Publish it

Greetings,

A new article link and ideas about the world. The world of self-publishing. You write for an audience of one. You write with passion, authenticity and humor. You write with a light heart. You are hopeful. You expect the worst.

You play the publishing game. Every fall you buy a copy of Writer's Market, the bible. You research markets. You craft a query letter and synopsis. You send the query letter, synopsis and first five pages to a literary agent. You wait. You write. 

The agent reads your synopsis. They thumb through the five pages. Their first thought is, "Can I make 15% on this?" If the answer is no, you get rejection letter wallpaper to decorate your room. If you take the rejections personally and bang your head against the wall all the letters become wild word birds and fly away.

Or, you consider self-publishing. This is what I did in 2007 while finishing a teaching job in China. I researched options and purchased a publishing package with iuniverse. It was a good choice. A viable option considering my work was experimental, non-linear and filled with nomadic storytellers and their adventures.

You have many self-publishing options now. Look around. See what meets your needs.

A Century Is Nothing...

Few have read it. Fewer have understood it.

read more...

Metta.

Poetry rocks russia

Greetings,

The passing of Mr. Voznesensky creates new opportunity and awareness for poets with courage and voice. Poets speak in the atmosphere of intimidation and menace. 

Here is a NYT piece on Russian poetry.

...Here is Pushkin’s poem “Good for the Poet Who ...,” a bitter satire of writers who would curry favor with rulers, in a translation by Yevgeny Bonver:

Good for the poet who applies
His art in royal chambers’ splendor.
Of tears and laughter crafty vendor
Adding some truth to many lies,
He tickles the sated taste of lords
For more greatness and awards.
And decorates all their feasts,
Receiving clever praise as fees ...
But, by the doors, so tall and stout —
On sides of stables and backyards —
The people, haunted by the guards,
Hark to this poet in a crowd.

Now there’s a declaration of independence.

Read more...

Metta.

Tell me a secret

Greetings,

Ostim: an industrial wasteland manufacturing zone near Ankara.

It's time to go a wandering...inside the reality magic show, welcoming the opportunity, the gift as it is to receive, shifting into another zone of influence and experiential discovery. (Bursa)

As they know you are leaving, this distant. Perhaps they have repressed, regressed into their real way. I appreciated seeing, knowing, understanding how it is, how some people feel, O so sad and withdrawn in their personal way. Their Zen: Awareness. Moment. 

As usual my ghost moves through a transparent knowing. Tell me a secret. Screwing up is a virtue.

Sit by the cafe window. Sky, clouds filled with light: gray production pollution, dust, winter icicles, vapor, yellow haze, solitary birds on wing, rolling and tumbling...this small cafe and sky window, the kind Kurdish woman's hospitality, her delicious manta, a sanctuary from the chaos.

Take the 1310 metro to Ostim. Strange industrial landscape where men cannot afford gloves inside childhood's winter. Remove their hats and make monkey groom females in exchange for sex, and all the capital people slog in their struggle

remembering Rumi, how a human being is a kind of conversation, dancing down all the days of early winter clean cold silent

The art and elements of a Japanese folding placemat: shapes, designs, edges, art. Free form, free spirit. Play.

Draw, paint, sing, dance, disappear. Seize the day.

I love the smell of garbage in Cambodia.

Metta.

Human business plan.

Nature's business plan.

Drone on

Greetings,

After class I am walking on green carpeted space (imagining I'm in a small sleepy Cambodian river town) listening to two Frenchmen talk about their boring travels using a Lonely Planet book,

ok, it's a lonely planet, it's Earth after all, understanding how their experience contains all the wisdom of the same-same but different philosophy - what did they expect on a beautiful blue marble dancing in space

droning on like a Predator drone zeroing in on Afghan mountains where shrouded cloth covered humans cowering on THEIR lonely planet inside remote mountain caves near impossible borders

wait for the droning tourists to assault their position with illiterate guides: Sleep here. Eat here. Go here.

Armed with the sharp attentive diamond eyes, a precious precocious girl wrote words with red ink using a new Chopin piston fountain pen on this onion skinned Moleskine paper. It is a medium. M. It has a weight, a heft, a thick solid feel to its base, the black resin manifesting the ink, visceral realists. 

Savoring a feeling of tactile sensation - this nib, this edge of finding small joy seeing ink flow, this tactility, this delightful smooth flow, she dances a singularity.

It was a joy, slow and precise dancing ink on paper. The Art of Writing.

Simple on lonely planet.

Metta.

The library at Beng Mealea on a living planet.

10 year old wordream

Greetings,

Yes, a year now a days glancing toward assessment of healthy foods. Fourth graders are teachers. Simplicity, sanctuary and serenity. Draw wisdom in red, green, blue, black. 

The cosmic free writing class of curious explorers. Begin an admirable multi-hued rainbow experience. Inside/outside their small infinite portal. No fear. Dialogue of light and color spectrums. 

The Little Prince. What is essential is invisible to the eye. Accepting responsibility for living things, planting new gardens, new colors, green life promise, their beauty, truth, creativity, art, dance, music, joy, kindness and compassion. 

How you manifest this reality, this waking dream, this transience, this small immediate flash of lightning. Gratitude releases all the beauty.

What color are your dreams? 

Why are you so relaxed when you play?

I have nothing to prove.

Metta.