Ahh, the mystery of the internet, the e-world, the unknown. My first novel, JUST DECEITS: A HISTORICAL COURTROOM MYSTERY, hit #1 on the paid KINDLE list in the legal thrillers category this past week. I’m delighted – it is such a great read – but also somewhat mystified and humbled by the alchemy of the eBook. Here’s a book that came out from a tiny Seattle press in 2008, with NO reviews, NO marketing, nothing, nada, zip – one that in the old lit world would have been deader than last week’s newspaper in the blink of an eye, instead gradually climbing, climbing, like the Little Engine that Could, through the never-out-of-print ranks of the undead eBooks, till BANG-O! with a little help from a few free download promotions, suddenly it takes off. Listen up, dear fellow writers: the primary lesson here is, give away free books! Counter-intuitive, but well worth it. And with eBooks, it’s easier, since after all, they don’t cost anything to give away. I will also add that I’m not even sure that JUST DECEITS is a legal thriller. It certainly isn’t the John Grisham Scott Turow Bob Dugoni type book, since it is a historical novel as well as a courtroom drama. But who cares? It hit #3 in the historical novel category on paid KINDLE downloads, too. So, if you’re looking for a great read – please try JUST DECEITS. & here’s a secret: you don’t even need a Kindle. It is available at Secret Garden Books or on Amazon in old-fashioned trade paperback too. Write on!
How sweet it has been to have our daughter back for almost a month. She’s a freshman at George Washington U, way across the country in that other Washington. It’s a place she’s growing to love, and the place where she’s growing by leaps & bounds. A place to which she returns tomorrow. She’s not independent – it’s all fueled by parental support – but in all other respects she’s now an adult, and we’re simply the booster rockets falling back towards earth. She’ll be doing an internship with the Democratic Governors Ass’n, and a heavy load of credits, followed by summer who knows where – and all we can do is sit back and cheer & worry & be happy for her. In the words of Kahlil Gibran:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Bon Voyage, Nellie! We love you in ways you may someday understand, in ways we do not even understand ourselves . . .
Laid up with a case of 2nd book-itis. JUST DECEITS consistently outsells BONES BENEATH OUR FEET. What do I care? I wrote them both. The good news is that I’ve got a 3rd in the wings, waiting to fly. & like every next book ever written, this one is the very very bestest in the whole wide woild, the next MOBY DICK and HOWL and CUCKOO’s NEST wrapped in one roasted banana peel. A book not yet cooked is such a delightful fantasy – like a lover merely imagined. No inlaws, arguments over money, or hairs in the sink yet. Just the pure platonic form of literature, the great seductress, the oracle that answers all quests. Onward! Spit in the Reaper’s Eye, wink at the void, and have a pretty good weekend too. Hell, it might even snow in Seattle – stranger things have happened.
I just finished OUT OF NOWHERE, a book by Ballard author Peggy Sturdivant and by Robin Abel, mother of Maria Federici, a young woman whose face / life was shattered by a piece of an “entertainment center” that came crashing through her windshield during her commute home from work. This is an excellent journalistic telling of the true tale of a tragedy that spurred rebuilding two lives, and agitating for changes in the law. The offending board came off a poorly-designed U-HAUL open trailer, but the pervasive message is to secure your load on any vehicle as if your own son or daughter were riding in the car behind you.
Next, I’ll return to the refuge of poetry & fiction – I’ve had more than enough reality lately. I’ve been reading outside my comfort zone on behalf of my fellow Ballard Writers. If you are interested in the amazing & diverse talent in our neighborhood, please CLICK HERE.
No, not a new moniker for my altered ego, but a great read written by Ingrid Ricks. Hippie Boy: A Girl’s Story is a wise YA memoir suitable for A’s of all ages. Hippie Boy tells the chilling tale of growing up fundamentalist Mormon and bouncing between EARL the holier-than-thou freeloading stepfather and a Willie-Lomanesque real father, doing endless loops selling bric-a-brac on the road, while dodging the law. All’s well that ends well, and Ingrid today is thriving with a hubby & kids here in quirky Ballard. I recommend her book.
Yes, the misplaced homonym is intended. If we write as an outlet to maintain sanity, why is the writer’s life beginning to drive me insane? I’ll do what I’m sure some writing seminar is built around not doing: give away the answer at the outset. BECAUSE WHAT I’M LIVING IS NOT WRITING; IT’S MARKETING! So fuck that. I learned yesterday from a friend in the know that the best way to build my brand is to give away as many Kindle downloads as I can for free. Digital kindling. Sure, why the hell not; I can embrace the koan that to impart value I have to let go of the idea of value. But even to do this, I have to create passwords and navigate the backpages of some arcane system, when all I really want to do is write. Years ago I went through the workshops that clarify why I write, but I think I got it wrong. It was something lofty about uncovering meaning. The closest I can come to an honest answer today is, to scratch that itch. No one needs an audience for that. In fact, it feels better without one, since it can be damn embarrassing. The writing life provides unique rewards, but they are not financial. The more we stress to measure success in books sold and deals inked, the more writing resembles manufacturing, used car sales, or investment banking. So, as I say at the end of most of my emails, WRITE ON – and leave the rest (in Yeats’ felicitous phrase) to “the noisy set of bankers, schoolmasters and clergymen, / the martyrs call the world.”
I’ve recently spent time among the wonderful – that is, reading AMONG THE WONDERFUL, Stacy Carlson’s wonderful historical novel set in 19th Century New York, at Barnum’s American Museum. Much of the novel follows Ana Swift, “World’s Only Giantess,” and her perspective on life is – well – different, though rich with shared humanity. I didn’t take notes to do a real book review – this is just a fellow historical novelist tipping my hat to a writer I admire. Ms. Carlson (native Seattleite, now living in Oakland says the liner notes), has gotten it oh so right! I recommend it.
Last night I attended the 2nd Annual Ballard Writers’ Book Slam, organized by the incomparable networker / journalist / writer Peggy Sturdivant (Out of Nowhere). What a surfeit of literary talent we’ve got here. I’m not one of those feel-good guys, who says everyone is wonderful. But almost everyone was wonderful! I thought I brought a program home, but I can’t find it, so – from memory – Who’d have thought I’d love a book about Balance, but he sold it. Then there’s Urban Gardening – yuck – I don’t dig dirt, but I dug his prose. Fellow LiTFUSIAN Ann Teplick was intensely stirring, and Ingrid Rick’s Hippie Boy engaging & disturbing. Laura Cooper landed her fish, her man, and her memoir, all in one hand-over-hand yank. Corbin Lewars is always a welcome voice, and I was so touched to have inspired Alison Krupnick to drop all pretense of “quiet desperation” in favor of the writer’s life of noisy desperation & joy – www.sliceofmidlife.com. Donna Miscolta’s When the de la Cruz Family Danced is one of my wife’s faves of the year, and in my to-read pile. Then there were the new sensations – the rapping kids, the poet/novelist to Donna’s left (hello!), and my personal favorite of the newbies, Alma Garcia – look for her tentatively titled fiction of border tension, Shallow Waters, on a bookshelf near you in the coming years. Finally, the old pro (who I’m sure is younger than I am) Stephanie Kallos (Broken for You, Sing them Home) treated us to a snippet from her work in progress, and it knocked my socks off with its free flight of poetic description. Thanks to Secret Garden Books in Ballard (Christy, Suzanne) for supporting this event – shop your local bricks ‘n mortar bookshop. To those I haven’t mentioned – apologies! Don’t worry, nobody reads this blog anyway. I just like to write . . .
OK, the cat puke’s cleaned up, cat bowls cleaned, cats are fed, cat boxes emptied, towels changed, recycling is out, grocery shopping done, and there’s a moment to breathe & blog before mom & the kids show up for Saturday brunch. Carol’s teaching her Saturday morning yoga class, so I’m the chef. How do writers do it, spilling words in the interstices of life? It’s like breathing, another part of living. Weave it in. Draw from the shopping for the writing; draw from the writing for emptying the cat box. OK, that’s bullshit (kitty shit, actually), but it made a nice line. Still, honestly, the real work – things like my historical novel of Puget Sound, BONES BENEATH OUR FEET, or my new novel, or a new poem, do not respond well to constant interruption or the distractions of making a living or the drama of family crises. You have to carve out time; leave things that might otherwise be a priority; go into debt; sometimes even disengage (temporarily!). I wouldn’t want to live with a writer; kudos to Carol for tolerating me. But it can never be Writing versus Life. Writing is life distilled. It is so deeply informed even by the cat box, that we can’t help but improve our voice by embracing the mundane. The rhythmic ebb and flow of the everyday. OK – time to go crack eggs.
So I’m spending Thursday afternoon & evening at A GOOD BOOK on Main Street in Sumner. Sumner is small town. I’m from Vermont; I know small town. City folks embrace every new fad, small town is about never changing. Personally, I think everyone is equally crazy, so count me in. I’m a Luddite with the best of ‘em; I’m a hipster too. Meanwhile, if you happen to be in Sumner, stop by!
