Conundrum

by | Feb 8, 2010 | Poetry, Writing

Seems like that’s what adulthood (ick) is all about, right? Questions that you don’t really have an answer for. At least, that’s what a blog is for, anyway. So my current conundrum is book copies. I have 25 copies left of the original print run of Returning the Favor, which I’m pretty happy about. I’ve given a bunch away as Christmas gifts, given a few away in trade at book shows, and sold enough to recoup about 75% of the total printing and ISBN registration costs. I have one reading scheduled for April, and not a lot else in the way of readings coming up. Since I don’t sell more than five or so copies of the book per reading, I think I’m good for a while, but I don’t know how many copies I should keep on hand. What do you guys think? Does anybody out there have any idea how many copies of a book I should keep around? Lulu does a pretty good job of filling orders quickly, so it’s not like I can’t go out and get more with two weeks’ notice.

And while you’re giving me the benefit of your countless wisdom, my poem Deployed has been published over at Camroc Press Review. Check it out. The whole publishing thing is kinda funny. When I first started this escapade, I vaguely dreamed that if I could write one poem per week and maybe in my wildest dreams get one published each month, then I’d have 52 poems and 12 publications under my belt at the end of a year. So far this year I’ve had four poems accepted in the first five weeks of the year, and I’ve churned out way more than one poem per week. So I’m really happy with how that’s going, now I need to see where, if anywhere, it takes me.

Red Dirt Review – Call for Submissions

by | Feb 2, 2010 | Writing

So I know there are a lot of writers that read this, and I hope a few more will as well. The Red Dirt Review, Charlotte’s latest and greatest literary magazine, or at least the one that’s mine, is now open for submissions. I’m looking for the best of the South, and the best of the friends of the South. If you’ve ever lived in the South, been drunk in a ditch in the South, driven 14 hours each way to hang out in a bar in Greenville, SC, or owned an album by Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson or Johnny Cash, you qualify.

Send me your best poetry, short fiction (1,000 words or less) or short nonfiction (same deal) and as long as it doesn’t suck out loud, I’ll print it in our first issue come March 1. And since you’re obviously someone of discerning taste or you wouldn’t be reading here, I have the utmost faith that it won’t suck out loud. Send submissions to editor@reddirtreview.com. I need stuff by February 14th to make the March issue.

I turn around for just a minute…

by | Jan 29, 2010 | Writing

and all this shit happens!

First, J.D. Salinger kicked, which I found a little sad despite my first reaction being “J.D. Salinger was still alive?” So even though I didn’t know he was still alive, and only found out about it from blogs, I still worry that with him gone there’s no one left to carry the torch for authors who wrote one massively successful novel and then never wrote another book (also known as the Harper Lee Fiction Award). I’m also a little concerned that disaffected youth will now focus on sparkly gay vampires instead of wandering around saying “fuck” a lot. And that’s just not right.

Then I miss Lady GaGa day on Facebook because I actually spent most of the workday working, goddammit. Not that I had a thing to wear for Lady GaGa Day, or would, but you know, it’s the principle of the thing. Something perfectly deserving of mockery and I missed it. Fuck.

That “fuck” was for you, Holden.

Then just as I pitch a big bitch fit yesterday about wanting to change the paradigm of submissions and literary journals and the lack of relevance of poetry in today’s world, I get an acceptance letter for a poem that I write especially for Just Do It, but submitted to cc&d on a whim, and they took it for their May issue, which is pretty badass, because that makes two acceptance letters in one month, which I think is a pretty good hit rate for most writers. I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out, because everybody I talk to says “You’re going to get rejection after rejection after rejection before you ever get anything accepted” and I’ve gotten two pieces accepted in my first month of submitting seriously, so I keep either waiting for the other shoe to drop and for me to either wait a year to get anything else accepted, or to realize that most people that write poetry suck. But it’s probably a mix of both, because I do think that a lot of poets suck, and likely do a crap job of figuring out where to submit their stuff, so because I know I’m not great but I’m better than a bunch of the truly suck-ass writers out there, I can at least submit my stuff to places more likely to accept it.

Damn that was long. Fuck.

Fuck off, Holden, that random profanity was all mine.

Trapped

by | Jan 28, 2010 | Real Life, Writing

This is one of those boring posts where I don’t really have anything to say but write a blog post anyway to spew forth the crap in my head and maybe lessen the load on my sinuses a little. I’m spending the last few minutes of my workday avoiding work because I’m at that point in my workload where I feel trapped and know I can’t finish any projects so I don’t want to start on any of them because what’s the point I can’t finish any of them anyway. So I’ll just blog and pretend like I don’t have too much shit to do and not enough time to do it in. So here’s what’s up in my world.

I’m planning on going over to the Green Rice Gallery in NoDa tomorrow night for a reading hosted by the good folks at Iodine and the Main Street Rag. There’s an open mic afterwards (why people insist upon calling it an open mike when there’s never been a “k” in microphone confuses me) and I’ll probably read something and pimp my book a little. Good/bad news on that front – I’m down to only a couple dozen out of the initial print run of 100 copies, so the books have moved a bit. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I probably gave away two dozen over Christmas to family, so I’m still not 100% sure if I lost money on the deal or not. The other downer is that to continue promoting my work, I’ll have to order more, and I’m kinda broke right now, so I need to figure that out.

And the reason I’ll need more copies is that I booked another reading, this one in late March/early April at the Literary Bookpost in Salisbury. They have a Saturday Salon series, and I sent them an electronic copy of my book to look over. They responded affirmatively, so now we just need to settle on a date. That, along with my stuff at Story Slam and an appearance in the February edition of Just Do It at Theatre Charlotte will keep me pretty bust for the foreseeable future. I think we’ll do another Carolina Writer’s Showcase at Story Slam in March, and I have another couple of ideas that I’ve been cogitating on that I wanted to get some feedback on.

Do you think it’s worth $5 to attend an open mic reader’s night? I think there should be enough momentum among people to put one of these together monthly. Everybody, even the folks reading, pay $5 to get in. That covers the cost of running the building. If we get a good crowd, we make enough to keep it going. Otherwise, it’s hard to justify the cost of the lights.

The other idea I had is a poetry contest. Not like a poetry slam, where things have to be memorized, but a contest for the best poetry. I was thinking $10 to enter and there would be two prizes each month – an audience prize and a judges’ prize. There would be three judges – one from the venue, one from the audience, and one from a previous month’s winner. The entry fees would be split between the two prizes, and it would be possible for one person to win both, so either two people win $50 each, or one person wins $100. So do you think people would participate, and do you think people would pay $10 to watch it?

Those are ideas that I’m kicking around, in addition to writing new material and submitting like mad. I’ve sent submissions out to seven different journals, online and print, this month, and gotten one acceptance (The Dead Mule) and one rejection (Camroc). The rest I haven’t heard from, but it’s too soon for most of them. I’ve spent some time this week poring over The Poet’s Market, and am starting to develop a real sense of attitude for places that don’t accept electronic submissions. I mean, damn people, it’s the future, why waste stamps? So my new submission policy is to focus on places that accept electronic submissions, because that makes life easier on all of us. If it’s a really respected journal, then I’ll go for a mailed sub, but since a lot of those places also don’t accept simultaneous submissions, they aren’t necessarily the best venue for an unknown poet anyway.

And here I go getting locked into the paradigm I was complaining about not all that long ago. Before you know it I’ll be running off to get my MFA and start life as an English professor with a tenure-track gig just so that I can write more. I already have a jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Look, there’s nothing wrong with an MFA. There’s nothing wrong with being a teacher. But there is something wrong with the lack of relevance of poetry (and theatre, and real music) in today’s world. The more we look for the newest Twitter, or Facebook, or Farmville, or iPad, or whatever, the more we’re ignoring each other and the immediacy with which people are supposed to live life. So I’ll spend a little more time trying to buck the system and figure out how to get poets and poetry noticed, and maybe less time submitting to journals published by universities who don’t care about the world outside their ivory towers anyway.

(steps down off soapbox)

So now I’ve spewed the better part of 1,000 words without a coherent theme, so I’ll direct you to two awesome women who you should read EVERY DAY. But especially the linked posts, because they are teh awesome. Amanda Fucking Palmer and The Bloggess. Both of the linked posts moved me, one in a stand up and throw a fist in the air in solidarity kind of way, and another in a nod your head with tears dripping into your beard because you’ve been there and have the scars to prove it kind of way. I think you’re all smart enough to figure out which is which.

Now my workday is done, my Farmville strawberries are ready for harvest, and I’m gonna take my fat ass home for dinner. See ya around.

Writer for Hire?

by | Jan 22, 2010 | Writing

Yeah, I know, I’m a big whore. Deal with it. Last night I went to see Our Lady of 121st Street at Carolina Actor’s Studio Theatre. I liked it. For more details, I’ll let you know when my review is posted at Charlotte Viewpoint, which is an online magazine that I’m doing a little writing for. So that’s a gig, albeit one that is in its infancy right now. And I’m still writing for the PokerStars blog every other week, which is about all I can handle with my day job given the hours that are required to cover major online tournaments.

But I also have a couple of other irons in the fire. I am trying, once again, to post new content to Lighting for Worship, another website that I own. That site with practically no activity gets about 40% as much traffic as I do here writing every day, which kinda goes to show how many people are interested in lighting design and technology for churches, and how few people are interested in redneck poets. But that’s no huge surprise. I have a plan to monetize that site later in the year, but I have to get it more consistent with content before I can make that happen. Currently it’s a good resource for information, but I need to keep it current and update some of the technology on there to make it really good. I think one post per week there will be enough, if I can squeeze it in.

And I’ve decided to start an online literary magazine, called Red Dirt Review. The focus will be on Southern literature, but I’m going to use a pretty loose definition of what is Southern. If you can find Greenville, SC on a map, then I’ll accept submissions from ya. If you’ve ever spent any time outside of an airport in any Southern state (and despite its status as a sovereign nation, we’ll count Texas, too), you’re Southern enough for me. If you’ve ever read anything by Tennessee Williams, Pat Controy or William Faulkner, good enough. I’m just looking for stuff that feels a little like you’d read it (or sing it, or say it) while sitting on a porch drinking moonshine. So if you want to submit, email me at reddirtreview@gmail.com. There’s gonna be a contest, too, hopefully the contest will bring in enough entrants to pay for the prizes and printing of the journal later in the year.

But in the meantime, I’m still available for hire as a freelance writer, either on poker or theatre, or about anything else I might have any experience in. So let a brother know if you need anything scribbled, I’m available.

Free Books – worth what you pay for?

by | Jan 21, 2010 | Poems, Writing

So I got an iPhone a few months ago. Yes, I love it. No, I don’t have any problems with AT&T’s coverage. Yes, I had Verizon before. No, I had no problems with their coverage, either. Yes, I think the commercials are witty, and no, I don’t like Luke Wilson any better.

Now that we got that out of the way, the point of this is that the iPhone has a free app that mimics the Amazon Kindle. Now some folks have wondered to me about the size of the screen, but let’s face it, the words are the same size as a paperback book, you just have fewer on the screen at one time than on a page. No big deal. So I love the app, and have bought several books for the Kindle as a result. And it was during some of my shopping the other day that I thought “Am I actively devaluing the book by searching for passable free books for my phone?”

Because I have a limited budget, and a stack of books waist-high in my house that I haven’t read, I’m on a moratorium on book-buying. This doesn’t mean I haven’t bought any new books, it just means that I don’t buy nearly as many and have the good grace to feel bad about it when I do. So I finished the last book on my phone, and went looking for another. And I cruised the bestseller list and decided not to pay any real money for an e-book this week, then moved on to the free books. Now most of these books are like crack, one free sample in a series to get you hooked, which I think is a good marketing ploy, but some of the others are just books that people have written that are out there for free.

And some of these are free for a reason. Namely, they suck. I’m all for the idea of allowing the market to determine the relative worth of a product, and allowing consumers to even set pricing for things by their decisions to buy or not to buy something. But I wonder about the market for writing becoming so devalued by the presence of so much free content out there. Already I see freelancers talking about rate cuts, and there’s always another kid coming along willing to do the same work for 2/3 the money, and there’s always somebody willing to sacrifice a quality writer on the altar of the dollar, but I wonder if the same deal transfers.

So am I devaluing my own work by becoming a lowest common denominator consumer? Is this the same as a local store owner shopping at Wal-Mart and feeling guilty? Or am I just overthinking again? I do believe that as people try to survive in a challenging economy, we need to make choices on where our money goes. And we need to make conscious, personal decisions regarding our spending, and on what we value. So I’m pretty sure I’ve answered my own question, and justified buying more e-books instead of grabbing free ones, but what about the bigger picture?

On the smaller picture front, here’s another video from Returning the Favor.