Today was a struggle and I don’t remember much of what I did yesterday except that I probably did a million things. I’ve been pretty busy and that’s basically been good for me but the lady next door who sings opera noises every day was going on for five hours, and it was piercing my ears and driving me mad because it woke me up and I couldn’t sleep. I got out of bed and immediately checked my email and social media to find a lot of junk mail, no news from any agents, and a reply to a post I made about my book and book cover in an author’s group in which I didn’t ask for opinions, but someone said “You’ll get more clicks with a professional cover.” I felt shot down, and started to doubt my cover, which does have a few flaws. When I shared it on my page last week, some of my friends said they loved it, including some who I know would buy the book regardless of the cover, and they are my friends, so were they to be trusted to be honest? Some part of me thought they were, because I decided to post my cover in a memoir group and a group for trans men over 40 and asked them if they’d be interested in a book with this cover, and right away, two people in each group said no. One said it was unprofessional, two said it was too busy, and one person said no, because he wouldn’t know what the book was about from the cover; as if any book cover really explains a story! I felt shot down and immediately took down my post in both groups because the opera woman was still shrieking and I wasn’t in the mood for any more negative comments. My cat came up on the couch next to me and started crying non-stop. I shoved her off the couch and my rage was growing as the opera woman had been practicing since noon and it was after five. The noises kept getting worse and worse, and I could see her in the house right next to us in the room with all the windows open. I finally snapped and ran to the window. Part of me didn’t wanna destroy her spirit, but most of me just wanted the noise to stop. I have PTSD and it’s literally caused me to punch walls and break things. Just as I was about to scream “Would you shut the fuck up? You suck!” the guy downstairs from me literally yelled out seconds before me “Is that you who’s doing all that singing? You’re terrible!” and I chimed in “you should really get some sound proofing or something because I have PTSD and the noises are driving me into a rage every day!” She apologized and said she’d shut the windows, but I can hear her all winter when both our windows are shut. I dunno if it’ll make a difference but she’s been driving me mad for years now. Every Spring, I used to look forward to opening all the windows, but now I have to keep them closed to drown out as much as it allows. I don’t wanna crush her spirit, but I’ve honestly had violent thoughts, not that I’d act on them. I’m not a violent person, but the fact that I even fantasize about it makes me feel awful about myself and is toxic for me to have that kind of rage, so it’s about time she had a rude awakening as to how bad it is for the rest of us. There are all kinds of musicians in my building who do all make noise, but hers goes on for hours and it’s so high pitched it feels like nails on a chalkboard.
Anyway, I’ve been busy editing the book some more and I think I’m gonna keep the cover I made. I may take one more stab at designing the same basic thing, but if it doesn’t look better, I’ll keep the one I have now, which was my second attempt after the first didn’t feel professional to me at all. The second one didn’t feel like it was that bad though. I liked it and was bummed others didn’t, but I mean, I don’t know what their interests are or what kind of books they like or anything about them, and my art is an acquired taste. Like a lot of great art, sometimes people have to see it over and over before it starts to resonate with them. I thought the idea was cool, to show the flawed and rigged system through the claw machine, and pictures of me pre and post transition showing my gender journey over the years. I wrote a post on my own Facebook after being shut down, and my friends encouraged me to keep the cover unless I wanna change it, because it was my vision and it goes well with the book. One person also mentioned that I’m likely to mostly just get my fans to read it if I self publish, and so they’ll be the ones who will want it and love it, and while it may not exactly attract the masses, the people who most relate and most need the book will probably be drawn to my cover. So, it really just depends on if I get it published through an agent and publisher who may have other thoughts on it, but one of the things I like about self publishing is having the control to make my own covers and choose my release dates and stuff like that, which are part of the whole presentation for me, even if others don’t even recognize it. I really wanna release this new book on my birthday this year, which is the 20 year anniversary of 9/11. It’s to the degree that while I obviously wanna be professionally published, part of me hopes I get to do it all myself again since it was fun for me the first time around…but I’ll definitely take an agent and professional publishing if I can get it. It’s just not looking likely right now.
I have a Pride Sale going on at my Threadless Store for 15% off until the 23rd
That’s a couple of the items. You can get them here…
https://wickedcliche.threadless.com/
I got an idea for a new book that would be mostly fiction, although based on a true story about my cross country trip to see the Pope at World Youth Day in 1993. It would be called “Good Catholic Kids”, and would be sort of like a classic 90’s teen story about a queer kid with mental illness, coming of age type thing. Ideally, I envision this one as a film, but I think I wanna write it as a book, in hopes of it becoming a film, since a book is easier to get out into the world than a screenplay. Plus, I have a lot of details I wanna put into the story that would be hard to include in film, especially if it were low budget, so I’m gonna make it a book, but it was this photo I recently hung in my kitchen which gave me the idea to write the story. this was at World Youth Day in a desert in Colorado. We had to walk seven miles to get there and there was a sea of people, as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Last but not least, I got this awesome record this month to reward myself for all my hard work and stress and everything. It is an incredibly rare record and a miracle I found an unopened copy for a price I could afford (although was pretty much the only thing I could buy this month) but the CD version changed my life in the early 2000’s when it introduced me to the Boston underground hip hop scene which is the best out there.
I will leave you with a few favorite songs from the album… I highly recommend you try them, even if you don’t like hip hop, but especially if you like really great quality underground hip hop with “conscious” lyrics