Bob Thomas Writes

This was sent to 4 newspapers. . .Really!

Dear Sir:

I was recently told of your newspaper and its request for “freelance” writers to submit work for consideration. Well, this is your lucky day!  I, as it happens, am a freelance writer and I have work to submit!

Now, as you may notice, I am un-encumbered by any of the “baggage” that most writers have to drag through life with them. Things like, a good understanding of the English language and its structure. . . I know ‘zip’ about sentence structure, grammar, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, pronouns or any of that stuff my teachers tried to beat into my head in high school! So, I have a distinct advantage over other writers because I can just blaze along on the ol’ keyboard without having to stop and check my sentence structure . . . or see if there is another word in the thesaurus that would work better than the only word I could think of at the time! As you can tell, I’m not too worried about my sentences being too long. Or short. Plus, I can write about any subject!  Seriously!  Just ask me for 1200 words on rutabagas or turnips or drag racing or embalming or any other subject you would like, and I can whip out a ton of un-factual, un-verified, useless information on the subject!  And! . . . I’m not at all shy about using exclamation marks! . . . Multiple periods . . . or a whole row of these things~~~~~~~~! And there are a whole lot of little things like that on my keyboard that would really look great if used at the right place in a sentence!

  I guess I’m trying to say that I love to write. . . mostly humorous stuff… but, I can occasionally do serious if I’m so  inclined. Like the enclosed short story, (article?) that I submitted to “A Fifth Helping of Chicken Soup for the Soul”. It’s going to be published in March/April 1998. (For which I’m getting $300.00!)

Now, I realize that I’m not going to knock Papa Hemingway out of his slot as one of the worlds great writers. . . and Lewis Grizzard is not spinning in his grave. . . and Dave Barry is not going to loose any sleep over my meager attempts at writing. But, you can bet your ass that “Cooter” Hardman is going to be so jealous that he’ll puke! (When I was in the fifth grade, Cooter would punch me in the arm everyday after school and say, “You ain’t nothing . . . and you ain’t never gona’ to be nothing!)

I can’t wait to see his face when he finds out I’m a writer for your paper!

Anyway, if you think you would like for me to whip out a few column inches for you, just give me a call and tell me what you would like to read about and how many words you would like me to write. (By the way, how many words are on a page?)

I await your reply.

Sincerely,

Bob Thomas

P.S. I don’t do deadlines very well. . . So, don’t give me any!

. . . One more thing, (its kind’a important) do you guys pay for stuff that you use?

I was actually ‘hired’ by one small paper, The Bogue Banks Weekly,  to provide them with a weekly column!

Since they paid $12.00 per column I made a pretty penny!

Well, I would have if they hadn’t gone out of business!