Skip to main content

Dissolution

Here is a good word for you: dissolution.

It means is the end of a relationship or contract. What it means to me is that Antiartists is no longer being published by Pen Name Publishing.

And I am-

I-

Look, it took me a long time to adopt the word writer when describing myself, because I think it is one of those words that come with a lot of baggage.  I don't like term as a title, because I believe people are too ready to adopt it as their own because it gives then a sense of accomplishment or importance or mystery, and there is no other word that distinguishes between a hobbyist knocking out a couple hundred words every other month if they remember, and someone like myself that has put significant parts of their life into the craft.  We are both writers, and I understand that, but let's be real here, okay? There are writers, and there are writers, and for sure there are good and bad examples of both, but I am one and not the other and there is no word to distinguish between the two.

Actually, check that.  There is a word, now that I think of it.  

Author.

I do consider myself to be an author, in that I have written a novel that was accepted for publication by a publishing house and it was produced and launched, and I did a couple interviews and we had cake and fireworks.  

One day, I got a box full of copies of the novel that I wrote in the mail, and I stood there for a quiet moment just looking at them there snuggled in the packaging, and then I picked one up and I held it in my hand, and it smelled like a new book, and it was solid and it had weight, and up to that point I had signed documents and edited and negotiated and discussed and planned, but it wasn't until that quiet moment standing by the front door of my house holding the book that I wrote that I believed I was truly an author.

And I get it, okay, I have a couple books that I have written that are in various states of ready-for-publication-ness, and I know that I am still an author, regardless of the status of my first novel. 

But still.

There is this thing that happens now that maybe didn't happen to authors of the past, where if it ever comes to light that you have written a novel, the first thing someone often asks is "Oh yeah?  Self published?"

I believe in self publishing, I really do.  There are a ton of excellent authors that decide to go that route, and I swing back and forth myself about my new book.  It is a valid path to finding an audience and getting your work out there.  I will have self published books eventually as well.  I am NOT shitting on self publishing here, I swear.  

But there is a sense of legitimacy that comes with having a publishing house, even a small, relatively unknown one like PNP, where I could say "No, I have a publisher."  It's ego, flavored with a bit of asshole snobbery, I understand.  But there is no way that I know of to survive the knocks that this industry can give you with out a fair bit of ego.  You can only be rejected so many times, have your work shit on so many times.  If you didn't have that ego, you would quit for good.  

I can swing wildly between I am a goddamn literary genius to I am a shitty hack in a single day, hell, in an hour.

Dissolution.

What it means in a practical sense is that all of the rights to Antiartists have reverted back to me, and I can do with it what I will.  

It is a good book, one that says what I wanted it to say, and says it as hard and as real as I could say it.  I wrote the book that I wanted to read, that I needed to write.  It is good, and that ain't just ego talking.

And now it is homeless.

I will ultimately probably put it up on KDP just so it is available for anyone who wants one, but there will be no cake and no fireworks this time, and no interviews, because there is nothing more to say about it. 

Today is both the end, and the beginning. Like all days, I suppose.

I am still an author, and that is enough, for today, at least.

Still Writing, 

RP    
1-16-19
    

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fighting for Clarity

There's this to be said about fighting: while you're doing it, you don't have room in your head for anything else, not your busted ass car or your worries about your family, not the leak under your bathroom sink, or how you're going to pay your bills.  There's only breathe one two, step out of range, shift off the center line, move breathe one three two slip the jab level change three to the body check the low kick counter one two...  it is a better escape than most, and I've tried most of them, believe me. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here. I get humbled and beat up at every session, I don't understand why I even go. I'm feeling defeated; everything is so fucking hard for me, and I don't know why I'm doing it. I should just quit, right? Fuck you.  I'll show you motherfuckers what I am capable of. I'll show you-  And then I go and I try and my knees give and I get pummeled and twisted and what the fuck man how humble do I

End/Beginning of the Year House Cleaning

So its been a while huh?  Usually if I spend a long time away from writing, it is because I am either feeling pretty content, or because I have been busy. In this case it is both. I have been busy, both with the holidays and related events, and with the pay job, and also I have been working on a super secret surprise mystery project that I am not quite ready to talk about, but it is cool as hell and I'm stoked to bring it out and wave it around and harass my family and friends to tell me what they think and to tell everyone that they have ever met to check it out. But that is later. It is 2018, folks. Twenty. Eighteen. Since I am so behind in everything, I figured I would just blob everything together in one big-ass beginning of the year/end of the year rant/review/announcement pile of words and see where it goes.  Let's just jump in shall we? --  Unbelievable, but I'm turning forty years old in August, an age that I wasn't sure I was ever going to see, and one that I

#FFF

So as many of you must know, November is National Novel Writing Month and writers everywhere get all wound up and try to knock out a novel in a month.  It is abbreviated as NaNoWriMo or something stupid, presumably an event created by and intended for writers and that's the best thing that they could come up with?  The world's most garbage portmanteau?  Writing circles generally call it Nano, which is only marginally better, but at least its shorter.  I never do it because November is a terrible month to attempt to do anything other than watch football and dream of turkey and mashed potatoes and whatnot.  Who has time to sit down at the keys in November? I don't know about y'all, but I haven't been able to do jack shit creatively in the last year, what with the pandemic and the election and protests and civil unrest and the many and varied other goddamn attacks on my peace and sanity and holy shit it was all I could do to hold it together and not run screaming out o