I was in New York with friends in the early 90′s shortly after I cranked out the second half of the Boble. At the time, I was running a tiny little publishing company called Purple Publications, where I put together homemade chapbooks and sold them for around $5 a pop. The Boble was my top seller, bringing in over $500 a year (shockingly), so I had decided to split it into two sections, selling them independently. A plan that I’ve now resurrected, with slightly more vim and vigor, and a decade’s worth of lessons, for a proposed 2015 release.
Then, as now, I was editing The Boble in an attempt to wash it clean of the childishness. I’d originally started writing it as an angst-filled teenager, so it was a challenge to come at it with book sales in mind. In 1993 or so, I had a pretty simplistic frame of mind when it came to book sales. Make a few bucks and call it a day. It’s a bit more difficult now when you juggle the concept of a worldwide release and a much larger investment. In a way, the “soul” of the work is sacrificed. It’s no longer a ranting screed written by a troubled boy, it must now be whipped into shape.
In 1993, as I struggled with edits, a friend cautioned me about losing that soul. He leaned in close and he told me to “stay angry.” He told me that only my anger would fuel my writing.
Continue reading ‘Anger’
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