"Write what you know." I've gotten a lot more done this way, for certain. As much as I want to write fantastic allegories, I realized I have something personal to say. The strangest, most beautiful moments of my life have something in them for me to remember, and something special to share, which I can't even know until it lands in the hands of the reader. You readers make a new piece of art the moment you read a book, because the way you imagine it, and the thoughts that come to you in the process, are uniquely your own.
Paperback copy : https://www.createspace.com/4788421?ref=1147694&utm_id=6026
Kindle
my links are invisible...whuh? It's on Kindle, I promise.
For example, my grandmother's diary was presented to me, over twenty years after she passed away. I was charmed by the irony of having her words during the time she fell in love with Grandpa---because that was the real impetus for keeping the diary, and that's a blog unto itself--just as I was going to press again with words inspired by me falling in love, too.
That, and we can all laugh about the time I kicked in the apartment door just to impress the girl with me and my sister, because I was carrying a flower for her under my coat and couldn't stand having my groove interrupted by us being locked out. And the time we woke up with guns in our faces.
I've written, honestly, over a million words already in this lifetime: so many stories, essays, articles, interviews, and poems and other nonsense. I really feel called to do it. It's the first thing my partner and sweetheart knew for sure about me: I was born to write. But you can decide for yourself.
Funny thing is, I was very much a skeptic about the supernatural, in any form, probably for the sake of my own sanity, and then...well, something not unlike the core problem in my novel really happened. That's where the Gothic part comes in. The Southern part gives the book its resonant struggle to make peace with free thinking and a conservative Biblical upbringing. I didn't want to go over board rhapsodizing about philosophy, but there it is, amid a plot that owes its pace more to romance novels than Goethe, Kant, or Plato. It's also a good bit more charitable about loving than Nietzsche, although, to be fair, I don't suffer from syphillus.
The very first copies have been purchased, so I've had the neurotic joy of wondering how it measures up, and what curtains I may pull back in the workings of my life and mind. Yet, here I am, unabashedly plugging it! You only need search last summer's blog entries on Be Chill to read all the preview pages you like. Hey, I've got to save SOME of the best stuff, y'know!
(Is it on Kindle? Insert hilarious one-liner indicating "yes," here!) To avoid confusion with another novel that can't possibly be QUITE as good, the Kindle version has its original title, I'd Go Anywhere With You.
It's not my very first book, either, but I feel like it's got breakthrough potential...which would be nice, as I am presently eating gift cans of ravioli and bunking at my in-laws after my travel plans fell apart for now.
Some sample chapters: http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2013/06/id-go-anywhere-with-you-looking-for-sign.html for a romantic scene
http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2013/06/id-go-anywhere-um-its-reverse-first.html for a good laugh
http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2013/06/id-go-anywhere-with-you-lets-do-it-on.html for both
http://ceaseill.blogspot.com/2013/06/id-go-anywhere-with-you-what-is-it-to.html for a taste of the thought-provoking conversations
If you're feeling sad about love, I really think the book could pick you up. If you're trying to recapture the flavor of being young and falling in love, I feel like it's got youthful impetuousness and the dizzying process of abandoning logic, if not reason (because hey, I have it on good authority I chose well. My wife tells me). If you're in the mood for a good coming of age novel, or coming of age yourself, I know these are great working class heroes for you, just trying to do some of the same things you wish you could do, perhaps, yourself.
And if you're feeling philanthropic...may I suggest buying a box of copies to pass out to libraries and friends, as you declare your friendship with this upcoming cult writer who'll be on everyone's lips in twenty years?
Because...I'm out of ravioli.
No comments:
Post a Comment