A Brave New World

January 11, 2013January 13, 2013 / roughwighting / 24 Comments

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–205

Dare I quote Shakespeare while in the same sentence mention Indie Publishing, e-publishing, independent authors, self-published writers, Kindles, Nooks, I-pads, and more?

Darn right I dare.

Shakespeare was a daring writer, pushing convention, taunting enemies and hypocrites, creating love poems between lovers who should never ever be together.

Aldous Huxley used Shakespeare’s quote for his famous 1932 novel A Brave New World. Huxley was inspired by the novels of H.G. Wells (believe it or not, my favorite author when I was in middle school!) and Wells’ imaginings of the future, which tended to be positively gleeful of what was to come. Remember The Time Machine…? War of the Worlds…? The Invisible Man…? Fabulous books for a young girl with an immense imagination.

Okay, yes, somehow I’m connecting the dots between Shakespeare, H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, and Pamela Wight, self-publisher. See my rueful smile here?

But at this moment in time, we are living in a Brave New World. A century from now, readers and writers and publishers (if there still are any) will cite the beginning of the 21^st century as a landmark time of changes in the way we read. In the choices of how and who we read.

As of 3:03 the afternoon of Tuesday, January 8, I became a published writer.

I didn’t use an agent. Nor a publisher.

I created my own publishing company – Near. Perfect. Press.

The company is very NEAR, in my own computer;

The idea of creating and sharing with the world in my own time and my own space is PERFECT;

And when I PRESS the keyboard, I can create words and characters and worlds and then, press, send it out to you and to you and to you.

A Brave New World

That’s not to say it’s easy, self-publishing, pushing the boundaries of the way things always have been, always were ‘meant to be.’

I toiled for years on my just-published book, The Right Wrong Man. My main character Meredith developed over the page (with the scribbling of a pen and the tapping of computer keys) through verbs and nouns and metaphors; through research on the police station in St. Thomas and the biting habits of the tarantula; through reading endless newspaper and magazine articles about drug cartels and the illegal trafficking of meth. Oh, and through draft 2 and draft 22.

And now I’m ready to share my novel, my work of inspiration and imagination, my years-long affair with Meredith and Parker and Gregory, and the story of The Right Wrong Man.

Please join me in my

brave

new

world,

which has such wondrous and beauteous people in it.

To Market, To Market

January 4, 2013January 9, 2013 / roughwighting / 54 Comments

Oh boy, is this hard. I’ll just share with you right now that I am not comfortable writing this post. Okay, here I go, here I go….

I’m almost ready to publish my book, The Right Wrong Man.

The genre? Romantic suspense. But who likes labels? The book is a fun page turner, spell-binding, sexy, with a main character who is flawed (after all, aren’t we all?) and funny at times, clueless at others, and interesting enough that you (the reader) will want to follow her down her own little rabbit hole and see the horrible mess she’s in.

Well, there, that wasn’t so difficult to publicize (also known as hype, tout, flaunt, plug, oh my gosh so many words under “to market”).

I’m a writer, not a promoter. (That’s sort of like saying “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”) I like the idea of taking the high road (you know, I just love the creative process, not the hard-as-nails side of advertising and marketing).

writing process, writing, publishing, marketing, all-terrain highway

The all-terrain highway of writing.

But writing now is an all-terrain highway. The ups, the downs, the writing, the selling.

So I’m proud to shout out I’VE WRITTEN A GOOD BOOK! I love Meredith, my main character. I’m fascinated by the right wrong men in her life, Gregory and Parker. (Or are they the wrong right men?)

Either way, I’ve written the book and edited it and drafted it 2 or 20 or 33 times. My novel has been read and edited and reviewed and critiqued by men and women who all exclaim, “WHAT A GREAT READ!”

The cover is complete, the formatting from Word to Kindle is just about there, and all I need to do now

Is.

Market It!

Ack, but that’s the HARD part.

Can you believe that? Writing a book is supposed to be the most difficult component of publishing.

Making up a character (but truly, that was easy, because Meredith just popped on the page for me);

Finding and following a plot (well, again, I had no idea where Meredith was going, but before I knew it, she flew away from her comfy home in Boston to visit a stranger in a yacht off of St. Thomas and before she knew it…oh, never mind, you have to read the book to find out);

Getting to ‘The End’ (but you know what? The pages just flew on the tip of my pen from page 1 to 286).

Easy peasy.

Just a gallon of sweat, a bucket of blood.

But now, to market, to market.

If you have any suggestions on how to promote The Right Wrong Man, please pass them on.

Just remember, I’m kind of low on blood right now…

Letter to Myself, December 28, 1969

December 28, 2012December 28, 2012 / roughwighting / 22 Comments

To my younger self. (http://murfinc.webs.com/tutorials.htm)

Dear Pam,

Believe, believe, believe in yourself. Truly, you’ve got to believe me in this. (Ha, get it? Believe in yourself/believe in me?).

Yes, we’re one and the same, only I’m you more than 35 years later. Strange, huh?

But you believe in strange things, don’t you?

Trust me when I tell you, you’re beautiful. You’re not fat. You’re not awkward-looking. And you’re not uncoordinated. In a couple of decades, you’ll be running 10-mile road races. You’ll be stretching in amazing yoga positions and walking an hour a day.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. If you wrote a book with that title now, you’d make a fortune! You’re probably puzzled about what that expression means, but basically, continue like you are.

For a teenager, you don’t worry much now except about the large things, like “is something wrong with me because when I look out the window, trees turn gold and white and I feel like I’m flying?” and “am I really an alien who was placed here on Earth to mingle with the creatures from a different planet?”

person flying, teenager, adult talking to teenager, imagination

One way of looking at the world.(http://www.listofimages.com/by-itself-clouds-colorful-island-ocean-reflection-rocks-sky.html)

Keep asking those questions – they’ll entertain you throughout your life. But you’re so right to not worry about whether that red mini-dress is too short, or if Bev is shunning you because her boyfriend Tim pays attention to you. In fact, Tim will leave Bev for you, but that’s another story, and I’m not supposed to tell you your future; I’m just permitted to leave you words of wisdom for that future.

Oh, be nicer to our brother. Chuck is so off your radar now, but pay more attention to him. Decades from now, you two will become good friends, even though you never live near each other, and you’ll fly thousands of miles to vacation together, and go to each other’s kids’ weddings. He’s a good guy. Stop treating him like a door mat.

Here’s another word of advice that will knock your socks off (and by the way, feel those fluffy thick socks you’re wearing now? I’m still wearing the exact same kind of socks while I sit here typing to you, oh so many years later). KEEP ON WRITING. Right now (in 1969), yes, I know you have your diary hidden in our underwear drawer, and those two short stories you wrote are stashed between the third and fourth books on the second shelf of our bedroom bookcase. Guess what? In the future, not only will you stop hiding your writing, you’ll share your stories – personal pieces as well as your fiction – on a public ‘web’ forum for friends, family, and lots of strangers. Okay, Okay, I lost you here, but I’m not lying. Truly.

Finally, your love for our sweet dog Suzie, and her love for you, teaches you to be a good friend, a warm and loving mother, and a faithful companion to several special dogs in your future. Give her a special hug tonight.

And after mom closes the bedroom door, let Suzie hop up and sleep with you.

Happy New Year!

Love from your future self,

December 28, 2012

“It Never Rains in California, but It Pours, Man It Pours” – A Writer’s Tale

November 30, 2012November 30, 2012 / roughwighting / 20 Comments

One of my stories was published in an award-winning book, yet I didn’t attend my reading debut in a California bookstore on a wet Friday November evening.

Sad, but true.

Author Lynn Henriksen had chosen to include my story, “Traveling to the Ocean” in her book TellTale Souls Writing the Mother Memoir: How to Tap Memory and Write Your Story Capturing Character and Spirit (http://www.amazon.com/TellTale-Souls-Writing-Mother-Memoir/). A long title for a smart, emotional guide to writing memoir.

Lynn’s book helps writers of any level access memory and tell true tales in just a few pages. And in each chapter, she adds poignant mother/daughter (or son) stories written by selected contributors.

My story was one of those, in the section entitled “Using Descriptive Imagery.” How exciting is that? And then, to top it off, Lynn asked me to join her and some of the other writers to read at the Catching Spirits Event at Books Inc. in Alameda, a book store known as “The West’s Oldest Independent Bookseller.” (http://www.booksinc.net/Alameda)

So did I send the news to my 500 closest friends?

No.

Did I proclaim my publishing success on Twitter and Facebook?

Well, yes, but just two hours before the event began. I may be a writer, and I may want readers, but I’m still shy about my ‘stuff’ (yes, my fingers shake every week before I hit ‘post’ on WordPress), and I didn’t want people to brave the highways and byways of the East Bay just to listen to little ole me read a story.

I was so glad of that decision when my guy and I left our home an hour and a half before the event. Normally a 45-minute ride, we factored in that (a) we’d be driving in Friday evening commute traffic and (b) the rain was falling hard enough to make my hair frizz, all the better that I’d not encouraged family and friends to attend.

An hour later, we were still in bumper-to-bumper, rain-soaked, slick streets racing (about 3 minutes per hour) toward our destination. Since I tend to motion sickness, I opened the window every so often, allowing sprays of spittle-like moisture to soak my face and my hoped-for straight hair, which now resembled an SOS pad.

7 p.m. The event was beginning, I was supposed to be the first reader, and yet my man and I were still enmeshed in a sea of moving metal bodies. My head throbbed in motion distress, and my stomach thanked me for not eating anything.

Finally, we reached the city of Alameda, sighing that our journey was almost at an end. I texted Lynn to not give up on me. As we got closer to the treasure – the bookstore – I searched desperately for a parking place, seeing nothing but parked cars on the metered spaces and red brake lights in the dark drear night.

We followed directions for a parking garage, two blocks away, and followed a line of similarly wandering souls. Turning into the small garage opening, we drove UP, and around, UP, and around, UP and around, until my head pounded in protest.

“Must be space at the top,” I murmured hoarsely to my man, “look at all the cars coming down the opposite way.”

Well, four more times we went UP, and around, UP and around, until we reached the top, the sky, and not one open space. All those cars we passed going the opposite way? They’d had no luck either. What kind of garage has no sign that says: FULL?

Didn’t matter. At that point in time, my body was full of motion sickness. I couldn’t walk, much less talk or smile or hold a book for sale.

“Take me home!” I croaked.

The rain stopped for our drive back. So did the horrible traffic. In fact, we soared home, and I crawled into bed like a sick child.

But stuck in my head, all night long, was the 1980s tune, “It never rains in California, But it pours, man it pours.”

Songwriters: HAMMOND, ALBERT/HAZLEWOOD, MIKE

Got on board a westbound seven forty-seven
Didn’t think before deciding what to do
Ooh, that talk of opportunities, TV breaks and movies
Rang true, sure rang true …

Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

I’m out of work, I’m out of my head
Out of self respect, I’m out of bread
I’m underloved, I’m underfed, I wanna go home
It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya?
It pours, man, it pours

DAILY PRACTICE

October 5, 2012 / roughwighting / 12 Comments

Back in the old days, people were encouraged to attend to daily prayers. Not just encouraged, bullied into it almost.

So I have a hard time with the idea of a “daily writing.” I’ll write when I damn well please, thank you very much.

But then I think of pianists. They need to play the piano, daily, for weeks and months and years to become merely proficient in their musicianship, much less able to say that they are accomplished in playing the piano.

I watched the New York Open with open-mouthed awe this summer, and listened to the stories of some of these incredible players. Who became incredible by natural ability and then hours of daily practice hitting that damn yellow ball back and forth over the net since they were pre-teens. Day after day, month after month, year after year.

Then I think of my friend, who is training for a marathon, again. She gave herself, and her ailing kidney, a year and a half off from the last marathon, watching her body become sluggish and her figure add the weight she had run off to such effort. Now, six weeks back into daily training, her face is rosy and her step lighter.

Will my writing become rosier, my fingers lighter if I succumb to daily practice? Will I become a more accomplished writer, by forcing myself to put my words on paper (or laptop), every day? At some point in time, will someone read my stories and say “incredible,” because of the extra effort I’ve made in my life, to write daily?

I know what the answer is, damn it.

How about you? Do you practice your craft/hobby/thethingthatrocksyourworld – daily?

TO MY READERS: I’ll miss next week’s blog post due to an important meeting with the newest member of my family, now 2 weeks old and impatient for my visit. But I shall be writing my observations of a New England fall, my musings about new life and life’s renewals, the joy in reunification with the best daughter in the world, and the fear of flying…. DAILY.

baby, newborn, grandson