocked out of his skull, and I would think, “How’s this guy getting any writing done, unless he’s doing the F. Scott Fitzgerald bit: knock out a couple of things when he first gets up, after the coffee buzz, and then start drinkin’. ” Maybe he was like the guy in The Shining, and he just kept writing the same sentence over and over.

--- http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=151

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Oh, so then it is the D&D campaign. Alas.

It is so much more fun my way. *g*

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

But I love how Billy Joel knows you can't be a writer if you AREN'T WRITING. Billy Joel should be authorized (hahaha) to spread this knowledge with a cluebat.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I'm picturing this like the ending of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, with the ringing of doorbells and beating with cluebat. And it is good.

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

"Carl's latest prospect has a terrestrial view, four bedrooms, three baths, and one deadly secret!"

[desperance.livejournal.com]

"Down these mean streets a realtor must go, who is not himself real..."

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

I always thought Paul was the guy who does the real estate listings-- you know, the one who describes a cold-water tenth-floor walk-up six miles from public transit as 'a charming fixer-upper in a vintage neighborhood, off the beaten path and low utility bills'.

Then on the weekends he does menus.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Heeeeee.

Fast-food menus, specifically.

novelist

[(Anonymous)]

When you read the body copy in ads for houses and so forth, in the newspaper and in those special magazines that they publish, the content is largely a work of fiction or, at the least, of considerable artistic licence. It is in this sense that he is a real estate novelist, not that he writes novels and is a real estate agent.

I doubt that real estate agents would play Dungeons and Dragons. I also doubt that they would feel the need to fictionalise their profession at parties. Maybe things are different in other parts of the world, but around here real estate agents are all about the business, and about making contacts, and sealing deals. They work long hours in a lucrative job, and they are not - based on the real estate agents that i know - likely to be ashamed of their job.

Most real estate agents i know make more money than 98% of the novelists i know of, and they have all sold many more houses than novelists have generally sold book titles.

It's all noble and everything to be a writer, but i don't think it's such a great profession that other professionals hanker for chucking in their perfectly good livelihoods to take on the supposed joys of rejection slips and law suits.

I don't know a single real estate agent who is smug about their profession, and who thinks that it's somehow better than other professions. Maybe there's a leaf to be had from their book.

That's a metaphor. Did you pick that?

Re: novelist

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Hi, there--

I don't mind if you don't share our sense of humour here -- they're highly subjective -- but if you want to comment and participate, please do sign your name.

Thanks!

Who says they have to be gritty mysteries?

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

The latest Real Estate novel from Paul Johanssen will have you rolling on your hardwood floors.

Joe "Kelly" Kelleher has a problem. He makes a living finding apartments for buyers in the tight Manahattan market. He has a line on a river-view two-bedroom, but so does his archrival--and sometime lover--Jennie Versaggi! What's more, Kelly's young, blonde clients have very specific wants in addition to an apartment.

Paul Johanssen is the master of sophisticated farce, and No Money Down is his best yet. His characters romp across New York in their quest to find the perfect living space and perfect sleeping arrangement, all without taking out a second mortgage.