A Good Year for Imagination

Yup, end of one wild year and time to start off again.

I just totaled up my Kindle sales, including free promos, and as far as I can tell, some 5877 copies of Chicago Stories: West of Western (known around here as WOW) have gone to good homes. At least, I hope they're good and have given the readers something. I don't know yet about Along the Ravenswood, too soon for figures to come in.

A good year for me. I published WOW, my debut novel, in mid-January, having no sense of what to expect, and started fumbling around learning how to promote a book. Joined Twitter and Facebook, spent far too much time doing the things folks used to do--notifying alumni magazines, that sort of thing. I did some things right, too, like spending a lot of time finding good Facebook friends (thanks here to Sisters in Crime) and Twitter connections and telling everyone I knew about the book.

And I finished my second book, Along the Ravenswood (ATR), published in mid-December.

There has never been a year when I learned so much so fast. I originally intended to write a straightforward mystery novel, well-crafted but not so different from many others. A good plot, interesting characters, a nice two or three hour read on a rainy afternoon,maybe. Somehow other things slipped into the stories as I stumbled along, and I ended up revealing far more of myself than I'd intended. Maybe that's partly because WOW is sited in my old neighborhood and some of the events in the book were taken from events in my life.  Maybe it's because Seraphy's named after my great-grandmother, Seraphy Temperance Taylor.

Someone on some Sunday morning TV show several years ago was talking about gangs and commented that the real problem was a failure of the imagination. I don't remember the name of the show, or the commentator, but what he said burned itself into my thoughts and sits there today. My friends and I lived by our imaginations, although I hadn't thought of it that way before. When  I was a potter, my studio partners had a bad spell (no sales, no $$ to live on) and asked me what to do. Without thinking, I said "re-design," and that's what they did. That's what we did.

Gangbangers may be the way they are because that's the only way they can imagine themselves. I sometimes wonder what might happen if we all started thinking about that, and what could be done to change that . . . I know many have tried before, but maybe not quite the right way?

When something's not working, come up with a new idea. This isn't true for most folks who have jobs, because having a job means someone else has thought up the whole job. Thinking a project, product, business up from scratch is very different. For those who do that, whether we're Steve Jobs or the guy in his garage with a mousetrap, for us imagination is the basis of survival. We really are different from others.

We tend not to have absolutes because we know reality is only an idea.

I'm going to stop now before it gets any deeper.

ALONG THE RAVENSWOOD up on Kindle

LIVE ON AMAZON! tinyurl.com/c6zqjd5

It's about time! I had thought to get Along the Ravenswood on Kindle last June, but as you know, reality intervened. Well, actually I read the manuscript. Yikes! By the time all the edits and proofs and so on were done, not to mention finding a cover designer, I was lucky to get her out before the end of the year.

Lots of folks helping to get the word out this time: a herd of Twitter followers, Facebook friends and others. I woke up to find that the EReader Cafe had featured CHICAGO STORIES: WEST OF WESTERN  (tinyurl.com/83aqnfn) at the top of its page this morning. I'm running WOW (West of Western) FREE 12/21-23 as part on my coming out party for ATR (Along the Ravenswood) in the hope readers fall in love with the series . . . sorry, I have no thoughtful tidbits to offer today, too excited to be at the end. Or is it the beginning?

Riding the Artist's Cycle

Once long ago, when I was once again back in graduate school and trying to figure out how things worked, I came across a psychologist's theory about how artists worked. And sorry, I can't remember his name right now, and probably the details of his theory have evolved with time. His book was huge and fat, if that helps. And had a blue cover.

He suggested artists run on a defined cycle of restlessness/seeking, creative spurts, and depletion/depression. I remember this after thirty years because it seemed to me to be spot on. First the restlessness: roaming around, trying a dozen different things, looking for some undefined something.  Starting books and tossing them aside. Standing in front of the open refrigerator. Running around town on unnecessary errands. Walking anywhere. Cleaning closets. I now think this is the charging-the-batteries period. I try to use the extra energy while charging to clean up whatever I've put off--basements and garages, mostly.

Next, I become totally involved with the project, whatever it may be. All the materials I need are ready, having stewed for days in my subconscious while I was rambling around. Now is the time. I start the project, leaving everything else aside. For a long time it was making pots, then rehabbing a house, researching and writing a dissertation. Later on, for a short time painting (not very good at this). Quilts. Now it's usually writing.This is my favorite time, working hard, excited about the work, seeing something come from a conglomeration of materials. Often I don't fully realize what the end product will be, not consciously. Even now I'm intrigued to read my work, after it sits a few weeks. Did I really write that?

Then the down period. Depleted, tired, dissatisfied, bored. Seeing the flaws in the completed work. Why am I doing this? Blah, blah. Once this was the pits, even bordering on clinical depression. I thought I might be bi-polar, when that was popular. But actually, I'm just an artist of sorts, with an artist's cyclic personality.

Having a structure in mind has been a lifesaver. I ramble around in the restless period with an undertow of excitement, knowing that eventually I'll be ready to make something new, and have learned to see the down time as simply time to rest, not wallow in depression.I'm social during my restless phase, anti-social and distracted when making things, and long for company when resting.

So thanks, psychologist-whose-name I can't remember.

Looking for the Anal Retentive Inner child

Yesterday I finished my first round of formatting edits for ALONG THE RAVENSWOOD. It wasn't really the first round. The first round was going so badly--I'd reached 108 changes before I was a third of the way through the pdf--that I pulled the plug and asked Hitch & co. to start over. Paying another formatting fee was going to be much less that all those individual change fees.

Before I sent the new and improved word document, I went through the whole thing again, being as neat and focused as possible. I swore there were no mistakes this time. I'd get it back and it would be clean. Right. I got it back right away, and it was much better. Unfortunately that morning I'd waked early with the realization I'd misnamed a crucial street--all the way through the book! So, with that and one thing and another, I had 56 corrections this time, a record low for me. But this time, it will come back perfect. Right!

I'm hoping for free of typos. I'll settle for that and get it up on Kindle ASAP. Because, if I let myself think, there were bits here and there I'd like to rewrite. Dialogue to sharpen. Sentences to reword. Images to focus. Sure, and the damned thing would never get published.

What now? I'm planning to put both books out as trade paperbacks through CreateSpace. It's rather scary for me, as new things can be for we Luddites. My friend Stephan tells me he'll help. I live in a university town and can get drugs . . .

I looked at CHICAGO STORIES: WEST OF WESTERN. It's been a year since I finished that one, and I can't let it go without a revision, so I'm calling the paperback the 2nd edition. (Probably have Hitch format the 2nd for Kindle, too).  I didn't make any big changes to the story, but there were a lot of words and phrases that needed something. Anyhow, the rewrite's done, and I'll proof it and upload it soon. Arghh.

They Come in the Night

They come while I'm sleeping, those infernal Typo-beasts, to frolic and reproduce on the pristine pages of my ALONG THE RAVENSWOOD pdf. How else could it be that after reading and rereading and rereading the mss, both I and my friends have declared it perfect, only to find it riddled with typos the next time it's read? Even on this, my absolutely, definitely last run-through? I'm just over half-way through and already have listed 123 corrections, for which I shall have to pay. Yikes.

I have two days to get this done and off to booknook.com (again), where their resident geniuses wave their wands and fix it all. I hope. Then, sometime just after Thanksgiving, I'll upload the new and improved pdf and ALONG THE RAVENSWOOD will be live on Amazon for Kindle.

I'm also proofing the word mss for both ALONG THE RAVENSWOOD  and CHICAGO STORIES: WEST OF WESTERN to publish as trade paperbacks through CreateSpace. I'd love to say they're coming in a couple of weeks, but I've never done this before, so we'll see about that.

I ran into a slight problem. when I reread West of Western, I saw so many things (small things) I'd like to change that I decided to issue the paperback as a second edition. I think the second edition's better. I may have Hitch and company at booknook do another pdf for it and put the second edition out for Kindle as well. Hmm. Have to think about that.

With all this going on, I blew off NaNoWriMo for this year. It's the first time in five years. Arghh. I did start another Seraphy story, and got about 14000 words in, but couldn't do that and get the proofing and so on at the same time.  It's a good story, though, and I'll get back to it after Christmas.

Well, I'll probably work on getting my Pilsen story finished first--I think I'll call that one South of 16th (that's where Pilsen is, south of the viaduct that runs along 16th street southwest of the Loop). I like the Pilsen story, which I wrote as last year's NaNo novel. I have the characters, and a lot of the scenes, and I know how the ending goes. I love the ending.

The plot, though, has problems and the middle just sucks. Arghh! I hate plotting, so that's what I should do after Christmas: sit down and fix the plot, actually plan out the scenes according to my editor's advice (ugh. another first), so I can avoid those bits that jabber on and don't go anywhere. Somehow a lot of those seem to have found a home in Pilsen.

And then I have the other Nano Seraphy novel, the one about Logan Square and the apartment building full of modern-day Amazons. You know, carpenters and cops and ex-military and actors and . . . all women. The building was an old funeral home and apartment complex, has been bought by a retired Marine Corps colonel who's going blind and needs a retirement project. She's turning it into a condo complex for single women, non or post-domestic women. I like the camaraderie among the women, the building (an ode to 1920s Moorish architecture). So far the plot's pretty nonexistent, tho, and what there is, stinks. This one needs lots of work and is complicated by the fact I never particularly liked Logan Square. Hmm. Maybe just needs a bit on site research. Maybe I'll find something I love there. Otherwise, it's the round file.

The Seraphy novel I started this year is about Ukrainian Village/Wicker Park and centers around an old mansion in Wicker Park. No problem here with the neighborhood, the characters are great, and the idea behind the plot works, I think.  There's also a very appealing secret society at work. I'll finish this one, for sure.

And then there's LIBERTY, a very off-the-wall, definitely not Chicago novel. Liberty discovers she has a gift when her parents are suddenly killed and she inherits her grandmother's gift of finding dead bodies. She also inherits her Christmas Tree farm in Veedersburg, Indiana, and a few other things. Sheep, lots of sheep, and a Basque shepherd to go with them. It's a rather strange and wonderful story I made up out of nowhere for Nano a couple of years ago.  My favorite scene is when Liberty and the Basque shepherd, pursued by Chicago mobsters, run naked through a field of sleeping hogs. There is a story behind that!

Gotta go, Typo-beasties have taken over another manuscript!

Word and Image, Finding a Cover Artist

You can relax now. After several weeks of pissing and moaning and looking at hundreds (okay, dozens) of websites and covers in bookstores and the local library, I've found my cover artist, Todd Hebertson. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I'd just asked the good folks at booknook.biz in the first place. When I emailed them looking for the AWOL Dustin Ashe, they told me others were also looking for him and he'd apparently disappeared. Again. I couldn't wait for him to show up and asked for suggestions. Indira suggested two possibles, one of whom was Todd Hebertson.

So I looked at his website and his work was professional, but the images not quite what I was looking for. More weeks, more banal covers, more pissing and moaning. Finally I decided to check Todd out. There's a lot to be said for professional. He emailed me back within the day. He didn't ask for clips or the ms of the book, just a synopsis and technical specs. Not a good sign, I thought. How can he come up with images that fit the book if he's not read even parts of it?

He didn't. The first proof came in a day or two. I loved the layering, the layout and the font and he'd somewhere found a photo of the Krause Music Store in Ravenswood (where the book opens) taken before the huge tree grew up that blocks photos now. But the cover looked like a romance novel: Seraphy had a page boy, wore a suburban car coat, looked like she was on her way to teach kindergarden, and the cover was in shades of orange. Arghh. Try again, I said.

If I'd been thinking, I'd have realized Todd couldn't read my mind and it was not his fault I didn't manage to tell him what sort of image I had in mind (I was used to Dustin, who reads the clips and presto! a brilliant, perfect image appears. If he ever gets to it). I thought about exactly  what image I wanted. Make the figure smaller, I said, and in silhouette, and get rid of the orange. Blue or green or gray are okay.  I sent a slew of photos of Louis Sullivan's work I'd taken in Ravenswood to give him the idea. And a page of the coded WWII journal that leads Seraphy to the killer (I had fun writing that using a toothpick and instant coffee on watercolor paper).

The second proof was better, but now it was a nasty greeny-yellow I hated and Seraphy was still too big, wearing leggings and her shoulders slumped--not a housewife, but a sad sorority girl. Okay, I said, kill the shrieky green, think Williamsburg blues and greens, make the figure smaller. Look at photos of Adam Lambert and Lisbet Salander (The Swedish version,w/Rapace, not the American one) and make her edgy, not ordinary. Todd was now answering emails in one word. I figured he was about ready to see me off to Devil's Island.

A couple days later I got the third proof. Wow. Perfect colors, Nice dark, mysterious Seraphy silhouette, great architecture in the background, nice overlay of the journal page. I loved it! I was so excited I spent the last two days finishing proofing my manuscript so I can send it off to booknook.biz for formatting tomorrow, along w/ the new cover.

All this has me thinking about word and image. If the artist hasn't read the book (and that would take far more time than usually feasible), how do we tell another person, who has totally different life experiences and visual referents, what we want our cover (illustration, whatever) to look like? What words will mean the same thing to him as they do to us? Todd is of a different generation from me and lives in Utah, while I am in central Illinois, so different cultures. Somehow we did it and he created a cover that expresses the love of architecture and mystery I wanted, and better, the multilayered story. Good on you, Todd Hebertson!

Almost Done. Again. Finding a Cover Designer. Arghh.

Once again I see I've neglected to write for over a month. Sorry about that, but you see, I don't like to write if I don't think I have anything to say. Or maybe it's that I'm just slothful and thinking of something seems too difficult.

Anyhow, I'm here now. September was a strange month, starting out so hot I had the AC on constantly and ending cold enough to turn on the heat. At least the drought ended and with the first rain, my garden revived, both the grass and the flowers returned. A few of the spring flowers are even blooming again.

And I finally finished what was to be a proofreading of my second novel, Along the Ravenswood. Proofreading turned into a rewrite and took far longer than I planned. I can't spend more than 3-4 hours at a time working on the book or I get dozy and start skipping through and missing errors, so I spent afternoons on Something Completely Different--tuckpointinng and limewashing the basement of the old house I own next door.

Here's an old photo from three years ago--the porch and the small balcony now have new railings, or restored old ones. Much better. The lilies have grown into a goodly green fence/hedge.

It's a huge old place 45' x 45', divided now into four apartments, two up and two down, with a central hall. The brick foundation's a hundred years old and there were  places I could have stuck my finger in between the bricks, if I didn't mind the spiders, which I did. WhenI bought the house in 2000, the basement was a black hole, wet, moldy, filled with junk and dripping with spider webs. Since then I've had over four dump truck loads of stuff taken out of it, the foundation exterior tuckpointed, the floor paved (yes, it had a dirt floor!) and all the gas and water lines replaced. Now the basement has a large central room with a 9 foot ceiling and 3 rooms on each side that open into it. All these brick-walled rooms were dark and spidery. I put off doing anything about that for over 10 years.
 
Rewriting and proofing were driving me insane to the point where even working on the basement seemed attractive. I wasn't interested in cutesy panelling and carpet.I like real basements--a painted concrete floor and white limewashed walls that create a clean, dry, bright work and storage space. So that's where I've been. 18 bags of mortar mix and 9 bags of hydrolized lime and I'm nearly done, as done as I think basements should be. I've only one small room left to tuckpoint yet, then a final coat of limewash. I'll leave the whole thing to dry out and paint the floor (pale gray, what else?). It should be done about the time Ravenswood goes live on Kindle.   

Today and the rest of this week I'm doing one more (THE LAST) read-through of Ravenswood, writing the blurb, getting all that forematter and endmatter and so on written and sending it off to Hitch at booknook.biz for formatting.

I'm also making up my mind on a cover artist. Dustin Ashe seems to have fallen into a black hole, so I've been looking at hundreds of covers. Almost none of which I liked--too many feel alike, some are too cute, many too trite, some too slick, etc. Some designers don't even ask about the book. Some offer stock covers from which to choose. Arghh! Is there no one who thinks he or she should read the book, or parts therof, and design a cover with some relation to that book? Such a radical thought! I finally have someone in mind (suggested by the folks at booknook.biz), but I'll decide by the end of the week. Arghh.