Milestone

Well, it finally happened. I've sold 425 copies of my novel, Into the Desperate Country. I only need to sell 75 more and I'll have reached one of my goals. Of course, I'll set a new goal after that. Maybe 1,000 copies. I'll be sixty, but it could happen.

I think writers give up on books too quickly -- like they have an expiration date or something. Writers seems to give up pushing their books after a year, which is ridiculous. What happens? Is the book no longer good after that first year? It's all part of our block buster mentality. It has to splash big, and if it doesn't, forget it. Well, that's just stupid.

If you have a book out, keep pushing it. Contact book clubs, do readings . . . don't shamefully tuck it away because it's three or four years old.

I can think of many great books that more people should be reading. For instance, I think of Josh Maday and Matt Bell's debut book, Dancing on Fly Ash. The book contained over sixty stories that were one hundred words in length. Now that's a daring and fantastic debut book. As I understand, hard copies of the book are hard to come by, but they are keeping it available as a Kindle book. Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/Dancing-Ash%253a-Hundred-Word-Stories/dp/B0010K6TW2

This is a debut book from Matt Bell and Josh Maday that shouldn't be forgotten. You won't be disappointed if you order a copy!

Without Wax and sad, sad, sad Week 34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I had another zero dollar week. No profits from writing.

Oh well.

I did read another great book worth checking out. It’s called Without Wax.

The real magic of William Walsh’s Without Wax (Casperian Books) is Walsh’s ability to make the reader have so much empathy and sympathy for the protagonist, Wax Williams – a man with an eighteen-inch (flaccid) penis. I like Wax. I just do. It didn’t feel like Walsh beat me over the head with attempts to reveal Wax’s character, but from the opening pages I found myself rooting for the guy. He seemed vulnerable to me . . . and human.

Two big sources leave us vulnerable according to Without Wax. What leaves us vulnerable? Well, sex and money. Both play a role in making Wax the unhappy man he becomes. Because sex is so taboo in our culture, most of us stumble into it and its mysteries on our own -- without guides. Guessing that everybody does it, Wax shaves his pubic hair as a young boy. This simple misunderstanding leads to fears by adults of his underdevelopment, which eventually leads to his overdevelopment. If he’d had someone to mentor him, maybe he never would have shaved – though, sadly, then we wouldn’t have Without Wax.

It’s the mystification and demonization of sex which fuels the porn industry, which is prevalent in the novel, but also prevalent in the real world. Without Wax examines how our relationship to sex has left most of us creeping around the subject – and sometimes creeping into peep booths or locking the doors to our rooms and watching porn. We have few healthy outlets for our curiosities and fantasies, so we have to turn to this seedy industry.

Of course, money plays into this, too. Wax’s endowment leaves him ripe for exploitation -- by his parents, by his manager, and by nearly everybody who sees his gardenhose-length member.

Though I wouldn’t have thought it at first, this novel says a lot about our society. Our relationship to money and our relationship to sex put Wax in the predicament he finds himself in. It puts many of us in the odd and sometimes unnecessarily shameful positions we find ourselves in.

In any case, this is a book that centers on a porn star and the porn industry, and it left me more intellectually stimulated than it did sexually stimulated. That’s pretty cool.

(I’ll admit, though, that there were some passages that raced my heart a little bit.)

I guess this isn’t really a review – it’s just me rambling after having finished the book. I did really like this book, though. I read it in a weekend – which is pretty darn fast for me. It’s rendered in an interesting way, which includes interviews with characters, second-person narratives, a complete movie screenplay, and court depositions. A very cool read to say the least, and another unique feather in the cap of Casperian Books. Motor City Blues, The Tea House, End Credits, and Without Wax are each very different from the other, and yet all four have their own strengths. You should go over to Casperian Books and buy one. You’ll be supporting a small (but up and coming) press. That’s always a good thing.

http://www.casperianbooks.com/catalog/shop.html

The Snowfly: A Preview

The Snowfly (Lyons Press), by Joseph Heywood, follows the fishing and UPI reporting life of Bowie Rhodes. As Bowie's life unfolds, so do the mysteries of the snowfly, a mythical fly of such rarity and size that when it hatches (about once every ten years) it brings monstrous trout to the surface. Bowie's reporting life takes him to Vietnam, England, Russia, Canada and then back to the U.S. (including Michigan and its Upper Peninsula), and at each destination he gets a little more ensnared in the allure of the snowfly. Chasing the snowfly becomes an addiction for some, and keeping from getting addicted himself becomes one of Rhode's great fights. Questions rise throughout the book. Why are both the U.S. and Soviet governments so interested in M.J. Key's unpublished manuscript, The Legend of The Snowfly? When will Bowie find a woman that meets his every need? Why does Raina Chickerman, childhood friend of Bowie, keep surfacing and seems somehow connected to the snowfly mystery?

At one point, while in Canada, Bowie finds himself in a Native American spirit hole:

"Night passed to day. I went from cold to sweltering. At midday the sun was overhead and I couldn't escape it. More sleep. Confusion. I tried to jump out, smacked my face on the wall, bled from the nose, got giddy. Then night finally came. Then day. Then something else. I imagined sin, drowning in every one committed. I fought for air, imagined sin could raise me up, but the sin was heavy and had no buoyancy. Snakes came, black shapes with heads shaped like trowels. They had bright red, yellow, and green stripes and dropped heavily, thudding on me. Not real, I told myself. Then they struck and I screamed. I went from fire to ice. The flames did not heat and the ice did not cool. My flesh became loose, like a robe, and sluffed off my bones. A raven came and took my eyes and told me they were only dressings for humans who were born and lived blind and since I was in darkness and had no need to see, he had hunger and he apologized for taking my eyes and when he had flown away I could see sockets where my eyes had been. There was no pain. If this was death, it was soothing. Life had never been so serene."

No existential whining here . . . Heywood wants to tell a big tale where big things happen, even if those things sometimes challenge us to believe them.

Untitled

Well, things are looking up a bit. A book club in Midland has decided to read my novel and have me join them as a visiting author. As a result, I sold a few books and turned in a profit of $18 for this week (Week 33). That brings my total for the year to $818.88.

I guess that's starting to look respectable . . . by D-list standards.

In reading news . . . I had intended to start reading William Walsh's book Without Wax




but, I got sidetracked and started reading The Snowfly . . .



I do intend to come back to Without Wax very soon. Do some googling of it, and you'll find very supportive reviews. A book worth checking out. Handsomely designed. As I understand, the main character is a male porn star -- and yet treated by the author as a human being.

The Snowfly is an addictive thing. 464 pages, and I'm flying through it. It's got mystery, violence, sex and . . . fly fishing! As I read it, I wonder if this is how reading a Grisham novel feels. It's not very cerebral at all and, when it gets heavier, it gets heavy about fishing. It will most likely become a fly fishing book in the fly fishing literature canon -- though much less literary than River Runs Through It or Big Two-Hearted River. If you like fly fishing or books set in Michigan, this one is for you.

On a final note, www.amazon.com still has a copy of my novel left. Won't someone go buy it?

Sleepwalker -- the Short Film

A few years back, I had a story published in the Adirondack Review entitled "Sleepwalker". You can read the story here:

http://adirondackreview.homestead.com/vandezande.html

Since then, I've taken a screenwriting class, and I adapted the story into a screenplay. Budding film maker, Michael Randolph, then shot and directed the film. It stars Rick McGaw as Martin Frost.

Check it out. It's only 13 minutes long or so.


Sleepwalker - A Short Film from Michael Randolph on Vimeo.

Its and It's

Since some people have asked . . . and some people need to know.

Its means possesive. For example: I have a dog. There's its house.

Its is like his or hers. The his or hers means possesive, so no apostrophe is necessary.

On the other hand, it's is a contraction of it is. For example: I have a dog. It's a fine animal.

If you can change it to it is and the sentence still makes sense, then you mean, it's.

If you change it to it is and the sentence doesn't make sense (e.g. I have a dog. There it is house.) then you mean its.

Have a nice day!

If I Were to Write a Blurb

Fausto's Afternoon, a collection of short stories by Jarda Cervenka is unlike anything else I've read this year. Where Thoreau went to the woods to live deliberately, Cervenka goes to the world. He unveils characters and situations that few Americans will ever experience -- especially since so many of us are caught up in trying to get "a grip on things" . . . meaning things that can be bought. Returning from Africa to American suburbs, many of his characters experience what Cervenka calls mal d'afrique -- a longing so strong to go back to Africa that it feels almost like a sickness. Closing Cervenka's book, I can only call what I'm feeling a slight case of mal d'faustoique.

This is one to buy and, as I've said before, it supports a small press.

This is Just Sad: Week 32

Well, I made money this week from my writing. Yes, I did. I made seventy-seven cents. Ah, yes, my life on the D list of writing.

My total for the year: $800.88.

The climb to nine hundred dollars is going VERY slowly. August is a bad month.

I'm still really enjoying Fausto's Afternoon by Jarda Cervenka. He actually writes stories that are stories and have characters that do things! It's a very counter-culture approach to fiction. Plus, I really enjoy how the stories take the reader to many countries of the world.

If anyone wants to order a book (one of mine, not Cervenka's), just drop me an email. We'll work out a deal.

jcvandez@delta.edu