
It is March 23. The fields are icy; where there is no crust of snow there is glazed mud. In between slips and slides–I ran into a tree yesterday trying to cross-country ski–(ouch! said bleeding shin–trees are hard!)–I am also trying to publish a novel.
It is difficult. First, it’s a difficult novel. (In other words, I’m not even sure IF I like it.) This makes it extremely hard to foist off on others.
Secondly, I genuinely have plenty of other stuff to do.
Which means I give all that other stuff priority!
And yet…and yet… I know if I let too much time go by, I really will not be able to stand to look at this novel for a few more years–
Also, I would like to be able to start writing poetry again.
And so… and so… in a fit of nerves and depression, I uploaded the novel today. Meaning I submitted for self-publication. Meaning that I’ll probably have to edit one more time when I get the proofs, but I am nearly there.
(Agh.)
I also went through a bunch of extremely musty old magazines that I have from the 1960s (and have been storing in boxes outside) to try to begin putting together a cover. (Yes, I know I could get people with actual knowledge of these things to design it!)
In the meantime, although I’m not sure why–given that it embarrasses me so much, given that it truly mortifies me–I set forth below the “pitch” for the novel that I wrote and that just passed the first round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. (The book is called “Nice.”) :
It is summer, 1968, and Les has been trained to be nice.
When she was really little, they played the Star Spangled Banner in movie theaters before the show; she could feel her chest ripple just like the flag on the screen.
But it is summer, 1968–Martin Luther King Jr. shot in April and now Bobby Kennedy.
“What in the world is happening to this country?” her mother says as they stay up after the shooting, watching the TV people try to decide whether he’ll have brain damage.
Les wonders what she, a kid, a girl, can do about any of it. Other than hold firm to the idea that people are good, that if everyone would just be nice enough, they could impart some of that niceness to others–
Though, in the meantime, she would also like to be just a little more cool–
Then Duke comes to visit, a cool cat, a natural charmer, and something happens to Les that is not nice–
Who can she tell? How, afterwards, can she un-tell them?
Her older brother, Arne, lives his own side of the story that summer as he tries angrily, in the midst of suburban family life and the escalating Vietnam War, to become a young man.
But “what in the world is happening?” he wonders as his sister changes, his sister who has always been the nice one–
Their story traverses the landscape of country, family, heart.
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Thank God, I don’t think the pitch counts for anything but getting into the second round! And I have no expectations of the contest. And the book is not written like the pitch! And I don’t think that was even the final pitch as I edited it on the website!
I think I am posting this to keep up my commitment! Thanks for your kindness!
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