Literature Majors, A Shout Out

“But, lady, as women, what wisdom may be ours if not the philosophies of the kitchen?”

Sor Juana de La Cruz

Something you can use.  Have mercy, a blog has to give readers something they can use.  Okay.  Rather than rail and damn, I’ll submit.  There is much to be said for utility.  I guess I want to make this blog post a shout out to literature majors.  I can think of few other endeavors that have greater utility than literature and literature majors are the people who’ve managed to snap to this fact.  Here’s a keeper from Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his astounding novel, 100 Years of Solitude.  Ursula Iguaran Buendia , the ancient matriarch of the Buendia family went slowly blind over the years, a fact that she was able to hide from her family.  Ursula was a student of habits.  She knew the habits of everyone in the family as well as the habits of the animals, plants, and even the inanimate objects such as furniture.  One of her great skills was her ability to find the objects people in the family would lose.  She noticed that people lost their attachment to their possessions in the extraordinary moments when something would jar them out of their habits. 

To find the lost object, all Ursula had to do was find out when, where, and under what circumstances, the person who’d lost the object (the key, the ring, the eyeglasses, etc) had departed from his/her habits or usual way of doing things. With this information, Ursula could tell the person where the object was likely to be… and she was never wrong.  One of the hundreds of great take-aways from 100 Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad) was Ursula’s sure-fire way of finding lost objects.   The method has, through the  years, saved me hundreds and hundreds of hours of anxious, fruitless searching (looking again and again where an object SHOULD be, although it is demonstrably NOT there),  turning out closets, examining trash etc. ad nauseum.  And Ursula’s method has probably saved my hundreds of dollars in eyeglasses I did not have to buy, locksmiths I did not have to pay etc.

Since I am not ancient beyond counting years (yet), nor surrounded by a huge family,  nor blind, etc.,I have had to adapt Ursula’s method to my circumstances.   I must first note, that I lose things.  Somehow I am one of those people with slippery fingers and holes in my pockets.  My connection with my possessions is always a bit tenuous.  Probably the objects I most often lose are my keys.  Here is a typical scenario – it’s early evening and I’ve decided to drive to the grocery story for one reason or another.  I go into my office and my keys are not on my desk.  They are supposed to be on my desk, that’s where I keep them, but they are not there.  Now this could be the time for an extended and increasingly frustrated search with the accompanying curses and slamming about that are so characteristic of such moments.  And in fact, this is often the course I take.  Sometimes I am impatient and want the lost object fast and want to avoid the effort and humility that Ursula’s method demands.  At some point, however, my better angels prevail and I get serious about finding my keys.

                What’s involved is thinking back over the course of the day to remember something I did in an unusual way, in an unusual place, or at an unusual time.  I recall, for example, that I took a shower at an odd time, mid-day rather than first thing on arising.  This means, of course, that I had to undress rather than just stepping out of my skivvies to get into the shower.  Since I was dressed when I began the showering project, I was wearing trousers.  Although I did not recall that the keys were in my pants pocket, I was certain that as I took off my pants, I would have had a momentary concern, a thought that I should set everything in my pockets aside, and hang the pants nicely on a hanger in the bathroom so they would be tidy when I dressed after the shower.  I did not recall having done so. I remembered nothing of the shower beyond a moment of annoyance that there was insufficient crème rinse for my needs.  Still, by Ursula’s reckoning, the keys would most likely be in the bathroom.  After indulging in these mental gymnastics, I walk into the bathroom and find the keys along with sixteen cents in coins and a wrapped but soggy stick of gum on a shelf next to the mirror.  An important note here – not only did I find my keys but I did so without having to question my wife and/or daughter as to whether they’d seen or used or moved my keys.
               This method does require a certain amount of discipline.  One has to stop obsessing and quietly reflect, often at some length.  And it does require humility.  You have to accept the fact that you are one with the mass of idiot humanity, going through life mostly unconscious of both your actions and their consequences.  The largest thing I have momentarily lost has been a car.  The most valuable thing I have similarly lost (in terms of liquidity) was about $20,000 dollars in cash that was not my own (and that I would have had to replace).  In both cases, Ursula’s method was central to a happy resolution of the situation.  Again, there is always a cost in bruised pride to finding lost articles.  It’s a price that I have time and again been more than happy to pay.

                So literature has provided me with lessons of immense practical importance.  Walk with pride, literature majors, you are hooked into wisdom and practical know-how that far outstrips the capacities of the fools that would deride your choice and passion.

About Independent Publishing

So now that the Belmont Stakes is history, I can turn my attention, such as it is, to the interesting moment we are experiencing in the world of writing and publishing.  Just five or six years ago I was noting and dreading the way that the publishing industry, in the grip of multinational capitalism  was becoming a Soviet style institution, with fewer and fewer companies amassing greater and greater power.  Ever burgeoning advances might seem like good news for writers, but the opposite is actually the case.  As advances grew, fewer and fewer writers got them.   Writers, agents, editors, etc. had been pissing and moaning and doing absolutely nothing about this for years.  My mentors, Norman Zollinger and Tony Hillerman were dead and I missed their wise guidance. I began to avoid conversations with other writers because the chatter created a dampening effect on my natural Sponge Bob type enthusiasm.

Distractions came up.  My parents (now dead) went into a deep decline and needed my help and it was easy to ignore the whole miserable business that dealing with the publishing industry had become.   Recently, when I looked up again and began to think that I ought to do something to get back in the game, I found out that much had changed.  Responding to the urgings of friend and fellow writer Steve Brewer, I decided to get my rather scanty backlist into e-book form and to consider independent publishing as a legitimate direction.  And I have acted.  I have a new book, BUTTERFLY KISSES, that I’ve published independently through CreateSpace and (so far) Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.  And I’ve got OSTRICH, my best selling novel  ever, into e-book form.

This is quite a different endeavor from the conventional approach to publishing that I was used to.  In most ways, this is great.  I am spared the indignities of the ambivalence and hand-wringing of agents and editors.  I stand to make much more money per book sold than I make via my contracts with publishers.  I no longer have to deal with the feeling of impotent frustration when I find that just when there is a consumer buzz about a particular book, the publisher has not managed to get them into the stores.  I no longer have to wonder whether a given publisher is doing anything to support my book.

But there are drawbacks.  If I want any editorial help on a particular book, I have to arrange it myself.  If I want reviewers to review the book, I have to convince them to review it or resort to the poorly disguised sham of paying for reviews.  Worst of all, in the chaos of the e-publishing revolution, I have to set my poor book afloat on what Steve Brewer calls “an ocean of shit.”  As the world now stands, there is no vetting of independently published books, whether they are e-books or print-on-demand paperbacks.  No institution has yet evolved to offer the reader, the book buyer, guidance in the matter of recognizing the good books that are swimming with the seemingly endless word vomit that people are able to so easily disgorge into the market.  One thing about conventional publishing is that the consumer knows if he or she buys a book from Viking or Little Brown, etc., he or she can do so with the security of knowing that the writing is competent.  The major publishers have all published some really terrible books, but even their worst books, sentence by sentence, are competent. This is by no means the case with books that people publish independently.  At this point, about all that one can do, as the writer/publisher of a given book is to find ways to let people know that your book is worth reading and keep it cheap enough that newbies will be willing to take a chance on it.  It’s all about building an audience.

Getting people to review the book on Goodreads and Amazon is one way to do this and through Amazon, the writer has the option of creating promotions that allow people to download one’s e-book for free.  The idea is that people will then read the book and if it is any good, they will tell their friends, write consumer reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, etc. As word spreads, more people will read and like the book and recommend it, etc.  I am uncertain as to how well this works.  I have done such a promotion. 110 people downloaded my book and to date one person has reviewed it.  And this person’s review is based on the paperback edition, not the e-book that people were able to get for free.  And then there are readings, signings, launch events, etc.  I sometimes wonder if I need to be there and present at every sale,  providing needed support for people working up the confidence to buy the book and read far enough into it to either continue or live with the bad feeling of having wasted four dollars or ten dollars or twelve dollars on a lousy book.  Should I be there to say, “Yo , bro, so you never pissed away ten bucks before?”

Something will develop.  There is a niche in the world for a company that can figure out a way to dredge the ocean of independently published books, locate the good ones, and inform readers as to the results.  Probably someone is coming up with ways to do this at this very moment.  Until then, all I can do is ask my readers to tell their friends, review the book(s) on Amazon, Goodreads, etc., share their responses on social media, get their salon groups to take up the book, etc.

I am feeling my way through this.  It is gratifying to be taking more responsibility for creating a cadre of readers, a following.  This is probably going to be a slow process, but I don’t need to have hundreds of thousands of readers and I don’t plan to abandon conventional publishing.  When I have a new book, I will get an agent and attempt to peddle it to the big or the boutique presses depending on what it is. If that doesn’t work out, I will take the independent route, and work on nurturing a readership. BUTTERFLY KISSES ran into some very bad luck in its run at the major publishers.  I had an offer to publish from a major company but the editor who made the offer got fired before I had a contract.  At this point, I figure that it’s better to have the book around and available to people rather than taking up hard drive space.  It’s a very entertaining read and what do I have to lose by making it available.

Loose ends, Belmont Aftermath

I do plan to come to the point on the next post.  But first, I need to finish up vis a vis the horse race. The Belmont Stakes 2013 are run and done.  No mud.  Palace Malice with Dexter, New Mexico’s Mike Smith up, won the race “going away” (gaining rather than losing ground as he approached the finish line).  Palace Malice had placed 12^th in the Kentucky Derby six weeks ago and came into the Belmont with little popular support.   In the Derby, defying Mike Smith’s attempts to convince him to adopt a more moderate approach, Palace Malice broke fast, took the lead, and ran like a maniac, leading the field through most of the race.  He tired, however, and  horses began to pass him.  By the time the race was done, almost all the horses had done so.  He was wearing blinkers.

Focus, yes... but I am not sure it's the blinkers

                Blinkers limit a horse’s vision.  A horse wearing blinkers can see in front of himself/herself and cannot see to the right or left.  The idea of blinkers is to help the horse to focus on the task at hand rather than the society of horses around him/her.  This helps to keep a horse calm.  Apparently, however, the blinkers had the opposite effect on Palace Malice.  One can speculate as to why this was so.  Perhaps the horse felt that he could run out from behind the blinkers if he went fast enough and  would then be able to enjoy the pleasures of full, uncompromised horsey vision.  Something about the blinkers made him impervious to his Jockey’s wise attempts to provide guidance.  This was apparent to anyone who cared about the inner life of the 12^th place finisher in a race that Orb won handily.  His trainer, Tod Pletcher and his jockey cared.  Along with the owner, who also cared, they decided 1) That Jockey Smith was not responsible for the unseemly behavior and 2) That they would not enter him in the Preakness, electing to rest him six weeks and enter him in the Belmont Stakes and 3) that he would be spared the indignity of the blinkers for that race.

The public was not impressed, the Belmont odds on Palace Malice ended up at 15 to 1.  The public could not assemble much confidence in a horse who ran out of gas in the Derby, a much shorter race than the Belmont.  How could a horse who faded badly in a race of 1 ¼ miles do anything in a race ¼ mile further?  How indeed (see the race here)?  Jockey Smith attributed the difference to the blinkers, noting that Palace Malice was calm, relaxed, and responsive running without the hated blinkers.  He stayed close to the leaders but held off the pace allowing speed demon Freedom Child to exhaust Preakness winner Oxbow.  Palace Malice then moved comfortably in the last 660 yards of the race to pass Oxbow who held the lead after Freedom Child’s inevitable fade.  Oxbow, a tough customer, was able to overcome his exhaustion enough to hold off a late (far too late) charge by Orb, who ran third.  For me, the most interesting moment of the race was when Oxbow gave up on his attempt to defeat Palace Malice and immediately turned his attention to the attempt to defeat Orb.  I know the feeling

The Belmont - An Unanticipated Post

I have to render this post with an explanation and a promise.  I sat down to write about the way that the whole writing and publishing business is reeling from the huge impact that the e-book revolution has created.  I had to mention the big race tomorrow as a matter of course, given the name I gave to the blog.  But I could not find the discipline requisite for such forbearance.  As I considered the race, I felt an imperative.  I had to explore it, look at the several dimensions of complexity in the endeavor.  I will post on the other topic in a couple of days.

So tomorrow it’s the Belmont Stakes.  The race track itself is a factor.  It is one of the largest ovals among US racetracks.  The horses will start and finish at the same spot, completing a mile and a half circuit.  And the track is wide, wide. Racetrackers  have used various figures of speech to characterize Belmont park.  So whether the track is “a monster,” “the grand canyon of racing,” “a featureless ocean,” “the Test of the Champion,” “big sandy,” or “graduate school,” most people who pay attention to horse racing see the track itself as an ominous challenge to any three year old equine.     I think of these horses as babies.  In my view, races of this magnitude, the Triple Crown races, should be for four year olds. The sad tale of the great filly Ruffian (buried at Belmont) says all I need to hear on the subject.  But  no one asked my opinion in 1919 when the tradition, of the Triple Crown for three year old thoroughbreds became a tradition.  This tradition, however, has allowed truly exceptional horses like Count Fleet (1943), Seattle Slew (1977) and especially the unsurpassed Secretariat (1973) to absolutely dominate their respective fields.

Notice the immense size of the track.  Jockey Ron Turcotte is
checking as he crosses the finish line to see if they are setting
a new track record  (they are).

                                                                              Secretariat won the race by 31 lengths, giving the impression at the finish line that no other horses were in the state of New York.  Secretariat still holds the track record which is not likely to be in jeopardy tomorrow.

The track at Belmont Park is also a challenge for Jockeys.  The width of it means that riders find themselves short on visual landmarks.  When horses are at the top of the final turn, they still have a half mile to run, nearly double the distance from the same landmark at Churchhill Downs where the Kentucky Derby is run.  The riders have to decide when to ask their horses to bear down and find that extra gear.  If a jockey does this too early, he could find that his or her horse is spent well before the end of the race.  Almost every well known jockey has experienced at least one major failure in this race.

There is going to be a big field tomorrow.  Fourteen jockeys will do their best to pilot fourteen horses around the big oval.  Twenty-eight arguably sentient creatures will be directly involved in this complex event.  All of them will bring their physical advantages and vulnerabilities, their preferences, their prejudices, and their emotional volatility to the track and all of it will be in play simultaneously during the lead-up to the race and the race itself.  Some of the horses will know one another.  One  of the horses (Unlimited  budget) is a filly who has mainly run against other fillies and may find “the boys” interesting, annoying, threatening, or irrelevant.  And the boys could have their own reactions.  Unlimited Budget’s rider will be Rosie Napravnik, the only woman jockey in the race.  This fact gives sports writers a much needed story line for the race but in my view, the sexual politics that may make a difference in the race has to do with the horses, not the jockeys.  Ms. Napravnik is a terrific athlete and consummate professional as are the thirteen other jockeys.  The jockeys will do their best to keep their mounts focused.  But horse priorities inevitably have their own momentum.  And if a horse runs next to a horse who has attempted to bite, the most important thing for a cautious and dignified horse could be to avoid a nasty bite.  All of this adds several dimensions of uncertainty to the endeavor.

And there may be mud.  For some horses mud is irrelevant.  They do their job period.  Other horses are fine running in muddy ground but become annoyed when clods hit them.  Jockeys on such horses may elect to take their horses to the lead so as to avoid the inevitable clods that the trailing horses have to put up with.  Other horses find muddy ground so demoralizing that they lose all interest in competing.  Mud is also a factor for jockeys who have to deal with muddy goggles on a track that already poses visual challenges.  Mud gives handicappers and touts another factor to ponder.  So here is the morning line:

1-Frac Daddy (30/1)

2-Freedom Child (8/1)

3-Overanalyze (12/1)

4-Giant Finish (30/1)

5-Orb (3/1)

6-Icognito (20/1)

7-Oxbow (5/1)

8-Midnight Taboo (30/1)

9-Revolutionary (9/2)

10-Will Take Charge (20/1)

11-Vyjack (20/1)

12-Palace Malice (15/1)

13-Unlimited Budget (8/1)

14-Golden Soul (10/1)

                For more on this try this article.  As for me, I will note that Orb won the Kentucky Derby covered with mud and looking very pleased with himself.  He did not, however, cope very well when he got stuck behind other horses in the Preakness.  It was as though he was just annoyed that those other horses didn’t get out of his way.  I loved the way Oxbow won the Preakness. He just jumped out and took charge, leading the entire way. Revolutionary is a maniac who does not like to lose and Freedom Child won a huge race (the Peter Pan Stakes) on a sloppy track by more than 13 lengths.  And I will have to pull for Unlimited Budget, a very big girl who should have the requisite stamina.  But all of these babies are sharp, fast, exquisitely bred animals who are competitive, have competent riders up and have won before.  Any of them could have the stamina and equanimity to win the race.  I could not wager comfortably on this one.