Promote Your Blog or Book or Group or Dissertation or Poem or Whatever Right Here

I'm a promoter at heart. I care a lot about people who care a lot about good writing and the promoting thereof. And by good writing I mean writing that pleases all different kinds of people; writing, be it non-fiction or fiction, bio or history, genre or literary, academic or anecdotal or combo of everything; writing that brings joy and pleasure and enlightenment and maybe even some good healthy doses of much needed escapism to burdened lives weighed down by what naturally comes along with living -- loss, sorrow, stress, monotony--and hopefully some good times and hope and joy too (and all the complex entanglements of gray stuff inbetween the despair and hope).

I'm a curious person (like most of you), and I'd (and we'd, I'm pretty positive) would like to learn more about you (don't be shy, be bold, step out and promote yourself, it's okay, BTU is here now) especially if you have a cool blog or new LT group or something you've written that you'd like us to read. A review, for instance, does not necessarily have to be Hot in order to be a worthwhile read. Amen? Link us to it here. I'm serious. Network.

Okay! I'll take the plunge!

I have a book review site called NoBSBookReviews

and a blog with often book related memes at I Meme It

Fell free to stop by!

I blog at thebookfrog.blogspot.com (yeah, I don't know how to make a link). Mostly reviews, some overheard-in-the-bookstore moments and--if you go to the oldest posts--war stories from my most exotic assignment running a store on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica.

I am new to all this, but I am considering keeping a reader's diary as a blog on the web. I am presently taking care of some technical hurdles but I keep you informed as soon as I am up and going.

I am following since short the superb blog of our friend Tomcat which sets up a standard difficult to beat.

Since I came back to the US from Egypt in 2006 I have not done much writing on line. At one point a friend gave me a promotional blog post which collected links to my few articles on the internet, and I am not sure if they are even still active, but here is the post:
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000191.html

My name is now Anna Shook and I should write more. Life caught up with me. I am on Facebook to keep in touch with school friends and on Myspace to keep in touch with my son (he lives with me, but sometimes it's easier to catch him on line than actually awake at the same time as I am).

Just discovered this group. Given that I have started, not yet finished, but not given up about it yet, yet also not read a single page more for a few months, and am now stranded at Nausicaa I feel I am a good match for this group. :-)

I have three active blogs. Two of them are film related. My main one is Hammer and Beyond, dedicated to the Hammer movies: http://hammerandbeyond.blogspot.com/

The second one is dedicated to the German Krimi movies of the 1960s, primarily the Edgar Wallace films: http://krimifilm.blogspot.com/

Last not least I have a German tutoring site that I started this year but haven't updated much. I am a German language tutor living in Cork (Ireland) and wanted to use this blog to promote my services: http://germangrinds.blogspot.com/

All the best
Holger

Hiya', brave climbers!

Sorry to have been away. I know a few questions were put towards me, but I'm afraid I've enlisted myself for a massive project with the one 'n only Raphael Slepon of Fweet fame (http://www.fweet.org/), by far the most reliable Finnegans Wake annotation site on the web. Some of you may or may not know, but the Wake's current etext (produced by Trent University in Canada, where FW is in the public domain) is rife with misprints, wrong punctuation, etc. So I'm correcting the entire text. Er, that is, I'm producing an etext that (hopefully) matches the corrected 3rd edition--the 3rd edition incorporates Joyce's corrections but it's still a faulty text and requires the editorial expertise of Danis Rose or the ITEM gang or the Antwerp school. Although, there are a few important Joyceans who are against a Wake restoration for interesting reasons.

Anyway! I'm-ah-gonna' be busy for a whiles. Hopefully, I'll pop in once in a blue book's moon. Take care!

Wow! How exciting for you! Congratulations Ded! And you tried to pass yourself off early on as being "no expert."

Ded, I can't begin to thank you enough for all you've contributed here. I began this group mostly on a whim thinking a few pals might be interested in reading Ulysses (which was really just an excuse to say, hey, I'm reading Ulysses, HELP! hold me accountable, don't let me quit!), but your incredible scholarly input combined with several others who know who they are helped elevate this journey into something more transcendent than just a reading group.

You will be incredibly missed. But we're going to be okay (and if I keep telling myself we're going to be okay over and over, then we will be okay, right?). Right, BTU? Onward, excelsior.

Let's all give Ded some virtual applause and high fives for a job well done! And he didn't even get paid for all those dissertational posts. I imagine someday soon (if he isn't already) he most certainly will.

Hope to see you from time to time, Ded. and don't let those just be words; do keep in touch. Don't be a stranger you self-described JoyceNerd!

Oh my God oh my God Enrique he was there and then he was gone it was horrible it just swallowed him he's gone oh God oh God no no no please God no please please no no please

: )

Hi Everybody!

I love this thread! I want you all to know that you're welcome to join my new LibraryThing group called, "I Hate Ulysses, Don't You Too?" I just got it up and running. Hope to see you all there!

"I began this group mostly on a whim thinking a few pals might be interested in reading Ulysses (which was really just an excuse to say, hey, I'm reading Ulysses, HELP! hold me accountable, don't let me quit!)"

Enrique! DON'T QUIT! You have so much to read for!

And thank you Ded for all of the great information you've provided. You've elevated Ulysses from completely nonsensical to very mysterious in my mind.

Hi all,
I have reopened my Blogger account and will probably be posting there in the near future. Older stuff I've written is there. No book reviews, but posts to do with Muslim politics, life in Egypt, and language issues for the most part.
http://www.annalysis.blogspot.com

Yo, Macumbeira,

Have any of the "technical difficulties" been allieviated in your pursuit of a blog? We're impatiently waiting for you to link it here. Don't forget, friendly reminder.

And I know for a fact there are several of you who have blogs but have simply stubbornly refused to link them here. Maybe you're modest. Humble. Maybe you don't want to draw attention to yourself. Maybe you hate the idea of having more fans, more readers, more reasons to arise in the morning and write. Perhaps you prefer your anonymity. Well get over yourself and join the community before I have no choice but to out you from the closet and/or, at my surreptitious discretion, link your fine, worthwhile-to-peruse-awhile, blogs, right here. You've got one week, or Freeque begins summarily linking here as he see fit, w/out anyone's permission.

Why do I even care, you might inquire? What's in it for me? Oh, you, you utilitarian cynic! Nothing's in it for me, but experiencing some vicarious pleasure in seeing you get some props for all that hard work you do alone, probably in secret, like a spy. That's why.

Dear Enrique !

you have the stuff of a real ceo. Managing the group without missing any details !
The blog is up and running fysically but now the objective is to get as good reviews as yours. So I am reading a lot of other reviews of you guys and gals. Some of you will function as a benchmark or "best practice" models.
Hard work !

Hello, everyone. I'm new to the group. My name is Solla and I live in Portland, OR. I don't have a blog. I have 2 web sites - one aimed towards kids (bootstraps.net) and the other, saltysol.com. I started a thread to talk about books on the 2009ClubRead group. The link is http://www.librarything.com/topic/62376.

Greetings Solla, and welcome to the expedition. Are you planning on a marathon hike up Ulysses or will you be joining us at Margaritaville?

As long as I can gulp Hammerheads (local microbrew - Portland chauvinism) and read the The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr in Margaritaville, I'll meet up with you there.

Hammerhead - the best McMenamin's has to offer!

Man, all this Portland-speak is making me thirsty. I'll be in the Sierra's next week. Maybe I'll swing by Portland for some of that tasty microbrew on my way back down to So Cal.

Good intro, Bokai! Well done. Nice to meet you too, solla. And great Club read you've got going!

Bokai and, I hope one other, will be keeping an eye on things around here while I'm gone. Bokai, please don't let them start worshipping the golden calf (or the golden cat, for that matter!) while I'm gone up to the mountains, all right? No coup d'etats either, no uprisings please! You all listen to bokai (and hopefully to Anna too, assuming her response to my request is "yes"). They're in charge. Don't be back talkin' them like they're substitute teachers ya'll think you can get away with murder from. They've been carefully selected, have undergone a battery of tests du freeqy for this important assignment.

Check out who's joined us: poor-ious! Welcome to whatever this group is now called, poor-ious. Glad to have you. If you're friends with Ganeshaka, how can you not be friends with us? Welcome! That's quite an eclectic assortment of "favorites" you've got listed on your profile page - very cool.

All right, better skedaddle and say hello to Mom.

Yes, Ganeshaka is worth knowing. He's helpful with the beginnings, the middles and the ends. This group has a playful spirit. I like that. I didn't fare so well in Literary Snobs, maybe I will do better here? The irony arrows are all used up or they're hiding in Literary Snobs' quiver. We'll see. Your fearless leader is a most thorough and reliable mother hen - I can see that.

Welcome Solla! Solla and I take the same bus in to work so we are actually real life friends! I am so glad you have joined this group and will be reading Tomcat Murr with us.

How cool is that!

tomcatMurr, it seems that all eyes are on you. Better behave!

#25 So how was the first day at work at your new job?

New jobs are always kind of stressful for anyone, but it is getting better as I learn the ropes.

I've suggested to several already here that they link their blogs here in this thread, but most have disobediently, if not outright rebelliously chosen of their own free will not to do so. I hope you'll take advantage of the offer, DavidX, and in so doing potentially increase the readership of your blog by literally upwards of tens of readers!

Will there be public whippings if we do not? *licking lips salaciously*

Well, I for one don't rightly know what that weird Freeque fella has up his sleeves, and I'm certainly not one, like you tomcat, who's a "in" to none a that nasty whips and chains business, but I'd sure be happy to offer up some public spankings free a charge to any who might be interested. I got me some purdy thick callus's on my hands that makes for a good spankin'.

*licking lips salaciously with a wicked glint in eyes*

oh you dreadful naughty hotttie!!!!

Just to avoid any sort of cat slobber, sandpapery tongues, or flagellates, anything worthwhile about me has been accumulated here:

http://www.google.com/profiles/jacob.silvia

Oh good God thank you cowboy for saving the day and for getting this thread back on topic!

I suggest more of you - you know who you are - follow swift suit.

Although I hold no brief for the "thenaughtyhottie" and the tools of that trade, I take even a dimmer view of snitching, etc. etc. What did Sir Toby Belch reply to the I'm-afraid-somebody-might-be-having-pfun-somewhere Malvolio?

34...you calling me trailer trash, glute? Look it you! You couldn't dance yer way onto Dancing With The Tards, let alone the Stars! You're just a backwards belly dancer is all you are, and you call me tacky and inappropriate? I dare you to come to Oklahoma and say that to my face, glute!

Whoa, let's reel it in some hottie okay? Look, I understand that #34 might have gotten under your skin some, but I don't think you should retort with a "tards" blast - that's crossing a line. That's insensitive. And while my feelings aren't hurt by that comment (as many of you know I have a daughter with special needs) I'd hate to see somebody else's feelings hurt by that comment. So please, everybody, before we run and tell - and yes, poorious - I'm with you 100% on I'm telling, childish!, let's all just take a deep breath, count to ten, and think twice before sending that post. Remember, be nice!

naughty, you know my standpoint: as look as you do not post your previous pic in your profile, I am not reading your posts anymore

eh basta !!!

Hi Big Mac Daddy!

Okay, I've caved in to your demand. I simply hate the thought that you wouldn't read my important posts anymore. Not nice, Macumbeira, not nice. And thanks btw for overnighting the funds to me for my extreme makeover! Woohoo!

Oh, and Freeque, stick it up yer bum okay? And I mean that most respectfully. I'll say whatever I want, whenever I want, to whomever I want, anytime I want to. Got it?

Good.

42...hottie, I'm going to take the high road and give you the benefit of the doubt, Sweetheart, and just assume that it's those steroids that are talking, and not really you. 'Roid rage is a terrible thing.

Ok that is much better, just a bit of make-up maybe...

Many of us have been eagerly anticipating Macumbeira's blog since he mentioned at this thread's beginning that he was working out the technical difficulties; well, looks to me like those difficulties have been resolved and his blog is up, and after reading each word, I must say it was well worth the wait. Mac, I hope you'll forgive me for perhaps being hasty and and linking it here w/out your permission, but I simply feel compelled to do so regardless - by executive decision - so that those of us who won't be departing on the Cat adventure will know that there's something else worthwhile perusing this holiday weekend. And btw, the salon is tentatively scheduled to begin Proust's magnum opus come June, 2010, and your observations and analysis, I'm sure, will prove helpful. Well done, Mac! http://www.macumbeira-macumbeira.blogspot.com/

I feel like a jack-rabbit caught with his pants down in the lightbeams of an oncoming SUV....

Enrique, I've decided that your randomness is the answer to my insanity heart's song. I think I'm going to stalk you have to check our your library.

46...Here comes the Hummer bearing down on you jackMac!...

aglaia531...welcome to Forever Random, er, the salon! Your logo's got quite the moves - easily the best dancing logo I've ever witnessed dance, period. I've considered twitter too, though I'm afraid I'd become as obsessed with it as I am already with LT. It's like the idea of having multiple spouses - LT and twitter, I mean - may seem like a good wholesome fun idea on the surface, but how does one commit to each the time they rightly deserve? Not sure what I'm talking about, either - but glad to have you!

Will get back to blogging at http://massolit-gehlen.blogspot.com/ soon. As Mac has discovered, haven't been there since December, since, in fact, I started in earnest on LT. I'll try to post on June 14, Flag Day in the US (yay!, sp?), also, and more to the point, 5 Ix on the Maya calendar.

Well, here is my blatant promotion. I just started a wordpress blog, http://saltysol.wordpress.com. I plan to put up poetry old and new, and chapters from my novel in progress, called The Things that Always Were. I would love to have as much feedback as anyone would like to give. At this moment, there is only one post, which is the intro to the novel, but more will be up soon.

I would like to draw everyone's attention to Macumbeira's blog here:

http://www.macumbeira-macumbeira.blogspot.com/

I'm sure he is far too modest to do it himself. I have been browsing in it and reading the posts with fascination. There is a wonderful breadth and depth of topics.

Thanks everybody for promoting yourselves and one another. That's the very heart and soul of what the salon is all about - displaying and getting the good word out about the fine creative and scholarly-type work of its many talented members! Woohoo!

52> you're welcome! That is and always has been the heart and soul of this place hasn't it? Miss you. XXXOOO

I've been away and I'll be away some more, working on improving the content of my blog, but I'll be back no later than Aug. 1st for the Q.&A. with Kelpie Wilson, Anna's stepmother, on her fantastic book, Primal Tears and other issues ecological/environmental-related, I'm sure.

In the meantime, drop by my blog and say hello. If you decide to become a "follower" of my blog, I'll become a "follower" of your blog too. Fair deal?

Wrong link ?

Voting is now open for BartlebySnopes, which includes the Magician, by Andrew, http://www.bartlebysnopes.com/stories.htm. The story that wins is automatically included in the quarter printed anthology, although others may be selected by the editor.

re: 51

the blog recommended is magnificent

let's put this back on top.

Harsch's Arjun and the Good Snake, being an Ophidiological Account of Six Weeks in India without Alcohol, published by Amalietti&Amalietti, Ljubljana, is going to be out soon. I should get the cover design and galleys on Thursday and the printing will begin on Monday...By then it will be available on Kindle, I think, in the U.S. and soon enough, hopefully, in hardcover from AmazonUK.

Look in bookstores near me, as well.

...and poetry, too? Oh goody, goody! Hey, would y'all mind if I shared the first sonnet I ever wrote? Really? R ya sure? Ok, here goes:

A sonnet's not an easy thing to write.
It twists and turns each time you think it caught.
Just try it once and see if I'm not right,
That everything you write turns out pure rot.

Some poets seem to have an easy time,
Like Spenser, Shelley, Shakespeare, Keats, et. al.
Their sonnets have a beauty in their rhyme,
This sonnet should be on a bathroom wall.

But they spent many hours at their craft,
Until their words, like music, flowed along.
The finished work is never the first draft;
The writing process can be rather long.

So now I know I have much work to do,
And many lines to write before I'm through.


Okay, I'm through. And don't worry, I won't put the rest up. There are several hundred, and they don't get any better.

Applause! Bravo!

Encore encore!

Very good ! repeat the last sentence in decrescendo and you have du real Frost

... and miles to go before I sleep...

i'll read the next

I'm trying to promote my book and what I get is sonnets!

all right, he said
enough is enough
a poem from me
typed in a huff (as opposed to a den, office, kitchen...)(nod to Groucho)

ODE TO THE SHOVELNOSE STURGEON

O shovelnose sturgeon
you modern relict--
of some of the early bony species
Though many of your structures
are quite primitive
you are the survivor of an ancient group

What have you, sturgeon,
at the back there?
Is it a primitive heterocercal fin?
caudal type?
Your largely cartilaginous skeleton
retains a notochord.
Thank you.

Your head, friend,
What covers it?
Is it okay if I stroke you
to see if these bony plates
extending in several longitudinal rows
go all the way up there?
No.
I knock you on the head.
Bony plates.
Front to back.

O sturgeon
This is what I tell people:
Your only scales are ganoid,
which you keep in a patch on your caudal fin.

Now--roll over
so I can see your sucker-like mouth
limpet lips
and that row of sensory barbels
under the shovel, before the mouth
I am not the only one who wishes
he could watch through a camera
on bottom of the river
while those wormy barbels
find your food for you

What I can't figure
is what your eyes are for.

Never mind.

O shovelnose sturgeon
You modern relict--
of some of the early bony species
Though many of your structures
are quite primitive
you are the survivor of an ancient group

Thanks all!

And that was a lovely sturgeon piece, Rick. As for your new book, I'm looking forward to it! I had already decided to get your Driftless Trilogy, as they look like fascinating reads, just the kind of books I love.

Yes! Wonderful poetry all around. I also want to read RH's new book.

let this serve as a call for odes and sonnets by salonistas

the threat being another of my scats

I warned:

Now you get: SESTINA!

Apeing the crap of swine divine, Desquamations for Pat

Whenever I must stop to take a crap
to signify my canon of divine
beliefs, I swipe and wipe before the swine
and bow deliberately before the apes
If or no other reason then for Pat
whose can or cant or canons desquamate

the same way apes and monkeys desquamate.
But see, the chimps when they must take a crap
would like, but can not place their faith in Pat,
a man of whom it's said there's less divine
except on filthy planets mad with apes
and filthy, turgid, febrile troughs of swine

Oh planet come revolve around the swine!
It's not too late to stop and desquamate!
(or defecate a season for the apes.)
Oh planet come devolve and take a crap
on those mad preeniing pruning thoughts divine:
create a world that's somewhat safe for Pat,

or simulacrum of safety for Pat-
so dangerously cast with priests of swine,
so feverishly drunk with pigs divine,
inordinately steeped with desquamat-
ing beasts and fowl whose foul beaks eat the crap
of all the low and lowliest of apes.

Or can a planet stop, remove the apes,
in hopes the swine will bow before their Pat,
and still suvive without the monkeys' crap?
Or will the dirty whining of the swine
bring down with squall a pall or desquamate
a fate more evil even than the most divine?

Considerations of the said divine
remove the burden from the foresaid apes:
they drip and dry and drop--they desquamate--
and slip and slide off umbrage-covered Pat
(who knows salvation breeds along with swine
who slaver in the troughs of monkey crap).

Oh help, my friend, help Pat to take a crap.
To desquamate itself my be divine,
but one must dine with swine, not only apes.

Very nice sestina! Those are a booger to write. I wrote one, but was never happy with it. Maybe now I'll go back and fix it. In the meantime, how about an Honest Nonet Double Sonnet?

Whoreson-Degenerate has been said of me,
Flirting and dallying with all Muses nine.
Who else could equal my depravity,
Or match my precipitous decline?
Eloping with Calliope
We were as happy as could be.
Then Clio and I took a roll.
She liked to spank me with her scroll.
Fair Erato soon caught my eye;
Her nimble fingers made me sigh.
Euterpe did my stamina tax:
She always liked a lot of sax.
With Melpomene (Devil May Care)
I barely survived a tragic affair.
And Polyhymnia was so serious,
But when in bed, quite delirious.
Terpsichore? Insatiable.
A host of men are not able.
Thalia enjoyed a dirty joke
Even better than getting a poke.
Urania would almost soar
When getting it in the back door.
Now you must think me an insensitive brute,
Sleeping around with so many Muses,
That they would be jealous, punish my crime.
But nothing could be farther from the truth.
For they'll accept any of my excuses,
So long as with each one I spend some time.

Clearly we are two of the classiest MFs this world has ever known.

Yup, legends in our own minds.

Great stuff indeed fellas.

71> legends or not, that'd make some good blog material as well, I'd say.

EF: you must have a sonnet or ode in a drawer somewhere...

Beelzebub:

The next day fall fell freely though I fail

(your line next)

Actually, anyone who wants to add the next, we're in the iambic pent O' meter, d minor.

Cool. I'm gonna assume an abab rhyme scheme, because I don't care for the Petrarchan (or the 70's Swedish Pseudo Singers).

To parse the cryptic script of ancient oak.

The next day fall fell freely though I fail
To parse the cryptic script of ancient oak.
Yet Rufus lips and laughs and larks in pale

No sonnets I'm afraid. Bad odes? Bad poems? Oh yes, 99.9% of them secreted away.

I use my blog (http://Marianv.blog.co.uk as a place to store some of my poems. However, I haven't figured out yet how to just post messages there. There is a sonnet somewhere in there written in the style of Edna St. Vincent Millay, who I was trying to imitate.

Thank you, Marian! I'm adding it to our directory.

splendor while these old bones enjoy a soak.

The next day fall fell freely though I fail
To parse the cryptic script of ancient oak.
Yet Rufus lips and laughs and larks in pale
splendor while these old bones enjoy a soak.

But called upon to let flow ink, not blood

82> Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

~ Samuel Beckett

Death Aphoristic

Write the Reaper
Write your Will
Write like Murder
With words that Kill!

~ Dick Misanthropic

The next day fall fell freely though I fail
To parse the cryptic script of ancient oak.
Yet Rufus lips and laughs and larks in pale
splendor--these old bones enjoy a soak.

The dwarf but howled in midgetry tattooed
when called upon to let flow ink, not blood

Not gold, not brood, not pelf, but food

To fill his stomach and improve his mood

ding ding wrong rhyme. Gene, try again.

I love this poem, but what does it signify?

The next day fall fell freely though I fail
To parse the cryptic script of ancient oak.
Yet Rufus lips and laughs and larks in pale
splendor--these old bones enjoy a soak.

The dwarf but howled in midgetry tattooed
when called upon to let flow ink, not blood
(his teeth not bold); don't brood if pelf as food
shall fill his gut, improve his shrunken mood.

ho! wait! what signify homunculi--
you get his joke about missed frontal teef?

The next day fall fell freely though I fail
To parse the cryptic script of ancient oak.
Yet Rufus lips and laughs and larks in pale
splendor--these old bones enjoy a soak.

The dwarf but howled in midgetry tattooed
when called upon to let flow ink, not blood
(his teeth not bold); don't brood if pelf as food
shall fill his gut, improve his shrunken mood.

ho! wait! what signify homunculi--
you get his joke about missed frontal teef?
to pilfer ruffage sloughage, risk to die
the shortest, poorest, corporeal thief

title: Rufus of Tartary

finally, my editing is not definitive, only striving to be inclusive and to answer the hard questions

I cry for help...the fourth stanza, wherein the thieving dward steals mortality begs its writers

A Georgian by name of Gene
found bass in his pond obscene
he fashioned a hook
and dangled a book
and captured a perch epicene

Their talk wanders theme to theme
like mirrors or fish in a dream
the occasional bass
flips them off with his ass
for the piscine a sign of esteem

I'm feeling verklempt. Please, talk amongst yourselves.

shouldn't verklempt be on the word a day page?

This much I know:

HARSCH, Rick
Arjun and the good snake : being an ophidiological account of six weeks in
India without alcohol / Rick Harsch. - Ljubljana : Amalietti & Amalietti, 2011
ISBN 978-961-6654-72-2
255872000

the rest is printing

Are you the Rick Harsch of the Driftless Zone and Billy Verite? I suppose I could look up your author page, but that would just put an unnecessary distance between us. Instead of one of the guys in Le Salon, you become an object of the book world. I'd rather be Le Salon Pals than author and fawning wannabe. I've been able to keep it real with Pietro and I hope to be able to do so with you.

Anyway, sold a book, moved from La Crosse to Croatia. Traded in the snow for the mountains and the ocean, eh. What's the name of that town you live in again?

gene,

I wish it was a nice as it sounds. yeah, i sold three, all three Frenchified, all three technically out of print. agent exited. agent came back. agent exited. I live in Izola, Slovenia. But I see Croatia whenever I go to work.

My favorite big shot writer example involved waiting for a great national review to come in the mail from my agent. i was all excited, but I had a problem unrelated. mail came. i read. felt good for a few minutes, then it was back to the problem.

I would guess Dr. Weissman feels similar to me. Fame/recognition would be great because it would fund the future writing. That's all there is to it.

I want this book to be the one that does something particularly because I wrote it for my son.

">

99> I just noticed this. Here's hoping Arjun & the Good Snake is a success! You might consider cataloging it into LT since you've already got an isbn and cover image for it.

Rick, do you know LTer biblioarchy? They gave your first novel 5 stars and what a suh-weet blog and bookstore of theirs I just stumbled upon. It's located out your former-Wisconsin way:

Driftless Books & Music: Buidling Slow Media One Book at a Time

Thanks Eeef, for the nod and the information. The book was beginning to get lonely here, of all places. It's not due in stores here until late this month and in the meantime we have to get it on Amazon UK, but by next week it should be available on kindle, and therefore all e-media, however the hell all that works.
Beyond the need for my own financial success, this odd route to English language publishing may turn into an imprint of my publisher, thus an avenue for the hopeless who deserve not to be without hope. So my agent/friend, and my editor (still in La Crosse) are putting as much effort as we can into it. The publisher himself is a mystic and with him anything is possible. if this page responds i may do what i am doing on dreaded facebook: asking any and all to request a random page number and offering glimpses.

For what it's worth, and maybe that's not much because it comes out of self-obsession: to be an unknown or little known writer can fester and sit with you like when you haven't eaten in a while, you're hungrier than you realize, and irritable, and your judgment is off. You feel desperately incomplete, because, after all, you need to be read or else you're in a solipsistic state, spinning your wheels internally, and as someone said (was it Blake, or Allen Ginsberg, or Allen Ginsberg quoting Blake?): "That way lies madness."

I've lived in the state long enough (I'm a long running experiment on trying to deal with it), to have gone out and published myself, which helped, but then I became obsessed with making my book known and no doubt making a pain in the ass of myself, seeing how limited the results were.

But also you have to live in the world, "always merry and bright," as Henry Miller put it. You have to put that writing self aside, or balance it, live with the constant unhappiness and not let it unbalance you. Do other things too. Get some satisfaction from it: wife, partner, children, friends and acquaintances, travel, food--I could see how drink would be a part of it, but not for me--the little things in a day to notice and attend to.

One day, I'm pretty positive, there will be a writer -- perhaps Miller or Ginsberg caliber, or somebody less known, it doesn't matter -- who quotes Piero's message 102. And we'll be able to say we were there and saw it when first he said it.

>103 absurdeist: I thought the same thing 'rique. And Piero, I hope you don't mind, but I quoted part of it in an email to a writer friend of mine.

ETA--with full attribution and a link to info about your books, of course!

A good day of writing. Three hours, actually. How anyone can write seriously beyond that is beyond me. Looped back in the unnamed third book to redo earlier chapters, redid the first one, skipped over "Club Manhattan," because I reworked it when Brent offered me blog space, and tunneled into the third chapter, in which one old friend (Mark, from I Think, Therefore Who Am I?), introduces me to someone who had been an acquaintance. It's set in the old Lion's Head at Sheridan Square. I call it "The Noir World," and it begins:

"Joseph Andrews," Nick Abruzzi said. "Henry Fielding," he added when I didn't react.

"Never read it," I said across the table.

"An innocent blunders through sexual escapades ... Like Tom Jones." And at my continued silence, "It's a farce, written in the eighteenth century."

"I saw the movie," I said. "Tom Jones. But never read that book either."

"You should read it," he said. "Go to the source."

"Too late for that. I'd be picturing Albert Finney instead of seeing it in my own way."

Already I'd told him about Denise, how sexually sophisticated she was, and I began to tell him how naive I'd felt around her when he interrupted with Joseph Andrews.

"I don't read much anymore," I confessed.

"There's more to those old books than people realize," he said. "The same things we experience, they experienced."

Sounds good! By the way, you wouldn't still happen to have Denise's phone number, would you?

She's somewhere in California, last I heard. But wait! Aren't you a family man, bubba?

Ah yes, so I am. I think I must have forgotten for a split-second when I read "sexually sophisticated."

I was counseled by a big shot writer asshole not to be a streak writer, which I am, who loved to tell the story of Garcia Marquez writing 100 years in a streak. The message? YOU CAN'T. The lesson? Never listen to anybody who already makes your stomach turn.
The Driftless Zone was written in about six weeks, and the motive was to fill time after finishing something far more important to me.
It's a little different now. I wrote half of a novella(?)(110 pages) one month five years ago but had to stop when I went off on a forced march. I finished it this year. But most writing now festers for long periods before I can get to it and write undisturbed by the economic life. The bulk of the book coming out on Tito's birthday celebration day was written in six weeks, passages added as I put it from penned to typed, etc.

Today is the official Kindle release day of my memoir Arjun and the Good Snake, being an Ophidiological Account of Six Weeks in India without Alcohol.

Hard copies should be available through amazon.co.uk in early June.

Congrats, Rick. And ophidiological means ... what? It's not in Webster's.

Many congratulations, Rick. I look forward to reading it. Alas, no Kindle, so I'll await the hard copy.

thanks both. Ophidiological is unfortunately not a word, largely because Webster's never consults me on it updates. Ophidian is the word: snakelike, etc. But I feel Opidiological is more to my point, rather than herpetological. Also the subtitle is a tiny cannonball aimed at brit scientists who stomped about india for so long to so odd effect

I don't always understand everything Rick posts, but I can relate to Six Weeks in India without alcohol.

Good luck with the book Rick

I related with it then, but now it seems an impossibility. Gin and tonics would be the thing, in small doses of course. And thanks.

Just point me to Kashmir and I'll be happy.

my books: The Cemetery Vote, Forbidden Stories, Telescope Builder and Too Lucky ...

Poor guy, 'suspended for unusual activity.

There are currently 314 Salonistas that exhibit all kinds of unusual activity...

Just discovered this group through the interesting library of Porius, who stood out sharply not only through the posted LT reviews but also from the Compton Mackenzie reference.

Circuits of the Wind: A Legend of the Net Age is being published in three volumes (the second has just been released), and tells the story of how the net generation grew up and came of age on the Internet.

It's a rare treat to hear another even mention CM's name. I have been making my way through his works for some time now. Now, C. if you mention Stephen McKenna I don't know what I will do?

I am very curious about why you guys decided to publish Circuits as a trilogy.

Porius: how about Belle and Sebastian!

bokai: economics mostly, but the three are very different. Other readers did express an interest in a single edition. If you have any thoughts on it please post a comment on our profile - we'd love to have your input!

One of the reviews I had for my last book Living Canvas Karla Brandenburg said it was "the perfect blend of romance and mystery." I've just released my latest contemporary romance/mystery novel, Mist on the Meadow.

Wolf Harper needs a Kundigerin, "one who knows," to close his grandmother's estate and save the failing family business; instead, professional baker Marissa Maitland rattles skeletons in his family's closet and ignites a passion Wolf has never felt before. Has he been bewitched?

Additional details can be found at my website - www.karlabrandenburg.com. The books are available in paperback or at your favorite e-bookstore. If you email me before the end of April, I will trade an e-book for a review! karla@karlabrandenburg.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!