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.

"You're overreacting" and other unhelpful statements

Twice in the last week I've looked at a writing buddy and uttered that completely banal and useless observation that has been so often leveled at me: "You're overreacting."

In both cases the woman in question is an utterly rational person. Less prone to mood swings than I am, someone who has shown she can persevere in the face or rejections and setbacks and the other inevitable face slaps of the writing life. But in both cases the person in question was getting very upset - upset to the verge of tears - about some very mild suggestions for rewrites of a scene. Suggestions they requested. Feedback solicited from valued friends. Minor critiques suggested in the mildest of tones.

So why would a statement like "Maybe cut the last paragraph" or "I'd like more decriptions of the setting" send them to tears?

I think they're just tired. We all get so damn tired. Tired of endless rewriting, tweaking it here and there, going back through one more time.....we start to think "Is it getting better or is it just getting different?" And after people seek publication over a span of not just years but decades of course they break down. We're like kids on an eternal car trip. No, we're not there yet.

We don't even know where there is.

And both times, shaken by the fact my friend seemed ready to throw in the towel over such a seemingly minor point I compounded the problem by blurting out "You're overreacting."

Upon reflection, I don't know if it's possible to overreact. We feel what we feel and it's real at the time. A remark that would roll off of us on Tuesday drops us to our knees on Wednesday.

Note to self: Don't ever tell another writer he or she is overreacting. Someday she might say it back to you.

God hits the delete button

Big storm last night which did many strange things in an electrical sense including knocking out my desktop computer. Knocking totally out. I think I lost everything except for a handful of currently active files.

Now normally this would make me insane. I see my computer as an extension of my brain. A computer wipeout is the equivalent of a stroke. But then....on the other hand.

Did I lose anything I really need? I'm always talking about cleaning up my files.....converting to laptop.

Simplifying. Focusing.

So I got my little bitty laptop and no printer and four files.

This could be a breakthrough.

East is East, South is South, etc.

Just finished reading T.C. Boyle's East is East which includes a hilarious send up of a writing colony. Boyle's fictional colony is located near Savannah but otherwise quite like MacDowell, where he has been a resident....although I suspect it's also like Yadoo or any of the big colonies.

I heard about the book while I was at MacDowell but when I went to the Peterborough library to check it out I couldn't find it in the stacks. I approached the desk with some trepidation. MacDowell colonists are free to use the public facilities of the little town of Peterborough, including the library, but it's no secret we're mildly resented. Maybe because the colony pays no taxes, maybe because New Englanders are inherently suspicious of artsy-fartsy creative types. Maybe because the local rescue squad gets tired of running out to the colony for cases of alcohol poisoning, bear baiting, or half-hearted suicide attempts.

Anyway, the library looks over her half glasses at me and stonily informs me that someone from MacDowell took the book and never brought it back. She refrained from saying "What else would you expect?" but it hung in the air.

So now, a full year later, I have ordered the book off Amazon and I laughed out loud as I read parts, mostly about the over-the-top rivalry of two female novelists at the colony. In real life I never encountered that kind of cruelty at MacDowell. Our readings after dinner - while undoubtedly nerve wracking for whomever was presenting - were fun ways to get together and bounce around ideas and rarely sparked criticism or controversy. I may have been so far out of the loop of name artists there that I failed to see rivalry if there was any... but I don't think that's the case.

So why did I find Boyle's book so funny and true? Because I've certainly seen artistic envy in action before and I give him credit for having the balls to skewer it. (I give myself credit for using both "balls" and "skewer"in the same sentence.) Part of what made the book so biting is that these colonists are thrust by accident into the middle of a tragedy with international implications and they are so wound up with themselves and their pecking order at the colony that they completely fail to recognize what's happening. Until one of them decides it's her chance to move into the lucrative world of gossip journalism, that is.

God, you've got to love the colony world. It's so weird and self-absorbed and incestuous and out of touch with reality. I hope I get back into it soon.