"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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