Yesterday, Dominion House Lit published “Lathe”, my very first piece of fiction to be strung up under the hot, glaring light of public scrutiny. It will hang there, for eternity, to suffer and be judged.
So you may be wondering: how does it feel to be a published author? How is today different from Tuesday? What does it mean to have arrived?
Well, for one thing, it means there are going to be some changes around here. To begin with, I will henceforth and exclusively roll deep. I will refuse to roll in any other fashion. People will suggest, “James, don’t you want to roll slightly more shallowly, just this once?” And I will say to them, “FUCK YOU, I ONLY ROLL AT MAXIMUM DEPTH.”
I expect that the requests for graduation addresses and inspirational speeches at colleges nationwide will begin pouring in any minute now. I will ignore them unless a sufficiently large sum of money is proffered. In point of fact, I won’t take a shit for less than seventy-five thousand dollars.
A small, trained monkey with golden fur will thresh the metaphorical wheat from the chaff, sorting through piles of mail and presenting me only with the most lucrative invitations extended by the most prestigious institutions.
The monkey will also be employed to fluff special pillows for my cats to lie upon. My cats, of course, will keep me grounded. In touch with the common man. They will be my advisers, and I will listen to them in all matters. Particularly in matters salmon-related.
Eventually, the demands of the lecture circuit will die down, and then what will I do? That question is incredibly simple, and it deserves a simple answer. I will do what every great human being since the dawn of time has done: I will write my memoirs, which will doubtless be published to critical acclaim and positively priapic financial success.
At this point I will retire, living out the rest of my days playing video games while reclining comfortably on the laurels of this past Wednesday.
Or this is what I’d believe, if I didn’t have a shred of common sense. Never you worry! My ego is still comfortably Leo/Slytherin-sized, and I have no extremely limited delusions of grandeur. I’m still just a guy, I’m still gonna spend a lot of time writing my ass off, and hopefully more and more of my words will see the light of day.
The only difference between today and Tuesday is that today I can be proud that the fine folks at Dominion House Lit saw fit to take a piece I enjoyed writing and make it available for people to (hopefully) enjoy reading. It’s a good feeling, and, judging by the quality of the other works on Dominion House Lit, I am in good company.
So if you haven’t yet, I’d like to, as humbly as possible, invite you to give “Lathe” a read. I hope you enjoy it! I hope you explore the rest of Dominion House Lit’s fine offerings. And I hope you tell your friends.
In the meantime, I’ll be over here, still writing.
Feral Wordmonger 
