As a writer whose novel went out to editors just as the wave of publishing layoffs was rolling in, I appreciated this note on the “hurry up and wait” aspect of publishing.
Do you have to “know someone” in order to get published? In a word: No.
“I’ve never been able to use a research assistant. If I don’t do my own reporting, I don’t get a feel for the subject. You miss insights that way. You need the detail. When you write, it takes a lot of mash to make good whiskey, or that’s what they say.”
Created in 1975 by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, Oblique Strategies is a deck of cards suggesting ways out of creative dilemmas. After the 1975 edition sold out, Schmidt and Eno created a 1978 and a 1979 edition, each slightly different. Following Schmidt’s death in 1980, Eno produced a fourth edition in 1996 commissioned as a Christmas gift by artist Peter Norton and never made available to the public. The first three editions are now rare and expensive collector-bait, but if you’re blocked in your work and in need of a mental shake-up there’s an online edition that lets you draw cards in sequence or elect a random choice.
STEVENHARTSITE 
Huh. I never knew there were more editions. I still have my set, I presume a 1975 set as (IIRC) I bought it in 1977. But maybe it is 1978. Will have to take a look! Have I found a way to purchase that secret hideaway now?