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A message from Claudia D. Hernandez
Dear Friends,
I am launching my very first Indiegogo effort to fund my latest project: TODAY'S REVOLUTIONARY WOMEN OF COLOR Book and Photography Exhibit
I NEED YOUR SUPPORT to cover costs such as book editor, art designer, exhibit costs and book publication which will be given as a GIFT to every young girl who attends the exhibit
The deadline to back this project is December 9th!Please, watch my video and then click on the pink button that says "Contribute now" and donate $1
Share the video with your friends and family to help spread the word. Please forward this email to your friends and organizations that you know might help. Thank you for supporting education and community through the arts!
Please visit
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/258398?a=1644733The Closet of Discarded Dreams
Texas Book Tour
Oct. 25-31, 2012
Bloguero Rudy Ch. Garcia will be visiting Texas. Come and discover the Closet of Discarded Dreams.
HOUSTON
River Oaks Bookstore
Friday Oct. 26, 2012 5:00 – 7:00pm
3270 Westheimer
Live on-air interview on Tony Diaz’s Nuestra Palabra –
Latino Writers Having Their Say, KPFT 90.1fm, Tue. Oct 23, 7:30pm CST
SAN ANTONIO
Southwest Workers Union
Sun. Oct. 28 3:00
1416 E. Commerce
The Twig Book Shop
Sun. Oct 28 5:00
@ The Pearl Brewery
Palo Alto College Guadalupe Hall #119
Tuesday Oct. 30 12:50
1400 W. Villaret Blvd.
Great Day SA interview
on daytime TV program, KENS5 in San Anto
Sun. Oct. 28 beginning at 12:00 noon.
October 6th, 2012
featuring best-selling authors and music performances, including Denver Sound’s
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
concert with Rocky Mountain PBS Channel 6
In anticipation of the new 2013 Americas Latino Festival to take place in Boulder, October, 2013, a preview event will be launched today, October 6th, 2012 on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.
The preview event features a presentation by festival director Irene Vilar, a Guggenheim Fellow and Latino Book Award winner, and a talk by best-selling author Luis J. Rodriguez, author of Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., recognized as a major figure in contemporary Chicano literature.
The program includes a piano recital of Music across the Americas, a musical intermezzo of the Colombian folkloric group Tucandirá, and a performance of Denver Sound band Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. All events take place inside the Black Box theater of the ATLAS Institute building on campus. Events are free and open to the public, with the exception of the Slim Cessna’s Auto Club concert, which will be recorded for Rocky Mountain PBS Channel 6 as part of the newly released Boulder Box Set series. Tickets for that event can be purchased at $20/$50 through www.americaslatinofestival.org.
The America for the Arts festival will take place October 3-6, 2013 at the University of Colorado Boulder. Over 75 speakers in the areas of human rights and justice, conservation, science, literature, music, visual arts, and film will participate in this event committed to promoting a panamerican consciousness and cross cultural understanding. The 2013 region: Mexico & the Caribbean. Theme: The Exhaustion of the Earth.
Among those confirming attendance for the 2013 event are: Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Junot Diaz, best-selling authors Isabel Allende, Mayra Santos Febres, and Cristina Garcia,
Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, Guggenheim Fellow and International Literature Award Winner Daniel Alarcon, author and film director Lucia Puenzo, Babelfilm director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Future of Food producer Deborah Garcia, actor and film producer Benicio del Toro, Guggenheim Fellow Laura Restrepo, Pulitzer Prize winner playwright Nilo Cruz, Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and NPR Latino USA anchor Maria Hinojosa, Latin Grammy Award winner Nestor Torres, PBS NewsHour anchor Ray Suarez, and McArthur Genius Grant fellows: installation artist Pepe Osorio, percussionist Dafnis Prieto, jazz saxophonist and composer Miguel Zenon, photographers Camilo Jose Vergara and Susan Meiseles, and Nobel Laureates Derek Walcott and Mario Vargas Llosa. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Mirta Ojitowill cover the event for the national press.
---------------
Bloguero authors in L.A.
Rudy Ch. Garcia will be joining fellow Blogueros Daniel Olivas, author of The Book of Want and children's books author René Colato Laínez (his latest,
Let's Play Football / Juguemos al futból
) at the Latino Book & Family Festival, next Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, on the Calif. State University campus, Dominguez Hills.
Olivas' panels: Writing in Multiple Genres (10:00am) and How To Get Published (1:00, Garcia, too!). Laínez' panels: Using Multicultural Literature in the Home & Classroom (10:00am) and What's New in Children's Picture Books (1:00). Garcia will also be on the Great Young Adult Fiction panel (3:00). This year the event is being held in conjunction with La Feria Es El Momento - Edúcalos, presented by KMEX Univision. Check the program at the event for readings or signings.
After that, Garcia heads to San Anto, Austin & Houston, Oct. 25-31 on his book tour: River Oaks Bookstore, Fri. Oct. 26 in Houston; and Southwest Workers Union, Sun. Oct. 28 and Palo Alto College, Tue. Oct. 30 in San Anto.
Don't ever get your first book published; skip straight to the second.
My life's such a torrent with duties around publicizing
The Closet of Discarded Dreams that eating, bathing, cutting my nails or hair, and sometimes even breathing have nearly become lost habits.
So, when I get an Email that
Reyna Grande, who was flying in to read from her third novel, is about to land in Denver and maybe has no place to stay and could I help, it's almost a relief to have new, different priorities. My responsibilities turned out to be merely putting her and hubby up for the night–híjole!
If you've never heard Reyna speak and do a reading, you've missed demasiado. Yanked out of my own tiny first-book tasks, I sat with others at Tattered Cover Bookstore as she told of her childhood, growing up, her life, her family relationships and trials that epitomize what every young mexicanito who crosses al Otro Lado undergoes. Her reading widened my self-centeredness some, deflated my overindulgence in my first novel being published. It was good for me. She the pocha and me the chicano connected for just one moment at the reading, when I realized how much we shared in common when we'd been young brown kids in this intolerant society.
The Distance Between Us, A Memoir is her book. Read it, but better yet, go hear it. Reyna headed off for another read at Whittier Public Library, but you can
go here to see where else you might be lucky enough to catch her.
Back to self-promotion – Albuquerque and a TV interviewKASA 2 Fox TV has a weekday morning show called
Santa Fe Style Show and interviewed me about
The Closet of Discarded Dreams as their featured book of the month! If you want to see how a Chicano pitches to an audience in the land of the Hispanic,
go here.
Author doesn't do good phone – Denver WESTWORD.com interviewOur biggest alternative-newspaper's website features an interview by Cory Cascciato today. It taught me how different phone interviews are from live ones on TV. You can
go here to read my ramblings.
Chingaus – The Closet arrives!
My first reading is this Sunday. I've never seen the book, though the Ebook's been available online since Sept. 1. I'm sitting on the front patio, drinking Negras, wishing I could down a half a bottle of Knob Creek, looking up the street every time I hear a vehicle, hoping it's FedEx, wondering how I'm going to tell my audience Sunday that they can't buy the book because it didn't get here in time. Other than that, I'm fine. Mi amá is here for the reading, but she's enjoying Reyna's book because MINE HASN'T ARRIVED and might not. One day left for deliveries.
A FedEx truck stops down the street. Then leaves our block. Cagada! A UPS truck stops next door, delivers and gets back to head off, again. Puchísima! Then he pulls up ten feet like to deliberately tease me that he was leaving. And brings us 2 boxes he sets on the porch. The book. The books. I'm not exhilarated. I'm not tirando somersaults. I don't believe it. It's as surreal as some of
The Closet.
My wife Carmen takes a pic, but it shows nothing of relief, because there is none. It's just here. And Sunday I won't have to disappoint at least those wanting a copy. To see whether my reading is anywhere as suave as Reyna's, you'll have to be there:
Debut reading & signing of
The Closet of Discarded Dreams
by Rudy Ch. Garcia
Su Teatro's Denver Civic Theater
721 Santa Fe Dr. 5:00pm
Door prizes galore.
Oh, yeah, and you'll even be able to purchase a copy! De verdad.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
by Rudy Ch. GarciaEver have one of those mornings when you realize--what? That you shouldn't have done something last night. That you don't remember what you did. That you don't know where the chingaus you are or how you got wherever the chingada you are. And maybe you're even scared to turn around? Well, that's how my fantasy novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams begins. Then everything gets worse.
Today I'll probably receive the first copies of the book. It might be like all the Xmases ever, all combined into the opening of one gift, from a publisher, but nevertheless as latent with emotion as anything I probably ever received from Santa.
In a week, on Sept. 16th at Su Teatro's Denver Civic Theater I will do the premier reading and wonder and wonder how it will be received. In preparation for that and to commemorate holding a copy in my hands in a few hours, below is part of the first chapter, the opening to the novel. In the Denver Metro area, I'd encourage people to request the book from Tattered Cover Bookstore, since it only became available to stores in the last couple of days.
If you like what you read here and want to read more, spread the word, twitter and friend and like away to your networks, family and co-workers. Given logistical problems of not getting the book earlier, I assume it won't make the Colorado bestseller list. We'll just have to see.
When I opened my eyes I immediately realized I wasn’t in my bedroom, or in anyone else’s for that matter. From about twenty feet up, a seemingly endless ceiling overshadowed me, sparkling all star-like. It reminded me of a colossal version of an old Westside San Anto bowling-alley-turned-Mexican-dance hall, except no salsa blared here, nor did any banda play. Drunk like a borracho on a titanic waterbed, I floundered atop a never-ending loose collection of gear, goods, and possessions amassed in all directions.
My muscles not responding well, I must’ve looked like a stupid action figure in some messy kid’s closet. The ocean of stuff glutted my vision, overwhelming my mind. These sensations and images flashed through me like a dream—no, a nightmare—yet I felt conscious. In which case, what was all this chingadera and where in Gringolandia had I landed?
As I struggled to sit up, on my left I toppled over the heavy gold pieces of a nine-foot-square chessboard—of ebony and ivory? On the other side I squished an opened box of chocolates that reeked of liqueur. I wiped my hand on the mink coat lying there and smelled my palm—definitely Amaretto and Kahlua. Strange since I’d never had a sense of smell in a dream. I wiped the stuff off on my jeans and shook my head to try to get straight. Then I gave myself a cachetada hard enough to sting my cheek, and rubbed and stretched it. Nada of the surroundings changed. No, this felt nothing like a dream.
Facing me, as well as to my right, the distant horizon shimmered. I’d somehow awoken in a humongously long box, unfathomable miles across in two directions. Everywhere between me and the distance, piles of goods rose like a consumer society’s ultimate graveyard, leaving but ten feet of suffocating space overhead.
Now I felt like a forsaken knick-knack in some hoarding giant’s garage, stacked almost ceiling-high. In my mind, the stunted headroom choked off the horizontal boundlessness, threatened to crush me with claustrophobia. I wanted to puke, heave hard and bad, but forced it back down and swallowed. The nausea went away.
I followed the twinkling, pale ceiling to where it ran into a more exposed, orange wall behind me and a yellow one to the left. My eyes and brain couldn’t accept that the planes met at right angles, like this enclosure might be hexagonal or something. I shook my head again and squinted but the angles fluctuated worse. To boot, the disorientation wasn’t only in my head. My skin, my bare feet, my gut, didn’t feel normal. A hangover from an exotic drug I should never have tried? I couldn’t remember doing such a thing.
Fact was I couldn’t remember anything I’d recently done—last night, yesterday, the past week and for much longer. Maybe I’d been drugged with something that had wiped out my memory. So besides being lost, I had some kind of amnesia? And where the chingaus had my socks and shoes gone to? Had I gotten rolled? I checked for a wallet and found nothing, or anything in the other pockets.
Worried that if I stood I’d lose my footing on the stuff, I stayed crouched, scanning for someone or something familiar. I made out a third wall miles away but just barely, like this hazy place was gargantuan enough to have several climates, with fog in front of me and what looked to be a mirage to the far right. Between me and those distant walls, perpendicular shafts of darkness regularly sundered the background, pillars of black light rising out of the ground as if to keep the flat canopy from collapsing. I could have used a pillar myself, to keep my balance.
I shook off the vertigo and inspected the Flooring, as I’d learn they called it. It was impossible to believe. No wood floor, carpet, tile or linoleum anywhere. No ground, no dirt. Just thousands—no, it must have been tens of thousands of…things sat on I couldn’t imagine how many millions of others. In that sense, the place resembled a humongous junkyard, but most items appeared to be whole, useable, many even new. Any man-made object of value seemed like it would be here somewhere. I tore my eyes from staring too long because it confused me—like speeding through a liquidation sale of valuables from mankind’s every era. Besides, I was in no shopping mood for anything, except information, something to get my bearings or understand what had happened and where the chingada in Aztlán I could be.
Subdued noises came at me from every direction, like my ears were partially plugged…but I didn’t think my hearing was the problem.
From fifty yards in front echoed the steady clicking of roller coaster wheels. The contraption hadn’t been there a minute before, I felt certain of that. It stretched for possibly miles on prairie-like slopes of goods, bearing but one screamer riding with his arms raised. Further back stood a short oil derrick with its gushes splashing the ceiling or gurgling oil that seeped into the underlying goods. A couple of men in black-drenched overalls whooped it up. At least those people acted like they knew where they were. Yet, I hesitated running to seek their help.
Sprinkled throughout as far as I could see, larger groups were involved in different activities. There looked to be parties, a tamalada, a videogame tournament or quieter mundane events, like some kind of business meeting and a wedding ceremony. Plus more—a courtroom trial, a monster truck rally, a team of fresco painters frenziedly at work, and further out a score of naked people obviously involved in an orgy. At the limits of my vision, the eclectic mix of goings-on melded into grayed blurs.
 |
| publicity photo |
More odd than all these oddities, was that the participants seemed totally involved in their own special thing, paying no attention to groups near them. As if they didn’t know they had neighbors. It was like I’d Google-mapped in real-time and max-zoomed on a world of suburban barbecues. A place where each backyard gathering pretended it existed in its own private mini world, despite the nearby competing commotion. Except, these people needed no eight-foot fences to aid the illusion and suburbia had never looked this loco. . .
Rudy Ch. Garcia will autograph and sign The Closet of Discarded Dreams at
Su Teatro's Denver Civic Theater
on Sunday, Sept. 16th
at 5:00pm, 721 Santa Fe Drive
A free event with refreshments and suavísimo door prizes.
Denver debut book signing and reading of
The Closet of Discarded Dreams
Su Teatro's Denver Civic Theater
721 Santa Fe Dr.
Sunday, Sept. 16th, 5:00pm
by Rudy Ch. Garcia, the unfolding author
One week. Siete días. It's almost here. Like my unnamed protagonist would say, Qué chingaus! People at the readings might ask: What did you think about after you heard you'd be published? What did you feel? How was it, holding your first novel in your hands? So, anticipating that, here's this week's installment of what it's like having your first novel published, at least how I experience it.
The Closet of Discarded Dreams will release Sept. 1 and the process will begin. Then I'll wait. I've gotten past anxiety and some nervousness, and now a bit of excitement seems to be entering the picture. But it will take more time for me to hold something physical in my hand, turn the pages, find the typos, thrill in the fact that my first one reached print.
First though, it will not reach print. A few days after Release, ITunes and Amazon will have it in E-book and pdf formats. Then I'll be hustling to get digital review copies to the press, bloggers and whoever else I promised such. But I won't read it; maybe just scan it. I'm waiting for the paper.
Maybe a week after Release, it will be available as a paperback, but I still won't have it in my sweaty palms, though maybe I can get my first copy by paying for overnight delivery. As an immediate-gratification baby boomer, the process will no doubt take fokkin' forrrrrevvvverrrrr.
At least that could take my mind of all the pre-Release work I'm drowning in. Make up posters, business cards, bookmarks, drink coasters; make sure all the info is included, that there's no typos; design it and beg my daughter to get the files ready for the printers. Do a shoot with the same photographer daughter Marika, check proofs, decide on and send for stills. Etc. Here's what we came up with for a publicity photo. Comments appreciated.
Then daughter says, "You need Facebook and Twitter." "What for? I don't do that stuff."
"Everybody else does. Like your potential readers." Okay, so now I face and tweet, or at least my author self and the book do.
Then at the last minute somebody say, "Where's the QR code?" "What's that?" After a couple of hours of online googling, reading, navigating and back and forth questions to daughter, I don't completely understand, except that I know it's something the kids (under 50) do with their digital toys that I don't have because I can't afford the service they pay for as a "necessity." So I add the QR code, even though I doubt I'll ever use one, otherwise.
Here's what I'll likely send out today for a beer coaster. The idea that I heard about from another author is to take them to college bars, ask Mr. Nice Bartender if it would be alright to leave some around, and then hope the college boys--before they get too
borachos--will notice the graphic while they're waiting for their fourth beer, read it, and maybe scan the QR or head over to the book website.
The Closet of Discarded Dreams is filled with clones of celebrities and historical figures, Marilyn and Che included. So the graphic is a fit. In fact, in the book the two homestead one of the 9/11 monuments, debating, flirting and generally acting unlike anything you might imagine would happen if they'd met in their past real lives. I could be reading a passage from my protagonist's first encounter with the famous twosome, at Su Teatro or in Albu. If you can make it, I think you'll find that, among other things, more than entertaining. It's one part of the novel that I relish reading to myself.
Okay, one more week. In the meantime, you can check out the work my daughter and I have been taking care of, at the sites below. I'm not sure how it's all said but, tweet me, make me your friend, or friend me, like me, face me (or is it give me face?). And when you're done with that, send or connect or link or QR it to all your digital worlds. I love what we've created on the website and more is coming that your friends will probably like. Much more. Just not soon enuf for me.
book website: discarded-dreams.com FB: rudy.ch.garcia Twitter: DiscardedDreams
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
A reading and book-signing of Rudy Ch. Garcia's
The Closet of Discarded Dreams
Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012, 2:00 p.m.
at the
National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 4th Street SW
Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico
For info: 505-246-2261
Some of my promotion efforts for my new book, like the above, have born fruit. I'm honored at the opportunity, but a little nervous at the prospect of the Hispanic Center's membership cringing when I utter the word Chicano. Hopefully the literary experience will be good for both of us. Their September events will be listed here soon.
By coincidence, I'm in the same publishing stage as Melinda Palacio who posted yesterday on La Bloga about turning in her final manuscript for her upcoming book of poetry, entitled How Fire Is a Story Waiting. I too just turned in the final for my upcoming novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams. Dos frijoles in a pod?
By an even greater coincidence, Melinda graced our patio in Denver this past week at a small gathering of writers, artists and familia. In her post Melinda wrote how she preferred live readings and we were treated to a sampling of both her work and her voice. It wasn't the sing-song rendition that some poets perform, it was more hearing descriptions of thought and feeling from the poetess' own mouth. Four poems representing the book's four sections gave us a great experience of the literary lyrics in her book. I highly recommend not only buying it, but seeing and hearing her in person. Melinda was a delight.
With all the work preparatory to my book being released in September, my head and days seem to be filled with book business, if not the literary. And with little prospects for employment this next school year, my life seems to be transforming into something like the writer's life, albeit with little to no income to support it.
Last week on my front patio the Friday evening, end-of-week cervezas turned into a discussion about the of starting one's own publishing company to distribute one's novels. Manuel Ramos, Pocho Joe of KUVO La Raza Rocks fame (that you can stream on-line here), myself and a neighbor who's completed a novel batted around this idea, ending with an agreement to agree that every novelist should decide his own path. Goes to show you how deeply cervezas can uncover the ultimate truth.
And one morning this week, an aspiring author and I traded our entries for Esquire Magazine's 79-word story contest. (No entry fee, great prize and only a couple of weeks left to enter.) This was no reading out loud experience, but instead a process of reading each other's work to ourselves several times. Some authors prefer not to undertake this sharing, but I sometimes find it beneficial, as happened that day.
My initial promotion was a great success. The first 25 autographed, monogrammed and numbered copies of my novel have been spoken for. I now know I'll sell at least that many the first week it's out. About mid-September or earlier when it's available, I'll have to aim for 26. Possibly even more.
Over on The Closet of Discarded Dreams website, it's obvious that it's not easy to give away an autographed copy of a new book from a debut novelist. Maybe I made the rules too difficult, so I decided to change them to make it simpler. Below are the new ways to win, so I encourage La Bloga readers to enter.
Winning an autographed copy – now made easier!
Beginning Sept. 1st, readers can enter to win an autographed copy of The Closet of Discarded Dreams (continental U.S., only; an unsigned E-book or pdf for others), following its release in Sept., each week I’ll randomly pick one lucky person.
Here’s how: This novel is filled with dreams, nightmares, aspirations and passions that people have abandoned. DON’T send me one of yours. Instead just send 5 words or more that pertain to your dream or whatever. If you don’t have one, make it up; I won’t know the diff. Example: bicycle, monster, nighttime, my BFF, eating nachos. Simple, huh?
Fill out the “Contact the Author” form on the homepage, put “My dream” or nightmare, etc. in the Subject line. Send me your words in the Message box. I’ll blindly draw one winner. I’ll only announce the winner, not their words, unless you prefer to.
Feel free to pass this info along. And hurry before the Closet’s Door slams shut!
This week Facebook and Twitter sites should be ready for the book. Hope you "like" them.
Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
by Rudy Ch. Garcia
You're at a writers' conference and you finally get to ask your question--what was it like working with your first editor?--and the panelists give you some minutes and maybe a good story or joke and then they go on because there's lots of others like you and lots more questions. Below I relate more of the details you wish others had given.
I just finished four days on the first round of editor's mark-ups of my debut novel The Closet of Discarded Dreams. First came the dread, the dread of neophyte novelist anxious about what the editor will find! My description would be belied by Neil Gaiman, so I'll let him talk:
"The first problem of any kind of even limited success [RG-like first novels] is the unshakable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. It's Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened the Fraud Police.
 |
| Neil Gaiman |
Imposter Syndrome induced by the Fraud Police, in my case, my first editor, who maybe carries her own titanium clipboard, razor-edged. Would she bust me for mediocre prose, cardboard characters and MIA plot points? Would she run to the BIG editor and threaten to resign if I wasn't reassigned to someone younger who hadn't earned their clipboard, yet?
In the real world, you
can get busted by your story's editor. Earlier this year, one of my short stories came back ALL marked up, changed, critiqued, and probably had clipboard indentations that I didn't notice. At the end was a long note that described how many of the editor's hours and hours my weak writing had cost. I followed each of his notations and spent my hours and hours on rewrites, and to this date don't know if it will be published. So there.
Back to this editor-experience. I'm a fairly thick-skinned writer, given that it's gotten wrinkly, desiccated and flab-
uloso, so the editor's comments, suggestions and questions don't bother much. There's chingos of them, but, really, I expected more, and worse. Like something the Fraud Police might say, like "This book sucks." But not this time.
When I was less experienced, and thinner-skinned, so many ideas from someone else about MY writing would probably have raised the hairs on the back of my neck, gotten me to pull my feet up onto the chair in dread, or maybe made me rise off the chair to pace the whole patio, exclaiming, "That's not how I wrote it!" But I have more experience now--especially the experience of countless form-rejection letters that didn't provide opportunities to improve my prose.
That's exactly the point of editing, no? I didn't write it that way and somebody else who's providing a different perspective is telling me maybe I should have written it differently. They're also giving me one last chance to change, improve it.
So I spent hours in four days running my editor's gauntlet. Could I make it? I went thru and took care of the easy stuff, mostly punctuation and realizing things like, "Oh, that's not what that word means, exactly?"
In the next round I dealt with more significant edit remarks in the realm of, "Think about changing this word/phrase/sentence/paragraph because . . ." I've heard other authors talk about having a good editor, or their editor catching errors that the author didn't. I get to realize what that means and I go with the flow. Mostly.
Then I'm done, but only with my editor's eagle-eye catches. I have one saving round yet to tackle: what did the editor, and me before that, miss that somebody should have caught? To salvage my POWER, CONTROL, PERSONAL WORTH and prove to the world that this is MY stuff. This sounds somewhat like a passage from
The Closet of Discarded Dreams hero's suffering. It actually wasn't that melodramatic, but a bit of that sensation was there. And of course I do find stuff. And work into the late night, patio lights fixated on me, but my vision blurring from the moonlight, my wizard-brain and writer-soul in the flow 'cause this is what writers do, until it's . . . all . . . fixed. I gotta quit my day job! Oh, that's right--I don't have one!
Al final, I sent off the revisions yesterday. Await her final verdict. Hope it's close. Close to perfect is what some might wish for. I just want close to finished. Not because it's too boring or tiresome or demanding of a process. Because it's no different than raising a son or daughter, or a lot like putting the last layer of shellac on a carpentry project. I need to say
Finis and let the work stand on its own two or four legs, as the case may be. A writer's passion is to write--not linger and lounge and homestead a work--and then move on to new writing.
At this point, initial reaction from the editor is very positive. I'll get finals back from her tomorrow. Then, in some days, BIG editor will go over it. And the last round will begin. That's what I get for writing a novel, no? For wanting
el mundo to see it.
Qué no? Plus, at least so far, it was a much less agonizing experience than I would have imagined.
Then I'll be ready for: What new thing should I start writing? So I can get edited, again.
Esperamos. . .
Es todo, hoy,RudyG
Rudy Ch. Garcia's alternate-world epic recounts a Chicano's experience going through worse than his first editor, but maybe not as
bruto as your own as a
latino in
Gringolandia. The Closet of Discarded Dreams will be released Sept. 1 But
read this before you buy it.
rambling update on debut novel by Rudy Ch. Garcia
My head's spinning, there's not enough time, I don't know where to look next. Welcome to the wonderful world of first-time published novelist getting ready for the BIG day.
You can read about my debut novel
here and about some of my prep work
here.
Like I said, my head's spinning. I want everything to be perfect, timely, on time, and as much of a success as it can be. At the same time, not everything is in my control. Luckily, I have friends, acquaintances and contacts who know more than me.
Manuel Ramos, author of several novels, authors and poetesses Lisa Alvarado and Melinda Palacio are just some helping me navigate this episode in my lit life that comes only once. First novel. Debut. Book signings with audiences who will read the bared revelations of this writer. Scary? Nerve-wracking? No, I've got too much prep work that's muscling in on all my time and not allowing for that much true feelings.
Again, luckily, I've also got supporters and friends and family who're helping me with setting up a book tour, speaking, interviewing engagements. I couldn't do it alone, otherwise.
For those of you who anticipate your first book-length MS getting published, I can't tell you how it will affect you. For me, it's mostly a blur.
When I tell someone new about the book, they go, "I bet you're feeling great." It goes in una oreja and out the other. I know I should be feeling that, maybe I will be when I stand in front of my first audience to conduct a reading. Vamos a ver.
I've had to research the Internet, blogs, publications, and contacts and found surprising things. For instance, I'm going to attempt to focus people's buying the book. For the first month of Sept., I'm aiming for the Denver bestseller list. Why?
Because bookstores in other parts of the country, book reviewers of major publications and media gente look at such numbers. If The Closet of Discarded Dreams can make the Top 5 for one week in Denver, it will get noticed, possibly, nationally. It might get reviewed. I might be interviewed. Etc. You can help me accomplish this.
So, that's why I entitled this post the way I did. Don't buy, don't pre-order, don't go for it until you hear where and when. It's a small window, making a bestseller list. Even harder with a first novel.
Claudia, is there an address for gente to elect. For example, I don't respect Paypal, and prefer not to give via a credit card since that also feeds the maw of the bankers handling the transaction.
mvs