The main text of the book was written in the summer of 2007: My first attempt at having it published was in 2008. In the Preface, I speak of discovering The Manual in the attic of my great-great grandfather’s abandoned home. I presented the notion that it was part of a product that was a 1920s fad, and that The Manual was the supplement to a physical half-full glass from which one could drink.
Confession time: The idea and the existence of a glass were complete inventions that were a product of a desperate mind. There was no such glass or supportive manual. So… why the ruse?
Well, you see, I first tried to sell The Glass to a 21st-century publisher. In its original form, this nutty project required The Glass as part of a novelty package, an idea reminiscent of the Pet Rock smash seller. I even put together a prototype for my prospective publisher to manufacture. I felt the idea was truly unique; it would make me a bundle. And, yes, it was unique, and I found a company that loved the idea. However, they rejected the submission, telling me there was a “packaging problem.”
After reworking the package with a smaller glass, I sent The Manual on to the company again. Alas, this idea still had a “packaging problem.” On this second go-around their obliquely worded message, an attempt to let me down gently, stood out with painful clarity: No glass, no manual. They couldn’t afford the tooling risk for a product that might not sell. Who was I to blame them?
For it to make sense, though, The Manual demanded a physical form of The Glass as part of its packaging. So, I trashed the project and went back to my duties as an NYIT professor. Years later, I got an idea: The Glass, a metaphor, didn’t need to be real, but the need for its reality demanded a reality ruse. Without some semblance of a physical, hold-it-in-your-hand device, little of The Manual’s prose would make sense.
But aha! suppose I postulated the existence of The Glass as some discarded object that was a craze in, say, the Roaring ’20s? Given this bogus scenario to make a very real product, maybe, just maybe, my discarded opus of semi-reverent prose could earn a spot on some 21st-century bookshelves. And the real hit? There’s nobody alive today who’d challenge me about the alleged existence of such a glass as a 1920s fad.
However, the allusions made in the original text came from many notions and phrases that weren’t a part of the 1920s lexicon. The glass didn’t need to be real, but I wanted the prose to appear real. Phrases like “no brainer’ and “rocket science” didn’t exist in the 1920’s. Nor was there such a thing as the ice-skating duo of Frick and Frack (1930s) or PCs.
My allusions to culture that came about after 1930 had to be cut from the manuscript. This need for a prose overhaul was non-negotiable (a phrase made popular in the 1990s, by the way). The only deliberate anachronism in this rewrite, a biggie, as it turns out, is the notion of seeing a glass as half-full vs. half-empty, one that took on the status of meme in the 1980s. I suppose that would make The Glass and The Manual in this little work a notion way ahead of its time!
Remaking the presentation was tedious fun. I found out that a word such as “hullabaloo” dated back to the 1700s and that the word “haywire” just barely made the cut, having its origin ca. 1900. And the vernacular? “Balled up” was fine, originating in the 1850s, as was “on the fritz.” (1905). “Out of your shorts,” though, needed to be replaced by “off the trolley,” and “dude” demurred to the 1920s synonym “fella.” I also came across some great stand-alone gems like, “tell that one to Sweeny” or “let George do it.” In all, it was a labor of love, and I found its undertaking to be a highly enjoyable task.
And yet, after this literary facelift, I never got around to having The Manual published. Fast forward to the present time: After writing two other books with limited success, I found The Manual’s manuscript was quietly begging my attention. I originally wrote it to present the idea of seeing a better world in a way different from most self-help books. To the best of my knowledge, few such books, if any, used humor as the vehicle of persuasion. The Half-Full-Glass User’s Manual manuscript remained, quietly and persistently whispering in my ear, “Hey, I deserve a chance.”
And so I’ve finally listened to its plea. If its publication earns me a few shekels, well and good. If not, there are still plenty of other books out there that offer the message of living a life of joy, a life that’s a gift if/when we see it as such. So, here’s my offering. I’m giving this work, one that originated almost two decades ago, its chance. Once it’s out of my hands, I’ve done the job of husbanding it. It’ll succeed or fail under its own merit.