Sad to read that Kurt Vonnegut died. Slaughterhouse-Five , one of the seminal reads of the 20th century, is a most memorable book. Vonnegut had a hard and interesting life and the application of the old Chinese curse, "may you live in interesting times," gave him that great novel, a gift, as it were, from his war experiences. Of course he had to take this "gift," a hideous experience he might well have elected to forego, and turn it into fiction. There is another saying which I don't actually believe, to wit, that nothing bad ever happens to a writer, because the writer can milk it into fiction or nonfiction. Think memoir.
Carson McCullers said that anyone who "survived childhood" had enough material to write for the rest of his/her life.
Quite a few moons ago, when I was desperate to publish The Shadow Warriors, some literary group in Boston, it may have been the Boston Adult Education bunch, had Vonnegut in town for some fol-de-rol, and one could submit one page of writing, and someone (don't think it was Vonnegut) selected the best pages to be publicly critiqued by the great man.
Of course I agonized over which page to send, and finally found one, which was picked by the committee (?) and read by Vonnegut, who said nice thing about the page as a whole. Maybe 12 of us were selected, and it was a great honor. Vonnegut offered a great bit of criticism. I had a reference to "the freshest, cleanest eggs, " and he said all eggs were clean unless they were smeared with chicken shit, and I should strike cleanest and go with freshest. I actually read that little scene at the Cambridge Public Library later on.
The Shadow Warriors was finally picked up by an Internet publisher, and there it languished as an e-book, with promises of POD which never happened, so I got my contract back and send it myself to the POD publisher, Booksurge. This made me self-published, and you know how much respect that engenders, but in the meantime, I had two editors from the Internet publisher and some royalties, and a nice letter from the Internet publisher who was actually good folks, but poor folks.
This e-publication enabled me to join MWA as an active member, which is as far as I can tell the only good luck I have ever had with respect to any of my writing.
I have a special spot for Kurt Vonnegut who liked my writing, and gave excellent advice. Here is his obit. You may have to register (it's free).
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/12/books/12vonnegut.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments are always welcome!