Friday, November 25, 2011

Friday song

Because I'm so busy now I'm a Capitalist Empire Building Pig in addition to Struggling Literary Fiction Writer Who No One Wants to Publish (but I won't give up, oh no), I will have to intersperse the already sparsely-appearing '80s Diaramas with Some Music that can be Easily Posted.

To launch this new Friday approach, a piece from a blogger 'acquaintance' who I've never met but whose prose and poetry I fell in love with back in oh around 2005. I don't listen to a lot of music at all, I like quiet and silence when I go about my day. But I love this .

I give you The Gypsy Curse [http://www.facebook.com/thegypsycurse]:


11 comments:

elaine said...

I just want to add: I an SO PROUD of mister mattyb and his brave choice to wander into the musical unkown.

elaine said...

*am

Anonymous said...

I thought the song was nice and the video was interesting.

But I'm still keen to know why you put so much importance on "traditional" publishing.

Melba said...

I'll respond to it on the other thread, Alex. Promisssss.

Melba said...

And why is it traditional with quote marks? Isn't it just traditional publishing?

Maybe I can answer it here.

It doesn't seem real if you self publish. It seems like you've given up, which is true because anybody I've heard of who self publishes (including Matthew Reilly in his beginnings) only does so because no publisher will publish their book.

I haven't had the chance yet to look at the new link you've posted, I will get to it but I'm not hurrying because the name(s) you mentioned, I've never heard of. But I shall, I shall...

AND LAINEY.

It's the first song of Sherriff's I've listened to. I love it. It's my favourite.

Anonymous said...

The quote marks are because we're talking about one specific way of doing things, but if you were to look at the entire history of publishing, worldwide, I'd think the term would probably start to lose its meaning a bit.

And I'm afraid to say that your response only leaves me more befuddled. I would have thought that the most important thing for a writer would be to simply love writing; with the second most important thing being a responsive audience that could provide feedback. It almost sort of seems like you're saying that the whole point of writing is to validate the effort by being "good" enough to impress a publisher. Have I got this arse-about?

Melba said...

You're right the first thing for me is the love of doing it. I can't not do it, and not getting published thus far will not in any way stop me. I can't ever contemplate giving it up, it's took enjoyable.

I don't want feedback or any sort of process to help me write better or whatever. I want to do my work and I want to be validated by a publisher, yes, that's true. It is the second thing, it's the icing so to speak. And I am stubborn about it, but for now, that's how I feel. Quite strongly.

But the word 'good'; I will say something about that. It's not about being 'good' it's about being commercial or writing something that a publisher feels they can sell. So in the end it's a business; it's not enough to just be wonderful. (I want to be better than good.)

Anonymous said...

So, being commercially successful is more important to you than writing something that's really great? Hmmm, okay; I remember you saying once that your stuff is offbeat and would be hard to market (or something similar); have you considered changing tactic and just writing something that would appeal to the lowest common denominator instead?

I am not trying to be a smart-arse here. Total straight face.

Melba said...

I didn't say that Alex, or I didn't mean it. Being commercially successful is NOT more important to me than writing something wonderful. Not at all. I would rather remain unpublished before adjusting downwards.

I can see where you misinterpreted me. It was my expression, ambiguous sorry. Where I said: it's not about being good, it's about being commercial I meant from the publisher's perspective. Plenty of good stuff doesn't get published because it's *not* commercial.

Get me now?

I won't compromise and change what I write to be more commercial. The work always comes first, and I write what I want to write, which isn't genre and isn't commercial. I heard today about a friend's sister who has self published. Not sure what she writes but she was sick of getting knocked back. Not sure how many times or how many manuscripts.

I never think you're being a smart arse, I know I'm not clear sometimes.

Anonymous said...

The fact that sometimes I joke around a bit means that often when I'm being sincere I think I need to be clear about it. It can be very easy to take something the wrong way.

But I think I understand: You write stuff that's isn't genre and isn't commercial, but you won't be satisfied until you find a publisher who thinks it could be commercially successful. I know that sounds absurd written like that, but that's the gist, right?

I don't want to seem like I'm cramming self-publishing down your throat; I just thought it seemed like a good option and wondered why you were dead against it. But, if sharing your stuff with an audience isn't a high priority (like you said before), than I can see why it wouldn't be.

In any case, I certainly wish you the best of luck, and I do hope I get to read some of it someday.

Melba said...

Your second para is spot on. And yes, to the rest as well. Thanks, it's nice to have someone interested.

One final word about self publishing; it doesn't guarantee you get to share your work with an audience any better than say showing a final draft does, printed out at Officeworks. Publishing on the Internet may or may not, I could do it here on this blog, but if people don't comment, then that's not really sharing my work either.

But to have a publisher back your book, to have them pay to get it printed, designed etc. To have them market it and place it in shops, and then for it to sell, that IS something I would like.

Did you know selling 3,000 - 4,000 copies of a book (especially first novel) in Australia is considered successful? Seems like nothing, but that means a publisher recoups all costs and doesn't lose money. Not losing money is a good thing in publishing. Making a profit I guess is really only the second thing you aim for, after breaking even.