Birds Dive

Tuesday came and went and I must say, the distractions of everyday life, which may have covertly acted to distract an otherwise pinnacle moment of my life, almost prevented me from noticing that Into the Everything was finally released.

That isn't to say I was unaware that my book would be published, nor that it was now possible that this important venture could potentially make it into the hands of dear readers, just that, well, it was quiet. Like all thunderstorms, the ensuing calm is somehow more silent.

But here it is, born to the world. And I'm a proud papa. Amy, my publisher, presented me with the cute slim volume in baby blue and purple pastels, with my mug on the back, and inside, were words words words that I uttered a ways back. They live between covers and give me a sort of nostalgic and ethereal joy. In my bedroom, 50 copies tower like sentries, waiting to be exposed.

I don't know if this is the beginning of my writing career or the only glimmer of it, but I do know that as of right now, a part of me has been donated to a part of the world. And that, my friends, tickles.

Punkin House: Into the Everything : Jeff Mark Available Today

Punkin House: Into the Everything : Jeff Mark Available Today: "Happy release day to our friend Jeff Mark!!! Today his book, Into the Everything, is finally available after months and months of formatti..."

Things Fall Together

It's astonishing how a process takes shape. Three years ago I sat down to write Into the Everything in a chaotic whirlwind of eight months that produced the first, imperfect, and roughly double-the-size draft. The manuscript went though an editing process that lasted two years before I sent query letters for potential publication.

After hooking up with Punkin House, there was the obligatory months of artwork, formatting, and further editing; but I am content to say, that it is finally over. Today, I signed off on what I hope to be the finished, error-free manuscript that will go to print this monday for the release on the 22nd. I feel winded, proud, and perhaps mostly, relieved. For a book that I started three years ago, I feel ready to finally put it to rest, while the world experiences it for the first time. It's strange to feel so distant from it. I am not the same person who penned it, nor am I the same writer. I have gone on to write other manuscripts, novels, poems, etc. Looking back on this book, I feel a wonderful sort of nostalgia and fondness for the person that I was, ignorant and arrogant and ready to take on such a grand tribulation to become...a novelist.

I don't make any assumptions that the book will be read too far beyond my circle of friends. But I am inspired by Larry in Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge, who wrote a novel based on his "loaf"ing and wandering throughout the world, published it, and sent it only to his friends, who he desired to have read and love him through his words.

I'm okay with that.

Zero Day Blue Jay

It's snowy here on the East Coast and February is coming, bringing with it (among other things) my birthday and the release of Into the Everything. Today, because my school has closed down due to "inclement weather," I decided to take a walk in the snow, come home, and read "Seymour, an Introduction," the last short story by J. D. Salinger that I've yet to read.

I am ponderous, as tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of J.D. Salinger's death, leaving behind sixty years of unanswered questions and hopefully, a large bibliography of posthumous releases.

But what makes me so ponderous on that anniversary eve is what made J.D. Salinger so reclusive, especially considering his wholesale success as a writer in the 50s. Perhaps it was just that, the wholesale success, that made him forfeit all of his acclaim for a preferred life of unending solitude (ending only at his end).

As I copy edit Into the Everything time and time again, choose book design images, and pose for photos, I can't help but understand, to an extent how Salinger felt pre-hermitage. After all, I never wrote a word to see myself on a back cover. I never moaned over an incomplete sentence just to have my work reviewed on any sort of grand scale. In short, I have to admit that I'm somewhat uncomfortable with the whole publishing thing. Ask my publisher, and you'll soon be told at how difficult I was with contract negotiations.

Ever since finishing ITE, and looking to query and publish, I've felt a bit unfaithful. Perhaps to my craft, or the esoteric concept of being an "artist." My goal was never to be commercial, to earn money from my love for writing. Of course, of course-of-course-of-course I am happy that my book now has the potential to make it into the hands of readers. That is, in a way, what I write for. Still, marketing, blogging, dust jacket blurbs; they make me uncomfortable.

I couldn't even write my author's bio (thanks Billy). In short, the publication of the novel I spent so much blood on is thrilling; Feb 22nd couldn't come fast enough, but now I feel I must acclimate to this new part of the old world: that of a published writer. A brand. A businessman. At the wolf's mouth.

I don't mean to compare myself to Salinger in any way; that would be a gross misstatement. Still, if you ever get a chance to read my book, hopefully you'll be met with the me of three years ago, when I wrote the book starving in a small Philadelphia apartment, happy as Hell because I had the dexterity to type, and in compete ignorance of the potential of the future.

Home Sweet Home

I suppose a "Welcome" is in order to the flagship maiden voyage of this blog. I am not a proficient blogger, so hopefully any training as a "writer" will make up for ineptitudes in my forced-luddite composition. (Down with Apple).

I have been home from Ethiopia for a few weeks now and am drafting a fictitious/non-fiction (which my colleague says, makes it fiction) story about my experience. This is also my vessel to tie myself to sanity while I embark on a new world of publishing Into the Everything, the daunting concept of marketing it, and crossing my fingers that it will be received with joy. That's the apex of what I hope for. Land Ho!

Look for the book Feb 22nd.
Come see me read a chapter and sign on the 25th at Moonstone at Robbin's Books in Philly. I may not be wealthy enough to buy you a drink after, but I'll be glad enough to clink your glass.