Writing the Vida Loca -- Truth and Fantasy

All right, I said I would do it, so I am. A man of my word, here is the truth about the writing life. If I told you it was no life at all, I would be lying, but not by much.

In my younger days I was enamored of being the man of letters. I imagined a life of high adventure and interpersonal relationships marked by camaraderie and a code of honor shaped by bullfighting and deep sea fishing. You know what I'm talking about, that 1950s cultural icon that somehow survived into the seventies despite taking a beating at the hands of folk music and drugs and the sneaking suspicion that people cared more about the Mary Tyler Moore show than the latest tome from Norman Mailer. When it became apparent that the writer had been relegated by the culture to a sideshow, a carnival attraction, then for me writing became an underground war of attrition, a personal quest that kept me sane by clinging to a juvenile obsession that had not only marked me for life, but determined all the major choices I ever made: college, career, life partner,  etc. It was kind of like being a secret monk, scribbling away nights, typing up drafts of novels and stories from varied locales that all had in common a resolute distance from the centers of literary opinion.

And then last year came the breakthrough i'd been waiting for. A publisher willing to take a chance, put my name on their brand and launch me out into the world of legitimate writerhood, (authorship?). Despite the slap in the face of a contract that specified marketing and publicity would be up to me, I told myself that was just the state of play in the "industry" and I went all in, applying the marketing lessons gained from self-publishing previous titles, and when SAVIOR came out as a Kindle Ebook in April, I was like a proud parent, beaming with the new presence in the world of my book. The reviews were good, some were excellent, and sales have been solid, if not spectacular to date.

So how has my life changed and what have been the benefits and drawbacks of the experience? These are legitimate concerns and despite the fact that i know nobody cares, I'm going to try to spell it out anyway.

In most visible ways, nothing has changed. My kids still think I'm a doofus and remind me of it. My wife would rather I not spend as much time as I do on extraneous Twitter like marketing activity which she does not understand and does not want to understand. A couple of my Spanish students have asked me about my book and how it's doing and one even got excited when I told him it would be on sale in a couple of weeks. So I am that high school teacher guy with the mildly interesting hobby/sideline. (I remember my algebra teacher in 9th grade, Mr. Mucarzel, and his leather handbags.)

One of my neighbors won a free copy of SAVIOR in exchange for helping out with crowd funding, and another neighbor asked me at my daughter's soccer game how the book was doing.

My mother refuses to talk about my writing and changed the subject on Mother's Day when I brought it up in desperation. My father, who actually went out and bought a Kindle so he could buy a copy of SAVIOR, said I was improving but said he's not into dystopian fiction.

So that's it as far as the people around me and the impact the book has had.

Next week: Social media - Benefits vs. Pitfalls

SAVIOR is available as an Amazon Kindle Ebook.

Writing Means Never Having to Say your Sorry. Really?

Being a writer is tough. Everyone knows the hazards of being the lone writer locked in a world of imaginary constructs for hours at a time, closed off from ordinary contacts with human beings in order to cultivate the tools of the trade. These are very real sacrifices that take a toll on a life. The impact of books in our culture is so huge, that millions of people are willing to take that route, seeing it as a noble calling. But is it worth it? What if your impact is so minimal that it is barely measurable? Is there some metaphysical trade-off that you can point to and claim as a reward? That's a question that every writer must answer for him or herself.

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money," said Boswell. And it was a quote I always liked. But now, as it becomes clearer that writers along every path of the trade are looking at diminishing streams of income and the near Sisyphean task of making a living from their work, either original or of a journalistic bent, I wonder what other writers are telling themselves as they struggle in their dingy lofts or plush caves. For me, it has been years since I contemplated writing as anything other than something I did to keep myself sane, to keep my instincts and perceptions sharp in the world of humdrum adult responsibilities and routines, and if I ever managed to knock it out of the park by selling my work to the remote, big league universe of New York publishers, well, that was a nice dream to take out and burnish once in a while like a remnant, a childhood bauble, but not something to take seriously and plan a life around. It was just too random, the touch of literary success. And now that the demise of the mainstream publishers is on everyone's lips, there is a new phenomenon, the rise of the self-publishing route to financial sustainability, to inflame the writer's ambitions for worldly recognition. Real or just Memorex - a replay of the mirage of the old school dreams that writers of my generation, that would be the generation somewhere this side of the Boomers but pre-GenXers, used to gather around before it shattered like the vase in the commercial. The cynic in me says it's just another cyclical gold rush, to the benefit of the few lucky or quick enough to draw off the sap before it dries up.  The rest of us will do what we have always done, continue to struggle to hone craft and refine our stories, and that hard work is our calling and reward. And in case anyone is interested, here is my contact information:

Anthony Caplan, Author

www.anthonycaplanwrites.com

www.twitter.com/#!/AnthonyCaplan1

www.thenewremembrance.blogspot.com

www.amazon.com/Anthony-Caplan/e/B004C6F15W.