Earlier this week, I alluded to the fact that I subscribe to several e-services that send me a poem every day. I’m sure that many of you subscribe as well, but I thought I’d provide five representative services for those who have yet to try them.
Enjoy, and have a wonderful weekend. See you back here on Monday!
“Anticipating the Worst” may not be the most uplifting or optimistic phrase I’ve used in any of these pre-publication posts to date. Overall, it’s been a joy and a blessing simply to know that my story collection, Quiet Americans, is going to be published.
But this weekend, as I sat with a printout of the designed book interior, reading through the entire book (aloud) to catch any last glitches (yes, there’s a professional proofer at work as well), I became a bit queasy. What if these stories aren’t quite as good as I’d hoped they were? What if people begin reading and dislike the writing intensely? What if the reviews are uniformly negative?
Admittedly, some of this newfound nervousness may be due to two concomitant factors: this week’s focus on negative reviews in Janice Harayda’s #bkrev tweets, and my visiting a number of book bloggers’ sites and reading their review policies, many of which warn (fairly and honestly) about the possibility of negative opinions.
Then, too, I’m sure it’s natural that as a publication date approaches one simply becomes a little fearful about the book’s reception. Right? Right? Totally normal.
It may be normal, but it’s also nerve-wracking. I’d love some tips from other authors about managing this kind of pre-pub anxiety. Please share–and thank you in advance.
In an interview occasioned by the recent publication of his latest book, The Thieves of Manhattan (on my tbr list), Adam Langer was asked the following:
“Did you meet with early success, in terms of getting your first novel accepted for publication, or was it a long, hard road for you?”
Langer’s response offers this week’s “Quotation of the Week”:
“If I pretended that my first published novel, Crossing California, was actually the first novel I wrote, I’d say that it was easy. I’d say, yup, I finished the book, got an agent, got a contract, and started work on Book #2. But in saying that, I’d be ignoring the fact that my first novel, Making Tracks, a teen detective story written when I was in high school, is still in a drawer. And so is my second novel, It Takes All Kinds, a 300-page long screed about my first week at Vassar. Also, my third novel, A Rogue in the Limelight, a picaresque journey modeled on Huck Finn and The Confederacy of Dunces, never found the right agent, even though some people (well, my mother) have called it my best novel. One of my earliest agents said that my fourth novel, Indie Jones, a slacker comedy set in Chicago’s independent film world, would easily find a home at Doubleday, but that didn’t happen. And I stopped looking for an agent for my fifth novel, an existential thriller called American Soil, when I realized there was too much personal shit in it and I really didn’t want to deal with having it published. But yeah, once I finished Book #6, it was smooth sailing.”
Source: The Huffington Post
(Hat tip to Josh Lambert for the interview link.)
You know how just the other day I alluded just the other day to my friend Deonne Kahler’s recent participation in the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference? Well, DK is now sharing revision tips that she gleaned directly from her workshop leader, Sarah Manguso (apparently, Ms. Manguso calls them “The Thirteen Sieves”).
DK will be sharing one tip per post. She began yesterday with this one. And it’s good.
Follow along, won’t you? I know that I will!
Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday!
Thanks so much to all of you who took the time to comment last week when I presented the cover of my forthcoming story collection, Quiet Americans. I’m so glad that you agree with me: The cover designer has done an wonderful job.
Since last week, lots of behind-the-scenes (or, should I say, behind-the-screens) work has been taking place to build up my brand-new website. I’ve mentioned before that the impending book publication has motivated me to try to consolidate my various online locations/projects/identities. A couple of days ago, the talented web designer I’m working with unveiled a mockup of the homepage. All I’ll reveal for now is this: If you like the book cover, you’ll love the homepage!
The cover is also appearing on the Facebook page I’ve just created to help share information about the book (and hold contests/giveaways). I hope that you’ll “like” that page, too–in all respects! (But please forgive me in advance if I keep my personal Facebook goings-on more or less limited to family members and those of you I’ve met/worked with/studied with/etc. in “real life.” For now, at least.)
Thanks again for the enthusiasm about the cover. It really means a lot to me!