Last week, I was clearly in a bad mood. But I spoke to my mother and cried it all out, and this week I felt much better. I worked five jobs this week, Monday through Friday, including two days in a row teaching language arts at Yorba Linda High School.
The sophmores were reading Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's Dystopian Science Fiction where firemen are paid to burn books. I'd read it once in junior high, and thought it was all right. Re-reading parts of it for class was actually an enlightening experience, because in the two decades or so that's passed, the world has changed and I've changed, too. The setting Bradbury describes, with multiple screens taking over the house, technology taking over social relationships, and lowered attention spans seems frighteningly close to today's world.
Yet I also found it heartening, because Fahrenheit 451 is, beyond all else, a treatsie on why books really matter, why it's important to read and to think. As a writer, one of the things I constantly struggle with is the idea that my writing doesn't matter, that nothing I write means anything, that I'm not really contributing anything to the world. So imaging a world without books really put things into perspective for me. I think I may have to go back and re-read the whole book all over again.
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A few announcements.
The Changelings, my first novel, should be coming out into a very nice paperback copy on June 2, 2015. The listed price is $21.99 (due to distribution costs), but I'm hoping to offer discounts as soon as I figure out how to do it. It's currently available on Kindle for $2.99, but I'm planning a special promotion to make the Kindle version free around June 2nd, so if you can't afford a hard copy, at least you can pick up a digital copy.
To celebrate the publication of my first book, I will be throwing a launch party on June 20, 2015 at Canyon Hills Library in Anaheim from 2:00-4:00. There will be books for sale, snacks, a reading by me, and opportunities to win prizes. I'm still working out the details, but I'll let you know when I know more.
If you can't make it to my launch party (or even if you can), I will be doing an event at the Brea Library with my friend, mystery-writer Michelle Knowlden, on Saturday August 22nd, 11AM. More details to come.
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Today is Mother's Day. Myself, I'm not a mother and may never be one, but for all those people who are, I'm very much in awe of what you do. Once you become one, you never can stop. To my own mother, who is a fountain of love, support, and constant encouragement, I just want to say, I am so proud of you and grateful to have you in my life. I'd never be the person I am now, without you, Mom. I'd never have the strength to take these risks, if I didn't have you in my corner, rooting me on. So thank you, tons and tons.
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