Above the Lake. (Official).

Not quite yet- death of a blogger! After such an unseemly interlude between posts (time flies with post-Mayan haste) but it has become evident that mine isn't going to be a rags to riches overnight success story (perseverance furthers advises the I Ching, although equally it suggests there is no point in entering the field if there is nothing to hunt!). Much has happened in the interim keeping me otherwise occupied: like 3 complete ms rewrites (polishing the household silver), breaking up with my partner and the getting back together, rejection slips from literary agents and publishers (15 at last count-2 still pending) and of course not forgetting core values: that of being a painter and painting. That's where the memoir and my calling in life dovetail neatly together, and one motivation for writing my story in the first place-a blatant bit of self-promotion.

After several title incarnations: Flight of Faith (smacks of religion)- Still life with Sunflowers (well not too bad)- Under A Tuscan spell, the artist's tale (derivative and lame), I have finally come up with a title that I can live with: Above the Lake: Tuscany, the artist's journey, which manages to touch a few bases-element of mystery, Tuscany, travel, artist and satisfies my editor Geoffrey's insistence that I can't have a title that doesn't directly reference something in the book (Cortona, Camelot-like rises above the lake...). 

Meanwhile, waiting (not idly) for THE call, I have decided  to go the self-publishing route: firstly because I can and it's no longer frowned upon or necessarily an admission of failure, secondly because I am curious to see what happens and thirdly to start building a social media platform for the book, as strongly recommended by most literary agents- who want to know that you are media savvy and like publishers, gas stations and supermarket self-check outs are getting you to do their work for them!

I actually have in hand a hard copy of the book! Amazing. I guess with the millions of self-published books it's not a bad money spinner either for Amazon or Lulu or whoever you go with-vanity publishing at its most enticing, no need for expensive print runs, it costs you nothing to produce, just publish on demand.

I will write about the process in another post because it is extraordinary having such a powerful array of creative tools at your fingertips.

Vanity publishing used to have a bad name but with the advances in technology and an explosion of wannabe authors that is no longer the case; the Indies taking on the Goliaths of the publishing industry with some notable success, particularly with the advent of E-books and the increasing popularity of E-readers like Kindle and Nook tablets, even undermining the viability of bricks and mortar bookshops these days.

I did have doubts about self-publishing (a hang up about self-esteem) and wasn't even considering it until by chance, looking for modern interpretations of the I Ching on the web I was drawn to a version by Michael Graeme (Free PDF download here) and then discovered in true I Ching synchronistic tradition that Michael also writes a blog and is a self-published author by preference, whose musings on self-publishing changed my perspective. Check out this article on his blog: Is Lulu.com a scam?

Well, the title is out there, since December and as of today 16 people have read the first three chapters on Wattpad, 36 people have downloaded samples from Smashwords and 16 people have bought electronic versions. I have bought 4 hardcopies from Amazon and the  Above the Lake facebook page has 31 likes!

It's not exactly viral but early days, early days...

The long road to completion-an introduction.

I am an artist with no pension plan, trying not to look too far into the future because i can't afford to and anyway it would be scary. Ignorant bliss doesn't mean i'm stupid, though, but becomes a saving grace, a zen moment, stepping off into the abyss eyes skyward (like the wanderer/fool in my favourite Tarot card), which is how i started life as an artist in the first place, with a head full of dreams and absolutely no idea where i was going.

I am lazy at heart and no doubt, 35 years later, if i had known then what i know now, i might never have left home.  No, not really- I'm only kidding- but it's just as well i have a short memory because it has taken me 9 years to write my memoir Flight of Faith. It never really occurred to me how much work was involved, but stepping blithely into it and further down the road, there suddenly comes a point when you realise you are in so deep that retreat is no longer an option and advance offers the only way out.

It's excruciating bridging the gap between what I will to happen and what actually is; what I'm capable of and what i want to be capable of, what i see compared to the words i write.

Here is an embarrassing example from 9 years ago, lifted verbatim from the very first draft of Flight of Faith (It refers to London in the seventies and the flat i lived in):

'Life was just a gas-even if you had a 9-5 job. I remember a party in Queensgate terrace- and the  neighbour underneath had complained about the noise and the fact that his ceiling was vibrating violently-everyone was sniffing poppers and were jumping up and down to the music. G was on acid. The police came. G flung open the door,he wears a beard and was dressed in a lime green tutu. The policeman, unphased, asked him to turn the sound down and politely refused the invitation to join the party!'

And this is how it has turned out:

'Officially I’m not supposed to be living in Queensgate; nor is Tish, who sublets from a French friend, Alain, after he split up with his boyfriend and moved back to Paris.  A shame really.  No more heaving dance parties in the flat, dropping acid and snapping poppers, having group heart attacks, no more bearded ladies in lurid wigs and tutus opening the door to police officers and inviting them in, with the neighbours complaining downstairs.'

What I have learnt thus far in the creative scheme of things is (a) durability and (b)the crucial role confidence plays; not con-fidence or the manufactured kind but that supreme moment when you have learnt to ride the bike and can point it down hill, sit up in the saddle and let fly with no hands.