Nicholas Ponticello's Blog, page 10

First a Riddle – Your February Publishing Update

I wrote this riddle the other day. Just thought I’d start off by sharing it with you.

A man and a woman are in different rooms separated by six feet of solid concrete. I drive a saber into the man’s chest, and it kills the woman instantly. How did I do this?

Let me know if you solve it.

So I have a few updates on the publishing front.

WHAT IF I DID?

My YA novel about a teen with OCD is still out on submission with my agent. The process of waiting for responses from editors is excruciating. Every day I open my email hoping to see some good news. My agent is still feeling optimistic, especially since my last two rejections were surprisingly encouraging.

Both rejections highlighted the quality of the writing, but the editors were concerned that…

TO READ MORE OF THIS POST, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY PATREON PAGE. HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!

February Book Recommendations + Bonus Music Recs

If you’re looking for some great writing, Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion is an excellent place to start. The book is a collection of Didion essays dating back to 1968. Even though the essays are not new, the collection is relevant and interesting to today’s readers.

Joan Didion is the most famous author I know of who, like me, grew up in the Sacramento Valley. I feel a special connection to Didion’s writing—a sort of mutual understanding. Yes, I know the Sacramento River. Yes, I remember when it would rain so hard that the levees would break and flood the farmlands. I am of Joan Didion’s people, and like her, I needed to escape that place from which I have derived so much of my identity. It is a tough place to grow up. But it is me.

LET ME TELL YOU WHAT I MEAN, Joan Didion, 2021, Knopf

If you are interested obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)—an illness from which I suffer—let me recommend Lily Bailey’s memoir, Because We Are Bad: OCD and a Girl Lost in Thought. I met the author in 2019 at the Annual International OCD Foundation Conference in Austin, Texas. Lily Bailey is a very insightful young woman with a heart-wrenching story to tell. This book describes life with OCD to a T. And although it gets dark at times, her story ends in treatment and acceptance.

BECAUSE WE ARE BAD: OCD AND A GIRL LOST IN THOUGHT, Lily Bailey, 2016, Canbury

Now for for the kids! I spend a lot of time reading children’s literature, mostly old classics from my childhood. I just finished the fourth book in The Borrowers series: The Borrowers Aloft. I highly recommend you start this five-book series at the beginning. The fourth installment finds our bite-sized family (Borrowers are tiny people that live in the walls and under the floorboards of old English houses) captured by a scheming husband and wife who intend to cage the little people in a glass house for the amusement of paying visitors.

The first four books were adapted into a BBC miniseries in the early 90’s that you can only find on YouTube (free!). There are lots of adaptations of the series, but this one by BBC is by far my favorite. It stars Ian Holm and Penelope Wilton. Read the books and then watch the series. You’ll be delighted!

THE BORROWERS ALOFT, Mary Norton, 1961,  Harcourt, Brace & World

I know I’m recommending books, but as a bonus, I want to suggest a few albums for listening, too. Throughout January, I looked into a few retro musicals. Let me recommend the following:

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Original Broadway Cast Recording)The Apple Tree (Original Broadway Cast Recording)Anyone Can Whistle (Broadway Cast Recording)

Hope you enjoy the recommendations. Also, if you want access to exclusive content, make sure to subscribe to my Patreon page!

Literary Pilgrimages

My favorite authors of all time are Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Austen, Victor Hugo, and Isak Dinesen (AKA Karen Blixen).  When the pandemic ends and it is safe to travel again, I’d love to visit the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut’s hometown. Vonnegut wrote such titles as Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan, which I’ve talked about in previous posts.

Isak Dinesen’s house in Kenya is now a museum that I would love to visit as well. But that’s a BIG trip that would require crossing an ocean. I haven’t crossed an ocean in almost a decade. Isak Dinesen is the pen name for Baroness Karen Blixen, who wrote my favorite work of non-fiction, Out of Africa. Her house near Nairobi is pictured here.

Karen Blixen’s Farmhouse in Kenya

Okay, so where have I gone on a literary pilgrimage? To read about my literary adventures in Europe, subscribe to my PATREON page.

Have you ever taken a literary pilgrimage? Tell me about it in the comments!

Making an Audiobook Amidst an Insurrection

With the numerous threats of violence following Wednesday’s insurrection, I’m finding it hard to get anything done. But I have made some progress on the production of an audiobook version of DO NOT RESUSCITATE. Over the holidays, I put out a call for narrators and received over 60 auditions. It took me hours and hours to sift through all the different voices before I settled on the right one.

Let me introduce you to Miles Meili.

Miles will be narrating DO NOT RESUSCITATE over the next few months. He is a successful actor and audiobook narrator. To read more about Miles and the process of turning YOUR book into an audiobook, subscribe to my PATREON page.

To-Do

I update my To-Do list every day and—I kid you not—this is it thanks to COVID:

January 5, 2021

Had to share.

ALSO VISIT MY PATREON PAGE.

December Author Q&A

This post is a preview of the post on my PATREON PAGE.

Happy New Year! 2020 has been hard for a million reasons, so let’s toast to 2021.

Author Q&A:

What do you think makes a good story?

Gosh. Good question. I guess it can vary from person to person. But I like stories that shed some light on the human condition. I was just re-reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (my favorite author of all time), and I came across a line in the book that struck me as prescient. It was written in 1969 and still holds true today:

“Americans…believe many things that are obviously untrue. The most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will never acknowledge how hard money is to come by.”

All of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels tend to comment insightfully on human nature: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I try to do the same thing with the novels I write.

It’s also extremely important that an author write about something they know well…

READ THE REST OF THIS POST ON MY PATREON PAGE. Even see the query letter that landed me an agent!

Happy Winter Solstice…and a Reader Survey

Happy holidays to everyone and Merry Christmas Eve. I just wanted to put out a post to let everybody know that I’ve updated my author website. I designed it in raw HTML code, so it’s a simple affair. However, since I designed it on an Apple device, people on PCs and Androids are reporting some problems with the site. I’d love it if you would visit the site briefly and let me know if you see any problems.

Also, I’ve designed a quick reader survey that I’d love for you to complete. It takes one minute and you don’t have to identify yourself. The survey is here on the site. Or you can fill it out here:

Fill out my Wufoo form!

Thank you and have a restful weekend!

Make My Own Audiobook? You betcha!

This post is a preview of the post on my PATREON PAGE.

As we head into the New Year, I hope you are staying safe and healthy. As you know, I like to keep my readers abreast of my writing journey, but when Thanksgiving rolls around, most of publishing shuts down. So no news on the progress of my YA novel, WHAT IF I DID? My agent is still following up with about a dozen publishers. Fingers crossed that the New Year will bring good news.

Since I have some time on my hands, I’ve been inspired to revisit my first novel, DO NOT RESUSCITATE, and start production of an audiobook to go along with the paperback and ebook versions. Yes. I am going to produce my own audiobook…

READ THE REST OF THIS POST ON MY PATREON PAGE. Even see the query letter that landed me an agent!

P.S. If you are interested in getting a notification when the audiobook is available on Amazon, please comment below. And now a bonus photo of Schlomo:

Schlomo sporting his new Hanukkah vest.

Heaven is a waiting room

I’m an old man. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that my unexpected death failed to make the local news. People don’t mourn when old people die. At least not as much. Even if it is unexpected, it is always a little bit expected.

I was mowed down by a UPS truck while I was walking my Norfolk terrier. We both died instantly.

And that’s when my search began. Apparently they don’t process animals and humans at the same processing center in Heaven. I was sent to the San Gabriel Center for Untimely Deaths, and Simon was sent somewhere else. Somewhere meant for animals. When I asked the woman calling out numbers whom I should speak to if I wanted to locate my missing dog, she said that I would have to take that up with the Missing Persons Bureau on State Street, but that I couldn’t leave yet, I still had to fill out my paperwork.

The San Gabriel Center for Untimely Deaths was set up just like the DMV back in New York City. There were lines out the door, and only those who’d had the foresight to make an appointment could get processed in a timely fashion. How you made these appointments with the Center for Untimely Deaths is beyond me.

I quickly learned that I would have to take a number and wait until my turn was up. My number was 604. They had just called 117. I marveled at the fact that 603 people had died before me that morning. It was only a quarter to seven. I liked to get my walks in early.

I should have slept in.

Once my number was called, I was directed to a back office where a surly woman named Denise took my photo and ushered me off to a cubicle where I could fill out my paperwork. It was your standard intake form. Name. Date of birth. Emergency contact. Et cetera.

Denise called me over when my paperwork was done and issued my new photo ID. I told her I still had my license in my back pocket, and she insisted I cut it up right then and there and throw it in the rubbish bin.

“No use for things like that here,” she said.

I put my new ID card in my back pocket and asked if there was anything left for me to do.

“No, Mr. Yeardley. Please exit through that door.” And she pointed me out the back door and into the expansive parking lot.

Who drives to the Center for Untimely Deaths? I wondered. And then, checking to see how much cash I still had on me, I caught the next bus for State Street.

Flying is hard work

This is how it is: I’m walking along and suddenly my feet leave the ground. I’m elated. I can fly. I thrust upward. Above the heads of the onlooking crowd. Freedom.

Then, when I’m way up—above the houses and trees—I realize something: any moment I could fall. It turns out flying is hard work. I have to keep clenching my muscles and thrusting upward as though I’m on an invisible stairmaster. Is flying always this hard? Yes.

So there I am, a hundred feet up and sweating my brains out. I keep clenching and thrusting, clenching and thrusting, trying to keep from falling. I thought flying would be fun. But I was dead wrong. It’s a painful, terrifying experience. And how do I stop? Fall straight to the ground?

No. I have no choice but to keep on going, higher and higher until the cars below look like little fleas. Every effort I make only takes me higher. But if I stop now, I’m dead. Gone. Finished. Kaput.

The air is thin up here. I’m having trouble breathing. Why the hell does anyone ever wish they could fly? If they only knew what it was really like. Gasping for air. No end in sight. It’s like swimming far out in the ocean. Eventually you realize your feet can’t touch the ground, and you’re getting tired. Too tired to swim to shore. You flounder. You choke. You sink. You die.