Release

Feels very good to get this book out there. Sold 20 copies so far. Which is really cool, thanks to everyone who bought a copy. I’ve been waiting so long for this that every copy sold feels like a thousand.

I’ve been in a terrible kind of limbo waiting for this book to be released. I’ve been neglecting writing other fiction. The book’s all I could think about. Might seem crazy to get obsessed over a book that sells only a few copies, but it’s been almost 10 years since I published a novel. A long time waiting. A total relief. If it took publishing myself to do it, that's fine. I feel like a functioning writer again. I have a book people can read. There was some annoyance with people having trouble buying the book because their security settings were too high. What are you going to do, nothing’s ever easy. I want to get back to writing some stories.

I have been reading more. Hating Olivia by Mark SaFranko. On its way is the heroin memoir Digging the Vein by Tony O’Neill. Published by Contemporary Press who rejected North of Sunset, so fuck them, sort of. Chump Change by Dan Fante (published by Rebel Inc. press who accepted The Golden Calf so they rule). Reading the Bukowski disciples again. I’ll probably write a review of all of them when I’m done.

A little while back I wrote a post about this blog sells itself too much, like I’m trying to sell myself as a writer. This doesn’t make much sense because all writing tries to sell itself. Each sentence tries to sell the next one, the next paragraph, and eventually the next book, etc. A blog is no different. This hit me especially when I read Chump Change. Fante’s always trying to sell himself as a bad-ass. In a good way because the sentences are so damn good. At first I thought I’d had my fill of down-and-out writing. At 20, I might have worshipped it as a way to be. Not as much anymore. But then, his sentences.

Myspace rules. Last week I had a correspondence going with Peter Bagge, of Hate comics. I added him as a friend, he wrote back. That’s cool. So much better than just emailing someone out of the blue. He heard my songs, saw the book covers, could see what I’m about. Speaking of selling, I made a Myspace blog out of all the reviews of my first novel.