Tuesday 5/10/22
There will be a decent amount happening today, which I'll try to document on here. I have three lengthy entries that I haven't been able to get up, written in the last few days, which I will get in order soon. I just went through "Bitches" for a final time and now that story is complete. A commanding work of art. I wrote that dating site entry and put that up on here. All art. Constant art. What better indicates how the world is now? And the insight into friendship and where it has gone and why.
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"Ashes, Ashes" is now completely done. Read through it again. Made two small changes--the insertion of a word, the insertion of a phrase--I knew I'd be making, and adding one other part making it more clear how the man leaves, in terms of his actual motion. Both this story and "Bitches" are likely to be in Longer on the Inside: Very Short Fictions of Infinitely Human Lives. I sent the former to a bigot this morning as well. I know exactly how that will go, which is how it has gone, because it's me. Later I'll put her up on here and document how they take the work they take, because of course I know. I mean, obviously. There's no mystery to why anything happens in publishing. When people don't know, it's because of apathy. They're just not interested enough to know, which is also how the people of the publishing system protect themselves--they count on no one in the world giving a toss, and that's reflected in what they publish.
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Another publisher has put me in a bad position. Not the one I've alluded to recently. Someone oversees social media. That person posts relevant tweets for the authors in business with the press. None of my publishers post, retweet, like anything pertaining to my work on their own. No matter how significant the achievement or the obvious quality of the work. They do this with their other authors, but as we have seen, everything is different here with me. I have to ask them to do it. Then they do it reluctantly, to forestall me, or what certainly seems to be reluctantly. What do I mean by that? They'll retweet something of mine, but they won't quote retweet it. They won't add any positive adjectives, give it a little lead in, "A fascinating piece by blah blah about blah blah." Not so much as an exclamation point. They do it joylessly, like they're against me. This other place puts up things pertaining to this woman four, five times a day. She's a huge chunk of their feed. Over nonsense. She'll get out of her car and take a selfie with her book. They post that. It's like the press is some teenager with a crush. The woman does nothing. She wrote a bad book that came out over a year ago. She has nothing new ever happening. She essentially has a blank website. She goes on and on about this bad book from over a year ago. Finds ways to post about its subject matter, which is, frankly, daft. I listened to an interview she gave, and it was also bad, and I gave an interview on the same platform, and it wouldn't even be accurate to say that there was no comparison between us; no one would think so, and it's being charitable to put it that way. She doesn't publish in notable venues. She doesn't seem to do anything. I have op-eds, cover stories, real achievements in life, and they won't put them up. And they certainly don't put them up with any enthusiasm or support. But every day, they work it hard for this woman, who does nothing. I don't even think she's mediocre. Let's say she's mediocre at best. There are no achievements here, there's no decent writing. But that's why they do it. Because of everything she is not. And that's why they don't do it with me, because of everything that I am. And that puts me in a bad situation. I have the screenshots, obviously. There is the proof. It's real. Whereas, if this woman did a single one of the things I do regularly, I cannot even conceive of what this press would be saying about them. It's already a festival of fawning on her behalf, and they'd probably shut down for a year and throw a non-stop party. I'd be mortified if I did nothing, didn't write well, achieved nothing, and talked about this one thing I had made that came out a year ago. Talked about it every day. Throughout every day. But like I said, it puts me in a bad situation, because I am not a confrontational person. But what am I supposed to do here?
Worked on a new story. Text to someone: "Writing a story called 'First Last Date.' Husband, wife. Last night together. She's leaving for France in the morning to end her life via Continuous Deep Sedation. He's not going. She has a bag packed. He goes through it. Story happens in their bathroom and bedroom. Begins with a line of dialogue from her: 'Start with your ass.' He's naked, looking at himself in the mirror."
Stairs now.
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Ran 3000 stairs. Didn't run any yesterday. Ran 3000 Saturday and 10,000 Sunday, which also marked 2135 days, or 305 weeks, without a drink. Also did fifty push-ups each of the stair days. Just wrote and put up an entry on here introducing the term "cool guying." Heading back out now for some more stairs.
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Back from running another 2000 stairs. That takes us to the end of the morning--it's five of noon. Time to write a feature on the Rolling Stones' "Tumbling Dice."
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It's one o'clock. The Stones feature is done. I shall put up an excerpt.
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So this press was supposed to post an op-ed of mine and a cover story on Friday. They retweeted the op-ed from my feed--again, joylessly, without a single additional comment--on Friday, when they should have posted it on their own, with some gusto, some energy, some praise, something to get actually get people to click on it, and they just did the absolute bare minimum, but the feature/cover story is still not up at all, even joylessly. I checked in just now, and once again, it's all about this woman with a book from a year ago. They post about her throughout the day. They are manufacturing ways to get her up on there. These are not real things. A selfie with your book from a year ago is not a real thing. What is going on here? Seriously, what am I supposed to do? Confront you? It's impossible not to be the bad guy in this rigged system, when you're treated a certain bad, glaring way, and you say something. It's maddening. The stuff at this press goes so much deeper, too, with a book I was supposed to be writing on the A Hard Day's Night film, and with my fiction. There's enough to fill many blog posts on here. I don't want to do that. There's another project of mine out there, and it's awesome, and I put a lot of time and effort into putting it together. If I get screwed on that, I'm not going to have a choice save to expose it all. But my God, the discrimination is right out in the open. What's more, I've written pieces for this place's website, for free. Big, long, masterful pieces as strong as anything I've ever done. They asked, I did it. In the spirit of teamwork. For the cause. Because we are in business together. This is just bad. I have done more today--see how I'm proving it on here, same as I do every day?--than this mediocre writer will do in her career, before we even get into the quality of the work and turn it into a mega-bloodbath. I don't want to be dealing with this, and figuring out what I have to do, and maybe doing some incredibly unpleasant things. But there it is, I'm looking right at it. As a friend of mine remarked this morning, "It really is amazing how fucked up all of this is. Everything in publishing."
I hate when people make me take it here and I have to expose them. I hate doing that.
Listened to Green Day's American Idiot. Been listening to that Vaccines' EP about ten times a day. Also listened to their live EP from Brighton. "I can get us any table on this side of Armageddon" is a line I like.
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Someone doing a piece on the Beatles in 1962 for the Grammy's website called me because they wanted some quotes from me for their article, so I did that before hopping on the air for Downtown, which was very good: lively, spirited, funny, and we got into some of the important stuff. It's a fine one to have for the record and future study.
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Days like this are how we are going to win. Total focus, matchless art, no mercy when we get there. Work harder tomorrow.
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