Chapter 14: Getting Published in The New Yorker

The most expeditious way for one to gain notoriety as a writer, according to the select few who actually do write things -- and the even more select few who read them -- is to have an article or story published in the most prominent literary magazine in existence today, The New Yorker.

Though none of the authors of this volume have personally never been published in The New Yorker (though not for lack of trying -- for some reason a slice-of-life story about killing a dozen hobos in a night with only a small keychain bottle opener was "too unsophisticated" for them), we are not beyond offering suggestions in a simplistic numbered list.

Step 1: Read The New Yorker.

While it may seem a daunting task at first, what with all the SAT words contained within, The New Yorker is actually an entertaining and ultimately rewarding piece of reading. Try your best to read all the way to the end of one or two articles. Squint really hard and try to get the jokes in their trademark cartoons. (There's one where a father tells his young son that, no, his mother is indeed not the Eva Peron of Weehawken, New Jersey. How laugh riotous!)

Your goal in reading the magazine is to garner a comprehensive understanding of the types of writings that can be found in the magazine, which you should attempt to emulate in every possible way. While some writers would label this technique hackish, or perhaps even as plagiarism, it is quite easy to sidestep these problems, as the writers of the pieces in question will be greatly honored and quieted once you label them "influences."

Step 2: Attend a prestigious university.

No one has the genuine ability to write professionally without the proper degree from an expensive and masturbatory private institution of learning. In order to obtain said degree, it is imperative that you be born into a wealthy family, preferably for which several buildings at just such an institution are named.

If you have made the mistake of being born into an only slightly wealthy family or, worse yet, of attending a lesser or even public university, your only hope may be that you attempt to pass yourself off as an actual physical part of a high-ranking university, perhaps by having ivy grafted onto your skin and getting your name changed to Harvardward von Princeton-Brown.

Step 3: Invest in a thorough, meticulous and exhaustive thesaurus.

Verbal prowess is the most important trait for an aspiring writer. You could write a brilliant piece about the time you met Gore Vidal at a Chili's restaurant, but without obscure vocabulary words like "nugatory" and "paroxysm," you're going to lose the reader's interest pretty quickly. Be sure that you check the thesaurus entry for every word you use in your story, and, replace each one with a more complicated and obscure bit of verbiage. Here's an example:

Average sentence: "I went out to buy a bed for my new apartment."

New, improved sentence: "I decamped to appropriate a davenport for my au courant commorancy."

And even though the sentence doesn't necessarily retain its actual meaning, it is likely that your readers will convince themselves that they know the words' definitions, and will only on the rarest occasions bother to look them up. The odds are in your favor.

Step 4: Choose an interesting and appropriate topic.

It's imperative that you make sure that the subject matter of your article fits in with the ethos and style of the publication. Your lengthy guide to the environmental use of hog manure may indeed have been meticulously worked out and taken over a year to complete, but is likely better off being sent to more appropriate publications, such as Successful Farming magazine or perhaps The Atlantic Monthly.

That's all we're saying on the issue -- if you think we're giving up any idea suggestions here, you've maybe aspired a bit too much, and should perchance take a short break from your aspiration to become a beekeeper, which later could make for a fine story if you happen to wear those bees as some sort of beard; A Van Dyke, perhaps.

Step 5: Make sure you seem to know what you're talking about.

There's a very old adage that says, "Write what you know." You, however, don't worry about that. In most cases, readers can be fooled into believing a falsified expertise if the writer simply gives off an air of erudition (again, the thesaurus is key -- my original word was "smartitude"), arrogance, and utter, contemptuous intellectual superiority. I, for instance, made up half the words in this piece, and was paid in pocket lint, but I sure seemed like I knew what I was talking about, didn't I?

The writers of this volume would like to remind all readers that its sale price cannot be refunded by the publisher.

the.mwb@gmail.com