The first review of the book is up over at big other. I was not expecting such a thoughtful and in-depth review. Shit. Thank you, John Madera.
Also in terms of people reading things and then talking about them, here is something I wrote about the idea of reading.
I ate empanada's last night and they were real tasty but I got real gassy. So oh well. Things happen.
I just told Shane about that in a gchat and it made me think maybe there are some things I should keep to myself, but then I'd have to do something about it, like both actively in general and here in terms of deleting this and the above paragraph, and I just don't quite feel like it.
Thinking about watching Brief Interviews tonight on Netflix.
I hope everyone has a great day.
Showing posts with label novella. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novella. Show all posts
door to door
The book has been showing up door to door. Which feels pretty awesome.
If you happen to read it, I'd really appreciate you rating it on goodreads or writing a blog post about it. You know about blogs right? The New York Times does too.
Also, people have been taking pictures with the book. I will post some of them. If you take a picture of yourself with the book I will post it here. If you want, I will send you a pdf of some stories I wrote once. A bunch of them are pretty funny at times. I might maybe write another novella or longer type thing using some of them. So that could be some neat ground floor type shit, right?
I should also really listen to High Violet more. And James Brown. Please Please Please is pretty awesome. It really is.
Other things that are awesome include Skyler and I signing an apartment lease tonight which means that not only will I have a home when I get back from Vermont in August [and that I will need to leave for Vermont the day after I move] but that I will have an awesome home with enough room for an office so for the first time since I started doing homework somewhere other than the kitchen table I will no longer sleep in the same room that I work in and that feels like the coolest fucking thing ever.
Other things included in that list are those air conditioners that are already installed in the wall when you move in. And have a fucking washer and dryer in the building.
If you happen to read it, I'd really appreciate you rating it on goodreads or writing a blog post about it. You know about blogs right? The New York Times does too.
Also, people have been taking pictures with the book. I will post some of them. If you take a picture of yourself with the book I will post it here. If you want, I will send you a pdf of some stories I wrote once. A bunch of them are pretty funny at times. I might maybe write another novella or longer type thing using some of them. So that could be some neat ground floor type shit, right?
I should also really listen to High Violet more. And James Brown. Please Please Please is pretty awesome. It really is.
Other things that are awesome include Skyler and I signing an apartment lease tonight which means that not only will I have a home when I get back from Vermont in August [and that I will need to leave for Vermont the day after I move] but that I will have an awesome home with enough room for an office so for the first time since I started doing homework somewhere other than the kitchen table I will no longer sleep in the same room that I work in and that feels like the coolest fucking thing ever.
Other things included in that list are those air conditioners that are already installed in the wall when you move in. And have a fucking washer and dryer in the building.
REAL LIVE BOOKS
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
WHOA
So yesterday i contacted J.A to see how many copies of the book we'd sold for pre-order. there were all but 25 accounted for around 3pm. I made a post about it on facebook and we sold 2. I told J.A.
we sold at least 2, and that I was going to see if we could sell them all. J.A. told me J. A. Tyler
to me
3:46 PM (18 hours ago)
if you sell out these last copies today on pre-orders, I will paypal you
the money for fancy beer and you can get drunk on our mlp dime.
J. A. Tyler
And so I mentioned it to Mike Young over gchat and he did a post on the Giant. I continued to update facebook and twitter and we sold the last 25 copies. When I went to bed around 1 we were down to 3. As of 7am this morning we sold out of all pre-orders. 2 weeks before it is released.
J.A. has already ordered more and will continue to do so as the public demands.
Thank you to everyone who helped me get drunk last night.
we sold at least 2, and that I was going to see if we could sell them all. J.A. told me J. A. Tyler
to me
3:46 PM (18 hours ago)
if you sell out these last copies today on pre-orders, I will paypal you
the money for fancy beer and you can get drunk on our mlp dime.
J. A. Tyler
And so I mentioned it to Mike Young over gchat and he did a post on the Giant. I continued to update facebook and twitter and we sold the last 25 copies. When I went to bed around 1 we were down to 3. As of 7am this morning we sold out of all pre-orders. 2 weeks before it is released.
J.A. has already ordered more and will continue to do so as the public demands.
Thank you to everyone who helped me get drunk last night.
a sort of repsonse
so there is this interesting talk about how we use surrealism over at gulf coast.
earlier this year i was supposed to do an interview for the novella, and it didn't work out, but i thought since it didn't work out, that i would paste it here for all of you to see.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your novel is a surrealist one. Surrealism is said to free the imagination by producing a creative process free of conscious control. In short, allowing the ego free reign. Do you agree with this assessment, and what techniques have you embraced in your writing? Was the writing, for you, an enjoyable experience?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would say that I was a surreal writer as opposed to a surrealist. And I still don’t know that I’m all that comfortable with the term. There was a really great discussion on this over at Gulf Coast.
I’m not certain that I really like the idea of allowing anything to have free reign. And on a basic level I’d have to agree with Russell Edson when he says, “Why should we have to be surrealists? Breton didn't invent our imaginations.” I also want to say that I write about and within very controlled situations. I edit and rewrite rigorously, and the goal of all of this is for very specific things to happen in a very specific way to evoke some sort of an emotional response. I also want to say that when we break it down, surrealism means something that is over above or more than realism. Which requires us to not forget that this is a thing grounded in something. That to be above or over or more than a thing we must be aware at all times where it stands.
I have absolutely no interest in relinquishing conscious control. We’ve been talking in one of my classes about the notion of felt sense. The idea that there is this thing, this gut feeling, that sort of guides our work. In sports it’s referred to as being on fire or in the zone or on point or things like that. On the ball. What I am trying to say is that the techniques I employ to write involve sitting down at a desk and trying very hard to feel something that seems real and important.
Process is very important to me. Rewriting is, for me, a very generative process. The book was pieced together at first from three short pieces [all of which are available online] that I had to rewrite to fit together, and then I went from there.
I paid close attention to each page and to the ideas and images that were at work and made sure to allow them all the space they needed to breathe and exist without crowding things out or detracting.
I write the way I do because I find that it allows me to indirectly address the things I am really concerned with. Things that I find very difficult to explain in any meaningful way while speaking about them directly. Primarily: 1) the idea of a sadness that is not sad, 2) surrealism as supra-realism as realism, and 3) the idea of a sort of quiet desperation that manages to give a sort of sense of triumph.
So. 1) That no one should really be sad that they are sad. 2) That nothing should be treated differently than anything else. That the act of cooking bacon and the act of filling someone’s chest with birds so that they can be lifted up by something moving, that these are both pretty much the same action, or at least equally important ones. 3) That having a purpose and moving towards it is quite often founded on the principles of a sort of blind faith, and that more often than not this faith is born out of a desperate need for something greater. Like when one says of a relationship, “Being with them forced me to become a better person than I knew how to be.” Which might maybe have something to do with a later question.
As to the second part of your question, the writing was a very enjoyable process. I had just quit my job and moved in with my parents for six weeks before moving to Brooklyn. For those six weeks I read a lot of books, played tennis three times a week with my dad, and worked on the book every single day. I don’t know that I could work that hard every day for the rest of my life, but those six weeks were pretty incredible.
earlier this year i was supposed to do an interview for the novella, and it didn't work out, but i thought since it didn't work out, that i would paste it here for all of you to see.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your novel is a surrealist one. Surrealism is said to free the imagination by producing a creative process free of conscious control. In short, allowing the ego free reign. Do you agree with this assessment, and what techniques have you embraced in your writing? Was the writing, for you, an enjoyable experience?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I would say that I was a surreal writer as opposed to a surrealist. And I still don’t know that I’m all that comfortable with the term. There was a really great discussion on this over at Gulf Coast.
I’m not certain that I really like the idea of allowing anything to have free reign. And on a basic level I’d have to agree with Russell Edson when he says, “Why should we have to be surrealists? Breton didn't invent our imaginations.” I also want to say that I write about and within very controlled situations. I edit and rewrite rigorously, and the goal of all of this is for very specific things to happen in a very specific way to evoke some sort of an emotional response. I also want to say that when we break it down, surrealism means something that is over above or more than realism. Which requires us to not forget that this is a thing grounded in something. That to be above or over or more than a thing we must be aware at all times where it stands.
I have absolutely no interest in relinquishing conscious control. We’ve been talking in one of my classes about the notion of felt sense. The idea that there is this thing, this gut feeling, that sort of guides our work. In sports it’s referred to as being on fire or in the zone or on point or things like that. On the ball. What I am trying to say is that the techniques I employ to write involve sitting down at a desk and trying very hard to feel something that seems real and important.
Process is very important to me. Rewriting is, for me, a very generative process. The book was pieced together at first from three short pieces [all of which are available online] that I had to rewrite to fit together, and then I went from there.
I paid close attention to each page and to the ideas and images that were at work and made sure to allow them all the space they needed to breathe and exist without crowding things out or detracting.
I write the way I do because I find that it allows me to indirectly address the things I am really concerned with. Things that I find very difficult to explain in any meaningful way while speaking about them directly. Primarily: 1) the idea of a sadness that is not sad, 2) surrealism as supra-realism as realism, and 3) the idea of a sort of quiet desperation that manages to give a sort of sense of triumph.
So. 1) That no one should really be sad that they are sad. 2) That nothing should be treated differently than anything else. That the act of cooking bacon and the act of filling someone’s chest with birds so that they can be lifted up by something moving, that these are both pretty much the same action, or at least equally important ones. 3) That having a purpose and moving towards it is quite often founded on the principles of a sort of blind faith, and that more often than not this faith is born out of a desperate need for something greater. Like when one says of a relationship, “Being with them forced me to become a better person than I knew how to be.” Which might maybe have something to do with a later question.
As to the second part of your question, the writing was a very enjoyable process. I had just quit my job and moved in with my parents for six weeks before moving to Brooklyn. For those six weeks I read a lot of books, played tennis three times a week with my dad, and worked on the book every single day. I don’t know that I could work that hard every day for the rest of my life, but those six weeks were pretty incredible.
wherein we address the idea of the cover and reveal things not yet known by men
here is the actual cover, designed by skyler balbus, in full and in front.
i am posting the rest of the cover images here. they will not all be the same sizes. do the best with this.
will gladly have conversations about decisions and things like that with anyone who wants to converse.
zach dodson
steven seighman
luca dipierro
WOW THAT IS SO PRETTY IT WOULD BE SO CONVENIENT IF I COULD CLICK ON THIS TEXT AND BE LINKED TO A PAGE WHERE I COULD PURCHASE THIS FINE OBJECT
i am posting the rest of the cover images here. they will not all be the same sizes. do the best with this.
will gladly have conversations about decisions and things like that with anyone who wants to converse.
zach dodson
steven seighman
luca dipierro
WOW THAT IS SO PRETTY IT WOULD BE SO CONVENIENT IF I COULD CLICK ON THIS TEXT AND BE LINKED TO A PAGE WHERE I COULD PURCHASE THIS FINE OBJECT
book stuff
so we're finishing up the cover. i made all the final edits. about four times. which doesn't include the giant revisions that happened between j.a. sending me his notes and the first final edits. at least 6-8 pages were cut, around the same added, and whole pages rewritten for syntax and clarity and that whole punching you in the heart thing that my girlfriend talks about a lot.
anyway. i thought i would write a post about the book, about how it came about, and maybe soon make a post on these long poems i'm trying to write. i am trying to write long poems. i am using lines sometimes instead of sentences. it is fucking weird.
book. yes.
so this goes back.
in june 2008 [we'll say by june 3rd or 4th] i started a series of poems that was going to become the book everything here is ok [excerpts of which you can find online all over the place. most of my publications are from that.]
basically i'd been writing poems all the time pretty much every day since i started this blog in 2007, and the whole time i did that i'd been sending chapbooks to bear parade without ever really stopping and thinking about what a chapbook was or could be. gene morgan was and is a great guy and at one point told me it wasn't likely he was going to publish me right now, but that i had a couple of really good poems, and then gave me a bunch of places he thought i should send to, which included pineapple war, who has since published a couple of pieces by me, and which is run by prathna lor, who has since become a pretty great friend and is in fact an incredible writer.
anyway, i decided when i moved to south philly that i would sit down and write ten-twelve poems that worked together and created a sort of concise whole. i came to this conclusion after reading jesus' son. i figured out how i'd try to approach changing my writing to let it grow into what it is now after reading cognitive behavioral therapy. so i sat down and wrote what became the second section of everything here is ok, it is gonna rain [an earlier version of which was published by ixnay press in volume four of the ixnay reader, which is linked at the bottom of the page, so just scroll down or something].
anyway gene almost took it but he didn't. which was fine because for the first time ever i felt like i was actually really doing something with this. like i had a purpose. and so, over a period of time that is well documented on this blog, i wrote a book of linked prose poems.
after i finished this book i wrote this thing that was a finalist for the lamination colony this is not a contest contest. i didn't pay attention and things were unclear so i sent the piece to j.a. for a mud luscious chap because for some reason i thought it wasn't being published. it was. so i wrote another one for j.a., and that was the piece in alice blue. around this time i sent j.a. everything here is ok. we'd been talking about where we were sending books and i mentioned this one and he asked to see it, so i sent it over.
while he was reading it, i got invited to participate in the dollar store tour. so i wrote the piece that's in noo journal.
soon after this, j.a. got back to me, saying
sf.
thanks for sharing this EVERYTHING HERE IS OK ms with me. much appreciated. I really enjoyed the sort of callous and vehement style of reporting in these fictions / poems, the way they are approached almost journalistically, as if to provide information rather than to contextualize in imagery / design. some really grabbing things in this. it is not a good fit with what I am looking for in terms of future mlp novel(la)s, though I cannot even remember if we had discussed that possibility, but I would love to see how the style used here would apply to an overall narrative, a ms structured as a true novel(la) rather than as a prose / poetry collection with the section breaks and subtitling. what are you working on next? if it is something along those lines, this flash organization applied to an overarching narrative, I would love to take a look at it for future ml press consideration. we are still hoping to get a few more mlp subscriptions to really push the novel(la) series into concrete existence, but we are going to read ahead regardless. best, and thanks again for the chance to see this one.
so i had just quit my job at whole foods and moved back into my parents' house in allentown pennsylvania. in the middle of july i took all three of the above mentioned pieces and put them one after another in the order they were written. i then sat down and wrote them together. once they made sense, i went from there.
i sent the ninth draft to j.a. on august 14 and on august 23 he accepted it. it was, i think, my second day in brooklyn.
there are lots of things without which i would not have been able to do this. aside from quitting the job. ken baumann helped me get through writing the lamination colony piece and shane jones gave me some good advice on the ending.
as i wrote the early pieces i was reading this long ron padgett poem called i think MY METHOD from his book HOW TO BE PERFECT. i was also rereading all of shane jones's numbered stories.
when i was working on the novella i was reading deb olin unferth's VACATION and frank stanford's THE BATTLEFIELD WHERE THE MOON SAYS I LOVE YOU.
deb's book made me really and truly believe that it was possible to write a longer piece. her book is just one perfect sentence after another, forever. it was seemingly written that way, one perfect sentence at a time, and the idea that all you had to do was just put one good thing after another until you couldn't anymore was somehow a thing i could not have figured out on my own.
as for stanford, he got the epigraph.
there were shit tons of revisions. an entire subplot involving a bizarre telephone interview that loosely expanded upon several portions of the book was cut entirely. it may yet see the light of day. news on that soon.
the first page was rewritten easily eight or twelve times during the course of three final layout edits. the fourth i blindly approved as even after reading it i couldn't tell what was happening anymore. reading the whole thing that many times got a little numbing. but we got through it. and i feel great about it.
in closing here is a photo from a shoot that may or may not lead to the cover.
photo credit: skyler balbus
anyway. i thought i would write a post about the book, about how it came about, and maybe soon make a post on these long poems i'm trying to write. i am trying to write long poems. i am using lines sometimes instead of sentences. it is fucking weird.
book. yes.
so this goes back.
in june 2008 [we'll say by june 3rd or 4th] i started a series of poems that was going to become the book everything here is ok [excerpts of which you can find online all over the place. most of my publications are from that.]
basically i'd been writing poems all the time pretty much every day since i started this blog in 2007, and the whole time i did that i'd been sending chapbooks to bear parade without ever really stopping and thinking about what a chapbook was or could be. gene morgan was and is a great guy and at one point told me it wasn't likely he was going to publish me right now, but that i had a couple of really good poems, and then gave me a bunch of places he thought i should send to, which included pineapple war, who has since published a couple of pieces by me, and which is run by prathna lor, who has since become a pretty great friend and is in fact an incredible writer.
anyway, i decided when i moved to south philly that i would sit down and write ten-twelve poems that worked together and created a sort of concise whole. i came to this conclusion after reading jesus' son. i figured out how i'd try to approach changing my writing to let it grow into what it is now after reading cognitive behavioral therapy. so i sat down and wrote what became the second section of everything here is ok, it is gonna rain [an earlier version of which was published by ixnay press in volume four of the ixnay reader, which is linked at the bottom of the page, so just scroll down or something].
anyway gene almost took it but he didn't. which was fine because for the first time ever i felt like i was actually really doing something with this. like i had a purpose. and so, over a period of time that is well documented on this blog, i wrote a book of linked prose poems.
after i finished this book i wrote this thing that was a finalist for the lamination colony this is not a contest contest. i didn't pay attention and things were unclear so i sent the piece to j.a. for a mud luscious chap because for some reason i thought it wasn't being published. it was. so i wrote another one for j.a., and that was the piece in alice blue. around this time i sent j.a. everything here is ok. we'd been talking about where we were sending books and i mentioned this one and he asked to see it, so i sent it over.
while he was reading it, i got invited to participate in the dollar store tour. so i wrote the piece that's in noo journal.
soon after this, j.a. got back to me, saying
sf.
thanks for sharing this EVERYTHING HERE IS OK ms with me. much appreciated. I really enjoyed the sort of callous and vehement style of reporting in these fictions / poems, the way they are approached almost journalistically, as if to provide information rather than to contextualize in imagery / design. some really grabbing things in this. it is not a good fit with what I am looking for in terms of future mlp novel(la)s, though I cannot even remember if we had discussed that possibility, but I would love to see how the style used here would apply to an overall narrative, a ms structured as a true novel(la) rather than as a prose / poetry collection with the section breaks and subtitling. what are you working on next? if it is something along those lines, this flash organization applied to an overarching narrative, I would love to take a look at it for future ml press consideration. we are still hoping to get a few more mlp subscriptions to really push the novel(la) series into concrete existence, but we are going to read ahead regardless. best, and thanks again for the chance to see this one.
so i had just quit my job at whole foods and moved back into my parents' house in allentown pennsylvania. in the middle of july i took all three of the above mentioned pieces and put them one after another in the order they were written. i then sat down and wrote them together. once they made sense, i went from there.
i sent the ninth draft to j.a. on august 14 and on august 23 he accepted it. it was, i think, my second day in brooklyn.
there are lots of things without which i would not have been able to do this. aside from quitting the job. ken baumann helped me get through writing the lamination colony piece and shane jones gave me some good advice on the ending.
as i wrote the early pieces i was reading this long ron padgett poem called i think MY METHOD from his book HOW TO BE PERFECT. i was also rereading all of shane jones's numbered stories.
when i was working on the novella i was reading deb olin unferth's VACATION and frank stanford's THE BATTLEFIELD WHERE THE MOON SAYS I LOVE YOU.
deb's book made me really and truly believe that it was possible to write a longer piece. her book is just one perfect sentence after another, forever. it was seemingly written that way, one perfect sentence at a time, and the idea that all you had to do was just put one good thing after another until you couldn't anymore was somehow a thing i could not have figured out on my own.
as for stanford, he got the epigraph.
there were shit tons of revisions. an entire subplot involving a bizarre telephone interview that loosely expanded upon several portions of the book was cut entirely. it may yet see the light of day. news on that soon.
the first page was rewritten easily eight or twelve times during the course of three final layout edits. the fourth i blindly approved as even after reading it i couldn't tell what was happening anymore. reading the whole thing that many times got a little numbing. but we got through it. and i feel great about it.
in closing here is a photo from a shoot that may or may not lead to the cover.
photo credit: skyler balbus
NOVELLA
All the blurbs are in. I have been shitting golden bricks of smiles for days on end. Deb Olin Unferth's came in as I woke up. VACATION is sort of the reason i was able to write this book in the first place. The fact that when reading it you can tell the entire thing was written one sentence at a time was incredibly important to me in terms of being able to see how a thing could be done. Could be tackled. I am someone who has a hard time writing any way other than one sentence at a time and rarely can I even think about how to put them together other than as a continuation or a response to the previous one. Apparently I am writing with capital letters like a grown ass man or something. Anyway. What I am saying is that Deb's book made me feel, in a sort of real intimidating way, that I could write this thing. This novella. Which is probably not very long. But it was a motherfucker for me to write it.
ANYWAY. so maybe some of you out there are thinking I WOULD LIKE TO MAYBE BUY THIS BOOK BUT I WANT TO KNOW WHAT I AM GETTING because a lot of the time presses I like put out books that look neat but I don't know the author all that well and also they don't tell you what pieces are in or from the book so that maybe you like a bunch of their poems and none of those poems are in this book you bought and maybe you don't like any of them much, or they make sense later but not now, but you have got a limited budget and lord knows you don't need to go tossing them dollars around all willy nilly and higgeldy piggeldy.
WELL LADIES AND GENTLEMEN SASHA FLETCHER IS HERE TO HELP
PRESENTING UNTO YOU THE FIRST THREE PIECES THAT WERE WRITTEN BY SAID AUTHOR AND BECAME MORE OR LESS THE OPENING PART OF THE NOVELLA IN QUESTION SO THAT YOU THE DISCERNING BOOK BUYER CAN BE MORE DISCERNING!
COLON:
we are going to get paid and then we will dress for the weather [yes that's an ODB reference]
i laughed so hard i fell down [yes that's a department of eagles reference]
burning the air between here and there [yes that's a deadwood reference]
Bam.
Soon I will post thoughts and things about the book. Probably at the end of the week I will tell the drawn out story about how it got written and published.
I have got edits to make.
It's a goddam nice day in Brooklyn today.
ANYWAY. so maybe some of you out there are thinking I WOULD LIKE TO MAYBE BUY THIS BOOK BUT I WANT TO KNOW WHAT I AM GETTING because a lot of the time presses I like put out books that look neat but I don't know the author all that well and also they don't tell you what pieces are in or from the book so that maybe you like a bunch of their poems and none of those poems are in this book you bought and maybe you don't like any of them much, or they make sense later but not now, but you have got a limited budget and lord knows you don't need to go tossing them dollars around all willy nilly and higgeldy piggeldy.
WELL LADIES AND GENTLEMEN SASHA FLETCHER IS HERE TO HELP
PRESENTING UNTO YOU THE FIRST THREE PIECES THAT WERE WRITTEN BY SAID AUTHOR AND BECAME MORE OR LESS THE OPENING PART OF THE NOVELLA IN QUESTION SO THAT YOU THE DISCERNING BOOK BUYER CAN BE MORE DISCERNING!
COLON:
we are going to get paid and then we will dress for the weather [yes that's an ODB reference]
i laughed so hard i fell down [yes that's a department of eagles reference]
burning the air between here and there [yes that's a deadwood reference]
Bam.
Soon I will post thoughts and things about the book. Probably at the end of the week I will tell the drawn out story about how it got written and published.
I have got edits to make.
It's a goddam nice day in Brooklyn today.
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