MAY 9
Do you think we can treat the time since my last post the way they do in the movies, you know, without explanation or excuse?
Okay great. Let’s do that then. And we’ll round down.
ONE YEAR LATER…
You know me, you know I’ve been chasing my cursor for a very long time – earnestly and in good faith, with gusto, consistency, humour, not enough commas except for here, optimism, curiosity, good intentions, persistence.
I WRITE MORE THAN I SLEEP FFS
Way more.
The page is where my me goes – that sounds nicely Spanish doesn’t it? – it’s where my ideas go and I think ideas are what make us us and when those ideas shift into words that hit the page just right, well, there’s nothing like it.
ALTHOUGH rECENTLY I DISCOVERED THAT Limoncello mascarpone cake comes pretty close
Why do I spend so much time at it you don’t ask?
I’m in full swing with legendary cellist Pablo Casals who said, when asked why he continued to practice at the age of 90:
Because I think I’m making progress
Welcome to Litbit. It’s about literature, mostly, and in small doses, mostly.
Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever.*
Take a look around – lightly, lightly – scroll to the top of the page and click on the pink LITBIT (you don’t want to know what spellcheck does with that).
Lots to read here – click on the bird and I’ll read you a story – and I’ve included links to some of my favourite short stories of all time, one of which my grade two teacher read aloud and it really got my 7-year-old heart pumping. Years later, like forty years later I think, I picked up a thin blue hardcover at a used book store, it was called How To Write Fiction, and I opened it right to that very story if you can believe it, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant. And there’s one by Love in the Time of Cholera’s Gabriel García Márquez (swoon), another one I lifted straight from The New Yorker podcast, The Children’s Grandmother by Sylvia Townsend Warner will take your breath away, and a beautiful-in-a-longing-way story called Here I Stand Ironing by Tillie Olsen I can’t remember how or where I came across it but glad that I did…. these are totally gifts and you’re totally welcome.
I’ll change them up once in a while to give you some fresh nourishment.
You can read first chapters/intros of my three novels and the first bits of each of the NEXT DOOR series, and you can buy short story collections, individual short stories, novellas, plays – some are up now and some not yet . I just re-read A Carnival Ago and holy shit – did I write that? – it’s a tightly woven rather indescribable story, you’ll want to read that one, think I will serialize it, stay tuned. For now the novels are not for sale, they are to impress publishers mostly, I’ve made the first chapters available and I hope you give them a whirl. I’m a sucker for first chapters, they’re the reason I can spend forever in book stores especially when it’s raining out and also why I have so many books.
Did I mention I finally – and it’s taken oodles and gobs and scads of practice – but I have crafted the perfect comeback for rejection letters:
I’M SORRY but if your rejection letter does not hook me in the first sentence, I am simply not compelled to read on
But please, do read on. Read on and on and on.
and subscribe!
I won’t be using my old mailing list again so unless you’ve already done so, you gotta subscribe to Litbit now.
Look for the splat – it’s good luck! – and let me hit you up when there’s something new. Also you’ll be helping me look like I have a huge following or at least more than eight.
Used to be all you had to do to get published was write a really good book
Thank you!
*It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly… Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them… throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you… trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly… on tiptoes and no luggage… completely unencumbered.
– Aldous Huxley, from Island
okay I was gonna end it right there…
I’ve had this site ready to launch since Monday but I don’t know, something doesn’t feel right so I am going to make it right, I certainly don’t want you to think I’ve matured or anything, so perfect example it just occurred to me out of the blue that aliens might communicate in fart.
okay. that’s it.
I feel better now, as the alien said.
