Continues. When you don't see me here, that means I'm working on the sequel. Also no beach on the weekend because I'm trying to give my foot time to heal--I'm shooting for Wednesday if the weather holds. But in any case, summer is leaving us as the Autumnal Equinox approaches.
Two Saturdays in a row now, I've gotten a really good idea for the sequel. I'm also spot checking the first book here and there, as I wait for a reply.
I remember thinking when the first draft of the last book didn't get any offers, one of the possible reasons I was theorizing was that it really didn't look like anything else. People in publishing have this shorthand, where they'll say something is like so-and-so only a little more whatever. On the website of one of the agencies I submitted to, under their suggestions they remark this, but I honestly can't compare it to anything that I'm aware of.
Another possible problem was that the book was critical of American foreign policy and the bad guy in the book is the President of the United States, far in the future but still. I remember my agent sending me all these postcards telling me that this publisher still had it and this other press still hadn't said anything yet, because what happens is that the manuscript has to go higher and higher within the organization, as only the people at the top can say yes, and this takes time. Then 9/11 happened and that seemed the end of that.
The book is still critical of American foreign policy but this time all that is stuck in the middle of the book, not up front as previously had been the case. And this time I make it sound as if those are just the main character's politics--for whatever reason.
But this time around there are definitely fewer agents out there--and the ones that I was getting any kind of a reaction from now appear gone.
Publishing has gone through crises before, but this may be different. I spot checked a few stocks that the company that I was working for (Weiss Research) was picking and the bottom in the market that I could see seems to have been late March. Everything's been on it's way up since then, but still there's no sector leadership, which is a fancy way of saying that something has to come along to pull us out of this hole that we're in, or we'll be like either of those baby sea turtles I had been too late to save the other day. Maybe it's a misplaced analogy, as we're not going to keep mindlessly flailing our legs, but it is true that every time something like this has happened in the past, it's always been some technological innovation that has saved capitalism and thus mankind.
It rained earlier but now it's sunny out. Nothing but junk in the mail. Telephone's not ringing either, for some reason, but the central air still feels good. TTYL.
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing. Show all posts
Monday, September 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Fishermen vs. Fisherfools
The beach was back yesterday and I was back at the beach, almost alone. This happened last year also--once you hit Labor Day, everyone kind of gives up on the beach unless it is really, really sunny out.
Yesterday there was some cloud cover, but I still got some sun. No baby sea turtles but lots of bait fish in the water, which some sharks were feeding on. All you can eat, as they say. The school of fish started out huge--hundreds of feet in diameter--but became dismantled by the later parts of the afternoon. It happened to coincide with my return to MacArthur Park on the way back and I followed its mostly southerly sojourn down the coast.
I tried to get some video but the small sample I've previewed didn't come out that clearly--you can't see detail, parts of which were spectacular. When the four or five foot sharks would go in after the six or seven inch mullet, the smaller fish would jump out of the way, sometimes out of the water, and the sharks would follow suit. Sometimes you'd have two or three fairly large silver sharks coming out of the water at once and it was quite a show.
But back to the fishing--the only times that I see successful fishermen on the beach is in the spring and again in the fall, when the fish are on the move, because of the changes in the seasons. (The fisherman pictured here was working the inlet, which you can see in the background, as this faces south, so the land you see behind him is Palm Beach. This was taken in August and the fish is some kind of jack, similar to tuna. It took him about ten or fifteen minutes to land the fish and he said he was going to throw him back. I don't know what kind of bait he was using, but I remember it wasn't a lure or a spinner.) Where I go, Singer Island, is the point in the entire U.S. Eastern Seaboard where the continental shelf is closest to the land--here, it's maybe five miles out, as compared to over a hundred miles up by, say, Virginia. So as a consequence of that, when fish are on the move, they do come fairly close to the shore here, and attract larger predators.
Up in Juno, south of the pier, they'll set up about five or six large rods and reels apiece and they'll mostly catch pompano, which is about as good as what you're going to get around here. Sometimes the bluefish are running, and you can pull in as many of those as you want or have the energy for, but they are a lesser grade.
Fisherfools, on the other hand (forget the trip to the dictionary--it's not in there), spend an enormous amount of money on boats, tackle and bait and wind up with exactly nothing worth eating. Now I realize some people fish the way some people play golf--just as an excuse to get out of the house and avoid someone you may be married to but whom you may not get along that well with, so you 'fish' as a way of passing the time, if say you're retired and you don't have anything else to do. I guess I'm more utilitarian--I prefer to accomplish a lot of things at once.
As for the honeys, they were out also, and not just at the beach. On my way home, a young brunette babe driving what appeared to be her mother around in perhaps the family car did smile at me when we were side by side and stopped at a stoplight, so if you're reading this and you were at the wheel of a white Mercedes convertible going west on PGA Boulevard Tuesday just before five o'clock, wearing your hair up, and you happened to see some guy in a silver Acura who looked like he just came from the beach, driving without a shirt on, that was me, so if you'd like to leave a message, please include your name and phone number so that when I call, I don't sound like a complete idiot.
The landscaping people have arrived this morning with their many machines--their weapons of suburban warfare--to do battle with the lawn again. They may hold the upper technological hand, but the grass is resilient, and has secrets of its own, along with the resolve of nature, so the struggle continues there also. Got some more work done on the sequel but otherwise still waiting for some response, any response. Everything that I've been reading suggests this is a lost hope and a forgone conclusion--if you're not already a published author or if you're not a famous person, just forget it. I guess the publishers have been burned once too often by picking something up and no one paying any attention, no matter how well written it was, simply because whoever wrote it was unfamiliar. They have a saying over in Japan--the person you wait for never comes. Sometimes it feels like that, but we'll see. TTYL.
Yesterday there was some cloud cover, but I still got some sun. No baby sea turtles but lots of bait fish in the water, which some sharks were feeding on. All you can eat, as they say. The school of fish started out huge--hundreds of feet in diameter--but became dismantled by the later parts of the afternoon. It happened to coincide with my return to MacArthur Park on the way back and I followed its mostly southerly sojourn down the coast.
I tried to get some video but the small sample I've previewed didn't come out that clearly--you can't see detail, parts of which were spectacular. When the four or five foot sharks would go in after the six or seven inch mullet, the smaller fish would jump out of the way, sometimes out of the water, and the sharks would follow suit. Sometimes you'd have two or three fairly large silver sharks coming out of the water at once and it was quite a show.
But back to the fishing--the only times that I see successful fishermen on the beach is in the spring and again in the fall, when the fish are on the move, because of the changes in the seasons. (The fisherman pictured here was working the inlet, which you can see in the background, as this faces south, so the land you see behind him is Palm Beach. This was taken in August and the fish is some kind of jack, similar to tuna. It took him about ten or fifteen minutes to land the fish and he said he was going to throw him back. I don't know what kind of bait he was using, but I remember it wasn't a lure or a spinner.) Where I go, Singer Island, is the point in the entire U.S. Eastern Seaboard where the continental shelf is closest to the land--here, it's maybe five miles out, as compared to over a hundred miles up by, say, Virginia. So as a consequence of that, when fish are on the move, they do come fairly close to the shore here, and attract larger predators.
Up in Juno, south of the pier, they'll set up about five or six large rods and reels apiece and they'll mostly catch pompano, which is about as good as what you're going to get around here. Sometimes the bluefish are running, and you can pull in as many of those as you want or have the energy for, but they are a lesser grade.
Fisherfools, on the other hand (forget the trip to the dictionary--it's not in there), spend an enormous amount of money on boats, tackle and bait and wind up with exactly nothing worth eating. Now I realize some people fish the way some people play golf--just as an excuse to get out of the house and avoid someone you may be married to but whom you may not get along that well with, so you 'fish' as a way of passing the time, if say you're retired and you don't have anything else to do. I guess I'm more utilitarian--I prefer to accomplish a lot of things at once.
As for the honeys, they were out also, and not just at the beach. On my way home, a young brunette babe driving what appeared to be her mother around in perhaps the family car did smile at me when we were side by side and stopped at a stoplight, so if you're reading this and you were at the wheel of a white Mercedes convertible going west on PGA Boulevard Tuesday just before five o'clock, wearing your hair up, and you happened to see some guy in a silver Acura who looked like he just came from the beach, driving without a shirt on, that was me, so if you'd like to leave a message, please include your name and phone number so that when I call, I don't sound like a complete idiot.
The landscaping people have arrived this morning with their many machines--their weapons of suburban warfare--to do battle with the lawn again. They may hold the upper technological hand, but the grass is resilient, and has secrets of its own, along with the resolve of nature, so the struggle continues there also. Got some more work done on the sequel but otherwise still waiting for some response, any response. Everything that I've been reading suggests this is a lost hope and a forgone conclusion--if you're not already a published author or if you're not a famous person, just forget it. I guess the publishers have been burned once too often by picking something up and no one paying any attention, no matter how well written it was, simply because whoever wrote it was unfamiliar. They have a saying over in Japan--the person you wait for never comes. Sometimes it feels like that, but we'll see. TTYL.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The Island Fortress
Publishing has always seemed to me most like an armed camp--where everyone on the inside has a vested interest in keeping everyone else out on the outside. In other words, it's not that there are barbarians at the gate--we are the barbarians, whom the caretakers of Literature seek to protect themselves from inside their walled off medieval castle.
Because it's not Literature until they say it's Literature. You're not a writer until they say you're a writer--and not before. Even all the watchtowers of heaven were ablaze after Lucifer's ill-thought-out and poorly-timed assault on Almighty God, so also are the gates of publishing becoming more and more inaccessible to outsiders.
Allow me a crude illustration. If Paris Hilton had written my book, everyone would want to read it, if for no other reason than to see if Paris Hilton could write a novel and if so, how well it was done. They're acting as if no one cares if I can write a novel or how well it's done because I'm a nobody and who would want to read a nobody's book? Certainly not the book-buying public. This is their attitude, anyway.
The last book I actually bought was Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf, back in 2000. I stand corrected--I did purchase some years after Licks of Love: Short Stories and a Sequel, "Rabbit Remembered" by John Updike which was published in the same year but did not come to my attention until much later. So people such as me would not sustain publishing as a business--it's only the people who constantly need something new.
Speaking of something new, I was going to the mall yesterday but I became so engrossed in the second book that I completely lost track of time. The local newspaper, that I subscribed to since I moved in here almost nineteen years ago, has call me twice now, to get me to renew my subscription. As I've patiently explained to both young ladies, I'm too busy now to even consider reading the newspaper, which I used to read religiously. But ever since I've gotten everybody to the island in my book, I feel as though I'm there as well, removed from the world and all its comings and goings. Maybe if I get someone interested in the first book, that'll pull me back to the real world. In the meantime, they have a crisis on the island, as their monopoly of the aliens' technology is threatened for the first time, so their attention is focused--as is mine.
Because it's not Literature until they say it's Literature. You're not a writer until they say you're a writer--and not before. Even all the watchtowers of heaven were ablaze after Lucifer's ill-thought-out and poorly-timed assault on Almighty God, so also are the gates of publishing becoming more and more inaccessible to outsiders.
Allow me a crude illustration. If Paris Hilton had written my book, everyone would want to read it, if for no other reason than to see if Paris Hilton could write a novel and if so, how well it was done. They're acting as if no one cares if I can write a novel or how well it's done because I'm a nobody and who would want to read a nobody's book? Certainly not the book-buying public. This is their attitude, anyway.
The last book I actually bought was Seamus Heaney's new translation of Beowulf, back in 2000. I stand corrected--I did purchase some years after Licks of Love: Short Stories and a Sequel, "Rabbit Remembered" by John Updike which was published in the same year but did not come to my attention until much later. So people such as me would not sustain publishing as a business--it's only the people who constantly need something new.
Speaking of something new, I was going to the mall yesterday but I became so engrossed in the second book that I completely lost track of time. The local newspaper, that I subscribed to since I moved in here almost nineteen years ago, has call me twice now, to get me to renew my subscription. As I've patiently explained to both young ladies, I'm too busy now to even consider reading the newspaper, which I used to read religiously. But ever since I've gotten everybody to the island in my book, I feel as though I'm there as well, removed from the world and all its comings and goings. Maybe if I get someone interested in the first book, that'll pull me back to the real world. In the meantime, they have a crisis on the island, as their monopoly of the aliens' technology is threatened for the first time, so their attention is focused--as is mine.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Vampires At The Beach
Before I settled on Klara, I had asked a few other attractive young women to help me with the book. My routine generally consisted of approaching members of the target audience--as Carolyn is 24 and single with no boyfriend when the book starts out--to ask them what they're reading. To answer, most would show me the cover of the book. Then I would either guess what the book was about from the title or ask them to describe it. This in and of itself helped me a couple of ways. One pretty young lady, who seemed a little too eager, was reading a book titled Love the One You're With. I remarked to her, "Now we know what that's about, right?" Another desirable young woman's book was titled Flawless. My guess that it was about the fashion industry or models turned out to be wrong, but the reticent soft-spoken brunette I questioned did allow it was about some girl, presumably without imperfections of any kind. The working title of my book at that time was The Secondary Refraction. Based on these experiences, the more I thought about it, the more that seemed too cryptic, so I changed it to Paradise Regained, because that's what happens at the end of the book--Carolyn and John along with Brandy and the gang get to their South Pacific island before the U.S. military does, deploy the bubble machine from the aliens' specs and bingo--instant impregnable island fortress. I did a http://www.dogpile.com/ search on it and was surprised to learn that no one since John Milton had used that title in the 1600s, so I thought, Why not--it's shorter and more positive, implying the requisite happy ending, in addition to being truth in advertising.
Another more intelligent college-aged young blonde honey coolly and tersely advised me that her book was about vampires. This became a recurring theme. I remember when I was working at the call center up in Juno Beach, across the street from the turtle place, ten years ago when I was getting the first draft of my book together. The general manager kept asking me why I hadn't come up with the books on the magician's assistant as he called it, referring to the Harry Potter series. The answer to that question which I never gave him is that you have to be into something like that to be able to write convincingly, persuasively and passionately about it--and I'm just not into witchcraft and spells and warlocks and all that, the same way I'm not into vampires. But I am into science fiction.
What I think has happened in the last fifty years is that science fiction has gotten way too technical for the average person to understand it. My first book was a spy novel with a romance subplot set in real time--1994. The second was a young adult coming of age story set mostly in 2012. The third book takes place in 2042, but I have taken pains to make it as accessible as possible, more back to basics. Whether this was a mistake, whether I have outsmarted myself, we shall see.
Allow me by digression to explain. Yes, fiction is a brand-name business. The same way most people would patronize a McDonald's rather than an independent restaurant in an unfamiliar locale simply because as bad as McDonald's is, it's nevertheless a known quantity, so also have publishers realized that they can make more money from one million Stephen King books than from ten thousand titles of ten thousand lesser-known writers. The flip side of that, however, is that publishers always need genre books, because some people go through these things--romances being the obvious example--as if they were going out of style. My general impression of all the people that I've polled and those that I haven't is that people are desperate for something--anything--to read that is well-written, so much so that they're willing to read what they consider mediocre until the proverbial good stuff comes along again. So many girls' judgment of what they were reading was, in dreary tones of world-weary resignation, "It's O.K." And when I followed up with why they were reading it to begin with, the answer was always that a friend or close relative, i.e. their mother, had recommended it.
Everyone always thinks his or her book is different. The market's never been worse for first-timers. Even if the book does get published, I am going to have to work full time or more at making it sell. I was invited to join Toastmasters a few years ago by one of their members but since I didn't have a salable book at the time, I thought I'd hold off until I did. That's my ace in the hole--that and the book fair in Miami in November. If I could just get one person to write me back, to ask to read the book, then I would have more confidence about this whole thing. I remember this is what drove me crazy last time--the waiting.
It's mostly cloudy outside now but there's no way to know how it is at the beach except by being there, as where I live is six miles inland and as previously stipulated the weather in Florida is very strange. My expensive mixed nuts--toasted but not salted--from Sunnyland Farms in Georgia arrived a little while ago via UPS. I can keep this routine up for about six more months before money is going to be a problem. I should know whether the book is a go or not a long time before then. I know rationally that one way or another, I'll do the right thing, but knowing it emotionally is something else. The future remains a scary place but it is the only place I want to live.
Another more intelligent college-aged young blonde honey coolly and tersely advised me that her book was about vampires. This became a recurring theme. I remember when I was working at the call center up in Juno Beach, across the street from the turtle place, ten years ago when I was getting the first draft of my book together. The general manager kept asking me why I hadn't come up with the books on the magician's assistant as he called it, referring to the Harry Potter series. The answer to that question which I never gave him is that you have to be into something like that to be able to write convincingly, persuasively and passionately about it--and I'm just not into witchcraft and spells and warlocks and all that, the same way I'm not into vampires. But I am into science fiction.
What I think has happened in the last fifty years is that science fiction has gotten way too technical for the average person to understand it. My first book was a spy novel with a romance subplot set in real time--1994. The second was a young adult coming of age story set mostly in 2012. The third book takes place in 2042, but I have taken pains to make it as accessible as possible, more back to basics. Whether this was a mistake, whether I have outsmarted myself, we shall see.
Allow me by digression to explain. Yes, fiction is a brand-name business. The same way most people would patronize a McDonald's rather than an independent restaurant in an unfamiliar locale simply because as bad as McDonald's is, it's nevertheless a known quantity, so also have publishers realized that they can make more money from one million Stephen King books than from ten thousand titles of ten thousand lesser-known writers. The flip side of that, however, is that publishers always need genre books, because some people go through these things--romances being the obvious example--as if they were going out of style. My general impression of all the people that I've polled and those that I haven't is that people are desperate for something--anything--to read that is well-written, so much so that they're willing to read what they consider mediocre until the proverbial good stuff comes along again. So many girls' judgment of what they were reading was, in dreary tones of world-weary resignation, "It's O.K." And when I followed up with why they were reading it to begin with, the answer was always that a friend or close relative, i.e. their mother, had recommended it.
Everyone always thinks his or her book is different. The market's never been worse for first-timers. Even if the book does get published, I am going to have to work full time or more at making it sell. I was invited to join Toastmasters a few years ago by one of their members but since I didn't have a salable book at the time, I thought I'd hold off until I did. That's my ace in the hole--that and the book fair in Miami in November. If I could just get one person to write me back, to ask to read the book, then I would have more confidence about this whole thing. I remember this is what drove me crazy last time--the waiting.
It's mostly cloudy outside now but there's no way to know how it is at the beach except by being there, as where I live is six miles inland and as previously stipulated the weather in Florida is very strange. My expensive mixed nuts--toasted but not salted--from Sunnyland Farms in Georgia arrived a little while ago via UPS. I can keep this routine up for about six more months before money is going to be a problem. I should know whether the book is a go or not a long time before then. I know rationally that one way or another, I'll do the right thing, but knowing it emotionally is something else. The future remains a scary place but it is the only place I want to live.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The Struggle Continues
The eternal battle for the domination of the world goes on, as it has since the dawn of man. Today, I am not winning, for the beach has been rained out. Again.
Ah well--there's always the mall. But I hate the mall--for a variety of reasons. For one thing, when you go, for some strange reason they expect you to spend money there. The merchants and the salespeople that work there expect you to actually shop in the stores and make purchases. They have all these sales and have all these salespeople around and spend all this money on advertising and wonder what's going on when the crowds don't show up. Sad but true--I can see it on all the employees' faces in practically every store in the mall--the vacant and empty look of no customers and nothing to do, just standing around and watching the clock until finally it's your time to leave. I worked in retail for over twelve years so I know the score.
During this time, I was working on the first book, which is and always has been a mess. It needs a rewrite the same as Jimmy Carter needed pills, and trust me--he needed a lot of pills. But I couldn't see it at the time, which shows you how much I knew then.
But meanwhile, while I was waiting on responses to my queries for the first book, I started the second. Here the plot thickens, because if I hadn't started the second book, there never would have been a third. I got a better response to the second book than I did to the first, but at 40,000 words everyone kept telling me the second book was too short--that I needed at least 70,000 words for a first novel or nobody was even going to look at it.
This I did not understand at the time but I do now. At the time, though, it seemed to me they were trying to dictate a certain style--which is antithetical to my own, that being minimalism. Now I see that wasn't it at all. By imposing a minimum word length, they were eliminating the vast majority of bad or mediocre manuscripts that are circulating around out there, clogging the system, which hinders good manuscripts from being read. When I say bad or mediocre, the standard that I'm using is anyone with an agenda, such as a cause, religion or belief system that they are seeking to foster or impose on others, as opposed to the agenda of Literature, which I think should be the primary reason why you're writing--that you think you can make a contribution, that you can do a better job than the people that are doing it now. Why can I see that now when I couldn't see it then? Today I'm nine years older than I was then--so I guess my judgment is better now than it was then. Older and wiser, as the saying goes. Everyone except my agent was telling me the third book needed to be book doctored, but I disagreed. I thought everybody else was wrong and I was right. Now I see with chagrin the opposite was true. So now I've done in six months what it took me more than two years to do previously--the rewrite that the book needed all along.
What it has now that it didn't have then is the subplot and more backstory, along with some new characters. I think it looks good now--but I thought the first draft looked good when I finished with that, so I don't know if I can trust my judgment now. That's why I'm trying to solicit a reading--to see the reaction to it.
I noticed when I went to the library to see the current marketplace, that there's been an enormous amount of consolidation within literary agents. It seems as if all the one and two man shops are gone now, leaving only the strong that survive.
There's daylight outside now and my laundry is done, but there's also a canopy of cumulus clouds where blue sky ought to be, and the radar scan at the National Hurricane Center website (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/) shows more rain is on the way. Good news for the lawn and the trees but bad for me. Why can't it simply rain and storm at night? This and other eternal questions remain. The search for answers continues.
Ah well--there's always the mall. But I hate the mall--for a variety of reasons. For one thing, when you go, for some strange reason they expect you to spend money there. The merchants and the salespeople that work there expect you to actually shop in the stores and make purchases. They have all these sales and have all these salespeople around and spend all this money on advertising and wonder what's going on when the crowds don't show up. Sad but true--I can see it on all the employees' faces in practically every store in the mall--the vacant and empty look of no customers and nothing to do, just standing around and watching the clock until finally it's your time to leave. I worked in retail for over twelve years so I know the score.
During this time, I was working on the first book, which is and always has been a mess. It needs a rewrite the same as Jimmy Carter needed pills, and trust me--he needed a lot of pills. But I couldn't see it at the time, which shows you how much I knew then.
But meanwhile, while I was waiting on responses to my queries for the first book, I started the second. Here the plot thickens, because if I hadn't started the second book, there never would have been a third. I got a better response to the second book than I did to the first, but at 40,000 words everyone kept telling me the second book was too short--that I needed at least 70,000 words for a first novel or nobody was even going to look at it.
This I did not understand at the time but I do now. At the time, though, it seemed to me they were trying to dictate a certain style--which is antithetical to my own, that being minimalism. Now I see that wasn't it at all. By imposing a minimum word length, they were eliminating the vast majority of bad or mediocre manuscripts that are circulating around out there, clogging the system, which hinders good manuscripts from being read. When I say bad or mediocre, the standard that I'm using is anyone with an agenda, such as a cause, religion or belief system that they are seeking to foster or impose on others, as opposed to the agenda of Literature, which I think should be the primary reason why you're writing--that you think you can make a contribution, that you can do a better job than the people that are doing it now. Why can I see that now when I couldn't see it then? Today I'm nine years older than I was then--so I guess my judgment is better now than it was then. Older and wiser, as the saying goes. Everyone except my agent was telling me the third book needed to be book doctored, but I disagreed. I thought everybody else was wrong and I was right. Now I see with chagrin the opposite was true. So now I've done in six months what it took me more than two years to do previously--the rewrite that the book needed all along.
What it has now that it didn't have then is the subplot and more backstory, along with some new characters. I think it looks good now--but I thought the first draft looked good when I finished with that, so I don't know if I can trust my judgment now. That's why I'm trying to solicit a reading--to see the reaction to it.
I noticed when I went to the library to see the current marketplace, that there's been an enormous amount of consolidation within literary agents. It seems as if all the one and two man shops are gone now, leaving only the strong that survive.
There's daylight outside now and my laundry is done, but there's also a canopy of cumulus clouds where blue sky ought to be, and the radar scan at the National Hurricane Center website (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/) shows more rain is on the way. Good news for the lawn and the trees but bad for me. Why can't it simply rain and storm at night? This and other eternal questions remain. The search for answers continues.
Friday, September 4, 2009
The Beach
Dateline: Beautiful Palm Beach Gardens in sunny South Florida. Subject: The beach. Reality: It's crummy today outside. All overcast and no sun--maybe even some rain later. Not a good day for the beach. Normally this would mean for me walking at the nearby mall, as in The Gardens Mall, but I'm still holding out hope for tomorrow at the beach. And this is Labor Day weekend--all three days--traditionally the last big blowout of the summer. Now that summer's soon to be officially over, maybe I can get an e-mail back from a literary agent that I've queried about my book. But only if they're interested. In the old days, you'd spend however much on postage and get at least a rejection slip back for your trouble. Now you don't even get that.
Allow me to clarify--during the summer and the holidays, the publishing world grinds to a halt--or so I've been told. School's out and people scatter hither and yon, to the four winds as it were, until the fall. This is how it's been explained to me. That is why I have been using this time to edit the book and the sequel. I am still doing that, however now things have gotten to the point where I am not finding any mistakes, simply better word choices. Polishing, which is just as important as the creating, only not nearly as much fun or rewarding.
But back to the beach. Where I go is called Singer Island, which is not really an island but a peninsula, but it looks like an island when you drive to it and that sounds better, so anyway. It was named for the same family that founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company but what actual connection they have to this place eludes me.
I have been going for sixteen years now. When I first started, after finishing my first book in 1993, I could walk on the beach for one hour and twenty minutes. Now I walk from Ocean Reef Park up past the Juno Pier, back to my car for a light fruit lunch, and down to the inlet and back again to the park. This takes me anywhere from seven to over eight hours, depending on how many breaks I take and whether or not I run and for how long.
As I mentioned previously, I also now have a camera and take along my tripod. The tripod is only three pounds but for that long, it starts getting heavy after a while. However, certain shots are just about impossible without it, so it has become a necessary evil.
I go to the beach to get some sun, to chill out and have some quiet time. I also do it for the exercise and to give me some time away from the computer to go over the book, certain scenes that I like and some that I don't. Sometimes I get ideas there, and sometimes I don't, as occasionally I do socialize, as I did with Klara. Sometimes I talk to the girls from the turtle place who scoot up and down the beach on their ATVs, some of whom are more interesting than others, but that is another story. Sometimes I take pictures when something strikes my fancy, as with the baby sea turtles. But mostly what I go to do is observe other people having fun.
Contrary to what anyone may have seen on television or at the movies, fiction is all characterization. Any fool can do plot, and many fools have. If I sound harsh, then I suppose I am. Everyone works in his or her own way and this is how I work.
Also my first agent kept telling me that if the book does get picked up, the way things are nowadays, the publisher wasn't going to do anything and I was going to have to do everything to promote the book, including personal appearances. So I started thinking on my own, well, if I'm going to be seeing people in public and talking about the book, maybe it would be a good idea to get into shape while I can. That was ten years ago. Now the means have become an end in themselves, as along the way I've gotten addicted to exercise and how good it feels. Also I've learned how to cook so that I what I eat is healthy.
I walk on the beach three times a week, weather permitting--Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. I like this schedule. I hope I can keep it.
Allow me to clarify--during the summer and the holidays, the publishing world grinds to a halt--or so I've been told. School's out and people scatter hither and yon, to the four winds as it were, until the fall. This is how it's been explained to me. That is why I have been using this time to edit the book and the sequel. I am still doing that, however now things have gotten to the point where I am not finding any mistakes, simply better word choices. Polishing, which is just as important as the creating, only not nearly as much fun or rewarding.
But back to the beach. Where I go is called Singer Island, which is not really an island but a peninsula, but it looks like an island when you drive to it and that sounds better, so anyway. It was named for the same family that founded the Singer Sewing Machine Company but what actual connection they have to this place eludes me.
I have been going for sixteen years now. When I first started, after finishing my first book in 1993, I could walk on the beach for one hour and twenty minutes. Now I walk from Ocean Reef Park up past the Juno Pier, back to my car for a light fruit lunch, and down to the inlet and back again to the park. This takes me anywhere from seven to over eight hours, depending on how many breaks I take and whether or not I run and for how long.
As I mentioned previously, I also now have a camera and take along my tripod. The tripod is only three pounds but for that long, it starts getting heavy after a while. However, certain shots are just about impossible without it, so it has become a necessary evil.
I go to the beach to get some sun, to chill out and have some quiet time. I also do it for the exercise and to give me some time away from the computer to go over the book, certain scenes that I like and some that I don't. Sometimes I get ideas there, and sometimes I don't, as occasionally I do socialize, as I did with Klara. Sometimes I talk to the girls from the turtle place who scoot up and down the beach on their ATVs, some of whom are more interesting than others, but that is another story. Sometimes I take pictures when something strikes my fancy, as with the baby sea turtles. But mostly what I go to do is observe other people having fun.
Contrary to what anyone may have seen on television or at the movies, fiction is all characterization. Any fool can do plot, and many fools have. If I sound harsh, then I suppose I am. Everyone works in his or her own way and this is how I work.
Also my first agent kept telling me that if the book does get picked up, the way things are nowadays, the publisher wasn't going to do anything and I was going to have to do everything to promote the book, including personal appearances. So I started thinking on my own, well, if I'm going to be seeing people in public and talking about the book, maybe it would be a good idea to get into shape while I can. That was ten years ago. Now the means have become an end in themselves, as along the way I've gotten addicted to exercise and how good it feels. Also I've learned how to cook so that I what I eat is healthy.
I walk on the beach three times a week, weather permitting--Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. I like this schedule. I hope I can keep it.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Book
When I asked Klara to help me with my book, this was not a line. This was the truth. I still need help with it but less so now, as I feel more confidant about it. It is in better shape now than it was a month ago, so if someone asks to see it, it will be more prepared.
Which prompts the question of when something such as this is actually done. Books are an enormous amount of work, so much so that at some point you start asking yourself if the game is really worth the candle. I am to the point now with the first book that it is difficult for me to even look at it any more, let alone enjoy it. I could do some more work on the sequel, but even that is starting to get on my nerves. Which is why I need a diversion.
I mentioned before that I am waiting. What I am waiting for is a response back. This is the really hard part. As much as doing the book wasn't easy and then getting the manuscript in shape was difficult, so too is it practically impossible to not want to rush the process at this point. Which is what gets a lot of people in trouble.
This is why you need a diversion--something else to do. At one point I was doing so much work on the book--because it needed it. Now I've gotten to the point where I need a response--because if I don't get one, that means this isn't going any further and I need to start making alternate arrangements. I can hang, but it's not easy. I see now why some people don't ever want to finish their work--because then it's away from you, much as a child that grows up and moves out on his or her own. Empty nest syndrome. If I can get something going on the first book, I'm sure my interest will pick up again in the second.
Klara was helping me with the book by sitting next to me, following along as I read it outloud. Then she would take a turn reading outloud and would write down words that were unfamiliar to her in her notebook and I would correct her pronunciation when she needed it. A little less than a hundred pages into the book, there's this scene where Carolyn seduces Brandy, but no on-camera sex, so to speak--it's all fade to black. That's when I felt Klara pull back from the book.
We skipped to the end just before she left, but by then the book starts getting complicated, when the subplot merges with the main story, and then just following what was happening became a problem. By the time I got my we're-too-different kiss-off from her, she wanted nothing more to do with me or the book.
She told me her last relationship had been long distance, with her last boyfriend living in Sweden when she lived in the Czech Republic, and maybe she didn't want to go through that again. The nice drive that we were having that one morning when we went to Hobe Sound beach, she did make one comment to the effect that she was going to be leaving soon anyway. I suppose me coming along with her was out of the question or didn't even occur to her. But then I wouldn't have been here to do all the work that I have gotten done. Such then is the mess.
But Carolyn's happy, right? She's got her boyfriend and her time on the island in paradise, so that's all that matters. Again, I'm left holding the bag.
But I can't complain, because I know that there are so many people who wish they could do what I've done and they just can't, for whatever reason. It's easy to fall into the trap of being bitter. I'm not going to do that.
At one point, after reading a part in the book that she liked, Klara asked me about my spirituality. She told me she believed in reincarnation. I countered that if you do believe that, then you have to also believe you're here to do something. I told her I was here to do books and I asked her what she was here to do. She said she hadn't figured it out yet. I told her that was fair.
I know it sounds awfully corny, but when I did the ending for the first book, I felt as though I had done something that I had been born to do. If the book is just for me, because there is nothing out there that it really resembles, then that's what I need to know. We shall see.
Which prompts the question of when something such as this is actually done. Books are an enormous amount of work, so much so that at some point you start asking yourself if the game is really worth the candle. I am to the point now with the first book that it is difficult for me to even look at it any more, let alone enjoy it. I could do some more work on the sequel, but even that is starting to get on my nerves. Which is why I need a diversion.
I mentioned before that I am waiting. What I am waiting for is a response back. This is the really hard part. As much as doing the book wasn't easy and then getting the manuscript in shape was difficult, so too is it practically impossible to not want to rush the process at this point. Which is what gets a lot of people in trouble.
This is why you need a diversion--something else to do. At one point I was doing so much work on the book--because it needed it. Now I've gotten to the point where I need a response--because if I don't get one, that means this isn't going any further and I need to start making alternate arrangements. I can hang, but it's not easy. I see now why some people don't ever want to finish their work--because then it's away from you, much as a child that grows up and moves out on his or her own. Empty nest syndrome. If I can get something going on the first book, I'm sure my interest will pick up again in the second.
Klara was helping me with the book by sitting next to me, following along as I read it outloud. Then she would take a turn reading outloud and would write down words that were unfamiliar to her in her notebook and I would correct her pronunciation when she needed it. A little less than a hundred pages into the book, there's this scene where Carolyn seduces Brandy, but no on-camera sex, so to speak--it's all fade to black. That's when I felt Klara pull back from the book.
We skipped to the end just before she left, but by then the book starts getting complicated, when the subplot merges with the main story, and then just following what was happening became a problem. By the time I got my we're-too-different kiss-off from her, she wanted nothing more to do with me or the book.
She told me her last relationship had been long distance, with her last boyfriend living in Sweden when she lived in the Czech Republic, and maybe she didn't want to go through that again. The nice drive that we were having that one morning when we went to Hobe Sound beach, she did make one comment to the effect that she was going to be leaving soon anyway. I suppose me coming along with her was out of the question or didn't even occur to her. But then I wouldn't have been here to do all the work that I have gotten done. Such then is the mess.
But Carolyn's happy, right? She's got her boyfriend and her time on the island in paradise, so that's all that matters. Again, I'm left holding the bag.
But I can't complain, because I know that there are so many people who wish they could do what I've done and they just can't, for whatever reason. It's easy to fall into the trap of being bitter. I'm not going to do that.
At one point, after reading a part in the book that she liked, Klara asked me about my spirituality. She told me she believed in reincarnation. I countered that if you do believe that, then you have to also believe you're here to do something. I told her I was here to do books and I asked her what she was here to do. She said she hadn't figured it out yet. I told her that was fair.
I know it sounds awfully corny, but when I did the ending for the first book, I felt as though I had done something that I had been born to do. If the book is just for me, because there is nothing out there that it really resembles, then that's what I need to know. We shall see.
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