yuvi zalkow - novelist, failed writer, schmo

So although this is only relevant to Portland writers, I still wanted to share with everyone that I’m going to teach three writing workshops in June using my videos as the launching point (aka: as a crutch for my stage fright).

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• A MacBook Air
• An iPad
• An iPhone

I don’t know what people officially classify these things but I call them computers. And I do heavy-duty writing (or writing-related) tasks on all three of these computers. But I do slightly different things with each one. So I stupidly end up carrying all three around with me most of the time. Bad on my back (and bad for the way people mock me), but good for my writing.

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So in a zany twist of events, I swindled my way onto two great, geeky podcasts. Both of these shows relate to how I use the Mac/iPad/iPhone, mostly with regard to my videos, but also for my novel writing. If you’re a Mac geek (or a wannabe Mac geek) read on. For those anti-geek / anti-productivity / anti-Apple / anti-Semitic followers, I’m sorry. (OK. That last “anti” has nothing to do with anything, it just seemed to add some heft to the list…) In either case, I’ll soon try to swindle my way onto literary podcasts to balance things out better.

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There’s an aspect of the publishing process that I’ve been obsessed with and it has to do with the editing work I did with my editor/publisher. I’m not talking about the copyediting (which was also interesting) but the type of editing where serious reshaping of the book can happen. Let me elaborate…

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I’m not a great social networkky dude.

• I’m totally erratic on Facebook. I’ve missed important births and deaths due to my erraticness.
• I have an interest in Pinterest that apparently isn’t strong enough for me to try it. Or even to understand what it is.
• Google+… I don’t use except to apologize to people who have sadly included me in their circle.
• I signed up but still can’t get rolling with Goodreads.
• But… I love Twitter.

I haven’t been on Twitter long but I find it a fabulous place to loiter. Though in order for me to enjoy it, I follow some rules. Now keep in mind that my goal is just to enjoy the thing, not to maximize followers or sell something. Sure, it would be nice if three or more of my followers bought my book, and I’m sure that I’ll ocassionally mention book release details, but it sounds painful to think about making $$$ on twitter. My goal is to enjoy the experience enough to actually stick around.

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As a person who spends an utterly insane number of hours reading and writing on digital thingies, the quality of the text on these thingies is important to me. And it’s pretty remarkable to look at text on this new iPad. It’s actually too hard to characterize in words how words look on this device. So I thought I’d share the results of a study that I (supposedly) performed.

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I’ve been a long time fan of This American Life. I don’t listen to every episode but it’s safe to say I’ve listened to more than a hundred shows. This past weekend, I listened to the Retraction episode where Ira Glass apologizes for the piece they played about Mike Daisey and the Foxconn factory, a piece they now know to be full of incorrect information. Here is my reaction after listening to the episode: I love Ira Glass.

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I’m pretty sick of platform talk. It’s not that I think the concept itself is bad. It’s just that I think the term causes an author to panic and put up a shitty blog full of uninspiring un-unique un-fun advice that probably doesn’t help their book all that much anyhow.

I went to AWP (Association of desperate Writers and desperate Writing Programs) this year with that platform stuff on my mind. (Was also thinking about if the wife would be furious with me for leaving her with the kids for four days.)

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So I’ve been deep in edits on my novel (most recently titled A BRILLIANT NOVEL IN THE WORKS) the past two months. Far bigger a task than I expected. Basically I had to rewrite the last quarter of the novel and also take into consideration hundreds of other edits and comments. Ouch. But it’s been a good (even if terrifying) challenge. I was pretty arrogant beforehand, secretly thinking that my novel was totally finished when I got the publication offer. But it had more to go, and I’m thankful that my editor pushed me to go there. I’m sure, as with any project, it could be better, bigger, larger, faster, sexier, smarter, deeper, more pantsless. But still, I feel good about these changes.

Now the manuscript is with the typesetter. If I understand anything about the publication process, this is the part where a person carves out each letter from an old growth tree and then glues the letters (with Elmer’s glue) to a piece of parchment made from papyrus…

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Call me slow, but as far as I see it, there are two ways to write a book:

METHOD #1

Buy a new house. Not to live in, but to write in. (Yeah, you heard me correctly: I ended that sentence in a preposition. My upcoming novel is full of those kinds of sentences, and also dangling modifiers, and split infinitives, and run-on sentences, hot damn do I have a lot of run-on sentences! And sentence fragments.)

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