It's astonishing how much effort goes into maintaining an existing bibliography.
Even if I never wrote another word, there's still always work to do. Updating bios, links & the book list itself, porting galleys over to new devices, selling from my current inventory when I'm not even expecting it and overhauling or editing from my database of essays. It's not a full time job, but to do it properly it probably could be.
Last week I said that it would only be a matter of time before I started writing again. Well, that time has come. I dusted off the current manuscript for Travesty (the follow up book for Mockery) and started quietly adding to it. Working on any project (like the new video show) sparks a certain momentum in the creative part of my brain, so everything else is falling into place. A third of the Travesty book is already complete, which leaves roughly a hundred more pages. Piece of cake.
It occurred to me a few days ago that I've had a book published (under the Doubt It Publishing imprint or through other publishers) every other year for the past twelve years. That doesn't even seem real to me. I just plug along and write one essay at a time. They pile up into a book, the book gets put together, proof read, designed and packaged, released and then promoted.
Icarus On The Mend: Memoirs Of A Manic Depressive was a much different project than anything I'd worked on up to that point (2010-2012). It took a lot out of me, and I wanted to take a break after writing it. Due to personal problems, the limited print run hardcover was never effectively promoted in clubs, stores or libraries. I'm not done with it yet, but I'm certainly not going to promote it at present.
The idea for Travesty was largely inspired by working with Mark McElligott on publishing and promoting his book, Random Thoughts From A Broken Mind. He reminded me that essays (rants, whatever you'd like to call them in this day and age) don't HAVE to be sixteen pages long and that often, they're funnier and punchier when they're short. I went back to basics when I started writing Travesty. When I first started writing consistently for a deadline (for the Clarence High School Advocate, which I was also the Editor In Chief on), I punched out essays on a Brother electric typewriter and wrote each one in one sitting. Essays (at heart) are designed by nature to be written (or read) in one sitting. They shouldn't be an ordeal that's digested piecemeal. There's a real joy in returning to the roots of how I got started in this messy business to begin with.
If time (and routine, and my track record) is any indicator, Travesty will be in readers' hands by the fall of 2015. I have no timetable for the mass market two volume trade paperback launch of Icarus On The Mend. When all 50 copies of the limited run hardcovers have found a home, Icarus will fly again, so to speak.
And I've been mulling over sharing some of the new writing on my official web site:
Big Words I Know By Heart. I don't want to give the entire book away, but I'll drop a morsel this Friday just to give you a taste of what's going into the pot. This Friday I'll post 'Your Great American Novel', an essay about the aggravations of being approached when people find out that you're a writer. After seven days online, it's going back into the vault. Sound fair?
See you all in three days time,
Tom Waters
