123 Tag, I'm It

Michael Reynolds apparently thinks I have enough free time to play along with one of these blog memes, so he tagged me. I’d ignore him (and, really, shouldn’t we all ignore Reynolds?) except he demeans my character and I’m obliged to mount a self defense. But first, the meme:

1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Michael thinks the nearest book to me is an Iron Man comic book. That’s libel. I’ve never read Iron Man. I’m much more a Conan the Barbarian fan. And The Teen Titans. And, occasionally when I’m melancholy, Care Bears.

However, none of those fine titles are near. I wish I was out in my office where I’ve left on my desk a book about the history of cocktails. That would make me look cool. But I am at the dining room table and sitting next to me is a teetering pile of crap composed of papers, disks and assorted post-its I’ve left scattered around the house. My wife recently collected all this junk and stacked it here as a monument to my untidy mind (or maybe she’s expecting me to put it away?).

In this pile is The Copywriter’s Handbook by Robert W. Bly. I pulled it out a few months back because I thought it had tips on writing corporate mission statements. It doesn’t. So, naturally, I abandoned it on the sideboard. The fifth sentence on page 123 is about an ad written for The Institute of Children’s Literature. Ready for some captivating prose? Here we go:

This ad for a home-correspondence course in writing selects the right audience with the headline, “We’re looking for people to write children’s books.” The ad is written as a letter from the dean of the institute to the reader. The letter technique has two advantages.

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If you want to know those advantages, I guess you’ll have to read the book. Or, you can ask Michael Reynolds as I believe this was the ad he responded to before becoming a successful young adult author.

Now that I’ve played along, it’s my turn to tag. So I’m going with Dennis at Neomugwump, Dyre42 at Dyre Portents, Rob at NoFrowns Nation, AubreyJ and Kranky Kritter at Centerfield. I’d have gone with Amba at Ambivablog too but she’s already been tagged. I won’t provide snarky remarks as to what these fine writers might be reading, mainly because I’m just not that witty.