Finishing first round of edits

It's dark outside. 6:30 or so in the morning. I just finished the first round of line edits on CRY. Have to work on a few rewrites of the final story, then back to the beginning one more time with Henry. I was hoping this would feel like a milestone, but it's rather anticlimactic. Oh well. Have been reading the Fall 2007 Kenyon Review this week. Steven Schwartz has a really nice short story worth reading, titled "Absolute Zero." What are you reading?

sundays..and curious about your book buying habits

The lake and the sky have chosen to be the exact same shade of blue today. The sun is straight up, casting shadows only in circles at the base of the trees between me and the lake. I'm finishing the last line edits today on "The Consequence of Desire," if possible. I hope to also make it to the bait shop and spend an hour fishing with live shiners right at sundown this evening. Right now, I thought I'd spend five minutes on the blog for something on my mind, and then tackle the edits.

I'm curious. How do you make most of you book buying decisions? PLEASE COMMENT AND LET ME HEAR FROM YOU. I'm meeting with my publisher by phone around November 1 to put together the final marketing plans for the April launch, and I'm interested in hearing from you on how you make buying decisions.

For myself, it works this way usually. First, I get a great book each month from the Lemuria First Editions club (http://www.lemuriabooks.com/). They select and mail me a signed first edition, and ding my credit card. A wonderful program you should join if you are not in something similar. When a really good book is coming out, you can call and tell them to send extra copies and make your Christmas or graduation or birthday shopping easier. Those books I keep together in the library and when I am headed to the airport, spending a weekend on the island or simply have an hour to read I can grab any book and know it has a good chance of being something I will enjoy.

Second, I listen to other writers and try to read at least one book by the folks they seem to be talking about. There's nothing worse than making it to a writers conference or a reading or someone's book signing and hear a discussion about someone you never heard of or read...and of course feel like everyone else there has read the person extensively. Does that happen to you?

Third, I browse the book stores at airports, where I know I will find only the absolutely most popular fiction. I try to pick up a paperback while traveling at least four hours in a plane and finish it on the trip. That helps me stay in touch with what the masses like. I trust the masses. They may not often know the fabulous writers publishing literary fiction at smaller presses without the same kind of national distribution, but they will weed out the frauds (usually) and indicate at least what work is fun to read from the popular fiction shelf.

So how does a book make it to your bedside?

Thanks,
Philip

PS Please forward this blog link to your friends.

work, work, work

Since last entry I've viewed quite a number of sunrises over the Ross Barnett Reservoir outside Jackson, Miss. Finished odds and ends for moving into the new house in Madison, travelled to West Virginia once and Alabama three times, and spent many hours unpacking boxes. My weight machine remains in pieces and I've found myself getting out of shape by avoiding exercise--with the weight machine as the excuse, of course. Made it to a couple of Alabama football games too, including the exhilarating, last-minute Arkansas win and the disappointing, last-play Georgia loss.

The garage remains cluttered, but at least my library is in shape. What a treat to rediscover so many prized books as I unpacked and looked for the right shelf for each book. In the middle of one box, I had to stop and reread Richard Hugo's What Thou Lovest Well, Remains American. Wow, such as perfect book. His voice has always echoed in my ear, since I first read his work in 1973 or 74, I think. If America has ever had a finer poet, I can't imagine who it might be.

My second-floor desk faces southeast and the sun rises to my left over an expanse of water. The golden or orange light, depending on the clouds that morning, burns across five miles of open water as I finish my first cup of coffee most mornings. It's rained only once since I moved. I'm getting spoiled by this view.

On Friday last, I began the rewrites of story nine in the collection, the final story. The working title is "The Consequence of Summer Heat", though the story stretches over a year and the heat is not really oppressive in the story, nor does it the "heat" of the one female character add much meaning to the title. So I'm working on a better title, but without a good alternative at this point. I'm considering "The Consequence of Desire".

Henry suggested that the voice was a bit uncertain in parts, as I was a bit sloppy and moved from third person limited to third person omniscient in one section. This story is both my longest and most recent. It was finished specifically to bring up the word count of this ms. I'd been working on the story off and on for a couple of years, but had nothing more than an opening scene that I kept once I started on the story in earnest. Because it ran long, it gave us the ability to treat two stories more harshly than others--they were cut. I was never comfortable that these two stories, both from a 12-year-old boy, had the same tone and tenor as the remainder of the ms, so this made the book much tighter I believe. One of the stories we cut had won an award at a literary festival at the University of Montevallo, though it's never gotten anywhere with lit magazine editors and will likely remain unpublished in a drawer somewhere.

We finished the cover and it's been approved by the publisher. Jefferson Press was kind enough to let me work with graphic designer Bill Porch, whose work includes assignments for such names as Jaguar and Louisville Slugger. AS I mentioned, Bill worked on more than a dozen concepts, finally settling on three we sent to the publisher for review and for them to run the top designs past the gurus at IPG. They all picked the cover I was favoring, which was nice.

I see I've used my time up and it's past 10, so I'll sign off now.....thanks for letting me run on.....let me hear from you. --Philip