In the book publishing flotilla, first come the galleys, then come the ARCs. An ARC is an Advance Reading Copy - not to be confused with an Advance Chewing Copy, something I've had to make clear to my dog - and today I received an early ARC of What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World. I like it. It looks like a book. It's a stack of paper pages bound together. I'm very fond of paper pages. They have their advantages. Imagine yourself sitting in an outhouse and discovering there's no toilet paper and all you've got is your Kindle. |
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There seem to be quite a few photographs of me in which I’m wearing nineteenth-century clothing. I’ve decided to admit to it – I’m a transtemp. That’s short for trans-temporal. I’m what used to be called, behind closed doors by people who discussed such things, a cross-time dresser. Transtemps are a small but growing minority, who are only now beginning to speak up for themselves. Transtemps are not comfortable with the time period they’ve been born into, and find an outlet by dressing in clothes appropriate to a different era. Many transtemps hide behind excuses – “I’m a Civil War reenactor!” or, “I’m on my way to a Renaissance Fair!” or, “Omigod, the professor’s wacky invention really worked!” and it is hard to get them to admit they just enjoy dressing up. Transtemps will never willingly come out of the closet – they’re too busy trying on the older stuff in the back. Transtemp choices of attire run the gamut from Roman empire to medieval to early twentieth-century. (They keep trying to organize a Transtemp Pride Parade but, obviously, they can’t agree on a date.) As a frequently vilified and misunderstood group – “What? Are you saying there’s something WRONG with modern fashion?” – transtemps believe in tolerance and acceptance of all those who are different. Except, of course, for those who like to dress up as fictional people, like characters in the Harry Potter books or The Lord of the Rings. Those people are just plain nuts. Henry Clark (left) as Lord Emsworth, from P.G. Wodehouse’s 1952 novel, Pigs Have Wings.
Yesterday I created an "author's page" on Facebook, because having one supposedly helps promote one's work, although I'm not entirely sure how. You can visit it - please "like" it if you do, even if you find it appalling - by clicking here, or clicking on its cover, below. Back so soon? I'm not surprised. All the Facebook page does, really, is tell visitors to come here to Indorsia.com, where they will find this blog entry, which sends them back to the Facebook page, which sends them back here, like characters in a time-loop on a cheap sci-fi TV show where the producers are saving money by using the same sets over and over again.
But then, I love that particular plot. Emoticonman I have been asked to explain the picture of me that currently accompanies this blog, shown in its full glory to the right - unless you're reading this post many months from now, when I've wisely substituted a picture of my cat - and in stunning close-up to the left. This is me, dressed as Emoticonman, the character I went out trick-or-treating as this past Halloween. "Emoticonman" is a portmanteau word combining the words "emoticon" and "conman." Emoticonman is one of the lesser-known Batman villains. He is a swindler who always tells his victims to "Have a nice day!" making him slightly more odious than the Joker, who at least has a sense of irony. I like dressing as Emoticonman because his jowls never sag, his brow never wrinkles, and he seems happy despite the jaundice. Declawed Debussy When I do get around to using a picture of a cat as my avatar, as I notice so many bloggers do, I will probably use the picture at right. This is Declawed Debussy. Dee, as we refer to him around the house, is an Indorsian Accessorizing Cat. Indorsian Accessorizing Cats have been genetically engineered to change the color of their eyes to match whatever they're wearing. Dee is usually proficient at this, although in the present instance he has fallen somewhat short of the requisite polka-dots. If he demonstrates any further failures along this line, he will be deemed broken, and we will have to have him fixed. I sent the galleys of What We Found in the Sofa back to Little, Brown today. The envelope was prepaid, UPS Next Day Air, meaning, since I live forty minutes from Manhattan, the manuscript had to be flung across the East River with a catapult to fulfill the "Air" part. I picture it hitting one of the editorial office windows with a splat, sticking there briefly in a starburst of its own vital juices, and then slowly sliding down the glass, leaving a persimmon-colored trail on its way to Park Avenue, eleven floors below, an LB editorial assistant racing down in an elevator with a catcher's mitt to field it. Then again, it may have arrived in a plastic tub with a bunch of other manuscripts. Well, no. By galleys I mean something a little less exciting than ancient Roman warships powered by slaves chained to giant oars. The galleys I'm referring to - galley proofs - constitute the the first ever print-on-paper version of What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World, which I have to check for typos and send back to Little Brown by August 24th. This type of galley makes for a somewhat less engaging picture... There is, for one thing, considerably less action. (Hopefully, the reviewers won't notice.)
Up until this point, the book has existed only in electronic versions. How long before books go directly from an author's e-manscript to a published e-book, and this type of galley becomes as obsolete as the Roman ones? Heavy, right? A blog? Really? Just to promote a fun kids' book called What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World? Which isn't due out for another ten months? Can I do this? "Blog" is what Lewis Carroll would have called a portmanteau word. Portmanteau comes from the word port, meaning left, as when a ship turns to port, and manitou, meaning a forest spirit. So a portmanteau word is a word left by a forest spirit. Lewis Carroll was weird. If you've ever read him, you already know this. The portmanteau words left by the forest spirits - I see them sort of like eggs left by the Easter bunny - are words formed by jamming two other words together. The words smoke and fog, jammed together, make smog. (Cars and trucks, jammed together, also make smog, so there are exceptions to the rule.) If you jam google and blintzes together, you get googleblintzes, meaning many, many blintzes. (Why would you need this word?)
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Henry ClarkPictured here on the day he sold What We Found in the Sofa. His mood is cautiously optimistic. Archives
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