Saturday, February 23, 2013

It's mustard time in the Valley....


The weather had been so glorious the past week, all the spring mustard blinding yellow in between the rows of dark, gnarled vines. She thought fondly of the old Herb Caen columns in the Chronicle, one in particular where he wrote, “I imagine heaven to be a lot like Sonoma in the spring.” Phoebe always gave a silent thanks to all the Italians and other dreamers who had settled in the region, for they made sure, hundreds of years ago, when they first started planting the old vines, to sow mustard alongside their grapes for the nitrogen the plants contained. Today, those miles of dazzling yellow flowers all over both valleys were the first harbinger of spring in Sonoma and Napa. 
~Phoebe & The Ghost of Chagall

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Writer versus Promo Machine




Well, it's February. A wonderful month. Birthday month, and so green and Spring-y in Northern Cal. The wild radish and quince and narcissus are blooming and soon, the wild mustard will fill in the rows between the vines here in Wine Country. Yet here I sit,  a writer in a quandary. So much of writing these days asks that the writer constantly toot his or her own horn. (Hence this blog) Almost the second I heard that a life-long dream was about to take place and that my novel Phoebe & The Ghost of Chagall was going to be published,  I also started hearing about how much of my book's marketing "in these dire times for publishing" would be on my shoulders. I sprang into action, lassoing blurbs, reviews, readings. I became a sort of promo machine, or my version of a promo machine, which covered all the angles but maybe had some batteries that needed replacing. 
But you know what? I would argue that most writers are not by nature promo machines. We are often quirky soloists who wake up at 5 in the morning with some snippet of dream or morsel of dialogue that sounds so brilliant that we must scribble it down on the piece of paper towel that's handy so that it won't be forgotten. (Then at 8 o'clock that same morning, we read the nugget of excellence on the paper towel and cock our heads in puzzlement.) 
 My point is: writing is a solitary endeavor. Perhaps we write for some future audience, but in the here and now, there is only butt-in-chair-and-fingers-on-keypad. Most of the writers I know, while of course we all fantasize about being interviewed by Terri Gross, are thoughtful word nerds, more likely seen in an animated discussion about the usage of propensity versus proclivity. We are not by and large, the best ad men.  Sure, we want fame or at least rent money, or more accurately, we want people to read & enjoy our books.  And yes, after so many sedentary hours in isolation, we may get a little rowdy at those summer workshops at the end of the day, "letting off steam" after a day of writing five pages to get to one good line.  But all in all, I would argue that all the social media stuff is not second nature to most writers. And therein lies the rub. Once we have a debut novel out on the streets, the last thing we want is for it to die a quiet death. But not many writers can afford the price tags of publicists, and from what I have heard, their affect on books sales is often negligible. And thus, we are required to tap into our own inner barker. (Ever-on-the-ready, I myself carry copies of my book in my truck like the old Fuller Brush Men and foist them upon innocent strangers...) But most writers today must tweet and procure stars and pay their own ways to read at cities with good independent bookstores. Call me whacky, but this sounds to me like a full time job. 
Oh hell, I'm romanticizing the act of writing again, painting it like it's more nobel to commune with the muses and be in "the zone"and mustering the discipline day after day.  I sound like I'm saying nothing should be taking so much time and energy away from the actual writing. And yet, it's 2013 and, apparently,  it does.