Writing and Being

Change is perhaps the only constant. And resistance to it is about as useful as an expired passport.

The world is changing / has changed more in the last 10 years than anyone thought possible. True, we are still not living on the moon, not traveling by teleportation, and don’t have devices not much bigger than a credit card which connect us to everyone and everything instantly, putting at our finger tips more information and more entertainment than most people collected in their entire lives not a decade ago. Oh wait, we do have the last thing, it’s called an iPhone.

There is not a single thing that exists that doesn’t have at least one upside and one downside. Technology is no different. Right now, musicians and writers – and those who represent them, promote them, and distribute their art — are trying to find some middle ground on which to walk between these sides. Because the upside to technology is that these artists can reach infinitely more people than ever before. The downside is that most of these people being reached want their art for free. As well as their news.

It has been widely reiterated that “information wants to be free.” Apparently less widely known is the accompanying statement, “information wants to be expensive.” If all information is free, then pretty soon, there won’t be any new information. At least none that is worth observing or absorbing. Furthermore, there won’t be any reliable – not to mention instantaneous, real-time — vehicle to get it to anyone.

Or we will live in a world where only the independently wealthy will be able to produce information, music, novels, news. But that doesn’t seem very likely, especially since Madoff stole a lot of those people’s money already.

But I digress. My point is that eventually we will find the middle road. Musicians, along with the music industry, will stumble upon the model that works best for everyone. Writers, readers, agents, distributors and the rest of the publishing industry with do the same. One thing appears certain, when the meeting of the five families is called, technology is going to have a seat at the table, maybe even the head.

What then, is a writer to do in the meantime? Format those manuscripts for ebooks. That’s what. Starting today, Waking Up at Rembrandt’s is available on Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=waking+up+at+rembrandt  (And in case you had to ask, there’s a Kindle app for the iPhone.) Go ahead, download away.

Change is good. Because the other option…

Namaste,
TQ

Henry David Thoreau famously said, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.”  And a friend once said to me, “Shouldn’t he have just said, Simplify?”  I believe this is called irony.  This point is this:  Even when you think you are simplifying your life, you probably aren’t.

It is Spring and several weeks ago I embarked upon the seasonally appropriate purge and clean.  My house is filled with what seems like endless clutter, clothes I don’t wear, and stacks of Runner’s World and New Yorkers I’ll never go back and read.  I got myself into the requisite unsentimental mindset and set out to simplify my world.  But every direction I took ended up in an eddy of some kind.  Have to try on the clothes to see what fits and what looks out of date.  Have to sort through the old notes and photos to see what I can’t let go of just yet.  Have to sort the New Yorkers and save the ones with the David Sedaris articles.  Have to put this book in this room, that one over there.  Have to find the camera to take the pictures of these things so they can be uploaded and then listed on craigslist… You get the point.

This is the story of modern life.  First there was the microwave, then the personal computer and the wireless phone.  Then came the laptop and the car phone.  Now Facebook and Twitter are right on our cell phones.  And we can never rest again.

I’ve set out on this journey of self-publishing and promotion with Waking Up at Rembrandt’s because I want to explore what can be done with these new technologies of viral networking and print on demand, among others.  Unlike most aspiring writers, I had a literary agent almost as soon as I had a finished manuscript.  And I thought it would all be that, well, simple.  But one year, two rounds of submissions to publishers, and an endless amount of waiting in the dark later, I cut the rope. 

For most of us, the world of the big publishing houses still exists behind hundred-feet-tall castle walls, surrounded by a moat.  The publishing world is changing, though, and I want to be a part of this new world.  Actually, as is my aim with my writing, I want to bridge the worlds.    

I believe the things we create on this earth plane are metaphors for the way things already are in the invisible realm.  Like cell phones and the wireless internet, connecting us in ways we are already invisibly connected, but haven’t fully realized.  I also believe in synchronicity, in magically ending up in the right place at the right time.  I am banking on the upside of technology — the ability to reach exponentially more people through online networking, for instance, than I could on my own – to make up for the fact that since joining the ranks of the mobile Facebook crowd, my life is anything but simple.

In the meantime, if you like what you read here, share it with a friend.

Namaste,

TQ