Tuesday 27 November 2012

loss of a literary giant

A famous Australian writer died last week. He wrote a book a year for the last 21 years. He was born to a seamstress in South Afroca and suffered horribly from bullying in childhood. Gaining a scholarship to a boading school he had to return to the prphange which was ususally his homme during scholl holidays.He learned to tell stories to survive. He did more than survive, with each of his books making $10 million for the publishers. His son died of blood transfusion unduced AIDS, he divorced his wife, who later was cared for by her remaining sons till she died. He was estranged from his sons at times, they seemed to indicate that his writing and obssessive creating of his own 'facts' interfered with his ability to relate to his family. Do writers write for themselves? Of course, they write their own stories, and it seems the good ones can write everyone else's at the same time. Hence the masses can identify.
This writer's motto was something like, 'Success is the only option.'
I absolutely agree.

giving up

Yes, we've temporarily given up on tradtional publishing and have given in to digital (more than one finger). And no this message is not in binary code( yet). Somewhere on Amazon sits half of our as yet insignificant tome. We have facebooked it, blogged it and it has its owm commentary page on Amazon. Thhe other half is ready to be launched, but I am not ready to let it go. The count down has started...mean a while a young Jewish girl named Hadassah waits within the walls of a mudbrick house in the Ancient Median city of Susa, wondering if her people will ever return to their homeland.

literary agents and masochism

Hours and weeks of submittung to literary agents, giving them what they want yields only rejections and engagement in a few negative telephone calls. Such a waste of time and effort, this process is hell compared to the heaven of writing.