jon_chaisson | I'm a Loner, Dottie, a Rebel

Oh, here's a shock. It's Wednesday and I'm listening to KSCU online playing The 80s Underground show, and now I've just gone and emptied out one of my mp3 players to throw a bunch of 80s albums on there. And it's not the first time I've done it, either...I did it a few times previously as part of my Walk in Silence playlist.

I'd put that project aside to put all my focus on releasing A Division of Souls, and I think it's high time to bring it back. Even if I only work on it on the weekends, I need to pick it back up and get a final draft done. Why? Because I'm aiming for a release of late April 2016.

Why a specific date, you ask? Well, it just so happens that the week of April vacation (do kids still have that nowadays?) in 1986 was the week I discovered college radio.

Yeah, that's right. I've been obsessing over the alternative rock genre for thirty years.

I think I'd better make a big party out of it, no?

[And yes, I'm well aware that I'm going to be releasing The Persistence of Memories somewhere around the same time. I'll try to keep it spread out.]

**

So anyway, what's with this rebel thing? Eh, just something that's been floating through my head lately. Over at Welcome to Bridgetown, I talked a bit about how far I wanted to take the whole DIY process in self-publishing. [And as I'd said there, I don't come to this as a way to make myself believe I don't need an editor or beta readers or what have you, or that I consider myself above such things. I just want to see how far I can take it completely on my own. If I fail miserably, I only have myself to blame, but I've also learned things as well.]

I'm half-jokingly thinking of it as a bit of personal rebellion, really. Not against anyone in particular, but a process that's been in place for decades. There's an understandable bit of frustration in the traditional publishing process -- writing, rewriting, revising, finishing, submission to an agent (repeat as necessary), submission to a publisher (repeat as necessary), finally get accepted, wait in line to be printed, wait for the release date -- particularly the time spent waiting, as well as the gamble that you may or may not even get a response.

Self-publishing has done a lot to minimize a lot of that frustration. Sure, there are a lot of questionable e-books out there, but there's also some pretty nifty ones as well. And on a product level, I'm finding that the novels may not contain Manhattan-level editing, but there's some equally fascinating story ideas. This is where my half-joking rebelling comes in: I'm the punk band that's just recorded an EP using their older brother's copy of SoundForge, done a spot of fine-tuning and mixing, and set it out on the world via Bandcamp. [Or if I really want to date myself, I borrowed time at my buddy's friend's uncle's tiny studio (which actually records PSAs and light entertainment music, and paid for after-hours time by doing their yardwork), made a cassette tape of a demo (and recycled the master reel afterwards) and sent copies of copies of copies of said tape (using a few bricks of Memorex tapes I bought at Radio Shack) out to various radio stations that I found listed in Maximum RnR.]

Come to think of it, I think this is actually a healthy way to look at it, at least personally. It gives me stable ground in which to base my methods of writing and publication, and it appeals to my own natural temptation to avoid doing something the way everyone else does. It clears my mind, and it clears my path, and that works for me.