I will eventually wake up. But at least there's no time limit. Because it's Sunday!

So a friend of mine invited me to a party for www.blacktable.com, a pretty well-respected nonfiction on-line magazine. It's easy enough for internet publications to premiere and die quickly, but this one has enough quality journalism to attract a following. My friend, Joel, writes for them. Anyway, another writer for them is a successful essayist named Will, which leads me to today's Glimpse into the Writers' Life...

One of the reasons I get scared about taking too long to finish my novel is that I worry that someone will do something with the same plot. I read "Publisher's Lunch" every week to look at all the book deals. Publisher's Lunch tells you which books sold and they give a very short plot synopsis. Anyway, last year, a book sold by Will and it seemed (according to Publisher's Lunch) a bit similar in plot to mine (as do others from time to time). No two writers can ever write the same book, and it wasn't exactly the same, but I keep my eyes open for stuff like that.

Anyway, he was at the party so I told him that I got scared when I saw what his book was about, but that it's not soooo close to mine, so I'm not worried. I'm looking forward to his, too, because his essays on Black Table have been great. He kindly said, "Yours'll be better," but I doubt it. His novel will be out in December, and I look forward to it. And it will be totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally different from mine. He deserves success.

My book editor (of Carrie Pilby and Sq2) also happened to be there, along with pretty impressive writers like Rachel Kramer Bussel, who has a column in the Village Voice; novelist Ned Vizzini; and pop culture essayist Chuck Klosterman. (I'm not trying to name-drop, just giving credit to talented writers.) Oh, a fiction writer who's also published books with my editor, Michael Weinreb, was there too. There's a Klosterman essay I really liked that I read recently, so I will have to link to it sooner or later.

OK, I'm going to sleep now. That's more socializing than I normally do, so I need two weeks in my apartment to catch up. Whew.

Oh, another lesson learned tonight from football: For every botched field goal that screws up the beginning of your game, someone else's botched field goal may be there at the end to save you.