Responding

Whenever I thought about people responding to my book, I always imagined things in a very negative way. I imagined people pointing out inaccuracies, perhaps criticising some aspect of it. And with these imagined critics in mind I worked out ways to defend the book. Tried to think of things that I could say that would make them change their mind, clever retorts to whatever criticisms they may make. I never really thought about what to say if people liked the book, if they responded positively to it.

I don’t think this tendency is exclusive to writers. You can see it everywhere. The man who has some complaint with his neighbour and goes through the argument dozens of times in his mind before he even approaches the neighbour. So that when it comes time to talk it is no longer a simple conversation to resolve some problem, it has become a showdown. How could it be any different? In the scenarios his mind has played out for him the man has heard the neighbour respond angrily, aggressively, slyly. He has seen himself fight with the neighbour, scream at each other, trade kicks and blows.

It is a phenomenally negative way to approach things. Of the dozens of scenarios that play out in his head, how many are positive? How many feature the neighbour apologising, agreeing with the complaint and the two men walking away perfectly content with the resolution? You might say this is not realistic, but how realistic are all the other scenarios that have contributed to this massive defensiveness, this burden on the exchange before it has even begun?

Which brings me back to the book. Why expect only bad things? Why expect that people will react in the most negative terms? If they do react badly, then fair enough, but why spend so much time anticipating that? Does it make you any more prepared? Or does it simply make you anxious, stressed, fearful? The constant planning of your response an attempt to control something over which you have no real power: the opinion of other people.

In my entire life I have never been persuaded that a book I didn’t enjoy was actually very good. I will be able to see the other person’s perspective, but I could never be converted by someone explaining to me why a book that I have not enjoyed is actually very good. So why should I expect that I can do the same if someone doesn’t enjoy my book? Why waste all this time trying to figure out how best to respond to a negative response when you really have very little chance of changing it. Why sacrifice all these precious moments of now worrying about something you have absolutely no control over?

The Blank Page

Anyone who has seen The Shining can get a fairly clear idea of the horror which a blank page seems to strike into the heart of almost every writer. That is why writers will tell you that when it comes time to start writing everything else seems suddenly incredibly important. Checking emails, watering plants, tidying socks. Those things which you are normally trying to escape are transformed into opportunities to hide from the blank page that is waiting for you.

Why does the blank page scare us so much? If we think about it rationally then the blank page is actually something wonderful. Shakespeare, Dickens, Wilde. Each of them transformed the blank page into something beautiful. And when each of us sits down to write the same possibility is there. The chance to create, give life to something that has never existed before. Whole worlds are waiting to be described, countless people waiting to be given a voice.

Perhaps what scares us about the blank page is the possibilities? How many people prefer to sit inside watching TV all day rather than go out and make real the millions of possibilities waiting for them. There is something scary about the limitless, the infinite, and something comforting about the limited. That is why so many people give up on their lives so easily, passing up the chance to be something wonderful. For the writer there is the same temptation. To hide from the blank page or else to cover it up with something they are comfortable with, something they have written many times before. But perhaps there a different way to approach the blank page?

Two sides to every story?

I recently came across something interesting the other day. An author took exception to a review he received and posted comments arguing his side of things. It got me thinking about the whole idea of being reviewed. The first and most obvious thing is that not everyone will agree with you, not everyone will think that what you have created is wonderful. How do you deal with it?

I remember watching a DVD once. It was called Cellular and was about a young guy who gets a phone call from Kim Basinger who is being held hostage. I really enjoyed it and found all sorts of levels in it that made watching it a really rich and rewarding experience. When I finished watching it and was putting it back in the video shop's box I noticed that someone had written inside. "You have just watched, or about to watch, the worst movie ever made." It was bizarre. This opinion couldn't have been more opposite to the one I had formed of the movie. And yet I could see where the person was coming from. Perhaps at some other time I might have felt the same way about the film.

So does that mean that there is no such thing as something that is universally good, something that everyone can agree on? For the writer, is there a perfect book which everyone will love? It seems impossible for one book is never just one book. It is not the sum of its parts. It is added to by the reader. A book, more so than a movie, involves the reader in a really deep and meaningful way. The mind's eye, which is often underused, is forced into work, picturing characters, scenes and building the words that appear on the page.

The book that you wrote, that you saw in your head, could be very different to the one someone else picks up and reads. The words on the page are the same but what happens in the reader's head is not. And what happens in the reader's head could be different from one day to the next. This is part of the magic of reading, of books and perhaps the main reason why an author can never afford to be precious about what he has written.

Timing

Life seems to be full of these strange coincidences, these wonderful moments of pure chance. The fate of a book very often depends on these little moments of magic. The job of the author is to make the book as good as it can possibly be, to take the idea that has come to her and use whatever skill she has to turn it into the best book she could write. After that the publisher has to present it in the best possible way - provide the best cover, lay it out as they think will make it shine. Then the marketing department has to step in and get it out to as many people as they can.

In the case of an author publishing through LULU, there is no separation of these jobs. He/She must do them all. Up until a certain point the author/publisher/marketing director can do a lot, ensuring that the finished product is well crafted and readily available. But then there is this beautiful moment of letting go. Sending it out and waiting for that moment of magic. More than any other book the POD book lives and dies on these moments of magic.

Will the right person, someone who can help your book, find it? Will that person read it when they are in a frame of mind to actually be affected by it? Will they decide that they can actually help the book or will they dismiss it, forget about it? The author has no way of knowing. She can put the book out to as many people as possible but this moment of magic is out of their hands entirely. People talk about timing all the time. Timing is responsible for the success of so many books, and conversely the failure of a great many others. Is this timing purely random? Could it be that it is just arbitrary, a fluke? Or could there be more to it than that?

Reviews

If you take a copy of Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code and open it up the first thing that will strike you is the pages and pages of glowing reviews. Under each review you will see the names of famous papers, professionals, all of which gives the reader a warm feeling of reassurance, that they have made a good investment in buying this book. When you buy a car you get second opinions, so it is only natural to do the same with a book. So positive reviews are a must if you are to get people to read your book. But how do you go about this?

At the moment I am trying to get people to review my book. So far the only people who have read the book are family and friends and as much as I love them and respect their opinions it looks a bit dubious if you see a book with a glowing review, written by the author's mother or old primary school teacher. This means that your book has to venture out. You have to lay it at the mercy of reviewers and see what they make of it.

So far I have given the book to almost ten people and am currently waiting feedback. Will it be positive? Will they slate the book? I have no idea and I have no control. They could absolutely despise the book or they could love it. I can see why authors really start to sweat at this stage. You spend so long putting the book together, you have almost absolute control and then at a certain point you have to let go completely. Imagine a man hanging from a cliff. A voice below tells him to let go and he will be caught before he hits the rocks below. It seems madness to let go but what else can he do. He cannot climb back up. This gives some sort of idea of how an author might feel having just sent his/her book out into the world. Will something wonderful happen, or will it be ripped apart. The author has no real way of knowing.

But while the author has no control over what the reviewer thinks, he/she can control how they respond to this review and in both extreme cases there are dangers. If the review is excellent does he/she get carried away and believe he/she is now suddenly something special. Or if the review is terrible does he/she feel crushed and demoralised. If you approach a reviewer with expectations other than to receive an honest review you will be disappointed. If your book needs work, then for the sake of your book you need to know. If your book is excellent then likewise you need to know.

Either way, having the courage to offer yourself to be criticised by a complete stranger is something to be proud of. The key thing to remember is that the review can only help. In other words it can only be good. If the review is excellent it could help sell the book. If the review points out some flaws that you missed, then put pride aside, and use those points to improve your book. And if you get thrashed, difficult as it may be, there could be a great lesson to learn. In my experience rejection can offer more of a chance to shine than acceptance.

HTML

For the longest time now I've been hearing about this HTML business. It has always really baffled me. If you have a blank piece of paper and a pen then you write your heading nice and big and then you write the rest smaller. If you are working in Microsoft word and you want your writing to be in italics then you just click the button. But if you working on a webpage it is not so straightforward. This is where HTML comes in.

So today I wanted to post something on my webpage. But how could I have it so that the title would be bigger, would stand out more than the rest of the piece? There was no button to press, no font size selector. It was while trying to figure this out that I came across HTML. The basic idea as I understand it is that HTML is a language that a computer understands and unless you speak to it in HTML then it won't understand you. So instead of just hitting a button you have to type in something which tells the computer that you want this word to be in italics, or bold or three times bigger than the rest of the words.

So instead of being some baffling techno goobledegook HTML starts to look a lot more interesting. A language. It is actually a way of talking to a computer, giving it direct instructions. So many of us depend on our computers and they can really serve us well. Yet I've always been the sort of person that takes his computer for granted. Cursing it when something goes wrong and not really noticing it the rest of the time. It makes you wonder what else you are failing to appreciate.

So far I've learned how to do the basic functions in HTML that you would get in Word, stuff like moving something to the centre, italicising, underlining. An hour ago I was a bit frustrated thinking that I would never be able to figure it out, that my blog would be this constant source of irritation. Now I'm starting to get excited thinking about all the possibilities.

Here is a link that I got from Lulu about HTML

HTML School

Starting Off

I sincerely hope that this is not everyone's experience but when I finished writing my first book I imagined that a publisher would come frantically knocking at my door, anxious to take the manuscript off my hands and bring it to the world. Little did I know that the writing, which I had imagined to be the hard work, was really just the first step. Between writing the book and having a finished copy in the hands of many, many readers there are hundreds, if not thousands of other little steps.

My initial reaction at this was dismay. How lucky these big authors are to be able to hand all of that drudgery over to agents and publishers I thought. But then I started to take those first few steps. Proof-reading. Thinking about a cover. Formatting your book. Creating a PDF version of your book. Choosing the font. Figuring out how to get your page numbers in the right spot. Playing with margins.

All of this stuff which I approached with trepidation has been so much fun. Hand on heart I can say that I was an ignoramous about most things to do with computers. I had no idea about fonts, pixels, megabytes and J-Pegs. And yet this book that I have written has taken me on an adventure. Not only can I now call myself a writer but I am also a publisher, a book formatter, a designer and my career in marketing is just beginning.

''The Father - A Story of Love'' is complete now. It is a book, a tangible object. It has made its way from idea to reality, often in spite of me. And still the adventure is not finished. Now comes the business of getting people to read it which if the past is anything to go by will be challenging, eye-opening, frustrating, scary, amazing and inspiring. I'll come up against things that I would rather not do, things that make me squirm with embarrassment, things that seem impossible. And God Willing I will get past all of this.

I intend this blog to be an account of how this adventure unfolds.