Ann Patchett Gives Stephen Colbert Smack Down

This is hilarious. Two of my favorite people go head to head as author Ann Patchett tells Stephen Colbert why independent bookstores are making a come back. And for once, Stephen is stumped.

Watch the interview here.

Or go to: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/408775/february-20-2012/ann-patchett

So Phi, when's your book coming out?

This is the question on everyone's minds. Possibly because, contrary to Parsi superstition that people's najar (evil eye) will annihilate any hope that I had, I did some chicken counting before any hatching took place and announced on Facebook that my book was "done".

What that meant was that the book was out of my head and onto the page. Its fate now rests in the hands of some dear friends who have bravely agreed to critique it.

So what's next?

1. Write a query letter where I describe my 350 page book  in 150 words, conveying clearly that my idea is original yet universal and doing so in a manner so succinct (yet expansive) that in the 30-60 seconds that any run-off-her-feet agent (whose inbox is crammed with at least one hundred of these letters a day) will devote to me, my letter will make her drop her venti latte and call me right up.

2. Find the right agent for me through careful cross-checking across various publishing websites, agency websites, Amazon, etc, weed through the scammers, and settle on one who is new enough to take on a first timer like me yet established enough to know the right people though not so big a name as not to be taking on new clients.

3. Send out flurries of query letters and in the interim, which could last one to 365 days, while away my time biting the skin around the beds where my finger nails once lay and wash it down with the dredges of whiskey remaining in the liquor cabinet.

And that is when the book is coming out.

Phi MIB Romer

This is what I do these days:



Replace the guns with peering at people's book spines and identifying alien life with scoping out potential future readers at every coffee shop/train station/bus stop and it comes down to the same thing.

As you know, writing has made me shameless. Shamefully shameless, mind you; I do feel genuinely bad about my newfound callousness. For at least two-four seconds. Over the last year, at weddings and funerals, in line for the bathroom and at the dentist's office, I've been brazenly self promoting.

But what happened today is a gray area; I'm not sure if I had ulterior motives or was being a nice human being for a change. You tell me.

On the big comfy couch at Barefoot Coffee this morning, I saw that the woman beside me was reading HUNGER GAMES, a book my sister has been recommending to me for years. Asking her about it led to a twenty minute conversation. It was delightful, she was actually incredibly helpful and gave me amazing ideas on how to market the book (it was her MBA training, she said, in the breaths between listing ideas).

All I said was that it's hard for me to read books these days, what with writing my own. And I had to tell her about my blog; she started talking about marketing yourself, etc. And yes, I happened to have my business card within arm's reach but that's because I happened to be using it as a bookmark today. I did not hand it to her till she asked.

Did I scope her out? Did I just want a quick break from my 450 page tome on publishing? I truly don't know.

I like to look at it as a win-win: she got access to my blog and I have a future contact in case I ever pursue that MBA story line.

A Plea and a Laugh

I feel very much like that white-haired PBS fundraiser man who would interrupt Anne of Green Gables/Three Tenors marathons to do his fund drive but for the sake of my art, I shall press forth. So I've finished my book (a term I use loosely and will explain in a future blog) and am researching the route to publication.

The recurring theme in all I read is BUILD AN ONLINE PRESENCE. So here I go. I'm going to reformat this blog, write entries that are shorter and more frequent. You, dear reader, can help me build my presence in any of the following ways:

1. "like" my blog posts on Facebook (this means everyone on YOUR wall can see it, read it, love it, become a follower of mine). It takes .001 seconds of your time and you could singlehandedly launch my career.

2. Forward my blog site (phiroozeh.blogspot.com) to anyone on your email list who you think might be interested in following my blog.

3. Shout phiroozeh.blogspot.com from the top of the next mountain you climb.



                                    We now return to our regular programming.



Today, I read an ebook (How to Find- and Keep- A Literary Agent) and a paper book (The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published) alternately till my eyes gave out.

Here are some things that made me laugh/cry/think:

1. After a reading, an author was asked by an older man, "I'm a retired cardiac surgeon and I'm thinking of writing a book. What advice do you have?"
He responded, "When I retire from writing, I'm thinking of becoming a cardiac surgeon. What advice do you have?"

2. Charlie Baxter on writing: "Part of being a  writer is going through dark nights of the soul. In these nights you confront your own doubts, lack of self-confidence, the futility of what you are doing and the various ways in which you fail to measure up. But a lack of self-confidence can be turned to your own purposes if it helps you to take pains, to take care, to avoid glibness."

NOTE: Having a husband who talks you off your self-generated cliff about once a week also helps.

Smart Art

Right after yesterday's blog post about meeting the curator, inspired by my own determination, I called another curator I had been told about by the fabulous Zara Contractor. A little schedule juggling and I was able to meet them both in a slim two hour window in two different parts of town before they headed to their afternoon meetings.

Through sleet and snow I drove (I'm not being dramatic, people; I'm in Vancouver), just me and my little black rental Fiat. The first interview was so successful I nearly cancelled the second. Thank God for my aforementioned determination.

The first curator worked at the Emily Carr University Gallery on Granville Island, where some of the best local art gets made, exhibited, and sold. With her twenty-five years of experience in the Vancouver art world, she gave me an incredible overview of the art scene outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery which, being a plebeian, was all I had known before (and relied heavily on in my novel). A nice little coincidence was when I discovered she had been one of the founding members of Artspeak, which as you all know was my original destination today and where I headed next.

At Artspeak, I realized that persistence really pays. It was there, thanks to an incredibly helpful curator who spent nearly an hour answering my haphazard questions, (and, it must be said, her co-worker, the artist who helped me figure out how to use the voice recorder on the ipad I pilfered from my hubby) that I found the pulse of the Vancouver art scene.

Now, like any good writer, I have to stare into the distance as the sun presumably goes down behind a thicket of clouds and the rain continues to fog up the coffee shop windows and think about what it all means to me and to my book.

Working Vacation

Avid readers recall from a previous blog entry my main character is breaking into the world of curating, a world I know squat about. You may also recall last year I happened upon a wonderful curator in the Bay Area who spent her lunch hour filling me in on my two page list of questions. It was a good start but I always knew I had to check the Canadian scene.

Last week, I scoured the Vancouver Art Gallery's website and left a message for the chief curator, hardly believing my own ballsiness as I did. She called me back within hours and with shaking hands (she was CHIEF curator), I made frantic notes as she graciously answered as many questions as I dared ask her. She spent eleven glorious minutes on the phone with me but she left me with about 150 more questions than I'd had before.

It's a tricky business, this: on one hand, I can't learn an entire profession in a month or two or six, on the other, I have to. I could look up a a university website for the curator program, but I don't care if Theory of Composition is a prerequisite for Theory of Space. I need inside knowledge, salacious tid bits, scandals, you know, the good stuff.

I'm in Vancouver this week, supposedly on vacation. My first afternoon here, I googled local galleries and started cold calling.

Tomorrow at noon, I have an interview at Artspeak in Gastown.

70 Solutions to Writing Mistakes: A great resource

Last night at Bombay Jam , I was talking to a regular and it turned out she writes too. It made me wonder how many other dabblers in writing there are out there. For those of you who are interested, here is an awesome resource I just came upon, which is so extensive, it will help no matter which stage of writing you may be in.

The link is: http://media2.fwpublications.com/WDG/Z5001_70_Solutions.pdf?et_mid=535038&rid=233465641

If it doesn't work, you can go to Chuck Sambuchino's Guide to Literary Agents blog and download it for free, it's the really big bar on the very top.

Have fun!