My new webpage for the novel is now up and reasonably complete. So from this point forward all future blog entries will be on www.loveinmidair.com.
Visit me, please. It's lonely out here!
I'm keeping this blogspot open as a record of what the last year of preparing for publicaiton was like...something for future internet anthropologists to dig up with their google spades and a record of the fact that writing, selling, editing, and publishing a book is hard. Hard! I don't think I'll be one of those writers who, post publication, forgets how tough the process is and starts giving their fellow writers a bunch of namby-pamby platitudes about the joys of the creative process. I don't THINK I'll be one of those vapid, annoying people but just in case I want to make sure the record of my whining stands. For my own sake, at least.
That's it! Thanks for reading! And please join me on the new site.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
Four calling birds
I always liked the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" and the idea that the holiday season used to begin on December 25 and continue on for twelve days, culminating in the celebration of the Epiphany on January 6. It seems a more sane and balanced way to celebrate than our modern way of bookending the season with Christmas carols that start on some warm day in October and end about 5 pm on December 25th. The way we do it now, people are ready for Christmas to be over before it even starts.
So....if we were celebrating in the traditional way this would be the fourth day of Christmas. Four calling birds. I don't know why that popped in my head today but it seemed strangely aligned with the task in front of me now, which is writing four chapters in a row. Four chapters at the beginning of the Ballroom book told from the point of view of my main character, Abby. Why am I struggling with this so much? Fighting it so hard? Part of my resistance, I suspect, is that I don't really believe I can sell a novel on spec. I know I'm driving my agent crazy because, as we get closer to the pub date of the first book, I'm driving myself crazy. He's given me a task to keep me sane and he knows that even if we can't sell the ballroom book based on four chapters at least it won't be wasted effort - I'll be that much farther along on the complete draft that will probably really be required.
I know all this, and I know it's smart for me to get a good strong set up under my belt, a segment of 50 or so pages that really establish Abby's voice and lay out the key questions of the book. The trouble is I don't usually write in sequence...I usually bounce all around, writing in an instinctual fashion and then, when I have a bunch of scenes, I go back and think about structure. A lot of stuff gets moved and a lot of stuff gets cut so writing out of sequence isn't an especially logical or time efficent route to a novel but it's the only one I know. The only way I seem to be able to get at the heart of my story and find the voice of my narrator.
And this might be what's wrong with me now. Alison said my character felt distant. This scares me. It means that I haven't yet tapped into the real story or made Abby's voice nuanced enough to seem alive on the page and perhaps I've been working so hard on plot and sequence, i.e., telling the story, that I haven't slowed down long enough to let myself find the story.
I don't know what to do. Soldier on and finish these four chapters, dead as they are? Four four four seems to ring in my head like the four calling birds in the song but I don't know if there's really anything magical about stringing four chapters in a row, Should I maybe go back to my old method of hopping about, writing only the scenes that are speaking to me? Of course, there are drawbacks to that method too. Namely, it takes longer to finish the novel because you spend so much time overwriting and running down blind alleys... and while you're doing all this no one gives you money based on your proposal because you can't get your shit together enough to offer up a proposal and how the hell am I suppsed to live in the meantime?
It's almost 2010. My goal for the new year is to get out of debt. A noble goal and a smart one but a hard thing for a writer to do. I'm trying to write fast and put together a proposal that will bring me an advance...then I can slow down, take a deep breath, and I'll have funds to live on while I finish the novel. But that doesn't seem to be working. So do I make a 180 turn and go into some other line of work to earn money, knowing that this choice will slow the novel down? Perhaps slow it down and make it richer....but definitely slow it down. And the idea of slowing down my already glacial writing pace even further makes me feel a little sick.
I'm in a dither. And the new year approacheth.
So....if we were celebrating in the traditional way this would be the fourth day of Christmas. Four calling birds. I don't know why that popped in my head today but it seemed strangely aligned with the task in front of me now, which is writing four chapters in a row. Four chapters at the beginning of the Ballroom book told from the point of view of my main character, Abby. Why am I struggling with this so much? Fighting it so hard? Part of my resistance, I suspect, is that I don't really believe I can sell a novel on spec. I know I'm driving my agent crazy because, as we get closer to the pub date of the first book, I'm driving myself crazy. He's given me a task to keep me sane and he knows that even if we can't sell the ballroom book based on four chapters at least it won't be wasted effort - I'll be that much farther along on the complete draft that will probably really be required.
I know all this, and I know it's smart for me to get a good strong set up under my belt, a segment of 50 or so pages that really establish Abby's voice and lay out the key questions of the book. The trouble is I don't usually write in sequence...I usually bounce all around, writing in an instinctual fashion and then, when I have a bunch of scenes, I go back and think about structure. A lot of stuff gets moved and a lot of stuff gets cut so writing out of sequence isn't an especially logical or time efficent route to a novel but it's the only one I know. The only way I seem to be able to get at the heart of my story and find the voice of my narrator.
And this might be what's wrong with me now. Alison said my character felt distant. This scares me. It means that I haven't yet tapped into the real story or made Abby's voice nuanced enough to seem alive on the page and perhaps I've been working so hard on plot and sequence, i.e., telling the story, that I haven't slowed down long enough to let myself find the story.
I don't know what to do. Soldier on and finish these four chapters, dead as they are? Four four four seems to ring in my head like the four calling birds in the song but I don't know if there's really anything magical about stringing four chapters in a row, Should I maybe go back to my old method of hopping about, writing only the scenes that are speaking to me? Of course, there are drawbacks to that method too. Namely, it takes longer to finish the novel because you spend so much time overwriting and running down blind alleys... and while you're doing all this no one gives you money based on your proposal because you can't get your shit together enough to offer up a proposal and how the hell am I suppsed to live in the meantime?
It's almost 2010. My goal for the new year is to get out of debt. A noble goal and a smart one but a hard thing for a writer to do. I'm trying to write fast and put together a proposal that will bring me an advance...then I can slow down, take a deep breath, and I'll have funds to live on while I finish the novel. But that doesn't seem to be working. So do I make a 180 turn and go into some other line of work to earn money, knowing that this choice will slow the novel down? Perhaps slow it down and make it richer....but definitely slow it down. And the idea of slowing down my already glacial writing pace even further makes me feel a little sick.
I'm in a dither. And the new year approacheth.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
The two parts of writing that are fun
Lately I've been thinking that there are two parts of the novel writing process that I really enjoy. The first is the absolute beginning - when it's all nebulous. It's not a novel, it's a project - it doesn't have a name or a plot or fully-formed characters. What it probably does have, at least for me, is a voice.
So I get these little snatches of ideas. A sentence or two, an image. Someone says something that triggers a scene. I begin to write these snippets down, helter-skelter, and throw them into a folder. I love this part, the very beginning, when it's all embriotic and unformed.
The other part that's fun is the ending. You basically have the book and the structure and now you're tweaking. Going in to expand a scene that has more possibility than you've truly realized, looking for places where you've repeated words, making sure your verb tenses agree, pruning out the extraneous line or word.
But between these two lies the actual writing, especially the dreaded First Draft.
Which is where I stand now with Ballroom. My agent David feels that the hopping around scenes don't give him a strong enough sense of who the main character is and that any future possible one-chance-in-a-hundred buyers, i.e., editors, will want to see that one solid viewpoint character. So I'm back to the drawing board, trying to get three or four chapters in a row at the beginning, from Abby's point of view. And that feels dangerously like writing a first draft.
Yikes. I have a goal. I'm going to NYC sometime in late Feb or early March and I'd like to have the four chapters to him by then. Selling off a partial is a long shot in this environment, especially with my first book not yet out, but I feel I have to try. Otherwise I'm going to end up behind the counter at McDonalds. Or in the loony bin.
So I get these little snatches of ideas. A sentence or two, an image. Someone says something that triggers a scene. I begin to write these snippets down, helter-skelter, and throw them into a folder. I love this part, the very beginning, when it's all embriotic and unformed.
The other part that's fun is the ending. You basically have the book and the structure and now you're tweaking. Going in to expand a scene that has more possibility than you've truly realized, looking for places where you've repeated words, making sure your verb tenses agree, pruning out the extraneous line or word.
But between these two lies the actual writing, especially the dreaded First Draft.
Which is where I stand now with Ballroom. My agent David feels that the hopping around scenes don't give him a strong enough sense of who the main character is and that any future possible one-chance-in-a-hundred buyers, i.e., editors, will want to see that one solid viewpoint character. So I'm back to the drawing board, trying to get three or four chapters in a row at the beginning, from Abby's point of view. And that feels dangerously like writing a first draft.
Yikes. I have a goal. I'm going to NYC sometime in late Feb or early March and I'd like to have the four chapters to him by then. Selling off a partial is a long shot in this environment, especially with my first book not yet out, but I feel I have to try. Otherwise I'm going to end up behind the counter at McDonalds. Or in the loony bin.
Monday, December 14, 2009
How long do you hang in there?
Last week a woman in my writing group announced that she wouldn't be writing any more. She written seven books over a number of years and spent time revamping, revising, earnestly searching for feedback from fellow writers. And it's led to zilch. She doesn't have an agent or a publisher. She has seven manuscripts that she could work on forever but she's not sure it's worth.
And a couple of days later a close friend said much the same thing. She's more than a decade into the process without any significant publication credits. She doesn't have the heart to start something new.
And then....someone I met at MacDowell sent me an email. He's been following this blog and was commenting on my last post, in which I was basically describing the freak out period I'm in now as I await publication, the "four months out" syndrome. He basically said "enjoy this level of misery for as long as you can because once your book actually come sout, it will get worse."
Writing can be a very dark path. My children are 21 and 25 and if either one of them said they wanted to be a writer I would try to talk them out of it.
And yet....
With writing there is always a "yet." Some book not yet written, the agent you haven't let queried, some subject not yet explored. Because on the night the woman in my writing group said she was done, a man in the group sat there and gave her the standard speech. How you have to do it for love. How you have to do it because you can't not do it. The pleasure and meaning are in the process, not the results.
All those things people say about writing that are corny and trite and true.
But everyone has to find the right balance inside their own head. If it's making you miserable - if the inability to find publication is obliterating the joy you find in the proess it may indeed be time to step away from the desk. At least for a while.
Thoughts?
And a couple of days later a close friend said much the same thing. She's more than a decade into the process without any significant publication credits. She doesn't have the heart to start something new.
And then....someone I met at MacDowell sent me an email. He's been following this blog and was commenting on my last post, in which I was basically describing the freak out period I'm in now as I await publication, the "four months out" syndrome. He basically said "enjoy this level of misery for as long as you can because once your book actually come sout, it will get worse."
Writing can be a very dark path. My children are 21 and 25 and if either one of them said they wanted to be a writer I would try to talk them out of it.
And yet....
With writing there is always a "yet." Some book not yet written, the agent you haven't let queried, some subject not yet explored. Because on the night the woman in my writing group said she was done, a man in the group sat there and gave her the standard speech. How you have to do it for love. How you have to do it because you can't not do it. The pleasure and meaning are in the process, not the results.
All those things people say about writing that are corny and trite and true.
But everyone has to find the right balance inside their own head. If it's making you miserable - if the inability to find publication is obliterating the joy you find in the proess it may indeed be time to step away from the desk. At least for a while.
Thoughts?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Doubt
I'm in such a funk. I did a summary and four chapter package on the ballroom book and sent it to David, my agent. My friend Alison, currently vacationing in Europe, too a look at it too. I'm very excited about the book, excited about the concept and the fact I'm writing in third person from multiple POVs for the first time in my little baby novelist career. Of course I wanted both of them to gush it was the best thing I'd ever written or maybe even the best thing anybody has ever written.
Heard from both of them on Sunday. Nice but somewhat lukewarm responses. They liked the basic premise of the book - but they both called into question my use of the multiple POV. Alison called it "distant." David said "It's not what they're buying." They made the same argument. First person's my forte, after all. Why go against your natural tendancy as a writer - especially in light of the fact the market prefers books that are told from a single character's perspective?
On one level I'm like "Why indeed?" I know I'm stronger, or at least more experienced in first person. As my ever-practical friend Dawn says "That's what editors want and you know how to do it, so why are you so upset?"
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. Everyone is being very kind and logical.
So why am I so upset?
Possible reasons:
1. The first person pov can limit the types of stories you're able to tell, especially in a situation like ballroom where I am writing about the need for community and how the ballroom means something different to every person who steps inside of it. You can get a broad perspective with first person pov but it's harder. I don't want to fall into the classic traps like having the other characters talk to Abby way too much.
2. I'm tired of the limitations of first person. Dawn said "If I could write first person as well as you, that's all I'd do." But she's just saying that because she's coming off two third person novels and she's sick of the limitations of THAT pov. There's a plus and a minus to every choice you make in writing, including pov, and it isn't a matter of one being inherently better than another. It's a matter of how you do one for a couple of projects, get sick of it, and when you switch to the other it seems easier - at least for a while. Then you get sick of it and switch back to your original pov for the next project. No nothing is perfect....but if you have some variety in your writing style you can write longer without wearing yourself out.
3. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. Yeah, first person's my strength but I'm ambitious, so of course I want to move on and learn a new skill. In dance the people who jive want to waltz, the people who samba wish they could quickstep. Part of it is our natural human tendancy to downplay our natural strengths - if something comes easily to us we erroneously assume it comes easily to everyone - but an equally valid part of it is a kind of creative restlessness that artists have to have if we're ever going to grow. The jivers might say to the waltzers some variation of what Dawn said to me, i.e., "If I could waltz as well as you do, that's all I'd ever want to do" - but it wouldn't be true. If we're good at something, we automatically look to move on and master something else. It's what gives us heart attacks and also, I suppose, why our species dominates the planet.
4. This is probably the real reason: I'm just in such an anxious state that I'm going to freak out at anything anybody says to me right now. I know that in suggesting I stick with what I know David and Alison weren't implying that I'm incapable of learning anything else. That's what I heard but the 3% of my mind that's sane also knows that's not what they meant. It's just that as the date gets closer when the novel is going to debut I'm getting crazier. Everything feels like a criticism, even the most gentle and practical (and solicited) feedback.
So there you have it. I have a new task. Write the first four chapters in sequence from either Abby's first person pov or a tight, Abby-centric third person pov. And worry. And stew.
Heard from both of them on Sunday. Nice but somewhat lukewarm responses. They liked the basic premise of the book - but they both called into question my use of the multiple POV. Alison called it "distant." David said "It's not what they're buying." They made the same argument. First person's my forte, after all. Why go against your natural tendancy as a writer - especially in light of the fact the market prefers books that are told from a single character's perspective?
On one level I'm like "Why indeed?" I know I'm stronger, or at least more experienced in first person. As my ever-practical friend Dawn says "That's what editors want and you know how to do it, so why are you so upset?"
Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Right. Everyone is being very kind and logical.
So why am I so upset?
Possible reasons:
1. The first person pov can limit the types of stories you're able to tell, especially in a situation like ballroom where I am writing about the need for community and how the ballroom means something different to every person who steps inside of it. You can get a broad perspective with first person pov but it's harder. I don't want to fall into the classic traps like having the other characters talk to Abby way too much.
2. I'm tired of the limitations of first person. Dawn said "If I could write first person as well as you, that's all I'd do." But she's just saying that because she's coming off two third person novels and she's sick of the limitations of THAT pov. There's a plus and a minus to every choice you make in writing, including pov, and it isn't a matter of one being inherently better than another. It's a matter of how you do one for a couple of projects, get sick of it, and when you switch to the other it seems easier - at least for a while. Then you get sick of it and switch back to your original pov for the next project. No nothing is perfect....but if you have some variety in your writing style you can write longer without wearing yourself out.
3. I don't want to be a one-trick pony. Yeah, first person's my strength but I'm ambitious, so of course I want to move on and learn a new skill. In dance the people who jive want to waltz, the people who samba wish they could quickstep. Part of it is our natural human tendancy to downplay our natural strengths - if something comes easily to us we erroneously assume it comes easily to everyone - but an equally valid part of it is a kind of creative restlessness that artists have to have if we're ever going to grow. The jivers might say to the waltzers some variation of what Dawn said to me, i.e., "If I could waltz as well as you do, that's all I'd ever want to do" - but it wouldn't be true. If we're good at something, we automatically look to move on and master something else. It's what gives us heart attacks and also, I suppose, why our species dominates the planet.
4. This is probably the real reason: I'm just in such an anxious state that I'm going to freak out at anything anybody says to me right now. I know that in suggesting I stick with what I know David and Alison weren't implying that I'm incapable of learning anything else. That's what I heard but the 3% of my mind that's sane also knows that's not what they meant. It's just that as the date gets closer when the novel is going to debut I'm getting crazier. Everything feels like a criticism, even the most gentle and practical (and solicited) feedback.
So there you have it. I have a new task. Write the first four chapters in sequence from either Abby's first person pov or a tight, Abby-centric third person pov. And worry. And stew.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Paging Mrs. Dolenz...
Suddenly, I'm in one of those periods where things are happening....Aussie cover came. Heard I got nominated for an independent booksellers award. And picked up for an online book club. Am working on summary and sample chapter scenes to send to my agent, David, in hopes of selling the third novel, Ballroom, on spec. I rarely talk to either my agent or my editor but have had contact with both this week, as well as publicist and foreign rights team.
And, so, for a flash, it all seems real again.
I don't want to be a velveteen rabbit - i.e., real only when somebody loves me.
I know that I am most a writer when I'm actually writing. I know it's a trap to feel like you're a writer only when people are talking about your writing.
In fact, this aspect of publishing is kind of upsetting. I've blogged about this before, how strange it is that for long stretches of time nothing happens and your book and your characters live only in your head. If you step off a curb and get hit by a car, they die with you. And then comes a week or so when people are talking to you about what you've written and that's wonderful in a way because it all feels more real. Like this is your career and not some sort of extended fantasy. Sometimes it seems like wanting to be a writer is just a grown up version of when I was twelve and lying on my bed in my parents's home looking up at a picture of the Monkees and thinking that someday I'd marry Mickey Dolenz. It seems adolescent, unrealistic, the kind of story you tell yourself to distract yourself from the fact real life ain't exactly happening for you yet.
Then something sort of changes. You get a flurry of emails or phone calls, some of them from the other side of the world, and you've married a Monkee, at least for that week...and this is troubling in a whole new way. I mean, have you seen a picture of Mickey Dolenz lately? I didn't totally know what I was asking for all those years lying on my bed looking up at my Monkees poster and I don't totally know what I'm asking for when I pursue publication, either.
Talked to Alison yesterday. She's heading to Europe with her girlfriend. I was babbling on and she reminded me that a while back we had made a promise to each other to stop when the good moments come and really appreciate them without "Yes but"-ting them to death. I laughed and agreed but inside me the urge to "Yes, but" was very strong. Yes, I earned out my advance, but it was a small advance. Yes, the Australia cover copy is great, but I'm not as sure about the American. Yes, I got nominated for something, but a nomination isn't a win. I can do this until the cows come home....or at least until Mickey Dolenz loses his hair.
Okay, a couple of days back I declared December to be lovingkindness month and I have vowed to do my lovingkindness mediation every day. I love that particular CD with Jack Kornfield anyway. And part of lovingkindness is being appreciative of times when things are moving, even if the movement makes you a bit dizzy. Being appreciative of getting what you want without letting the "Yes, but" syndrome take over. So that's the focus for December.
And in January something else will happen.
And, so, for a flash, it all seems real again.
I don't want to be a velveteen rabbit - i.e., real only when somebody loves me.
I know that I am most a writer when I'm actually writing. I know it's a trap to feel like you're a writer only when people are talking about your writing.
In fact, this aspect of publishing is kind of upsetting. I've blogged about this before, how strange it is that for long stretches of time nothing happens and your book and your characters live only in your head. If you step off a curb and get hit by a car, they die with you. And then comes a week or so when people are talking to you about what you've written and that's wonderful in a way because it all feels more real. Like this is your career and not some sort of extended fantasy. Sometimes it seems like wanting to be a writer is just a grown up version of when I was twelve and lying on my bed in my parents's home looking up at a picture of the Monkees and thinking that someday I'd marry Mickey Dolenz. It seems adolescent, unrealistic, the kind of story you tell yourself to distract yourself from the fact real life ain't exactly happening for you yet.
Then something sort of changes. You get a flurry of emails or phone calls, some of them from the other side of the world, and you've married a Monkee, at least for that week...and this is troubling in a whole new way. I mean, have you seen a picture of Mickey Dolenz lately? I didn't totally know what I was asking for all those years lying on my bed looking up at my Monkees poster and I don't totally know what I'm asking for when I pursue publication, either.
Talked to Alison yesterday. She's heading to Europe with her girlfriend. I was babbling on and she reminded me that a while back we had made a promise to each other to stop when the good moments come and really appreciate them without "Yes but"-ting them to death. I laughed and agreed but inside me the urge to "Yes, but" was very strong. Yes, I earned out my advance, but it was a small advance. Yes, the Australia cover copy is great, but I'm not as sure about the American. Yes, I got nominated for something, but a nomination isn't a win. I can do this until the cows come home....or at least until Mickey Dolenz loses his hair.
Okay, a couple of days back I declared December to be lovingkindness month and I have vowed to do my lovingkindness mediation every day. I love that particular CD with Jack Kornfield anyway. And part of lovingkindness is being appreciative of times when things are moving, even if the movement makes you a bit dizzy. Being appreciative of getting what you want without letting the "Yes, but" syndrome take over. So that's the focus for December.
And in January something else will happen.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Aussie Cover
Woke up this morning to find two emails from my Australian editor. One contained a pdf file of the cover of their edition of Love in Mid Air, one contained the blurbs and cover copy.
Perhaps some backstory is in order. The Australian sale has always been a source of joy to me. All the foreign rights sales have juiced me, but I love the idea of going to Australia - never been there but I did a school report on it back in fourth grade and the continent has haunted my imagination ever since. So when the rights sold there it felt like a special benediction. And they're bringing it out the first day they can, i.e., the day after the US version is released and that seems significant too - like they're really excited about it.
Meanwhile, of course, the experience of bringing a first book out in the US has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. Just last weekend I was at a writing retreat and a poet innocently asked - no one can be quite as innocent as a poet - "So are you just thrilled about your novel coming out?" She was smiling and nodding as if I had answered before I had answered so I smiled and nodded too. But I'm thinking "Thrilled, yes, but not 'just thrilled.'" The truth is that I've written almost as many words about the publication of my novel as are in the novel itself. It's complicated.
So I hold on to the foreign rights sales and an uncomplicated bright spot and today I awaken to find that in the night, although of course it's morning there, my publisher has sent me a picture of the cover and the blurb text. I love what they said about it. I wish I'd had enough sense to describe it that well when I was trying to sell the damn thing. And I think I love the cover but the cover is really hot. Really sexy. Almost the exact opposite of the US cover. Red instead of blue, a woman's body instead of a floating house, big print letters instead of small cursive letters. While the US version implies seriousness, the Australian version screams sex.
So how do I feel about this?
My first reaction was "Yikes," and my second reaction was "Thank god." The book might actually sell somewhere. It might sell in Australia! And from there, of course, the mind runs mad with images of book tours to Sydney and clones of Russell Crowe asking me about the symbolism on page 117. So I'm happy and a little bit excited. And a little bit stunned. After all the months of waiting, this is starting to feel real.
Perhaps some backstory is in order. The Australian sale has always been a source of joy to me. All the foreign rights sales have juiced me, but I love the idea of going to Australia - never been there but I did a school report on it back in fourth grade and the continent has haunted my imagination ever since. So when the rights sold there it felt like a special benediction. And they're bringing it out the first day they can, i.e., the day after the US version is released and that seems significant too - like they're really excited about it.
Meanwhile, of course, the experience of bringing a first book out in the US has been a bit of a roller coaster ride. Just last weekend I was at a writing retreat and a poet innocently asked - no one can be quite as innocent as a poet - "So are you just thrilled about your novel coming out?" She was smiling and nodding as if I had answered before I had answered so I smiled and nodded too. But I'm thinking "Thrilled, yes, but not 'just thrilled.'" The truth is that I've written almost as many words about the publication of my novel as are in the novel itself. It's complicated.
So I hold on to the foreign rights sales and an uncomplicated bright spot and today I awaken to find that in the night, although of course it's morning there, my publisher has sent me a picture of the cover and the blurb text. I love what they said about it. I wish I'd had enough sense to describe it that well when I was trying to sell the damn thing. And I think I love the cover but the cover is really hot. Really sexy. Almost the exact opposite of the US cover. Red instead of blue, a woman's body instead of a floating house, big print letters instead of small cursive letters. While the US version implies seriousness, the Australian version screams sex.
So how do I feel about this?
My first reaction was "Yikes," and my second reaction was "Thank god." The book might actually sell somewhere. It might sell in Australia! And from there, of course, the mind runs mad with images of book tours to Sydney and clones of Russell Crowe asking me about the symbolism on page 117. So I'm happy and a little bit excited. And a little bit stunned. After all the months of waiting, this is starting to feel real.
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