Friday, November 25, 2005
New ways in publishing
An examination of the organisational procedures which are employed by the average publishing company is an exercise which can easily generate enough tedium to cause lifelong paralysis, accompanied by the destruction of the will to live. Hence it is something of a pleasure, and a surprise, to read an article about how one particular publishing company operates which is not only interesting but even, in parts, encouraging. Go here to find it. (Link via booktrade.info.)
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2 comments:
Tedium, paralysis, and snuffing of the will to live --- you didnt' say who would end up with these, the publisher, the editors, the writers, or in the case of some books, the readers. :)
Hello Christopher Willard. Again.
Now I really want to read your book, even as your logo is displayed on my own website. Have you got it up yet?
As for tedium, paralysis or snuffing out of the will to live, we as writers do sometimes inflict irreparable violence to people's sensibilities, and in the end it is a kind of fishing, drawing the reader in. If it's only a shellgame, then no wonder that people in the industry suffer fro m T, P. and Snuffing of the will...
But I am finding, I think, a different way. The short story is dead, of course, but a short story told as the result of life experience, especially when accompanied by a leitmotif of appropriate music to that experience--well, then we have something.
To clarify: Every time I write about the Mississippi Delta blues and my enounter with that form, my sitemeter lights up like a Christmas tree (to coin a phrase).
The magic name of Robert Johnson will generate all sorts of hits from all over, much as the mention of Mick Jagger will probably do the same. It's no wonder the tabloids do so well.
So, take an authentic life experience, try to make a Mass out of it through and appropriate leitmotif, a Handel on it, if you will, and you'll be surprised at what will happen.
Like maybe starting with Ritchie Sambora's
It'a all the same
Only the names are changed
And everyday
We're just wastin' away.
Turn on the TV, a husband says in
an R. Crumb strip.
"Why bother," says the depressed
wife.
I think Robert Crumb had it right.
The "race songs",the blues out of the l920's expressed the pathos of ordinary life in a particularly hot and oppressive place.
think of your own hot and oppressive space and write about it.
But then, I suppose, there are
Florentines bearing gifts...
Ivan
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