Reblog: Author Emily Benet

Is it a girl? Is it a boy? Is it a book? -Said no midwife ever
Reblog From Author Emily Benet 

Your book is your baby!""Getting your book published is like giving birth!"

I've never given birth but I'm guessing these statements are a bit far fetched. Writing a book is a lot of work but at least it doesn't cry. The only person crying is you because it's taking so long.  

Your book doesn't give you mastitis. At the most it gives you a headache. Possibly a bit of repetitive strain injury. If you prefer vintage methods and are using pen and paper, there's the danger of paper cuts.

Your book does not poo. Although that doesn't mean it isn't crap. The first draft will definitely stink, even though it took you the best part of nine months to create. Ten years if you've had a stab at 'literary fiction*'.(*Literary fiction is the one where not much happens, but it makes you cry because it's so beautiful and profound. Although you might also be crying because you've just finished reading 400 pages and you don't know what's happened.)

You don't feel unconditional love for your book. If you look too closely, you still see bits you could improve. I don't think you give birth and immediately think, Not bad! But I could have made its ears a bit rounder!  

The biggest difference I guess is, after you give birth you don't usually want to sell your baby, whereas every author wants to sell their freshly born book. The fact that this is actually quite difficult leads to what I'm calling Post Publication Blues. The post natal depression of the book publishing experience.  

There are so many posts on dealing with rejections from agents and publishers, but not so much advice for the writers who have managed to get books published, and still feel they have a long way to go until they 'make it'. How do you keep your morale up when it feels like you're getting nowhere fast?

Well, I've just opened Eckhart Tolle's book Stillness Speaks and read this: "Doing one thing at a time", is how one Zen Master defined the essence of Zen. Doing one thing at a time means to be total in what you do, to give it your complete attention. This is surrendered action - empowered action.

I think this translates as TAKE IT ONE STEP AT A TIME. This probably applies to babies and books. 


http://emilybenet.blogspot.com/2015/10/is-it-girl-is-it-boy-is-it-book-said-no.html

Able To Leap Tall Buildings In A Single Bound

   Ever since my sixth grade teacher Mrs. Walker offered me a taste of Walter Farley’s The Black Stallion, I have been addicted to story. With every book I pick up, I send gratitude to Mrs. Walker. More than once, the paperback in my back pocket has saved my sanity. So, what three books have influenced me most? My book acquisitions (not counting Kindle) line three walls in shelves often two deep.  

   I’m looking at my books. Why the hell do I have so many books? Forgive the digression. I think the acquisitions began also when I was in the sixth grade. I encountered a problem giving the books back. When I liked a story, I wanted it to remain with me, not only in my head, but in my hand. That urge and the way libraries are set up came into conflict. I had no intention of stealing a book, I just found great procrastination in returning it. As I recall, (memory is always suspect) the sixth grade librarian was not happy with me. Books weren’t expensive, and I had started working a few years later so…

    For now, I’ll go with Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Earthsea Trilogy.  If you’re interested in Fantasy, you’ll have read it. If you think you might be, I would recommend it. I won’t spoil it by giving a review here. I won’t even pretend that I fully understand Mrs. Le Guin’s theme. The theme I took from these books has to do with power, its uses, and limitations. 

    Every child wants to be a super hero in some way. To have the power to gainsay a parent’s ‘no’, or the ability to leap tall buildings, that’s what imagination is all about. As I began to read history, I kept an eye out for those actors who, if not able to leap tall buildings, had the power to command the lives of people in large swaths of the world. As a child I was convinced that the ability to leap tall buildings would make me happy. Even though I haven’t yet accomplished that feat, my read on others who metaphorically have doesn’t fill me with confidence on the ‘happy’ part. 

   In The Earthsea Trilogy, Ged learns the ways of power and how the law of unintended consequences restricts its use in direct proportion to the power acquired. Contrary to popular opinion, I do not think the exercise of power leads to happiness or security. The thought is counterintuitive, but history seems to back me up.  

   The Sun God’s Heir is about a young seventeenth century Frenchman who is challenged by an ancient enemy from his past. His three-thousand-year-old past. In this lifetime he is nineteen when this story begins. An historical fantasy, The Return, book one in The Sun God’s Heir trilogy will be out this summer. 

Email me and I’ll let you know when. elliottbkr@gmail.com