You Don't Have to Get in Line for On Line Reading

My publisher has introduced me to some blogs and websites entirely new to me. [Take a look at www.epicauthors.com]. A propos of my request for a time frame for the release of my second novel in paper, she let me know that my concerns over how to publicize an e-book and its potential readership are misplaced. She scolded me for not using my blog to promote my books. It remains to be seen whether Maiden Run, due on line in March can pull in a few more readers than Settling has since it hit the Net a couple of years ago.

More than one blog has hosted discussions on the question of whether a book that must be read on a computer, Kindle, Mobipocket, iPhone, Blackberry, or what have you is really a book. The consensus has been negative. An argument for the convenience of carrying your reading material in something that will fit into your pocket without the weight of one or more packages of paper seems valid. It must be a boon for travelers. It does seem to me, though, that you have to factor in the cost of the device (in the hundreds of dollars) against the (compared to paper) small charge for downloading a book. It's likely that figured in units (like the weight or measure for your groceries) that expense might be easy to justify.

Then there's the question of how easily you can read pages of text and whether photographs or other illustrations are satisfactorily displayed. If you're reading, say, a book about hunting in the Rockies, you're going to care about how the Bighorn Sheep look and you won't want to miss the incredible scenery.

There isn't going to be an easy answer to this debate, or a conclusion any time soon, I'm sure. I'd like to take this opportunity to give a "heads up" to you up-to-date readers and writers about the growing on-line reading opportunities, and ask fiction readers to look out for Maiden Run -- and don't forget that Settling is available on line too from www.WriteWordsInc.com and Amazon, among others like Fictionwise, Coffeetime, All Romance ebooks.

Inspiration or Demoralization?

I'm reading one of John Updike's later books Seek My Face . It's almost a treatise on Art (with a capital A) as well as a penetrating revelation of a woman's inner world as an artist herself and as the wife of an artist, as a member of her socio-economic class and of her time and place. So many layers with so many resonances that it's a little like reading a textbook, even while falling into the space and time of the telling. What a writer Updike was!

Imagine a novel that manages to recall and analyze modern art from the Great Depression up to the present. He doesn't even confine himself to the US. I do wonder whether a reader with no familiarity with the famous names of the period (he uses interesting made-up names for a number of characters, while mentioning Picasso and Manet, Miro and Dali and some others) would understand some of his critiques of lesser-known artists. The thing that amazes me is that it doesn't matter. If you never heard of Gorki, you still get the picture not only of how his work looked, but how an outstanding art critic saw it. The interweaving of art criticism and character delineation is astounding. You keep thinking you're going to be bored any minute, but I couldn't stop reading.

It's hard to decide whether books like this make a would-be writer throw up her hands in despair and quit, or knuckle down to try all over again. I'd love to hear how others react...

How to...?

Have you noticed the upswing in the numbers of books on how to live well, richly, generously, spiritually, fulfillingly...and on and on? Understandable, given the parlous state of the world. I notice one thing, though, when reading their (usually rave) reviews. Most that come from what we like to think of as "ordinary" people (as opposed to clergy or gurus) appear to be intending their words as guides and handbooks to right behavior, and in particular, one writer wants her book to be lessons for her daughters.

These are laudable motives, I grant, but in the last case, since the author has white hair, one must assume that her daughters are no longer children. I have to wonder whether she's really a little too late.

When I was in graduate school, we had to write a paper on sex education in the public schools with emphases on morality and self-knowledge. At the time, my children were all in their teens, or just beyond. I tried to make the point that the schools can do a whole lot more with the teachers' obiter dicta, their unstated attitudes and implied directions than they could ever do in formal lessons. By the time adolescence is well underway or past, it's far too late to try to pass out instructions. The pupils will already have fallen into patterns, made choices (that they may or may not decide to change later), found their comfort zones.

My feeling about some of these instruction manuals intended to help people live with greater awareness and appreciation (as if each had already received a personal, finite time line) may be pretty ineffectual for nine readers out of ten. It has to take a certain degree of hubris to assume you can tell a stranger those things that are coming clear to you now, and a lot too late to instruct your children about them. You should have taken care of them before their ethics, loves, ambitions, attitudes have become set parts of their personalities.

I certainly wouldn't want to put such ideas of mine out for the public because I wouldn't dare to presume to know what would be useful for strangers, and I know it's too late for my children, and not my place for my grandchildren.

I'd make a terrible missionary.

The Trouble with Writers' Conferences...

There are certainly times when it's hard to keep up. The last week was one of them. What I haven't figured out is how to balance my writerly concerns with what's of real consequence in so many other venues! Thank heaven for the promise that seems to glow from the White House. May it shine across all the dark places!

Yet, if any one of us expects to help out anywhere, maybe we have to be giving time and energy to whatever our abilities may be if we hope to develop them. So I try not to get discouraged by the advertisements for upcoming writers' conferences and the guidelines for those who hope to attend. Naturally you can't find one for free, and if you could and it was too far to go in a day or lasted longer than one day, you'd have to pay for food and lodging. Plus the conference fee. And then there's the insistent (and understandable) reminder that every seeker for an agent or editor or advice from an author should have a newly-purchased copy of their objective's book visible before making an approach. While I understand that nothing is available for nothing, that it costs money to persuade the experts to expose themselves to the hoards of wannabes, to provide venues and facilities, there seems to me to be something just slightly off kilter here.

Even the wonderful sponsors of these affairs might be able to offer some kind of discounts or "reduced rates," or other assistance to the people who are sweating it out every day just to get the validation even a tiny recompense might provide them if only they could sell something they've produced. I guess what gets to me is that so much of the time, it's necessary to stroke the egos and extol the reputations of the people who are supposed (by advertisement) to be there to help, seemingly with so little thought of the people who have come to receive that help.

One of the most stimulating, inspiring, exciting events of my life was a writers' conference I attended almost exactly 20 years ago. My husband figured I could have the car for the requisite 3-day weekend, and we'd manage the room and board somehow. Thank goodness there were "scholarships" offered in each classification. Being granted one on the basis of a story I submitted made it possible for me to go.

If I could, I'd go to a conference every year just for the incredible high of being among others with similar aspirations and to get the experts' help. Ironically, my scholarship story was critiqued (for perhaps ten minutes) by a then prestigious author, whose only comment I recall was that it was too sentimental. When I sold that story a few months later, I began the slow process of coming to the realization that you simply can't tell what will sell or to whom. What you can do, and it seems to be the only thing you can do unless you have plenty of disposable income, is to find somebody who will read it--your poem, your story or stories, your novel, your memoir. If only people could read it, there would almost certainly be somebody out there who would be glad they did.

Which brings me back to this: the blog, the network, the word-of-mouth and the sympathetic ear. My great regret is that I didn't figure this out 30 years ago, or try it 20 years sooner.

The writing life; professional editing; subsidy publishing; e-books

January already, and not only do I not have any resolutions (I refuse to make public anything I know I can't keep up), but I believe I've re-made an old resolution, which was never to pay to have something published. I turned down a deal that offered to put out my book--for a price.

Thanks to a friend who has adopted me and my faltering ambitions for quite some time now (thanks again, Glenda), I've been introduced to someone who might be able to help. So my third novel will get the attention the first two should have had. An experienced (and from her correspondence, I deduce a sympathetic) editor will see what can be done to help me find an agent. Twice before I've sought and used such help, but frankly, the assistance wasn't really what I knew I needed. Let's hope this time it will be different.

I also have a new contract from the publisher of my first book. The initial publication will be as an e-book, which is better than nothing without any question. It's just that I'm too old to appreciate it until I see it in print on paper. Even if I could afford a Kindle, I find it difficult to imagine I could enjoy reading that way--at least as much as I do with a book in my hand. We all need to get over that, of course.

So if the New Year can make us who feel we have to keep writing ready to face into the wind yet again, it's a good thing. Maybe someone's inspired word will help someone somewhere to weather even a few of the storms shaking our poor world just now.

Holiday Greetings

Yes, it's really too busy to write blogs--and certainly too busy for anyone to bother reading them. Still, maybe after the tinsel is no longer shiny, I will want to feel I've kept up anyway.

There's almost nothing to be said of the season that hasn't already been better expressed by a legion of others. So my comment is only that we try to keep in mind the basics and be grateful.

So the view has to be forward with hope. Merry Christmas! Best hopes for the new year for the whole planet and all who inhabit it.

My Mother Taught Me...

Odd things come to mind sometimes. Today as I struggled to put on a pair of socks tightened by washing, I remembered that my mother taught me how to turn the sock inside-out down to the heel so it was the shape of a mule, insert foot, and pull till the toes reach the end, then unfold the instep and cuff and pull them up to the ankle.

That led to the memory of trying to get socks onto kicking baby feet. We needed socks in a cold New England winter, but I might have given up without that trick my mother taught me.

I wonder what special helps you learned from your mother. Kitchen hints would likely top the list, but what about other domestic things? And what would be much more interesting: what did you learn about how to make judgments, how to deal with incompetent and/or rude sales clerks and airline ticket agents, how to figure out what to make of the remark you overheard at a party or that was tossed your way by someone you thought was a friend? Did she help you to decide what to say to someone bereaved, or have a mantra to help dispel a disappointment?

We could compare notes right here, if you feel like replying.