I just put up “Query for Down to a Sunless Sea” under Pages. It has served me well, for some reason. Perhaps my credits, after all these years, are substantial. In any case it is working. Rip off the structure for your own purposes. Received a new review at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com. Jane’s introduction has been helpful; I detected some time back that when you send out a book for review throw in as much pr material as you can. The reviewers are so jammed with tasks that phrases or mini-paragraphs help them get the Zeistgeist of the book and the review is generated that much faster.
I have worked hard on not getting frenetic in terms of marketing. Often I come across writers or would-be-writers whose faces are awash with envy, mis-directed ambition and the lust of getting published. Often they are in strait-jackets in terms of their needs and aspirations. I see no joy in their faces. It really all comes down to who you are; if you are empty or vacuous more than likely your books and stories are. Let me go deeper: if you know who you are, if you are inner-directed, your writing will reveal that. Style is you, so stop working on that, the master says. Get a grip on yourself and from that flows all you need. They have software for spelling errors, and so on.
Better still: allow your unconscious to work for you. It is the lucky writer who in a paragraph or a single page writes a terrific passage. Try not to censor yourself as you write, you can always delete or hand erase. Let it pour out of you, and then cut back and revise. Write 10 pages knowing that you will cut back to three. I believe it is essential to write the 10 pages first. The best writing in my work is the unconscious mind spewing out stuff and my willingness to listen with the third ear, as Theodore Reik called it.
Remember: writing is a conscious attempt to order and organize unconscious thoughts as they flow from your lobes. It is our feeble attempt to give rationality to that which is irrational, but try we must. Aren’t you just blown away that “Metamorphoses” bugged out of Kafka’s mind? Writing is mastering an unconscious steed as best as you can. The unconscious is your best guide to who you are. After all, look about you, do you really feel you are in control of anything?
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