The Invisible Library

Fair and Balanced

For some reason, Fox is suing Al Franken for using the words “fair and Balanced” in the title of his new book. They apparently think they own the words “Fair and Balanced”. That and they have no sense of humor what so ever. So a number of bloggers are also being Fair and Balanced. I fgured I’d jump on the band wagon because Al Franken is one of the funniest, most inteligent Liberal comedian/commentators out there today. And because Fox is a sad and pathetic excuse for a news source, having long since abandoned any resemblence to actual journalism in favor of “Infotainment”. Gods and Monsters, what a horrible jingoistic buzword that is. Edward R. Murrow’s ghost should haunt Rupert Murdoch’s dreams until the man either comes to his senses or succumbs to some horrible rich man’s disease. Limmo Rot or Moneybagitis. Something expensive, anyway.

Where to Put my Dolls

I�ve finally finished The Black Doll, my short story about a young girl�s touching relationship with a demonically possessed Doll of ancient origin. It�s a coming of age story. The problem is it�s a little too long, coming in currently at just over 10,500 words, roughly 47 pages. I need to do a little checking around but I�m pretty sure I�d have to cut about 2500 words in order to get it down to a publishable length. But I don�t see loosing more than 500 words, tops. So perhaps I�ll post it here for the enjoyment of the three or four people who read this blog with any regularity.

I�m actually thinking of going in the direction of self publishing, in which case I might do The Black Doll as a small 48 page book, maybe with an illustration or two and sell it here on the site, and shop it around to publishers.

You�ve got to be creative these days to get noticed. I mean, I�ve been following the rules, sending out the submissions and the query letters to agents and publishers but the unanimous response I�ve gotten thus far is, �You aren�t a best selling author therefore we�re not even going to reads your MS because it won�t make us oodles of cash money, yo. So fuck off.�

OK, they didn�t say, yo. But generally that�s the response I�ve gotten.

And the thing is, I don�t want to be a best selling author. Honestly, I don�t. Too much of a hassle. I�d be happy if there were just a dozen or so people out there besides my family and friends who read my stories and got some enjoyment out of them. So maybe I�ll start a little self-publishing revolution and teach those Capitalist Pigs who are ruining the Publishing Industry a lesson.

Yeah, I�m sure that�s just what will happen.

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I can�t get the comments scripts to work so for now, just send comments, suggestions, flames whatever to my e-mail (in the little green box above). If you�re polite and friendly and have constructive criticism (not just a terse little, �Borges also wrote poetry.� Sort of note) I might even post your letter here and respond to it point by point. Won�t that be fun?