Posts Tagged ‘books’
Love
Love songs are everywhere. But does anyone have a definition of love, which &ndash people claim &ndash makes the world go around? Sure, it’s easy to tell when you’re in love with someone. [The heart pounds and you act like an idiot.] But it’s much harder to say if you actually love someone.
Enter the mind of Harry Jenkins, as he is about to make love to Natasha,
And then he laughed at himself as he sank beneath the covers. No sane man would question such free and voluptuous pleasure, as if it could only be valued through thought. Only an idiot or a fool would try to analyze love and passion.
Nonetheless, like the fool, I seek a definition. Perhaps it is the lawyer in me. On the subject of love, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, is a sobering read. All of us, supposedly, carry within us, an animus [if you're female] and an anima [if you're male], which is the idealized image of the person you love. And so, when you are in love you are projecting this idealized image on a real, live person who might be naturally quite entitled to be different.
After the honeymoon, those annoying little cracks in the image appear, which could certainly explain the high divorce rate. When you find the real person doesn’t exactly match your superimposed ideal, what do you do?
All of these thoughts led me to explore people’s ideas of all kinds of love, not just the romantic variety, in Final Paradox, the second in The Osgoode Trilogy.
Harry Jenkins is the lawyer protagonist throughout the trilogy, which contain story lines of murder and fraud. He is in the thrall of the beautiful Natasha. His aging father, who abandoned him as a child, has just asked his forgiveness. Harry can’t seem to find that in his heart. Natasha asks him&ndash
What do you think love is?
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s about wanting someone as part of your life. Wanting them always with you.” He looked into her eyes. “Why? What do you think?”
“I think it’s about getting outside yourself and seeing another person’s life from their point of view. At least that’s a start,” Natasha replied.
Harry heard his father’s words. It’s all about you, is it? Would he always be the kid, he wondered?
Another character musing about love is Norma Dinnick &ndash an elderly client of Harry’s who trips back and forth between lucidity and madness. She recollects her stew of feelings for various men.
Going back to her hotel, Norma tried to understand. She knew about affection and caring from Arthur, her husband, who kept her safe from the emptiness. But she did not understand this business of love, which David talked about. She did know that such emotions gave her a sense of power. The sheer lust she experienced in the presence of George made her feel weak and vulnerable.
Norma simply doesn’t understand about love and neither does Bronwyn &ndash another character. An embittered soul, she has married a gay man and on her honeymoon – She wandered the narrow beach of sand and stone where the boats ferried back and forth to the grottos. No Peter. But then she saw him at a distance on the beach walking slowly with a younger man she did not know. Where had they come from? Right from the start, she had known. Of course, the bargain was unspoken, but well understood. For money and security, Bronwyn had sacrificed any chance for love.
But in the end, Harry does begin to get it. In bed with the lovely Natasha, he was
…transported outside his own body, he was overcome with the desire to know the dreams, fantasies and mysteries she held within. He would enter her world with love and understanding and never leave. The awe he felt in her closeness made his breathing slow and deepen in rhythm with hers. He watched his hand reach out of the shadows to smooth the sheet. She was at last in his bed and, fearing a mirage, he dared not wake her. In the past two weeks, his world had been shaken. His mind had become a jumble of colliding, conflicting events and consequences. Now he felt her power to draw his life together. A still peace gently settled over him like a silken web of meaning.
(Reprinted from Final Paradox by Mary E. Martin with permission).
Love At A Higher Level
Is it possible to achieve a higher romantic love than the resigned complacency we see all around us? If so, can it be sustained for long? Would many people really want it? Sure, nonfiction literature is replete with books, courses, and seminars on how to achieve romantic or marital bliss. But few of us seem to achieve it, and fewer still ever sustain it. Worse yet is that many people seem disinterested or, worse yet, disheartened.
Far fewer are works of fiction that explore such higher love as literature for readers to savor and enjoy. Coinage of Commitment was written to explore this rarified territory. It attempts to go where few have dared to tread, testing the limits of what a couple can achieve, the altitude of orbit they might be able to soar to.
Don’t be misled. This is not an easy topic. Life imposes a lot of restraints on reaching the emotional altitude we are discussing. And it cannot be obtained for free. It requires thinking as well as feeling, planning as well as carefree fulfillment. It requires risk taking, and there are payments and sacrifices that have to be made. So would it be worth it? What would you be willing to give to obtain it? What if there was just a chance to obtain it? What then?
How does this particular romantic ambition affect story production? Well, for one thing, at least in my view, it means that the main characters need to take an intellectual as well as an emotional journey to attain the level they seek. They need this just to get prepared and be capable of what they want to experience emotionally. And this opens up all sorts of literary issues to explore. How do our characters come to want such an exalted level of fulfillment for themselves? What conditions in their lives produce a hunger for it? What do they do to nourish its development? Just how do they find their way? How are they different from their peers?
Deciding to write a novel featuring higher love made the manuscript harder to sell. This is not standard fare; it defines a new category, hence it was viewed with suspicion as a risky project. Many agents dismissed it out of hand and refused to read sample chapters. Others who did, refused to change their mindset, and misunderstood the work. One criticism I got was that the characters didn’t seem quite…typical. Duh? Of course they’re not typical. How could they be?
Another criticism was writing style. Coinage has plenty of plot movement, including some exciting heroics, but it features more reflection on the main characters’ feelings and their emotional evolution and turning points. Agents and editors who criticized this approach as unfashionable had nothing to offer as an alternate to describing characters loving at a higher level. Simply describing plot developments from an action standpoint won’t cut it for a work with this ambition.
I portray higher love as something feasible, but difficult to achieve, hence likely to be attained by very few. When Wayne and Nancy achieve it, they feel that they have no one to compare themselves with. I think that is the correct answer for our current culture and societal situation, but there is no data on this that I am aware of, hence it is difficult to rely on anything but your own experience. I heartily welcome reader views on this topic.
Love
Love songs are everywhere. But does anyone have a definition of love, which &ndash people claim &ndash makes the world go around? Sure, it’s easy to tell when you’re in love with someone. [The heart pounds and you act like an idiot.] But it’s much harder to say if you actually love someone.
Enter the mind of Harry Jenkins, as he is about to make love to Natasha,
And then he laughed at himself as he sank beneath the covers. No sane man would question such free and voluptuous pleasure, as if it could only be valued through thought. Only an idiot or a fool would try to analyze love and passion.
Nonetheless, like the fool, I seek a definition. Perhaps it is the lawyer in me. On the subject of love, Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, is a sobering read. All of us, supposedly, carry within us, an animus [if you're female] and an anima [if you're male], which is the idealized image of the person you love. And so, when you are in love you are projecting this idealized image on a real, live person who might be naturally quite entitled to be different.
After the honeymoon, those annoying little cracks in the image appear, which could certainly explain the high divorce rate. When you find the real person doesn’t exactly match your superimposed ideal, what do you do?
All of these thoughts led me to explore people’s ideas of all kinds of love, not just the romantic variety, in Final Paradox, the second in The Osgoode Trilogy.
Harry Jenkins is the lawyer protagonist throughout the trilogy, which contain story lines of murder and fraud. He is in the thrall of the beautiful Natasha. His aging father, who abandoned him as a child, has just asked his forgiveness. Harry can’t seem to find that in his heart. Natasha asks him&ndash
What do you think love is?
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s about wanting someone as part of your life. Wanting them always with you.” He looked into her eyes. “Why? What do you think?”
“I think it’s about getting outside yourself and seeing another person’s life from their point of view. At least that’s a start,” Natasha replied.
Harry heard his father’s words. It’s all about you, is it? Would he always be the kid, he wondered?
Another character musing about love is Norma Dinnick &ndash an elderly client of Harry’s who trips back and forth between lucidity and madness. She recollects her stew of feelings for various men.
Going back to her hotel, Norma tried to understand. She knew about affection and caring from Arthur, her husband, who kept her safe from the emptiness. But she did not understand this business of love, which David talked about. She did know that such emotions gave her a sense of power. The sheer lust she experienced in the presence of George made her feel weak and vulnerable.
Norma simply doesn’t understand about love and neither does Bronwyn &ndash another character. An embittered soul, she has married a gay man and on her honeymoon – She wandered the narrow beach of sand and stone where the boats ferried back and forth to the grottos. No Peter. But then she saw him at a distance on the beach walking slowly with a younger man she did not know. Where had they come from? Right from the start, she had known. Of course, the bargain was unspoken, but well understood. For money and security, Bronwyn had sacrificed any chance for love.
But in the end, Harry does begin to get it. In bed with the lovely Natasha, he was
…transported outside his own body, he was overcome with the desire to know the dreams, fantasies and mysteries she held within. He would enter her world with love and understanding and never leave. The awe he felt in her closeness made his breathing slow and deepen in rhythm with hers. He watched his hand reach out of the shadows to smooth the sheet. She was at last in his bed and, fearing a mirage, he dared not wake her. In the past two weeks, his world had been shaken. His mind had become a jumble of colliding, conflicting events and consequences. Now he felt her power to draw his life together. A still peace gently settled over him like a silken web of meaning.
(Reprinted from Final Paradox by Mary E. Martin with permission).
Love At A Higher Level
Is it possible to achieve a higher romantic love than the resigned complacency we see all around us? If so, can it be sustained for long? Would many people really want it? Sure, nonfiction literature is replete with books, courses, and seminars on how to achieve romantic or marital bliss. But few of us seem to achieve it, and fewer still ever sustain it. Worse yet is that many people seem disinterested or, worse yet, disheartened.
Far fewer are works of fiction that explore such higher love as literature for readers to savor and enjoy. Coinage of Commitment was written to explore this rarified territory. It attempts to go where few have dared to tread, testing the limits of what a couple can achieve, the altitude of orbit they might be able to soar to.
Don’t be misled. This is not an easy topic. Life imposes a lot of restraints on reaching the emotional altitude we are discussing. And it cannot be obtained for free. It requires thinking as well as feeling, planning as well as carefree fulfillment. It requires risk taking, and there are payments and sacrifices that have to be made. So would it be worth it? What would you be willing to give to obtain it? What if there was just a chance to obtain it? What then?
How does this particular romantic ambition affect story production? Well, for one thing, at least in my view, it means that the main characters need to take an intellectual as well as an emotional journey to attain the level they seek. They need this just to get prepared and be capable of what they want to experience emotionally. And this opens up all sorts of literary issues to explore. How do our characters come to want such an exalted level of fulfillment for themselves? What conditions in their lives produce a hunger for it? What do they do to nourish its development? Just how do they find their way? How are they different from their peers?
Deciding to write a novel featuring higher love made the manuscript harder to sell. This is not standard fare; it defines a new category, hence it was viewed with suspicion as a risky project. Many agents dismissed it out of hand and refused to read sample chapters. Others who did, refused to change their mindset, and misunderstood the work. One criticism I got was that the characters didn’t seem quite…typical. Duh? Of course they’re not typical. How could they be?
Another criticism was writing style. Coinage has plenty of plot movement, including some exciting heroics, but it features more reflection on the main characters’ feelings and their emotional evolution and turning points. Agents and editors who criticized this approach as unfashionable had nothing to offer as an alternate to describing characters loving at a higher level. Simply describing plot developments from an action standpoint won’t cut it for a work with this ambition.
I portray higher love as something feasible, but difficult to achieve, hence likely to be attained by very few. When Wayne and Nancy achieve it, they feel that they have no one to compare themselves with. I think that is the correct answer for our current culture and societal situation, but there is no data on this that I am aware of, hence it is difficult to rely on anything but your own experience. I heartily welcome reader views on this topic.
It’s Time For Independent Authors To Join Forces
Imagine the power of a website dedicated to Independent authors and their books. A place where readers could find over a million Independently published books at one online location. The time has come for Independent authors around the world to join together on the Internet at one location to sell our books. There is tremendous strength in numbers and with an estimated five million Independent authors worldwide the power of that one destination would change the face of publishing&ndashforever! Even with just 20% of those titles, that combination of forces would be a serious contender to booksellers around the world.
The key to improving our exposure to readers and increase book sales is to combine the efforts of Independent authors on a global scale at one online marketing platform. This will attract consumers interested in books not found in the traditional major bookstore or mass merchant. The website can market to readers and offer a selection of Independently published titles not found in combination anywhere. The future for book sales is the Internet, the only growth area in publishing is the Independent author, and the market is international.
The biggest problem for Independent book sales is a highly decentralized marketplace. This marketplace includes dozens of websites that sell books and services to other authors, as well as hundreds of thousands of author websites and is exactly the kind of environment that depresses our effort to market and sell books to a mass audience.
The six biggest New York publishers will always control the Barnes & Noble’s and Wal-Mart’s of the traditional bookselling world. They will spend whatever it takes and will never allow an Independent presence into their retail accounts. Let them continue spending their money in a market that has been consistently shrinking since the early 1990’s.
When Independent authors organize and guide readers to a central Internet location where books not found in bookstores are available, we’d start to see changes in the way books are purchased, on a massive scale. We will have created a market that the big publishers can’t touch. This would be an Independent marketplace, not controlled by a single online bookseller who takes up to 60% of our cover price.
There is a website that provides Independent writers and authors an opportunity to market their writing to readers who otherwise would not be exposed to our work and: (1) Offers a single global platform for Independent book sales, and (2) Gives the writer real independence from other online web sites in the traditional marketplace, thus giving the author tremendous exposure to readers and a far higher return on each book sold.
The website exists; in order to attract readers and increase sales we need to add more Independently published authors and their books. It takes lots of titles to draw book consumers to a single online location. That’s why it makes more sense to join forces globally rather than continue to divide an already highly fragmented market.
It’s A Great Time To Be An Independent Writer
The world of publishing is about to change. It’s an exciting time to be an Independent author. This long ignored group is beginning to organize and establish an entirely new marketplace for selling books. A community introducing voices never heard and stories never told to the world.
What they need is an on-line destination created for Independently published writers to promote and sell their books.
It is difficult to be an Independent author. The term “self published” is often used and misunderstood because major components of the publishing industry, including the six largest publishers, have been successful in attaching “poor quality” to the term “self-published.” The term Independent author best describes the decision many writers have made to publish on their own.
The fact that someone decides to become an Independent author does not mean their writing is not good. It means they have made the decision to publish Independently and remain in control of the work creatively and financially. Being an Independent author is hard, doors slam and there are plenty of “do not enter” signs, which is the reason many Independent authors give up in their quest to sell books.
Many Independent authors feel strongly that their pay-for-printing publisher does not care whether they sell a single copy of their book. The printer’s profit is made in the printing itself, not the final sale of the book. These authors cite instances where messages are sent proclaiming, “Buy this service and you will sell books,” only to find the statement hollow and without merit or success. In the end the only thing the Independent author has is an extremely fragmented market.
The hope for increased sales of Independent books is through banding together as a single community speaking from a single platform, authors helping create their own market for readers looking for new voices and interesting stories. As an Independent writer and author, trust in the fact that this community will be an opportunity to sell books and gain respectability in the marketplace we so richly deserve.
The dynamic of the market for book sales is about to shift and the Independent author is in the right place at the right time to take full advantage. There has never been a better time to be an Independent author. Countless opportunities are opening that offer more exposure to a wider audience than ever before.
Strength is in numbers, so we need to have a gathering place for writers and authors, a community where we will be heard by readers searching for voices never heard and stories never told. The world of traditional brick and mortar publishing is struggling, over the course of the past fifteen years the market has been shrinking. The six largest publishers are forced to push more copies of a handful of authors out into stores each and every month. This is negatively impacting overall sales at a time when book retailers, wholesalers, and distributors are consolidating and demanding change. The problem is that the big companies do not have answers.
They constantly search for new writers but the demands of the business make it harder for them to create successful authors. The marketplace has been structured by their own hand to allow only a small window of opportunity for new authors to make their presence known. Retailers are geared towards instant success and immediate sales, while the system is not in place to allow that to happen. As a result the big publishers are in a quandary.
At the same time, Independent authors are about to make a statement that will surely rock the traditional world of publishing. They are on the verge of making a huge impact never before witnessed in the industry. No longer will Independent authors and small publishers have to struggle in the old ways of selling books. A truly limitless, global audience waits.
Independent writers and authors are about to emerge from the shadows and take their rightful place in the market. This is a brave new world for readers clamoring for voices never heard and
stories never told.
They need a site that will introduce readers around the world to books they might never have found, and provide an opportunity for the Independent author to expand their audience like never before. The site exists, and is welcoming Independent authors and their books.
It is extremely difficult for major publishers to sell all of their titles. What chance does an Independent author have of making a real dent and sell enough copies to warrant continuous shelf space and sizable reorders? Not impossible but not probable either. The future for the Independently published book is sales through the Internet. There are tremendous possibilities in those areas without having to fight and scratch for inches inside a traditional bookstore.
The big six have not figured out how to utilize the Internet to their advantage, but when they do, they will monopolize your opportunities. Beat them to it. Join the new community, the online market for your books. The future for substantial sales of Independently published books is not the local bookstore, but at the independent author’s online bookstore.
It’s Time For Independent Authors To Join Forces
Imagine the power of a website dedicated to Independent authors and their books. A place where readers could find over a million Independently published books at one online location. The time has come for Independent authors around the world to join together on the Internet at one location to sell our books. There is tremendous strength in numbers and with an estimated five million Independent authors worldwide the power of that one destination would change the face of publishing&ndashforever! Even with just 20% of those titles, that combination of forces would be a serious contender to booksellers around the world.
The key to improving our exposure to readers and increase book sales is to combine the efforts of Independent authors on a global scale at one online marketing platform. This will attract consumers interested in books not found in the traditional major bookstore or mass merchant. The website can market to readers and offer a selection of Independently published titles not found in combination anywhere. The future for book sales is the Internet, the only growth area in publishing is the Independent author, and the market is international.
The biggest problem for Independent book sales is a highly decentralized marketplace. This marketplace includes dozens of websites that sell books and services to other authors, as well as hundreds of thousands of author websites and is exactly the kind of environment that depresses our effort to market and sell books to a mass audience.
The six biggest New York publishers will always control the Barnes & Noble’s and Wal-Mart’s of the traditional bookselling world. They will spend whatever it takes and will never allow an Independent presence into their retail accounts. Let them continue spending their money in a market that has been consistently shrinking since the early 1990’s.
When Independent authors organize and guide readers to a central Internet location where books not found in bookstores are available, we’d start to see changes in the way books are purchased, on a massive scale. We will have created a market that the big publishers can’t touch. This would be an Independent marketplace, not controlled by a single online bookseller who takes up to 60% of our cover price.
There is a website that provides Independent writers and authors an opportunity to market their writing to readers who otherwise would not be exposed to our work and: (1) Offers a single global platform for Independent book sales, and (2) Gives the writer real independence from other online web sites in the traditional marketplace, thus giving the author tremendous exposure to readers and a far higher return on each book sold.
The website exists; in order to attract readers and increase sales we need to add more Independently published authors and their books. It takes lots of titles to draw book consumers to a single online location. That’s why it makes more sense to join forces globally rather than continue to divide an already highly fragmented market.
It’s A Great Time To Be An Independent Writer
The world of publishing is about to change. It’s an exciting time to be an Independent author. This long ignored group is beginning to organize and establish an entirely new marketplace for selling books. A community introducing voices never heard and stories never told to the world.
What they need is an on-line destination created for Independently published writers to promote and sell their books.
It is difficult to be an Independent author. The term “self published” is often used and misunderstood because major components of the publishing industry, including the six largest publishers, have been successful in attaching “poor quality” to the term “self-published.” The term Independent author best describes the decision many writers have made to publish on their own.
The fact that someone decides to become an Independent author does not mean their writing is not good. It means they have made the decision to publish Independently and remain in control of the work creatively and financially. Being an Independent author is hard, doors slam and there are plenty of “do not enter” signs, which is the reason many Independent authors give up in their quest to sell books.
Many Independent authors feel strongly that their pay-for-printing publisher does not care whether they sell a single copy of their book. The printer’s profit is made in the printing itself, not the final sale of the book. These authors cite instances where messages are sent proclaiming, “Buy this service and you will sell books,” only to find the statement hollow and without merit or success. In the end the only thing the Independent author has is an extremely fragmented market.
The hope for increased sales of Independent books is through banding together as a single community speaking from a single platform, authors helping create their own market for readers looking for new voices and interesting stories. As an Independent writer and author, trust in the fact that this community will be an opportunity to sell books and gain respectability in the marketplace we so richly deserve.
The dynamic of the market for book sales is about to shift and the Independent author is in the right place at the right time to take full advantage. There has never been a better time to be an Independent author. Countless opportunities are opening that offer more exposure to a wider audience than ever before.
Strength is in numbers, so we need to have a gathering place for writers and authors, a community where we will be heard by readers searching for voices never heard and stories never told. The world of traditional brick and mortar publishing is struggling, over the course of the past fifteen years the market has been shrinking. The six largest publishers are forced to push more copies of a handful of authors out into stores each and every month. This is negatively impacting overall sales at a time when book retailers, wholesalers, and distributors are consolidating and demanding change. The problem is that the big companies do not have answers.
They constantly search for new writers but the demands of the business make it harder for them to create successful authors. The marketplace has been structured by their own hand to allow only a small window of opportunity for new authors to make their presence known. Retailers are geared towards instant success and immediate sales, while the system is not in place to allow that to happen. As a result the big publishers are in a quandary.
At the same time, Independent authors are about to make a statement that will surely rock the traditional world of publishing. They are on the verge of making a huge impact never before witnessed in the industry. No longer will Independent authors and small publishers have to struggle in the old ways of selling books. A truly limitless, global audience waits.
Independent writers and authors are about to emerge from the shadows and take their rightful place in the market. This is a brave new world for readers clamoring for voices never heard and
stories never told.
They need a site that will introduce readers around the world to books they might never have found, and provide an opportunity for the Independent author to expand their audience like never before. The site exists, and is welcoming Independent authors and their books.
It is extremely difficult for major publishers to sell all of their titles. What chance does an Independent author have of making a real dent and sell enough copies to warrant continuous shelf space and sizable reorders? Not impossible but not probable either. The future for the Independently published book is sales through the Internet. There are tremendous possibilities in those areas without having to fight and scratch for inches inside a traditional bookstore.
The big six have not figured out how to utilize the Internet to their advantage, but when they do, they will monopolize your opportunities. Beat them to it. Join the new community, the online market for your books. The future for substantial sales of Independently published books is not the local bookstore, but at the independent author’s online bookstore.