The Lexical Funk actually started off as another book I started my senior year of college: Rejection, Death, Taxes, and other things you worry about at 3 a.m. in the morning. As I now realize, that title is horribly long.
After writing my first novel, I started getting some requests from people to read other things I had written. That's when I fell in love with the idea of a single book that would stand as a calling card--a sampling platter--of everything I had done or was capable of doing. I wanted the collection to be truly eclectic.
A small Florida press was interested in the book and I was all set to finish it that same year--2004. But then life happened. I stopped getting responses back from the press (I think they went out of business), things got even busier with school, I got bogged down with work, as I was just graduating poverty was an issue, and eventually I ended up going overseas to teach.
It was probably a good thing too. Some of the stories needed a lot of work, and I think the process of drafting and redrafting has made the stories better with time.
Eventually, the project became about something much different. As the book dragged on into its third year, it became a meditation on the things that happen that get in the way of your dreams, the trials of adulthood, but also, how writing is supposed to fit in with everything else. At the same time I was writing the book I was also finding out that there is a lot more to life than writing, writing seminars, and reading. And that that can be a great thing.
For those of you who are interested in the book, it's absolutely free to download: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback... I'm also currently doing a giveaway on goodreads, so you can put in for a chance to win a copy.
I know a lot of you have written about how books tend to write themselves. I've found that true up until a certain point. Unfortunately, for me that point tends to end rather quickly--then it's workshopping, workshopping, workshopping. I feel like a grease monkey most of the time.
I’m currently working on a novel entitled The Ghosts of Nagasaki. As a rule, I don’t talk about works in progress. But I will say this: I think this project will get done. And for someone pretentious enough to call themself a writer, that’s saying something.
After writing my first novel, I started getting some requests from people to read other things I had written. That's when I fell in love with the idea of a single book that would stand as a calling card--a sampling platter--of everything I had done or was capable of doing. I wanted the collection to be truly eclectic.
A small Florida press was interested in the book and I was all set to finish it that same year--2004.
But then life happened. I stopped getting responses back from the press (I think they went out of business), things got even busier with school, I got bogged down with work, as I was just graduating poverty was an issue, and eventually I ended up going overseas to teach.
It was probably a good thing too. Some of the stories needed a lot of work, and I think the process of drafting and redrafting has made the stories better with time.
Eventually, the project became about something much different. As the book dragged on into its third year, it became a meditation on the things that happen that get in the way of your dreams, the trials of adulthood, but also, how writing is supposed to fit in with everything else. At the same time I was writing the book I was also finding out that there is a lot more to life than writing, writing seminars, and reading. And that that can be a great thing.
For those of you who are interested in the book, it's absolutely free to download:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback...
I'm also currently doing a giveaway on goodreads, so you can put in for a chance to win a copy.
I know a lot of you have written about how books tend to write themselves. I've found that true up until a certain point. Unfortunately, for me that point tends to end rather quickly--then it's workshopping, workshopping, workshopping. I feel like a grease monkey most of the time.
I’m currently working on a novel entitled The Ghosts of Nagasaki. As a rule, I don’t talk about works in progress. But I will say this: I think this project will get done. And for someone pretentious enough to call themself a writer, that’s saying something.