Lily Iona MacKenzie's Blog, page 57

Go for the Gold and Hire a Publicist!

Since my novel Fling will be published in July of this year, I���ve been feverishly (and I DO mean feverishly) learning how to market the book. Its success will determine whether my other novels (three more) will also find their readers.

I have read from cover to cover, pen in hand to mark every important idea, David Cole���s The Complete Guide to Book Marketing, Kristen Lamb���s Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World, and Patricia Fry���s Promote Your Book: Over 250 Proven, Low-cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author. I���ve searched the Internet from one end to the other, collecting other author���s stories on how they did it, my files bursting with information that I���ve had to cull through and categorize. By the time I finished, I was reeling.

In walks my stepdaughter Eva Zimmerman, Publicity Manager at Seal Press. I present her with 25 pages of notes summarizing my research, and she quickly puts it all into perspective. Instead of slogging through a quagmire of information and getting stuck every few minutes with questions of ���how do I do this?,��� I now have a manageable plan to follow that isn���t overwhelming. Yes, there still is a lot of work to do, but as Eva pointed out, I shouldn���t put my energy into areas that I hate or that won���t be fruitful. Go for the gold!

Not everyone has a stepdaughter who specializes in publicity, but if you don���t, you can hire one (a publicist, that is). And I highly recommend it. Professional publicists know things that non-professionals don���t. You wouldn���t go to a general practitioner to have kidney surgery. Nor would you expect a proofreader to give you the feedback that a developmental editor can. The same is true with marketing. Experts have access to lists and individuals that we mortals don���t.

So while all of my research did give me insight into what it takes to successfully sell books these days, I���m grateful that Eva is guiding the process and opening doors that I couldn���t have done by myself.

And, yes, she does do freelance work.

 

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: and Patricia Fry���s Promote Your Book: Over 250 Proven, book publicity, David Cole���s The Complete Guide to Book Marketing, eva zimmerman, Kristen Lamb���s Rise of the Machines: Human Authors in a Digital World, Low-cost Tips and Techniques for the Enterprising Author, marketing, publicist, publicity, publishing

The Interdependence of Artist and Creation

I realize that though I only lived on a farm for about four years total when I was a child, that time took root in me and grew, invading my psyche in the most positive way. Wandering the land, those wonderful endless Canadian prairies, and exploring without many restrictions, nurtured my imagination, allowing it to spread deep and wide. There were so many areas to investigate.

A grove of trees next to our house was an ideal place to play. Light and shadow chased each other, giving me a retreat from the otherwise sun-drenched, wide-open spaces. My playmates, birds and squirrels and other tiny creatures, made their home there. Near the barn, our beehive kept us supplied in honey, and I spent time watching all of this activity.

I also rode calves and sheep inside the pens, imitating the way my stepfather broke horses. And then there were the discoveries I made while roaming the fields: dead animal carcasses crawling with maggots; squashed snakes, their guts streaming from their bodies; baby kittens abandoned in rain barrels that I rescued; lizards whose tails I cut off because I���d heard they would grow back and I wanted to watch the process; animals giving birth. I never felt bored.

Along with the freedom to roam and play at will, I also had responsibilities. If the cows weren���t milked, they would dry up, a good metaphor for what happens if writers don���t have an ongoing relationship with their projects. Similarly, if we didn���t gather the eggs each day, they would rot, leaving a mess in the hen house and also creating waste. They lay eggs; we ate them. They lay more. We were as dependent on the animals as they were on us to feed them and provide a safe environment. Again there���s a parallel between the artist and his/her creation, how interdependent they are.

We also had to tend our garden, the vegetables we canned in the fall our food supply for the winter. The life cycle was visible and insistent, a pattern that could be followed. That realization has stayed with me.

My days have a rhythm of waking, dispensing with the night by making my bed, dressing, and embracing a new day, open to what it brings but also aware of the give and take, the back and forth of household/garden chores, teaching, writing, and other rituals that shape my days.

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: animals, art, artist, Canadian prairies, canning, farm, farm life, life cycle, responsibility

Poetry and Perception

My poems reflect my continuing interest in perception and how we try to capture fleeting moments with language. I think the art that comes closest to what I’m trying to do in poetry is photography���the exploration of things in the world (and in ourselves) from various angles. The attempt to penetrate surfaces by using the very surfaces themselves.

James Hillman, in Revisioning Psychology, has helped me to understand my process. He says, ���By soul I mean, first of all a perspective rather than a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing in itself. This perspective is reflective; it mediates events and makes differences between ourselves and everything that happens. Between us and events, between the doer and the deed, there is a reflective moment���and soul-making means differentiating this middle ground���

The middle ground is what intrigues me when I���m writing poetry. I’m trying to get into my poems the way we actually perceive the world, inner and outer, from the soul’s perspective, how the two collide and collude in the brain, the poem a reflection of that activity. Charles Olson and Denise Levertov were after the shape of the inner voice���they tried to capture how that sounded on the page. Others try to recreate the external world in traditional lyrics, or narratives, or some combination of the two.

I want the dimension in-between, where both come together; it’s a more accurate rendering of how we perceive. It seems only art and dreams can begin to duplicate that world for us.

Filed under: Links Tagged: art, dreams, james hillman, perception, photography, poems, poetry, soul

The Art of Dying: Rehearsing for Death

I���ve been reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead, intrigued with a section on meditation that seems important to me just now: The art of dying begins with preparation for death. As for any journey, there are innumerable preparations one can make. Known in Tibet as The Book of Natural Liberation, the book suggests at least five main types of preparation while still living: informational, imaginational, ethical, meditational, and intellectual. (52)

I think my interest in taking up a more focused spiritual practice again is to experience some of these things listed as preparations for death, and the wisdom texts can help with that need. I don’t want to be like the ostrich with its head in the sand; I believe in preparing for life’s various stages, being knowledgeable, being ready.

Meditation as an active practice attracts me again. I did it daily for many years when I was living alone before my husband and I met. The Tibetan Book of the Dead has a good section that gives an overview of the various meditations one can do, from the basic calming meditation of one-pointed attention, to using ordinary daily activities as opportunities for contemplation: This involves using sleep as a time for practice.

As the authors say, ���You can convert the process of falling asleep into a rehearsal of the death dissolutions, imagining yourself as sinking away from ordinary waking consciousness down through the eight stages into deep-sleep clear-light transparency. And you can convert the dream state into a practice of the between-state, priming yourself to recognize yourself as dreaming when in the dream���. It is very important, for if you can become self-aware in the dream state by the practice of lucid dreaming, you have a much better chance of recognizing your situation in the between after death.��� (57)

I have had numerous lucid dreams over the years, but I hadn’t thought of them as vehicles for preparing for death! I feel I’ve had fewer since I’ve stopped practicing meditation regularly, as I did for so many years when I lived alone. It���s harder to make time for it in a relationship and while raising a family if your partner isn���t interested. Now that my husband���s son and daughter from a previous marriage are no longer living with us, I can pursue this practice again.

I’m using OM MANI PADME HUM as a meditation, especially when I awaken in the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. I found it in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and I like the idea that it evokes a universal good in all things, which can prevail even in times of misfortune. Of course, you need to believe that there is a universal good in all things for this mantra to be effective. I want to believe that.

Filed under: Links Tagged: death, lucid dreams, meditation, om mani padre hum, rehearsal for death, the art of dying, tibetan book of the dead

Timing and Perseverance: the Keys To Success as a Writer

I���m thinking today of timing���how important it is to success. Timing and perseverance: the two go together. If I hadn���t persisted as a writer, writing daily and sending out queries to potential publishers for my various novels and poetry collections, I would not have a poetry collection in print (All This) or be anticipating the publication of Fling, one of my novels in July 2015.

I’m also noticing the seasonal aspect of creativity, how cyclic it is. That too is hard to grasp. I want it all the time. I’m afraid if it isn’t there, it won’t return. But I need to remember that if I pursue my creative impulses, and if they’re in accordance with my abilities, then there will be success. Maybe not financially, though that would be nice. But I’ll experience the satisfaction of achieving what I’m capable of.

I must keep in mind that the cup will empty, fullness will recede, as happens each night with the waxing and waning energies of the moon. I can’t help but hear “moo” when I write moon, those old nursery rhymes of the cow jumping over the moon still playing in my imagination. Of course, cows are very much moon creatures, with their emptying and filling, the various stomachs they have for digesting food that turns into nourishing milk. They���re a wonderful symbol for the creative person.

But perseverance is the key word. I need to keep this in mind to combat the bombardment of negative things I’m reading about being a writer. Not only is publishing like finding a needle in a haystack���especially publishing fiction���but also only five percent of novelists support themselves on their writing.

 

 

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: cows and creativity, creativity, fiction, moon and creativity, perseverance, publishing, timing

Where Inner and Outer Worlds Meet

I didn���t fall asleep till 1 AM this morning.��I got involved in a fascinating article about Joseph Cornell, the American artist and sculptor who made such mysterious and gorgeous assemblages in various found and constructed boxes. It makes me want to haunt junk shops for interesting memorabilia that I can make things with, to start a collection I can draw from.

Before going to sleep, I had an image of turning an old radio into a Joseph Cornell box. I even thought of taking over our room in the garage for��artwork so I could spread out more, cataloguing items I find.

That way of working is still very appealing to me. Poet Charles Simic, who wrote the article I read, described Cornell���s boxes as stages where inner and outer worlds met. I would like such a place to give concrete expression to my dialogue with the unconscious. Of course, I already do some of that in my watercolors and collages. And my writing does it to a certain degree. But I believe the visual arts draw on another facet. It���s just so difficult finding enough time to do everything!

I also felt inspired by what Cornell did with 16 mm film, cutting up old ones and taking from them what he wanted in order to make a new statement. It���s what I���ve been doing with appropriating certain things from books in some of my poems. I���d like to do more���and be more conscious of the act. It also seems time to get back to poetry, to let go of the prose for a while. Let poetry feed me.

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: art, assemblage, charles simic, inner and outer worlds, joseph cornell, joseph cornell boxes, poetry, prose, unconscious

A Writer’s Sanctuary

From inside my study, one wall book-lined, the other holding a large mirror that makes the room appear bigger, I sit on the loveseat, listening to Strauss and the waterfall powered by a tiny electric pump. When I���m home, I turn it on, the sound of water like a heart beat in this house, a tangible reminder of what usually is invisible, at least to waking life���water for me representing the unconscious and all that lives there.

I come to this sanctuary at the center of the house, separated from the master bedroom by French doors, to be alone, as much as one can be alone in a shared space. Images that trigger happy memories or just please me fill the walls and shelves: a canal in Venice, that watery city I love; a blackened white porcelain female figure holding a dove aloft that my sister had given me (it survived my house fire of many years ago); a print of an Emily Carr painting, the night and forest appearing eerie and alive; twisted pieces of driftwood; a small rock from the Acropolis; and a picture of my sister and me taken a few years back outside the remains of our barn on the Langdon farm.

My husband jokingly accuses me of conducting secret rites in my study after he goes to sleep, lighting candles, doing “witchy” things. To him, a Freudian analyst and an English professor, I’m sure that much of what I do with dreams and in Jungian analysis appears esoteric. Strange. Mystifying.

For me this room acts as a conduit to my deeper self. My laptop is in here where I record my dreams, store my journals, and write. I also have a table set up with watercolors and other art materials, ready to collect colors and shapes from the unconscious that choose to surface in this way.

Do others have this kind of sanctuary in their homes? It seems essential in order to tolerate the craziness of the external world.

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: art, deeper self, dreams, sanctuary, unconscious, water pump, write, writing

Writing’s dialogue with myself and my life

I���m interested in an interview I read in Border Crossings��with Canadian artist Betty Goodwin:��She says, ���A work is a deeply personal mixture of your earlier experiences and also your life at the present in this world.��But I can’t shred it and say it’s absolutely this or that.��It’s based in something you don’t even realize yourself until it gives you back information.��It’s like you’re pulling and pulling and trying to get something.��And then there’s that magic time when it begins to pull you.��If that doesn’t happen, you can’t push it any more and it dies.���

This quote captures my feelings about how my writing connects with my on-going life, that somehow it���s shaping me as I shape it, just as dreams do. What do I mean here? Dreams speak to us from the depths of the unconscious. There is not past, present, or future in the psyche. Often, then, they not only dredge up moments from our past but also reach their tentacles into the future. Poetry and fiction seem to have a similar dynamic. The poems that interest me the most are ones that don’t follow a traditional narrative movement. They seem to take elements from multiple places, including memories as well as outer and inner experiences. In fiction, I feel I’m expressing aspects of myself as well that I become familiar with as I write. Emotions, ideas, images surface that enlarge my understanding of myself and the world.

It’s essential for my well being to have this dialogue with the work and my life.

��

 

 

Filed under: Links Tagged: Betty Goodwin, border crossings, dreams, fiction, poems, poetry, psyche, writing

Dear Fellow Readers (and Writers): Why do you read fiction?

I recently finished a novel that had me questioning why I read fiction. The book was engaging enough. The writer was competent and had created characters that seemed believable (though that isn���t necessarily a criterion for me). There was enough tension to keep me reading in order to discover more about these lives I had immersed myself in. But the experience felt flat, and I wondered why I had spent several precious hours on something that wasn���t more satisfying.

So why do I read? For me, reading isn���t necessarily to escape my daily life. I read to deepen it. If a book doesn���t take me somewhere new emotionally and intellectually, I feel cheated. Why would I go on this literary journey if I remain the same person at the end?

I also want my knowledge of the world broadened and intensified. I love many naturalistic novels���ones that recreate everyday life and give me new glimpses (novel=make it new) of familiar settings and things. Often that happens through the writer���s expert use of metaphor and symbol, devices that automatically expand our perceptions. Or s/he has a masterful way with��manipulating sentences��and images.

But I also love works that employ magical realism, as many of my fictions do, because they point to something other, something not quite articulable. They lift the lid on ordinary experience and suggest other possibilities.

I hope I���ll hear from others on why they read. That too will expand my horizons!

Filed under: Links Tagged: fiction, magical realism, naturalism, novel, realism

Writing To Know Myself

Working on my current novel is an exercise in trust. I must just write and see where each word leads me, believing that if I create an interesting character, she���ll end up in interesting situations.��That means I must let go of any expectations to impress or create an important work.��Otherwise, I’ll be giving weight to the negative old man from my recent dream that wanted the women to be made up, unable to see or appreciate their natural beauty.��I also must remember primary processes���to get beneath all the shoulds to where something fresh and original lives.

Poetry is the one thing I write that I could do forever and not worry about publishing it.��I have a very different relationship with poetry than I do with fiction or non-fiction. The act itself is so satisfying that it doesn’t matter to me if the poem has an audience or not, though, of course, I do publish my poems.��But they don���t have the urgency that the other genres do to get out in the world; I don’t feel I need to prove anything in poetry.

I’m reminded of something I read in an issue of Parabola Magazine:

…an inclination embodies or mirrors an unexplored capacity in us which, if allowed to flourish, might lead us further into wholeness.��But very often the capacity itself is never left alone���the joy of singing is extended into a dream of being recorded, the transformative process of writing is extended into a need to be published.��Ironically, the innate ability to recognize and put things together, no matter what form it takes, is often diverted into an insatiable need to be recognized. In this way, a passion for a particular way of being turns into a grand goal of becoming, as if life did not reside in who we are but only in the dream of what we might become.��Here, in the same way that the loved one is seen as the keeper of the gift, the idealized ambition���becoming a rock star or a famous writer or a wealthy businessman���is seen as the keeper of the gift that will unleash true living.

Writing for me is a necessity, a kind of spiritual path. It doesn���t exist in a vacuum, unrelated to my life.��It is my life, more fully so at times than what I do in the world���teaching, being a wife and mother, interacting with friends.��Not that these activities aren���t fulfilling and terribly important.��But I���m discovering just how interrelated all my various selves are.��Writing is the way I come to know myself, the method of recovering and integrating the disparate parts of my psyche.

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