I have restarted the sequel to Earth, the Musical; and I am thoroughly enjoying myself. I just put down the fourth volume of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time. His writing and, perhaps most of all, the depth of his observation of human character and spirit simultaneously intimidate and inspire me. I do not possess his ability to distill both the superficial and underlying qualities of a person, let alone a place, which should be much easier since places don't, short of an earthquake, move and often don't change (certainly not in the length of time that one observes them in one sitting, assuming one is not watching a place during an earthquake). But, if you look at my previous sentence, you may surmise that I have fallen under Proust's influence. Yes, I've always(?) been one to write longer-than-USA-Today-length sentences (a comma here, a semicolon there, a dash, a parentheses — thank heaven for multifaceted punctuation!). But I am more interested in gaining Proust's powers of observation. As it is, I cannot recall where I met someone who does not even look familiar but who seems to know who I am, whether they have cut their hair or suddenly started wearing glasses, or whether they are driving a new car (unless, of course, they haven't removed the dealer's sticker from the window, which, thankfully most people know to do these days — thank heaven for WD40). As I was reading Proust this evening, it occurred to me as I was reading his notation of someone having a red nose and a somewhat recent conversation I had with a friend who is a painter who mentioned that noses are inherently red (that is, redder than the rest of people's faces) that he must also possess powers of observation keener than my own. And so, I have decided to ask him to teach me the finer points (if such points can be taught/learned, which I assume they can). Meanwhile, I will rely on my power of imagination to get me through. That's one of te advantages of writing fiction: You can make anything up.
7/19/10
The following relates to my book signing experience on 7/15/10.
Note to self: Bring dancers!
It’s
mid-July in Palm Springs. The temperature at 7 p.m. is 106 degrees; but instead
of the dry heat for which the desert is known, an early-season monsoon has shot
the humidity level to 36 percent. By midday, the typically resolute sun had
decided to play a trick (or clouds had decided to play a trick, depending on
how you view these things). By 4 p.m., the statuesque palm trees, even in
mountain-harbored downtown, were, to quote an evening newscaster, “bending like
Beckham.”
I
thought the book signing I’d scheduled at the weekly street festival might have
to be canceled when someone told me there had been thunder and lightning at the
south end of the mountain range. But the wind died; and the ground, if not the
air, remained dry.
So
at 6:45 p.m., I began setting books out on a table and taping a “Book Signing”
sign on the front edge (as if someone sitting at a table with a stack of books
and a pen didn’t pretty much get the message across). I turned on the music —
the soundtrack to Earth, the Musical — and awaited my first customer.
Unfortunately
(oh, what an unfortunate word to be required to use), I was unable to man my
table from the street, where all the street festival vendors line up. The store
hosting my book signing did not have a festival permit, I learned upon arrival;
so I would have to stay on their patio on the inside side of the sidewalk. To
make matters worse, the northernmost vendor was — again, in the street —
about 25 feet south of me.
Snowie
sold crushed ice that customers could then paint with one of six flavored
syrups (or multiple flavors, as the non-color-field “painters” preferred to do)
from a help-yourself dispenser. I watched people drench their pristine ice with
so much sugary goo that it made me all the more thirsty for water.
But
back to the dancers.
I
turned the music up in an attempt to draw attention to my alcove. But people
failed to take notice. It occurred to me that what I needed — what I really needed — was a dance crew on the sidewalk.
I
walked into the store that was hosting my signing and asked if I could borrow
some paper (though, in truth, I had no intention of returning any sheets I
wrote upon). The girl at the counter handed me a yellow pad — you know, the
5-by-7 kind for people who don’t have a lot to say. I say that not with an air
of ingratitude (after all, I should have brought my own paper!), but rather
just as an observation.
When
I returned to my table, I wrote the “Note to self” (above). Then I realized
that having paper in front of me and actually writing on it with a pen might
give passersby a positive impression — as though the author of the book on the
table was embarking on “the next Great
American Novel.” Never mind that I always do my writing on a computer or that
the pad was, as noted, really a note pad and not a pad for lengthy exposition.
So
I started jotting down my observations about the people who passed by, who
never drifted beyond the portable snow cone shop (which was, oddly, to my way
of thinking, decorated in tropical fashion with raffia fringe and bamboo
instead of encircled by plastic penguins or anything else that conjures up an
image of ice). I find it disconcerting that people can pass by Thomas Dolby’s “She
Blinded Me With Science” without smiling.
Finally,
three women stop in front of my table. But they don’t even look at the books.
“Which
direction are restaurants?” one of them asks. I inform them that they could
find a place to eat in either direction. Then I decide to be more helpful.
“What
kind of cuisine are you interested in?”
“Italian
or a steakhouse.”
I
point the three women south, recommending an Italian restaurant in that
direction, but adding that there’s also an Italian restaurant to the north. I’m
not sure how much help that is, but they thank me and start heading south.
I
concentrate on looking friendly. I smile winningly (at least, that’s how I
perceive my smile, not having a mirror to confirm that description). I do a
little bouncing to the music in my chair in an attempt to exude enthusiasm — or,
at least, to suggest that the sign on the front of my table, which describes Earth,
the Musical as “the first book you
can dance to!” is accurate.
Neither
the smile nor the bouncing seems to do the trick. Yeah, the dancers. I
definitely need dancers.
The
soundtrack reaches OMG’s “How Bizarre,” and I find myself, as I look across
this disconnected sea of humanity, agreeing. Indeed, I find myself singing
along, “How bizarre, how bizarre, how bizarre.”
That’s
when I decide that I’m not entirely wasting my time. I’m actually participating
in an experiment in people-watching. I wonder why the blonde in short shorts
and a tank top is wearing knee-high leather boots in 36-percent-humid 106
degrees.
As
for me, I’m thinking I should have brought bottled water — or, better yet, a
bottle of wine. Too bad I don’t have an iPhone — or at least text messaging.
Then again, that would make me look as disengaged as all the disengaged people
I’m hoping to engage.
After
35 minutes, I decide there’s no way I’ll make it to the street fair’s
three-hour terminus.
At
7:45, a man (I’m guessing he’s in his late 60s or early 70s) stops. He says he
is dyslexic and, therefore, does not read. But he stays and chats a few
minutes, and I am grateful for his time. He has purchased a bottle of juice
from one of the street fair vendors that he says is not only tasty (the vendor
offers samples), but also filled with healthy ingredients. He says the bottle
cost $10, and I tell him that I’ve seen acai juices being sold for three times
that. He offers to go down the street and buy one for me. It doesn’t occur to
me that I could hand him $10 and never see him again. He seems sincere. But I
don’t want to spend $10 for juice and tell him I’d prefer to try it first. He
then offers to go get one of the samples and bring it back to me. I thank him
and tell him that I will probably wander down the street myself before the end
of the evening. He wishes me good luck selling my book — and I believe he
really does.
A
quarter-hour later, another man says “Hi” as he walks by. Then, apparently
feeling guilty, he walks back a few paces (not quite to the table, but within
speaking distance) and says, “Sorry, I’m just not into it tonight,” indicating
that “it” means a book signing. “That’s OK,” I reply. “Thanks for saying hi.”
My charm seems to win him over. “What’s it about?” he asks, indicating “it”
means my book. I tell him it’s a romantic comedy science fiction adventure
musical. He says he hopes it gets published. I respond that it is published
(though I deem it inappropriate to go into details). I stretch out my hand with
one of the business cards showing the name of the book, my nom de plume, and
the web address. “Check it out,” I recommend. He steps forward to take the
card; possibly he says, “OK, I will,” but I don’t recall. He may throw the card
away, but you never know — even when you think you do.
Another
10 minutes later, a younger man stops to talk. He calls my book “cute” and says
he likes to read but doesn’t have the time. He actually picks up one of the
books and opens it to a random page, reading one sentence (or actually, a part
thereof). Then he flips to another page and reads another partial sentence. He
asks if I like the characters.
“Yes,
I like them very much,” I reply, not sure what — if anything — he’s getting at.
“I
bet they’re based on people you know, aren’t they?”
“Yes
they are.” I say, “a bit of me and bits of people I know.”
“That’s
great. I don’t like it when writers just make up people.”
I’m
not sure what to say next. Perhaps if I’d had that bottle of wine on hand, I’d
have been inclined to wax on philosophically about the writing process and
character building. No matter, he just seems to want to talk — not necessarily
about my book, which he has since replaced on the tabletop.
He
offers that he’s been installing cedar panels from Alaska on a shopping center
being built in Palm Desert. He further tells me that he had his own successful
business in Hawaii installing copper gutters.
“I
should go back,” he says, explaining that he can live there easily catching
fish. I ask if he sells the fish.
“No,
but I can catch enough fish for myself.” He adds that he has a place on the Big
Island that only costs him $250 a month in rent. I ask what brought him to the
desert, and he tells me it was his younger brother’s wedding, which “didn’t
work out.”
“You
mean he didn’t get married after all?”
“No,
he got married. But I got disinvited.”
He
tells me he got that news from his mother. I don’t ask for details. It’s not my
business what he (allegedly) did wrong to warrant such an action. He tells me
he grew up in Southern California and is a native.
“I’m
part Cherokee,” he says, turning “native” into “Native.” But having just stated
that he grew up in Southern California leads me to believe he also means “native.”
I don’t point out that the local Native Americans are Cahuilla Indians, not
Cherokee. Then he adds that he’s also part Portuguese, which is why he’s able
to understand the native Hawaiians. Then he confirms that he may go back to the
islands.
During
our conversation, he lifts the front of his shirt up to his chin, apparently to
give his skin unfettered access to the humid heat. I could suggest he visit
Snowie for a cool-down, but at least I’ve got someone to talk to.
Eventually he’s ready to move on. He
looks at the author’s name on the book cover.
“Your
name is Jan?”
“Yes.”
“That’s
cute.”
Again,
I’m at a loss for words, other than to say, “Thanks.” So I hand him my card and
tell him to check out the website. I suspect he’ll lose it before he has the
chance (not that he would take the chance).
I
sit alone again for some time. Then two ladies stop and introduce themselves as
Wendy and Virginia and ask about the book. The question seems to be posed more
out of courtesy than interest, but I do get them to take my card. Wendy
promises to check out my website. They’re on their way, a short distance south
of where I’m sitting, to a new bar, which I endorse even more wholeheartedly
than I did the Italian restaurant (after all, I don’t point out to them that
there are also bars to the north).
My
next visitors are a couple of girls wearing red aprons handing out paper menus
to a new Lebanese restaurant just around the corner from where I’m sitting. I
take one and notice that “hummus” is spelled “hommus,” but they’re already down
the street by Snowie, so there’s nothing to be clarified or corrected.
I’m
getting ready to pack it up when I see two friends on the street. They come
over and we talk. They buy a book, which I sign. After a while, they indicate
their intention to go to a Chinese restaurant around the corner and down a
block. I mention that there’s a new Lebanese restaurant even closer. I also
mention the new bar in the other direction. They depart in the direction of the
bar. I momentarily entertain the notion of heading to the bar myself. Instead,
I pack up the books and music and head to my car, which is parked between the
Lebanese and Chinese restaurants. It’s 9 o’clock and I’m thinking of taking a
shower when I get home. But I don’t. I pour myself a glass of strawberry
lemonade ice tea and sit down in front of the television until 10 o’clock, when
the street fair is scheduled to end.
The morning after …
As I eat my oatmeal and
peanut butter, I read in the newspaper that Apple has announced a news conference
for the morrow to address widespread complaints over its iPhone 4. The article
goes on to say that the device may be jinxed because the number 4 is regarded
as unlucky in China, where the device is manufactured. CEO Steve Jobs himself
had trouble connecting with the Internet at the phone’s unveiling a month
earlier. Now, he would, it seemed, appear before the press to show an
uncharacteristically contrite face. If I had text messaging on my own phone, I
might have broadcast a Twitter: “Note to Steve Jobs: Bring dancers!”
7/6/10
I have begun reading The Museum of Eterna's Novel by Macedonio Fernandez of Argentina (mentor of Jorge Luis Borges). He started writing it in 1925 (at the age of 51) and was on the fifth draft when he died in 1952. It was not published until 2008, and the English translation came out this year. The book contains multiple prologues. In one of them, Fernandez states, "It would behoove a novel that wants a readership ... to begin its narrative with an accident, or a good screeching of brakes. The public gathers at such places in such numbers that nowadays lots of books would like to have the same readership as the average fender-bender." A clever point Fernandez makes; Earth, the Musical, I think, would like to have the same readership as the average tweet by Ashton Kutcher, who has more than 5 million "followers." I'm not one of them; I'm just not into Twitter. But, hey, if you are among the 570-some Twitterers Ashton Kutcher is following, how about plugging Earth, the Musical? I understand he has a few Hollywood connections. Thanks in advance.
6/28/10
I will be signing books at Palm Springs VillageFest, the weekly street fair in downtown Palm Springs, on Thursday, July 15 (7-10 p.m.). Look for me in front of Crystal Fantasy on Palm Canyon Drive just south of Amado Road. Summer nights are great for getting outside and strolling the vendor booths; and summer days are meant for reading, of course! On another note, not totally unrelated if you get where I'm coming from in writing Earth, the Musical, there's a new documentary coming to the theater called The Nature of Existence. Director/producer Roger Nygard came up with “the toughest 85 questions he could think of” and then traveled the globe posing those questions to spiritual leaders, scientists, and others with particular philosophical bents. I looked at the questions and decided to try my hand at the ones under the “Existence” category:
Why do we exist?
This, I think, is the most fundamental of ALL questions (more fundamental, if you think about it, than "What is the meaning of life?"). If I could actually answer this question, people would walk hundreds of miles — barefoot, if need be — to simply be in my presence. As it is, there's no line at my front door. And, really, I'm not sure there is an answer to this question.
What is the best thing about existing?
Pizza and a great bottle of wine.
What is our purpose?
See "Why do we exist?" above.
Is the world a better place for having had humans in it?
That depends on how you define "a better place." Certainly humans have waged war, damaged much of Earth in the process of inhabiting it, and even cluttered space with our "trash." But humans also have written beautiful words, painted beautiful pictures, and played beautiful music. How do you measure the bad versus good to come up with a plus or minus answer? Even the most superduper computer couldn't tally the considerations, because they continually change. So the answer could be "Yes," "No," "Yes," "Yes," "No," "No," "No," ....
How can we improve humanity?
See "What is the best thing about existing?" above.
What is the best advice or philosophy for living?
To borrow from Google's corporate mantra, "Do no evil."
I look forward to watching the movie when it hits Camelot Theatres in Palm Springs on July 23 to see how close my answers come to the ones given in the film. I've a gut feeling that I may be singular in my answer about pizza and wine. If so, I'll probably conclude that Mr. Nygard just didn't interview the right people.
6/20/10
This week, I finished reading Dolly Dialogues (1894) by Anthony Hope. I'd like to say that Earth, the Musical is the funniest novel I've ever read. However, Dolly Dialogues earns that distinction (granted, a distinction that probably means less then a Nobel, Pulitzer, Hugo, or other book award; but, given my own high standards for literature, I feel confident in noting my endorsement). Now, however, I am returning my attention to Proust. I am in the third volume of In Search of Lost Time (The Guermantes Way). While I thoroughly enjoyed Hope for entertainment value, I thoroughly enjoy Proust for artistic value. I feel sad thinking that he probably would never make today's best-seller list, because the plot moves at a snail's pace and descriptions of one place unfold over several pages. However, the poetry cannot be beat. Here's a small slice of his description of sleep: "The resurrection at our awakening — after that beneficent attack of mental alienation which is sleep — must after all be similar to what occurs when we recall a name, a line, a refrain that we had forgotten. And perhaps the resurrection of the soul after death is to be conceived as a phenomenon of memory." That sort of writing drives me. Perhaps I should have lived a couple of centuries ago. Of course, then I'd (most likely) be dead now. That, I hope you would agree, would be a sad state of affairs. While I supposedly have your attention, check out a couple of new reviews of my book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Earth-Musical-Jan-St-Louis/dp/1608440427 I got two new reviews this week.
6/5/10
While cleaning up some papers, I ran something that I had not previously included in my book club/reader's guide (I just rectified that under the Act 12 section). It was an account of a killing in Orrville, Alabama, on Dec. 12, 1998. A famous Elvis impersonator, Jimmy Ellis, was killed by a robber with a sawed-off shotgun who burst into a pawn shop where Ellis and his wife were at the counter (she also was killed). It's tragic, yes; but it's also oddly coincidental, given the importance of the Elvis persona in Earth, the Musical: Wearing a mask, Ellis performed under the name Orion. I'm amazed how many times I ran across "connections" between people, times, places, and things that fit something I had written in the book. I ran across the Ellis story during an Internet search for songs.
5/30/10
Yesterday, Michael, my friend who has a program to edit MP3 files, helped me create an excerpt from my interview with Tony Kay on Artist First Radio. I find it very difficult to listen to myself — especially repetitively, but that shouldn't stop you from listening. You don't have to listen repetitively, though I'll nominate you for sainthood if you do. Anyway, an excerpt of what I think were the most relevant points from the interview is on the home page.
5/8/10
Sure I could have been drinking margaritas (salt, on the rocks) on Cinco de Mayo, but instead I rushed home from work for an interview on Artist First Radio. I'll post an MP3 file excerpt soon. On the whole, it went well. Tony Kay is an excellent radio host/interviewer. But I misspoke a point or two in my exuberance, and that plagued me in the aftermath. I could go on about that, but I try very hard to move on. It's a struggle for me every day; I'm the world's poster child for second-guessing. Let's take, oh I dunno, how about today? I started repainting my house. I did not choose timid colors to begin with, but when I started applying the main color to a wide swath of house front, I wondered if my neighbors might form a lynching mob. It's called Rosetti Pink. Just wait until they find out my trim color is Deep Sea Diving. My point here isn't merely about what color I chose to paint my house, but really about how we live our lives. When I started painting this morning, I wondered what the h__ I was thinking when I selected my paint color. Then I realized that if I wasn't a bit anxious about the color, I only would have only been doing what everyone else does, and that's not very exciting. So love the color of my house or hate it. I doubt you'll feel ambivalent. And that (ambivalence) is the last thing I want people to take away from me or my writing.
4/19/10
My library presentation went fabulously. The feedback I received immediately afterward and in some e-mails made my heart sing. Jorie Parr wrote a great article on my reading for the Notes From Palm Springs website, and Gordon Parr took photos (finally, a profile shot that hasn't sent me running for cover).
4/14/10
I'm scheduled to do a reading/presentation/book signing at the Palm Springs Public Library this Saturday beginning at 2:30 p.m. I've been preparing what I would talk about and just last night changed my mind about the excerpts I will read. I've been practicing reading aloud. One of the excerpts I decided against included the word "cryptonigramorphometry" (twice!), and my tongue tripped over it every time. It's harder to select excerpts than one would think. You have to think about what will make the most sense without having to explain the scene at great length, you have to find passages that are an appropriate length with logical beginning and end points, and you have to avoid words such as "cryptonigramorphometry." That, by the way, is not the longest word in Earth, the Musical. That honor goes to "floccinaucinihilipilification," a word I've always wanted to include in something I wrote and actually found a way to do so. It was one of those words I discovered in the dictionary when I was looking up something entirely different and marked with a bookmark — just waiting for the opportunity. That's one thing about writing fiction. You can always find a way to introduce a word or a notion. Why someday I may just gather all those little scraps of papers with such words and notions and see if I can build a book around them.
3/24/10
I finally signed up for a Facebook page, though I have not yet invited anyone to "friend me." I still prefer what I consider the more proper verb "befriend," but I also recognize the need to adopt the terminology used by the Facebook crowd, which is, I guess, just about everybody on Earth — and possibly other places (you'll understand that if you read/have read Earth, the Musical). Anyway (now, there's a really useful word: six letters that rein in sidetracks without a lot of other transitional rhetoric), I have only worked on my "personal information." I'm certainly not going to divulge my home phone number, my financial records (stay back, blippy), what personal-care products I use, or even my favorite color (pink). Fortunately, Facebook asked me to name my favorite books. Here's what I wrote: "Earth, the Musical, of course. Others: At the risk of sounding pretentious, I think Marcel Proust is probably the best writer I've ever read, though I know most people these days don't have the patience (or attention span) for his paragraph-long sentences and pages-long descriptions. Too bad, because there's so much to be learned and appreciated in his style and thinking process. Still, I have to grant that his plotting is slow and not exactly exciting. Among the best story tellers/writers, I enjoyed J.R.R. Tolkien's and Douglas Adams' series; Paul Theroux's and Bill Bryson's travel stories; adventures such as The Worst Journey in the World, Seven Years in Tibet, Into Thin Air, Endurance, and A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush; Henry Miller's Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch; and Sam Savage's Firmin. I was sorry when Neal Stephenson's 900-page Anathem ended, but didn't care for another book of his I read. I have lots of books on my shelf that I've used for reference (not being an astrophysicist myself); among the best are those by Marcus Chown and Neal DeGrasse Tyson. Then there's my friend Phil Polizatto's marvelous writing in Hunga Dunga." So there you have it. But remember, my favorite color (pink) is our little secret.
3/1/10
My copyright Certificate of Registration arrived in today's mail. While that may not be reason for you to celebrate (unless you're desperately looking for just about any reason to celebrate), it does amuse me. The funny thing isn't how long it took to get it or the fact that there's a line on the registration reading, "Correspondence: Yes" (whatever the heck that means and why the U.S. Copyright Office deemed it important enough to include on my registration). Perhaps it refers to the e-mail I received last month that included the following: "From the title, Earth, the Musical, this may be a Performing Arts work." I thank the Registration Specialist in the Literary Division who not only took the time to consider the title of my work, but also gave me the opportunity to suggest that I have written "performing arts." To top it off, I received a letter in the mail a couple days ago from an independent record label "regarding [my] compositions" and inviting me to send my songs to be reviewed for a CD project. It tickles me (hee hee) to think that, at least perceptually and conceptually, I've crossed the line between words and music.
2/27/10
The reading referred to in my 2/15 post will air on www.audiobookradio.net for two weeks beginning March 1 at 12:16 and 6:16 p.m. and a.m. Greenwich Mean Time. Based in the United Kingdom, this Internet radio station runs a six-hour schedule 24/7 and changes every two weeks. You can also download audio books on the site. I'll also be appearing on a Palm Springs-based radio program, the Joey English Show, on March 21. Joey's show runs from 4 to 6 p.m. on KNEWS, 970/1140/1250 AM and 94.3 FM or streaming on the Internet at www.knewsradio.com.
2/15/10
My friends Michael and Phil came to my house yesterday to help me with a reading/recording of Earth, the Musical excerpts for an Internet radio station. Michael brought lots of professional recording equipment; Phil brought his reading skill (I'd heard him read from his own book, Hunga Dunga, and been impressed). Before Phil arrived, I practiced reading an excerpt and discovered that the words I'd thought looked so good near each other on the page and sounded so good together in my head were a true test of the tongue. Phil confirmed as much after getting tangled up in them himself. With a little repetition and a little editing by Michael, we could come up with an acceptable reading (Phil read as narrator and Rollie, I as Silvie, and Michael as Trebla). My second discovery was a bigger hurdle: the frequency of airplanes (I live near a commercial airport, private airport, and air museum with demonstration flights on Sunday afternoons) was greater than I realized. After a couple of hours, we decided to take a break, make (and eat, of course) a pizza, and then return to recording when at least commercial air traffic would drop (that is to say, not that the planes would drop from the sky but that the number of flights would decline in evening hours). Michael will still need to do some editing, as each of us alternately stumbled on a word here or there. I have no idea whether the radio station will actually air the results (if it does, I'll post an announcement), but I learned a lot about reading aloud. You have to make the right selections, you have to read slower than you actually read, and you have to practice. By the way, if you want to read an excellent book (in addition to mine, of course), check out Hunga Dunga by Phil Polizatto. It's smart, entertaining, thoughtful, funny, enlightening, and well crafted.
2/7/10
"Just fancy, the sister-in-law of a friend of mine has had the telephone installed in her house! I confess that I’ve indulged in the most barefaced intrigues to get permission to go there one day, just to speak into the instrument. It’s very tempting, but rather in a friend’s house than at home. I don’t think I should like to have the telephone in my establishment. Once the first excitement is over, it must be a real headache." The preceding is from Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time: Within a Budding Grove. The last sentence, in particular, captures my feeling about how complicated technology has made our lives while trying to simplify them. I'm not an early adopter. Certainly, the Kindle has complicated my life, even though I don't have one. But I've hashed that out in earlier posts. For now, I'm thinking about the fact that I dropped my old Motorola cell phone this week and am afraid to turn it off for fear I will be unable to turn it on again. I've dropped the phone before (plenty of times) and once dropped it in a sink with dishwashing liquid. It survived previous mishaps admirably. But last week, it said, "Enough!" When I picked it up off the floor (I was attempting to answer it when it jumped from my fingers), the screen was blank. I had trouble turning it back on, but it did eventually light up. However, after I subsequently turned it off, I had trouble getting it back on again. Now I am researching my options. iPhone? Droid? I don't want an iDoeverything (a device in Earth, the Musical). When I was looking for my current phone, I thought I wanted an in-phone camera. I used it to make a custom screen saver and that's about it. And I don't want to have to add to my budget the equivalent of a car payment every month for a bundle of services that could be cool but that I probably wouldn't utilize to full effect. Yet I feel "left behind in the dust" when I see how other people use their handheld devices to navigate their way through the day. I guess I am of like mind with M. Proust: "Once the first excitement is over, it must be a real headache." If you agree, you may appreciate ETM's Act 27 (Where's the Orchestra) in which Silvie can't escape interruption because she forgot to turn on the RFID scanner in her iDoeverything.
1/24/10
A third review has been posted on Amazon (five stars!), and it has left me feeling as though I could make my own trip to Orion's Belt sans spaceship. I am eternally grateful to these early reviewers, who have captured the essence of what I hoped to convey in my book. To have other people enjoy, understand, and appreciate what I have written is the greatest reward I can imagine. Of course I want the book to make money. But the comments and endorsements of these readers have touched my heart in a way that I never dreamed would happen. I am encouraged by them further to work diligently in my marketing efforts. As for the Kindle project, which I have continued to work on with little success, I am putting it on hold for at least a few days, as Apple is scheduled to unveil its new e-reader tablet on January 27, and word has it that it will be a game-changer. What's needed, of course, is an e-format standard. I just hope the gloom-and-doom predictions about the death of good literature and the economic viability of having a writing career are wrong. Alas, things are already headed in a direction that has seen the closure of print media outlets. The key will be to rise like cream -- but even that metaphor is dated. Oh, to be a writer in the days of someone like Proust. He comes to mind because I am currently reading the second volume of In Search of Lost Time. I find his prose inspiring, though I know the length of his sentences would never be tolerated in modern literature. The protagonist writer in Earth, the Musical jokes about the length of his sentences making him akin to Charles Dickens. One can only imagine what he would have thought of Proust, but he hadn't read Proust (because, of course, I had not yet read Proust when I wrote that scene). I suspect a reference to Proust will make it into the sequel, as will another name that caught my fancy in a newspaper article yesterday: Dartagnan. Now who would ever have thought people in the 20th century would have named their child after a 17th century musketeer (even without the apostrophe)? This gentleman's last name was appropriately long and historically distinguishing to make the combination work. I may have to track him down.
1/16/10
My first two reviews have been posted on Amazon, and I'm proud to say they are both five-star ratings. I am continuing the marketing push, but took the luxury of simply writing last night. I started a sequel to Earth, the Musical almost immediately. But I had to set it aside for the demands of my full-time job, freelance writing assignments, and work getting ETM into print — and now marketing. But I could not brush aside the inspiration of a couple of elements that came together like magic. One came, appropriately, in the form of a new song by my friends and incredibly talented blues artists Kal David and Lauri Bono. Then I read a newspaper article about the head of Walt Disney Studios being ousted; it was his name — Oren Aviv — that grabbed my attention. A little research on Aviv and Disney and I discovered a fit with the song that struck me as sheer elegance. Now I must return my attention to converting Word text into Kindle text. Most of it is OK, but Kindlespeak abhors anything that doesn't follow its strict rules. If the techies who write these programs are so gosh-darn smart, why can't they make easy allowances for phrases with multiple hyphenations? And why don't they provide their home phone numbers to us so we can call them whenever we need their help resolving a problem that, we think, they caused? There are many more questions than there are answers, but I guess that's one of the facts of life that keeps us on our toes, right? At least, that's one of the points I hope I made with Earth, the Musical.
1/12/10
My first entry of the new year/decade. No, I haven't just recovered from a New Year's Eve hangover (though that might be an enticing notion in a Hemingway/Fitzgerald/Londonish sort of way). Rather, I've been busy promoting Earth, the Musical. Initial readers (i.e, family and friends) are raving. "Of course they are," you say. "They have to." Au contraire. I recently watched a movie about the Bronte sisters, and they were not particularly each other's best fans. In fact, one of them (I forget if it was Emily or Charlotte) didn't even read the other's book (Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre) — well, for some time at least. My sister, on the other hand, read my book immediately and the reader's guide on this Web site and concluded — and I quote — "Your mind is genius." By the way, she programs computers for a major telecommunications company, so she's no slouch in the brain department — so there you go. "So there you go" seems like a good way to end a blog entry, but I'm not quite done. In fact, I have much more to say. But there are "only" 365 days a year (well, this year anyway), so although I could conceivably though not physically go on forever, I'm going to save some of the things on my mind now for another day. If all goes well, I will have even more things on my mind. I just hope people read it; no 6-year-olds responded to my last entry looking for one. I mentioned ice cream and Transformers, but maybe I should have added a few more key search-engine-optimization words like "puppy," "candy," "SpongeBob SquarePants," "booger," and "balloon boy." Oops.
12/31/09
I've been trying to create a Kindle version of Earth, the Musical, but I've had a devil of a time trying to fix formatting hiccups. This was supposed to be easy (so I was told). I've uploaded my book in Amazon's Kindle-coverting program, but when I preview it, I see problems with paragraphs that indent farther than they should; and my multiple hyphenations throw everything into a "kindle" (my new term for things that look screwy when they shouldn't (Dear Amazon, please don't void my account or delete my book from your site; I'm sure it's all my fault). In any event, I may need to hire a 6-year-old to do the tech work for me. Ahh, the lovely world the writers of yesteryear must have known. They only had to write with pen or typewriter and paper. Sure, I appreciate (and totally rely upon) word-processing programs and computer screens (and one of the loveliest inventions of all: the "delete" key). But the whole html thing leaves me cold. ... OK, that's not true. The whole html thing burns to the core of my frustration. Technology is a double-edged sword (now there's a non-tech allusion for you): It makes some things so easy and other things so hard. My patience today, like 2009, is exhausted. May we all find 2010 more to our liking — and may I find a trustworthy 6-year-old who wants nothing more than a couple of toy Transformers and trips to Dairy Queen. If you are a 6-year-old who can make a Kindle file, please contact me at jan@janstlouis.com.
12/19/09
Tonight I opened a bottle of Orion's Belt Vineyard wine: a Meritage I made at COPIA in Napa Valley in 2004 and thus the only bottle of Orion's Belt Vineyard wine available anywhere in the galaxy. It reminded me how long I have worked on my book. The wine was excellent — in fact, much better than I remembered it being at the time I made it and much better than I expected tonight. I paired it with zucchini pie; forbidden rice with sweet potatoes, red and yellow peppers, and scallions; stuffed mushrooms; and, for dessert, bosc pear sauteed with pomegranite arils and balsamic vinegar.
12/14/09
Amazon is reporting my book out of stock. Well, how lovely it would be that I had sold so many books that the printer couldn't keep up with orders. Alas, it's obviously related to the re-uploading situation (see below). In the meantime, I've written a short story based on my novel for my niece's two young boys. I've been writing "children's stories" for them for several years now. I put "children's stories" in quotation marks because I don't use three- and four-letter words. I write the stories with bigger words than traditional children's books, though I include talking animals, magic, and lessons that children should learn (though, ultimately, we know as adults that lessons are more likely learned the hard way). I considered posting my children's story adapted from my book on this Web site, but decided not to since it might give away a couple of aspects of the plot that are best discovered in the course of reading the adult (novel) version. If you want to read the children's story (titled Ka-Boom! Goes the World), e-mail me and I'll send it to you.
12/10/09
Disaster! Well, OK, maybe it's not disaster in the same sense that Rollie and all of the Milky Way's inhabitants experience "disaster" in my novel (and, if you haven't YET read my novel — which you probably haven't if you're reading this in anything close to "real time," since the book just came out yesterday — conjure up images of an apocalyptic scenario). Nonetheless my discovery today felt of that magnitude. I discovered a typo on the back cover of my book — of which I had just ordered (and paid for!) 100 copies. Now I had 100 copies of a book somewhere on a UPS truck that I wished would crash (not injuring the driver, of course). My first thought was to throw myself off the balcony of the building where I have a day job. But that building is only two stories, so I would probably just end up breaking a couple of bones, which would hardly resolve my trauma. I could throw myself in front of a bus, but the Greyhound station that was next door to the building where I work had relocated. Plan 3 (to suck it up) seemed a remote prospect, given my inherent "can't-let-it-go" personality. So I did what I could: I called my publisher and ... well, let's just say it wasn't pretty. Fortunately, Matt (my Dog Ear Publishing rep) talked me "off the ledge," ensuring me that ultimately the error would not stop a potential buyer from buying my book. He would re-upload the back cover to Amazon and encouraged me not to "throw away" the 100 copies I had ordered. I still feed bad — yeah, REALLY bad — about the situation, but a good friend suggests I use this to my "advantage." In fact, he says, my 100 "flawed" copies will, therefore, be collector's limited editions. Yeah, I don't believe it either, but if you DO want one of those copies, e-mail me. He also says, "It's the story that counts." And, to reinforce that position, he told me an anecdote about sitting with the film editor of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (nominated for an Academy Award for the film) who in turn related an anecdote about an audience member pointing out a continuity error — to which the film editor replied, "But did you enjoy the movie?" Nevertheless, the experience of publishing a novel has given me a true understanding of why authors are notorious as drinkers. Needing to relieve the stress of the day, I opened a bottle of wine myself tonight (Rollie's favorite varietal: zinfandel). If you'll indulge me a bit further, may I suggest the next time you meet an author that you give him or her a hug. Chances are they really need it.
12/9/09
Earth, the Musical has just been released and is available on Amazon.com. The cover image should be shown there shortly. I have instructions on how to make a Kindle version. Hopefully, that will be available soon as well. Oddly enough, if you type "Jan St. Louis" in the Amazon search box, the first book listed is A eulogy on the late Chancellor Joseph Gibson Hoyt of Washington University delivered at the Hall of the University, St. Louis, Jan. 20, 1863. Next comes Lithographs by Edgar Degas: An exhibition held at Steinberg Hall, Washington University, St. Louis, Jan 7-28. At least Earth, the Musical precedes The Spirit of St. Louis. Similarly, if you type "Earth, the Musical" in Amazon's search box, you first see A Musical Journey from the Shire to Rivendell (The Music of Middle-Earth, Volume 1). This is followed by A Musical Journey from Kazad-dum to Gondor (The Music of Middle-Earth, Volume 2) and Klezmer Music: A Marriage of Heaven & Earth. Earth, the Musical is No. 6 on the page. However, if you type "Earth, the Musical" AND "Jan St. Louis" in the search box, BINGO! Or you could just click here.
