I had such good intentions when I started this blog back in the halcyon summer days of 2023. Chief among those intentions was to update it regularly, as in more than once a month. But this fall has seen me spend most of my time and headspace on my full- and part-time work, to the extent where I couldn't seem to develop a strong idea or theme that would adequately fill this space. So, I'm going to go an alternative route and sprinkle a few seeds in the metaphorical topsoil and see what, if anything, takes root.
•A couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of participating in the Arlington Author Salon Book Fair, along with a few dozen other authors from or with ties to Greater Boston/Eastern Massachusetts. The event took place at The Roasted Granola café, which set up tables to display the books (as you can see in the photo) and for authors to share as we did the meet-and-greet with customers.
I consider myself a pretty sociable person, so I genuinely enjoy events like this, where I can meet people and yak a lot. It's also an opportunity to practice and refine my pitch for Transformation Summer. I figure I have maybe 30-45 seconds to get somebody interested enough to ask for more details
about the book, and maybe just maybe convince them to actually buy a copy. (I'll have you know that from the very beginning, I have refrained from using the Dumb Joke approach: "What's your book about?" "It's about 250 pages!")
After I finish, there's usually a few seconds in which I let the prospective customer mull what I've said, and it's such an exquisite knife-edge moment. I've occasionally tossed out a quick tagline -- "Lots of 1970s music references!" -- to dispel the tension. Sometimes, you can tell that the customer has heard enough, and is trying to disengage and move on as politely as possible: There's a little smile, a brief nod and a "thank you" -- maybe even a "good luck" -- and off they go. But then there are other customers who really are in the mood to talk, and willing to find out more about the book, or about me and how and why I came to this intersection of my life.
If I had to guess, I would say I've given the pitch a couple of dozen times, not including at social events or in general conversations, and I estimate that around 80 percent of the time, the customer has stayed around for a follow-up. However, I can't say this has typically resulted in a sale. I reckon I need to work on that, but I'm not sure that saying something like "What can I do to convince you to add Transformation Summer to your bookshelf/night table?" will seal the deal.
•The question I get a lot is "So when's the next book?" or some variation thereof, e.g., "What are you working on now?" It's understandable and quite reasonable that people ask this. Having had a taste of successful authoring, why wouldn't I take another crack?
Thing is, I don't feel quite done with Transformation Summer. I want to give as much attention as possible to promoting it and (hopefully) selling it. For me, it's akin to what phys-ed teachers and sports coaches always tell you: set, step, throw/shoot, follow through. As an author, I've done the first three things, but I won't complete the metaphorical pass or hit the metaphorical jump shot until I follow through, which in this case means doing whatever I can think of to draw people's attention to the book. Even then, I may not be successful, obviously, but I still gotta at least go through the mechanics.
That said, I have two unfinished novels that I started before or during the Transformation Summer gestation period. (I also began futzing around some months ago with a kinda/sorta sequel to TS, which is all I can really say about it at this point.) On the one hand, I haven't yet had a massive surge of inspiration as to where I might take either story, but neither have I thrown up my hands and deleted the files out of frustration or despair. I still think the premises for both could work, and resolving some plot-related issues would go a long way towards getting at least one of them back on track.
Of course, that's what I've been telling myself the last couple of years, even before Transformation Summer became a reality. But I'm not ready to let go of either project yet. Every once in a while I drop in on these works-in-progress -- though "progress" is perhaps too optimistic a word -- to see how they're doing, reacquaint myself with what I wrote so far, maybe tweak this word or that sentence as I see fit. They're kind of like friends in neighborhoods where I used to live: I always know where to find them.
•This is the closest I'll probably ever come to election analysis. First, a disclaimer: I am not a political scientist or an historian, nor have I ever portrayed one on television or in a school play (I did get to be Rod Serling in my sixth-grade class production of "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," but never mind).
Another disclaimer: There are a lot of strong feelings out there about what happened on Election Day, ranging from sadness to disbelief to elation to vindictiveness, and undoubtedly some lingering effects from the months of alternating dread or hope. I am in no way seeking to ridicule, devalue, or dismiss those emotions.
I just have a question: Didn't election campaigns -- presidential elections, that is -- used to be, well, kind of enjoyable?
Sure, you might be anxious about the impending result, or if it looked like your candidate of choice was likely on the wrong end of a blow-out (1964, 1972), you certainly weren't happy -- and in that case, sure, you probably worried about what the winning administration would do.
Perhaps "enjoyable" isn't exactly the word I'm looking for. Tolerable? Not sucky? I dunno, at least you didn't feel -- for weeks and months -- as if you were on the eve of Agincourt or the Battle of the Wilderness, sewing a name tag on your uniform so that your corpse could be identified more easily.
I think just about every presidential election we've had this century has been touted as The Most Important/Consequential/Momentous Election of Our Time. Which is not to say that they haven't been important, or didn't/don't have significant long-range implications, nationally and globally. But if the apocalypse comes every four years, and if the volume control is always set to 10, even though you may still be concerned and engaged, you might start to wonder if the message is actually resonating.
It's not exactly a mystery how and why this is happening. The advent of the 24/7 news cycle, the proliferation of outlets, the growth of Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and other social media -- the impact of all this on our lives has been quite well chronicled (ironically, by the media). The quantity of content, and the speed at which it reaches us, far often outweighs the quality. Perhaps just as important, if not more so, is that studies indicate we Americans tend to spend more time alone and have less friendships or connection to our communities than 20 years ago -- not the best recipe for ameliorating anxiety. And we certainly have lost faith in our political institutions, although the presidency at least still outpolls Congress.
So maybe, along with the factors above and everything else, the Most-Important-Election-Ever mantra represents a vague but deep-seated belief that we can redeem the promise of our democracy, maybe our very society. Not just through the specific act of voting, but the whole process that precedes it, from the start of the race through the primaries, party conventions, and final round of campaigning right up to when you cast your ballot. We may not like the result, this message adds, but if we don't participate, we will all be the worse for it.
•Lastly, some blatant animal exploitation.
The kitty in the above photo, Anki, belongs to the family whom I visited for dessert on Thanksgiving night. Anki found some unattended leftover turkey and had a right old feast, so she further rewarded herself with a Nap of Triumph. We should all be so accomplished.
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