"The writer can choose what he writes about, but he cannot choose what he is able to make live." --Flannery O'ConnorI was planning to start my little series on writing and on publishing (two very different matters, luckily!) today, but I am still waiting on a response from one writer who flew off to California... So I think that I shall start the series next Monday, as that will give her time and also prevent the series from being broken up by too many weekends.
In the meantime, I am only too aware that you have a deep desire to pre-order hardcover and paperback copies of my April book (ack, I fear it looks like April Fool's Day for pub date!)for all your friends, relations (even your grumpy old auntie and your uncle who smokes that nasty pipe), work colleagues, facebook friends, dogs (our chocolate lab loves, loves, loves to get her fangs into a good hardcover--she is a critic and will tear it apart), runcible cats, little ponies, talking crows and mynah birds, and greenish alien visitors from outer space, so I enclose a link to the various ISBN numbers and so forth on this very spot. The Throne of Psyche will be available via your local independent bookstore, the chains, and the usual online suspects.
I'll tell you a secret having to do with me and marketing in the meantime. Confession: I. Hate. Telling. People. To. Buy. My. Books. I have many acquaintances in this tiny village where I have lived for eleven years who are only now realizing that I am a writer. And many others who might find out in a decade or so. Because I never tell anybody. I've never understood the people who bring it up to strangers and acquaintances. How do they bring it up? Is it an art? Is it shamelessness? Is it supreme confidence in the world's absolute need for one's words?
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Nevertheless, I am going to do it for the sake of poetry. Better plug your ears!
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[Time passes.]
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Okay, you can unplug them now. I was just tweaking your e-mind: all done with the tooting for now...
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Other bookish news: Lots more The Book of the Red King poems were just accepted. (I love the way I send them out and they stay where I send. It's like magic. The Fool and the King are popular fellows.) Links to come. Stay tunefully tuned!
Other bookish news: Lots more The Book of the Red King poems were just accepted. (I love the way I send them out and they stay where I send. It's like magic. The Fool and the King are popular fellows.) Links to come. Stay tunefully tuned!
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Image above: Pen-friend courtesy of sxc.hu and Szuszanna Kilian of Budapest. Image below: click for a lovely big look.
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Have you ever noticed that no matter how many dratted facebook comments you get about a blog post, it still feels naked without any comments?
ReplyDeleteThere. Nice doggy.
"So, Marly. What do you do for a living."
ReplyDelete"I write poetry and novels."
"Really! Anything published yet?"
And then off you go. : D
Easy, really!
Alternatively...
"So Marly, how are you today?"
"I write poetry and novels."
"Really! Anything published yet?"
Still easy. HAHA!
Paul, you deceptive fellow--
ReplyDeleteYou are hilarious!
I really like the second one. Laughing here...
Heh. I have the same problem letting folks know I'm an artist. If I tell them I'm a printmaker, eyes glaze over and I can read their minds: 'wot's that?", as if all they know is painting. Sigh. So you know why I don't toot my horn.
ReplyDeleteI had a good friend who was a printmaker when I lived in a different small town--and I always thought that she thought the townspeople thought (lots of thoughts) that she was down in the cellar making potholders. Or something like that...
ReplyDeleteEventually she moved. And now she mostly paints in oils.
But you keep printmaking!
Glad you're no longer "hiding your light under a basket"
ReplyDeleteHah. I was in the bookstores--did events--etc. But I guess that I am, to some degree, in the shade!
ReplyDeleteI know why you don't tell people... because they all have novels and terrible poems they want to foist on you when you do. Do they want to read or heaven forbid buy yours? Nah. They just want someone to enthuse over theirs. Speaking as someone who is guilty of same..., though I do indeed read your books, and am waiting for the book of poems to arrive.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear about Red King. No surprise.
Robbi,
ReplyDeleteI laughed! Hadn't thought of that one. There is a lot of attempted foisting, yes. And I did try my best until recently when my life has gotten so dervish-like that I simply can't... I don't even have time to read much prose right now except my own for deadlines. So I'm mostly reading shortish poetry.
I sympathize and am in about the same situation.
ReplyDeleteSome day we will get to complain because we are not busy, no doubt!
ReplyDelete