Bookmark the Shades of Luz Website

Okay, I've been tinkering with it for days, but the website is finally, almost nifty. I've noodled with a few styles, content, and so on. I have now come to the indubitable conclusion that it needs to be a working-model.

Ever see those art installations where a zillion things are going on and you really aren't sure what the deal is? I have. If you wait there long enough, you'll see it loop back and then it will all start to make sense.

There's a lot of websites to choose from. If I studied all of them the next ice age would have already slid by. Basically, I made an executive decision and stuck by it. How could I not?

I feel the neurons swimming, and this only phase one.

http://www.shadesofluz.com

guerrilla

Red Room

I read an unsettling post about an author who had the day from hell when her book launched. Her Facebook froze, her laptop battery died, and she couldn’t find her Blackberry. Yikes. Oh, the trials and tribulations of these Twitter Times.

My qualm of the day is on a much smaller scale, but goes to show the metamorphosis that has taken place in me since I’ve minted a book. Recently, I’ve joined a slew of networks to get better connected with literary circles. Some I’ve been active in some I haven’t been. One in particular called the Red Room I have tried to make the effort, but my bio page and book influences have a bunch of HTML gobbledygook spitting out in my profile. Today I made my first blog post on their site. When I’d submitted it I went back to see what it looked like, but of course I couldn’t find it. It appeared to have been lost in a cyber black hole. I was uber-frustrated as I tried posting it 4 more times. Nothing. I later realized there was a pending category that stored a queue of posts requiring approval. All four of my posts waited patiently while I mourned the loss of my sensibility. It then struck me I have become more of an instant gratification whore than I’d like to admit.

Is there a moral to this story? Probably not. But, I find I am more antsy now that I've published my novel than before I had. When I couldn't get Shades of Luz published I skulk in a corner for a while and lament the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. I napped more. Now, I juked with energy. Nervous energy. Francine Prose says that to be a great writer is to put each word on the trial of it's life. I'm putting each move I make on the trial of its life. I'm looking for skapegoats in case my paper moon gets lost in the shuffle.

To Raise an Author

I've been reaching out to journals I've published in to see if I can sniff up interest in my novel. Sometimes editors will let you share an excerpt or post a link back to your website or your page on Amazon.

I had a rather fortuitous email from University of Texas Pan American who publishes a print journal called RiverSedge. I was trying to track down a short story I'd thought was published by them, but wasn't sure since I never received a copy. My story "A Miner Frame" about a Fireman who burns with the passion of being an artist has a fabulist experience when he's visiting an art gallery. He escapes a room brimming with philistines and cozies up to a particularly odd painting. He is so engrossed by it that it sucks him into the canvas and all at once the fireman becomes part of the painting. The rest is a dialectic on the enterprise on aesthetics and craftsmanship.

Here's the good thing that happened to me. I was informed by the assistant of the English Department that indeed my story "A Miner Frame" appeared in issue 18:1 -- back in 2005. Some postal snafu must have botched things up. Nonetheless, I will finally be getting my two free author copies.

Alas, I am plugging away trying to get to word out there. It takes a village to raise a child. It takes a miracle to raise an author.

No, Just Feel like Plastic Man

Today's book tours, in their own peculiar way, are like A Movable Feast. Sort of. I don't know but, my days seem to be getting shorter and shorter. At the moment, I am in the neonatal stages of development on an article for Nannette Croce from Cross Reference. She was kind enough to publish my essay "Boba Fett Blues" in The Rose & Thorn last fall. Let's see if I can wow her again.

The trick is to either be Plastic Man or have and army of well-oiled, java-juked publicists. I'm working on both. Anybody who can spare some of the latter you know where you can reach me