Ten days out from my book launch! My books are out for give-away in Aspen, and people have been bringing them to me to be signed, which is all very giddy and makes me feel as if I have almost arrived! The cynic in me says, enjoy it while it lasts, but that voice is not very loud these days, well not today anyway!
I have been getting requests from book bloggers for interviews, which is what I am spending most of my time filling out these days. Being a long-winded person, I probably give longer answers than needed, but it is sort of fun being in the spotlight. All of these requests have come from out of the ether, and I am not sure whether it is this blog or Twitter that has brought them to my door. All I can say to aspiring writers and those faithfully but seemingly unfruitfully slogging away at social media is, keep on going - somehow this machine works and people find you!
From interview to interview the questions are fairly similar: how did you come to write this book; how much research did it entail; how long did it take to write it? But one interviewer asked the question, What would be the title of your biography and why? I had to think about that one, and this is what I said: There used to be a cartoon by the name of "Harold and the Purple Crayon," about a little boy who creates his world as he goes along with a purple crayon. Cosy Sheridan turned this idea into a fantastic little song called Grand Design.
Someone once told me that the song reminded him of me, scribbling away at my life according to my notion of things. Let me say as a qualifier that when you are a doing this and sometimes running over into other people's pictures, people are not so kind about the notion. If they don't know you're going to be a writer or chronicler of things, then it is just plain annoying that this person with the crayon is always saying, "No, not like that, but like this!" You get into a lot of trouble and friends are hard to find when you live your life like this. I'm not going to take any credit for it, either, because it is just the way I came out. My own mother was fine with me until I developed enough grasp to hold the crayon and started doodling. In her world full of other kids, having one that insisted on making their own pictures was too draining. My father, on the other hand, being a bit of a doodler himself, was interested in the pictures, and for a while we were doodling together. My crayon was no good, though, when he bowed out of the picture. It might be a magic instrument but it can't bring back dead parents. Or maybe it can and I am not yet accomplished enough to draw that picture. It might take a different sort of crayon.
Anyway, all of this to say that my biography, nay my autobiography should be called "Grand Design." In the long run I hope my life turns out to have been that. One way or another, probably that's what everyone's life is in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment