This afternoon, on vacation, sitting at the beach with a cigar in one hand and a notepad in the other, getting a head-start on inscriptions for Charactered Pieces preorders, I was struck with a sense of a realized dream, a dream I didn’t really know I had until that moment. I write fiction for fun. One day, I’d like to make some money doing so. But until then, taking time at the beach to scribble a few words to people who are wanting to read my book…that’s a damn fine dream to have.
I’ve filled this blog (along with my Facebook account, MySpace page, and Twitter feed) with consistent salesy talk for the past few days (though historically I have always taken pride in offering a mix of the personal and the largely-pertinent). So for this post, I simply want to take a moment to thank those who have made me feel like a rock star for the past few hours. Writers, in general, don’t get much adoration, and what they do get, trickles. I embrace the few, don’t get me wrong, but we all have hopes, even subdued hopes, of becoming a household name by means of our passions. I realized today, that wide recognition could be cool, but niche recognition definitely is cool.
Thanks all.
I leave you with a message from nature: we are meant to enjoy cigars at the beach. How else do you explain ashtray-shaped shells and sand that can be easily scooped to shield the lit tip from the wind?
That’s all the bulleted aspects above and 63 pages of some quite fantastic writing. How much? you ask. $7. Seriously, OW Press and I don’t make any profit on this (unless hundreds of copies find their way into the world). You are buying love. Money goes back into making more books.
A chapbook, for all who may not know, is the e.p album of the writing world, acting as a taste medium of things to come. CHARACTERED PIECES will consist of eight stories, four of which have been previously published (in print journals, so not many people have read them).
