BAD LUCK BRUCE

He gave us 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter and Other Tips from a Beleaguered Father (Not that Any of Them Work), published by Workman Publishing in 2002. The handbook for handling female teenage angst from a father’s twisted perspective reached number 14 on the New York Times Bestseller List and currently enjoys TV life as an ABC sitcom.

Now, W. Bruce Cameron gives us How to Remodel a Man: Tips and Techniques On Accomplishing Something You Know is Impossible but Want to Try Anyway, his second New York Times bestseller published in September of 2004 by St. Martin’s Press and now in development as a sitcom.

Writer Kristen Twedt talked with Bruce about his experiences as a best-selling author and a career that started with an ambitious early novel titled “Bad Luck Bruce.”

KT: Bruce, you talk of nine unpublished novels you wrote prior to your success with 8 Simple Rules. When did you write the first one?

BC: That would have been fourth grade. All the other kids wanted to be astronauts and accountants, but I knew I wanted to be a writer, so I started a novel. It was called “Bad Luck Bruce” and it was based on a true story about two very evil sisters, just like the ones I had. You know, I told my parents they were superfluous. They had me. Why the hell did they need more kids? They should have stopped while they were ahead. It was a book about very mean, useless sisters.

KT: What happened to your novel?

BC: I wrote 26 pages, then I got tired. I went out to play baseball.

KT: With that first attempt at writing a novel under your belt, what was your next project?

BC: At 16, the worst thing that can happen to a writer happened to me. I sold my very first story. It was to the Kansas City Star. Of course, this convinced me that this writing thing was going to be a breeze. I had written about two young men who were conscientious objectors in prison during the Vietnam War. I knew nothing about this subject area, which set the pace for all my later writing.

KT: And the next novels?

BC: Yes, there were more. Nine unpublished novels I wrote over the years. I wrote one when I was single, in my twenties and in college at Westminster, known for Winston Churchill, Cheney’s Kerry-bashing speech, and the night I threw up on the Sigma Chi frat house lawn. That story was about a middle-aged man with a construction company having the typical mid-life crisis. Again, something I knew nothing about but decided to write, anyway. Are you seeing a common theme here?

KT: I understand you worked as a freelance writer for a while. How did that work out?

BC: Let’s see. I remember working for about six months, living with my parents and making $45 a month. I realized in short order that in that scenario, I would never have sex again. I got a job with the fire department driving an ambulance at breakneck speed and watched a lot of TV, skills that still serve me well today but still didn’t do much for my sex life.

KT: So, all this time you are writing. What did you write and what did you do with it?

BC: I wrote short stories. Sent them out to small mags and local weeklies. I wrote articles with headlines like “Company gets new phone,” and “Man experiments with car wax.” The Pulitzer people never called.

KT: So what finally broke loose for you that got you where you are today with two critically acclaimed books and sitcom gigs?

BC: In 1995, after two decades of writing, I decided to use this technology Al Gore invented called the Internet and published a column online. My online subscriptions peaked before the advent of Viagra spam. I went to the newspaper with 40,000 subscribers and by April of 1998, I had a column with the Rocky Mountain News. Now the column is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.

KT: And then came 8 Simple Rules.

BC: I wrote the column, “8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter,” and the readers went wild. They loved it. I decided to give it a shot as a book and sent the proposal to Workman. They published it in 2002.

KT: The email still comes by the thousands, right? I’m assuming some of that has to go unanswered. How do you handle reader response?

BC: Actually, I did hire a staff for a while, which was my mother. That just didn’t work. I do answer my mail, but I try not to encourage it a lot or take time to respond with long, heartfelt letters.

KT: Do you think the column provided a good vehicle for promoting the book?

BC: Not really. I think there is interest at first with those readers, but then it’s more like “Now I’ve got to read a whole book by this guy? I’ve been trying to unsubscribe from that column of his for two years!” No, I think the book just appealed on its own.

KT: There was a movie deal in the works for 8 Simple Rules. What happened?

BC: That all happened very fast. A producer for Disney picked up the book in an airport after his flight was delayed. He contacted me about a movie deal and we finalized things. I wrote the screenplay. But after John Ritter died, we decided it was best not to continue. (*Actor John Ritter played the central character for the ABC sitcom based on Cameron’s book. Ritter died from an aortic dissection Sept. 12, 2003.)

KT: Now we have “How to Remodel a Man. The back cover offers a fairly exhaustive and very funny list of how to change male behavior. Have you changed your ways?

BC: I am a changed man. I was guilty of everything on the list. One of the problems was, I didn’t realize these were problems. I thought many of them were some of my most redeeming qualities. Then I got divorced and eventually was looking for a girlfriend and not having the kind of luck I would have liked. I asked my sisters what I could do about that. They not so subtly suggested that I might have some faults.

KT: How did that work out?

BC: We each made up a list of what I needed to change. I had four, they had 178. Actually, they still call with more. I tell them, “The book is out. I don’t need anymore. Thank you.”

KT: What will men think of your book?

BC: I hope they use it to their advantage. I understand it’s kind of agonizing to find out that we are not as adorable as we think we are. And we resist change. I’ve always said that advice on how one should improve oneself is the reason we have the word “ignore.”

KT: Did your metamorphosis work in attracting women?

BC: Yes, I am in a serious relationship with the woman who was the prime motivation for that metamorphosis. It’s in the book how our relationship started.

KT: Does she mind the attention you get? Does the book promotion get in the way?

BC: Cathryn (Michon) has her own book, “The Grrl Genius Guide to Sex (with Other People). Which is always preferable, of course.”

KT: So Cathryn wouldn’t mind sharing the limelight with you, if you were booked on Oprah? Oprah did give you a glowing review. As an author, Cathryn can benefit from the exposure too, then?

BC: Are you kidding? If we were on Oprah, I know what would happen. She’s far cuter and far funnier than I am. Soon enough, it would be all about her book and I’d be reminding Oprah “Hey, Oprah, over here!”

KT: How will How to Remodel a Man appeal to fans of 8 Simple Rules?

BC: The first book was about something impossible to do, which is living with teenage daughters. This book is about something equally undoable, changing men. “How to Remodel a Man” will offer them the same degree of comfort, and hopefully, humor.

KT: Any chance Dr. Phil will be calling for pointers on your self-help approach?

BC: This book is definitely self-help in nature. It will help men find out what they do that irritates the hell out of women and what they are doing wrong. I am sure Dr. Phil will want to go into some kind of partnership. I’ll be waiting for his call.