An idea that’s been gaining traction with me is publishing my new novel, Inventing Vazquez, as a free serialized online novel.
I know I haven’t exhausted my options in terms of looking for a literary agent (I’m now up to about 30 rejections), but the reality is that it’s going to be extremely hard to land one in this economy. So the question facing me is: do I have the will to go through another 70 rejections, or do I want to get this story out, no matter what?
Self-publishing is not an option for me at this point. Not only can I not afford it, but after the nightmare that was having my distributor bought out by AtlasBooks, I don’t know that I want to deal with that nonsense again.
So the alternative is, of course, publishing it for free online. I’ve done it before. In fact, my first ‘novel’ was an online serial, a novel-length Anime fanfic I did way back in the day. It was odd because I didn’t intend for it to be a novel. I started writing a fanfic, thought it’d be a short story, but as the story kept evolving, and my site got more and more traffic from interested readers, the project took on a life of its own. And so, 500 pages later, I’d completed the novel, and amassed an impressive readership.
With Inventing Vazquez, I guess I’d post the first five chapters, promote the site anyway I could, and then start posting new chapters about once or twice a month. And with 65 chapters, I’d say there’d be plenty to keep an audience interested in for a while.
It’d be the best way to tell the story now, and it’s a story I want to tell. As a Latino, I can barely go a week without seeing something on TV or film that insults me. I think most people of color can say the same thing. So this is a story for anyone who’s ever felt like mainstream media treats us like non-entities. And it’s a funny story that, I hope, will put a smile on the face of anyone who reads it regardless of race.
So there’s the sense of immediacy—I want this story to get out, and through traditional publishing mediums, it could be at least two years before it is.
But I have to weigh that against the dreams that I and every other writer holds—we all dream of that first published book (and yes, Solstice was published, but self-published) and receiving that first advance check from the publisher, or even getting that phone call from an agent saying, “I’d like to discuss representation.” Make no mistake, I don’t seek fame or fortune, but I’ve had these dreams too. For as long as I’ve been a writer (the better part of 20 years), I’ve dreamed of the day I became a legitimate author (and I think many people would argue being self-published isn’t legitimate).
Inventing Vazquez, I thought, would be a novel that could get me there. I think it’s infinitely better than Solstice, and has a broader commercial appeal because of its humor. So it’s a difficult decision I need to make. Do I abandon my dream for a while longer and publish a novel online for the sake of telling the story, or do I hold out for the hope that an agent will eventually be interested? Do I take full control over things and publish it online at a price (free) that anyone can afford, or do I trust myself to the universe and hope it’ll help me fulfill my publishing dreams?
The pros of publishing online are, of course, full control, and a chance to interact with readers. That’s one of my fondest memories of publishing my first serialized novel: I got to meet a lot of people online, and chat with them about my work. And, well, there’s always a distant chance that, if the novel gains some traction that way, a publisher might take interest.
The cons are, of course, not being “legitimate,” and not having the tactile reality of a book in your hands, or being able to say the novel you worked so hard on is now available in bookstores.
Well, I guess I have to think on it for a while. Probably harder to do so with all the things unraveling in my personal life, but oh well, have to keep moving forward somehow.
One final note: my band is now named Guru Hissy Fit, and we have a web site with samples of our songs. We hope to start playing out in September. Drop by, take a listen, and become a fan on Facebook if you like.
Peace.
Showing posts with label band. Show all posts
Showing posts with label band. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
New Year, New Goals, and a Little WOOHOO Thrown In
Happy 2009, everyone.
So, it’s a new year. And while I’m not one to make resolutions, I always like to re-affirm my long-term goals and strategies at the start of every year. Like last year, my only real goal was to finish Inventing Vazquez. Which I did. Kind of. I finished the third draft, at least.
This year, my goal will be to complete the book in earnest, and land an agent. And while I was busy thinking in December that I’d be sending out queries this month, I decided to not be so hasty. I’m working on the next round of edits right now, with the goal of not just cleaning up the writing and adding a small wrinkle or two, but of shortening the novel. Because it’s a bit too long, maybe long enough to scare off an agent.
So far, with the first five chapters I’ve edited, I’ve succeeded in knocking off a page per chapter. So if I can do that all throughout, and there are 65 chapters, that’s at least 65 pages I’ll streamline from the final draft.
My plan, though, is to make the most efficient use of my time. Because it can take so long to hear back from an agent, I think I’ll work on getting the first half of the book done, right and proper. Once that first half is done, I’ll send out the query packages, and then get to work on the second half. The hope is that, by the time an agent (hopefully) requests to see the entire manuscript, I’ll have it ready to go. That’s the hope, anyway.
But because I don’t want to take forever, this time I’m setting a very concrete deadline: I want to have the entire novel finalized by the end of March. It’ll be tight, but doable. I think that, while setting artificial deadlines can be counterproductive, in some cases they can give you the right kind of urgency. And urgency is definitely something I feel right now, in terms of getting Inventing Vazquez moving from manuscript to published work. I’m very enthused and confident about this book, and I really want to get it out there. Somehow, I think it’ll have some good things to say, and I think it’ll make people laugh a lot. I hope so, anyway ^_^;
So that’s the deal with Inventing Vazquez. Its sequel, Electing Choi, is now on hold, since I’m trying to punch out at least one chapter of edits per day, but really aiming for two. Next month, I’ll also have to start working more seriously on the query letter, synopsis, and other such agent-related goodies.
So yeah, Electing Choi is going to have to wait. One thing that won’t have to wait, though, is Liliana’s new character design ^_^ For Electing Choi, since Liliana’s character is now older, more mature, and a lot more spunky and confident, I figured she’d need a makeover from her character design from Inventing Vazquez. And so, I thought she’d need to have shorter hair, something more whimsical and playful. And my brother, ever the artist, made a chibi rendition of Liliana in her old and new incarnations:
Isn’t it adorable?! And yes, in both novels, Liliana is in a band, although she’s never the bassist (at least, I don’t think she’ll be). Like I said, this is a chibi style drawing (a Japanese Anime-style super-deformed animation), but I thought it was adorable. So, thanks, Arturo! ^_^
Speaking of bands, The Pineapple Brigade project is definitely picking up steam. The guitarist I’ve been working with (let us call him Gene for now) and I are clicking very well. So much so, we essentially laid down the foundation for an improved version of one of my songs, Frozen Summer. He’s a natural guitarist, and a very good one, and he was able to add a lead guitar track that gave the song a whole new dimension. Plus, in one of the song’s breakdowns, he improvised some backing vocal arrangements, and I was blown away at how well they worked. I was geeked, to say the absolute least.
Even more geeked about something very unexpected. I’ve always said I’m primarily a bassist. But this past practice, I took my electric guitar down to the basement, figuring I could use it to more easily show Gene the guitar notes for some of my songs. I ended up playing rhythm guitar for the entire practice. By the end of it, Gene makes a startling declaration: he thinks that, instead of playing bass in the band, I should play rhythm/lead guitar. Because what I was doing wasn’t only good enough, but it was essentially lead guitar work.
I was stunned, because while I always wanted to play guitar in a band (it’s more fun, I think, and more conducive for my onstage freestyle maniac style of play), I never thought I was good enough. A proven guitarist thinks I am. That’s good enough for me ^^;
So here I am, switching gears musically. I was planning on buying a better bass amp to start off the year, but now I’m researching new guitars, looking for one to call my own. The one I’m currently using is a loaner, a Fender strat, and I think I’ll stick with a Fender, maybe another Stratocaster, depending on what I can afford. I’m pretty excited about it.
Hopefully, Gene and I can soon find a female bassist in the Detroit area who likes punk pop, and then we’d really have the start of something very special. Because it’s part of my whole band dream thingy: to have a female musician who does backing/lead vocals, and give the band a male-female vocal dynamic. Kind of like what Kim Deal did with The Pixies, and Jeannie Lee did for Dirt Bike Annie. I think both those women added so much to those bands.
I guess, between Inventing Vazquez and The Pineapple Brigade, I have enough to keep myself busy with. Still not sure that I’ll be able to start that e-zine, but I’m not discounting the possibility yet. I still think there would be some very good benefits to doing so, especially as I ramp up my literary agent search. We’ll see, I guess.
And, oh, one last, unrelated thing. Don’t ask why, considering there was no regional sense for me rooting for them (I was born and raised in NYC) ever since I was old enough to understand football. And it made no sense that, as a kid tossing a football around, I pretended I was Neil Lomax instead of, say, Phil Simms or Richard Todd. But that’s how it worked out, and I’ve remained loyal to my team throughout all the ups and downs, but mostly downs. And every year, despite everything, I would insist, this was our year. This was the year this team surprised everyone and went all the way. And every year, I’ve had to content myself with our usual mantra of, “Wait till next year,” and look forward to Draft Day and the top pick we’d be getting that would take us to the Super Bowl next year.
Now, having said all that, please forgive this following outburst.
Ahem.
GO ARIZONA CARDINALS!!! WOOHOOO!!!! ONE MORE WIN, AND WE’RE IN THE SUPER BOWL!!! And then I can NON-facetiously say, “WOOHOO!! CARDINALS, SUPER BOWL BOUND!!! WOOO!” ^^;
I dare anyone to say I’m a bandwagon jumper. Really. Go ahead. Just try it ^_^ I’ll refer you to my friends, who regularly mocked me during fantasy football for filling my rosters with Cardinal players. Or my girlfriend, who makes fun of me for liking a team I had no regional reason for liking just because they had a cute cardinal on their helmet.
So, to the Arizona Cardinals, good luck this Sunday! No matter what happens, you’ve already made this lifelong (if incomprehensible) Cardinals fan giddy and half-insane with happiness.
GO CARDS! WOO!
So, it’s a new year. And while I’m not one to make resolutions, I always like to re-affirm my long-term goals and strategies at the start of every year. Like last year, my only real goal was to finish Inventing Vazquez. Which I did. Kind of. I finished the third draft, at least.
This year, my goal will be to complete the book in earnest, and land an agent. And while I was busy thinking in December that I’d be sending out queries this month, I decided to not be so hasty. I’m working on the next round of edits right now, with the goal of not just cleaning up the writing and adding a small wrinkle or two, but of shortening the novel. Because it’s a bit too long, maybe long enough to scare off an agent.
So far, with the first five chapters I’ve edited, I’ve succeeded in knocking off a page per chapter. So if I can do that all throughout, and there are 65 chapters, that’s at least 65 pages I’ll streamline from the final draft.
My plan, though, is to make the most efficient use of my time. Because it can take so long to hear back from an agent, I think I’ll work on getting the first half of the book done, right and proper. Once that first half is done, I’ll send out the query packages, and then get to work on the second half. The hope is that, by the time an agent (hopefully) requests to see the entire manuscript, I’ll have it ready to go. That’s the hope, anyway.
But because I don’t want to take forever, this time I’m setting a very concrete deadline: I want to have the entire novel finalized by the end of March. It’ll be tight, but doable. I think that, while setting artificial deadlines can be counterproductive, in some cases they can give you the right kind of urgency. And urgency is definitely something I feel right now, in terms of getting Inventing Vazquez moving from manuscript to published work. I’m very enthused and confident about this book, and I really want to get it out there. Somehow, I think it’ll have some good things to say, and I think it’ll make people laugh a lot. I hope so, anyway ^_^;
So that’s the deal with Inventing Vazquez. Its sequel, Electing Choi, is now on hold, since I’m trying to punch out at least one chapter of edits per day, but really aiming for two. Next month, I’ll also have to start working more seriously on the query letter, synopsis, and other such agent-related goodies.
So yeah, Electing Choi is going to have to wait. One thing that won’t have to wait, though, is Liliana’s new character design ^_^ For Electing Choi, since Liliana’s character is now older, more mature, and a lot more spunky and confident, I figured she’d need a makeover from her character design from Inventing Vazquez. And so, I thought she’d need to have shorter hair, something more whimsical and playful. And my brother, ever the artist, made a chibi rendition of Liliana in her old and new incarnations:
Isn’t it adorable?! And yes, in both novels, Liliana is in a band, although she’s never the bassist (at least, I don’t think she’ll be). Like I said, this is a chibi style drawing (a Japanese Anime-style super-deformed animation), but I thought it was adorable. So, thanks, Arturo! ^_^
Speaking of bands, The Pineapple Brigade project is definitely picking up steam. The guitarist I’ve been working with (let us call him Gene for now) and I are clicking very well. So much so, we essentially laid down the foundation for an improved version of one of my songs, Frozen Summer. He’s a natural guitarist, and a very good one, and he was able to add a lead guitar track that gave the song a whole new dimension. Plus, in one of the song’s breakdowns, he improvised some backing vocal arrangements, and I was blown away at how well they worked. I was geeked, to say the absolute least.
Even more geeked about something very unexpected. I’ve always said I’m primarily a bassist. But this past practice, I took my electric guitar down to the basement, figuring I could use it to more easily show Gene the guitar notes for some of my songs. I ended up playing rhythm guitar for the entire practice. By the end of it, Gene makes a startling declaration: he thinks that, instead of playing bass in the band, I should play rhythm/lead guitar. Because what I was doing wasn’t only good enough, but it was essentially lead guitar work.
I was stunned, because while I always wanted to play guitar in a band (it’s more fun, I think, and more conducive for my onstage freestyle maniac style of play), I never thought I was good enough. A proven guitarist thinks I am. That’s good enough for me ^^;
So here I am, switching gears musically. I was planning on buying a better bass amp to start off the year, but now I’m researching new guitars, looking for one to call my own. The one I’m currently using is a loaner, a Fender strat, and I think I’ll stick with a Fender, maybe another Stratocaster, depending on what I can afford. I’m pretty excited about it.
Hopefully, Gene and I can soon find a female bassist in the Detroit area who likes punk pop, and then we’d really have the start of something very special. Because it’s part of my whole band dream thingy: to have a female musician who does backing/lead vocals, and give the band a male-female vocal dynamic. Kind of like what Kim Deal did with The Pixies, and Jeannie Lee did for Dirt Bike Annie. I think both those women added so much to those bands.
I guess, between Inventing Vazquez and The Pineapple Brigade, I have enough to keep myself busy with. Still not sure that I’ll be able to start that e-zine, but I’m not discounting the possibility yet. I still think there would be some very good benefits to doing so, especially as I ramp up my literary agent search. We’ll see, I guess.
And, oh, one last, unrelated thing. Don’t ask why, considering there was no regional sense for me rooting for them (I was born and raised in NYC) ever since I was old enough to understand football. And it made no sense that, as a kid tossing a football around, I pretended I was Neil Lomax instead of, say, Phil Simms or Richard Todd. But that’s how it worked out, and I’ve remained loyal to my team throughout all the ups and downs, but mostly downs. And every year, despite everything, I would insist, this was our year. This was the year this team surprised everyone and went all the way. And every year, I’ve had to content myself with our usual mantra of, “Wait till next year,” and look forward to Draft Day and the top pick we’d be getting that would take us to the Super Bowl next year.
Now, having said all that, please forgive this following outburst.
Ahem.
GO ARIZONA CARDINALS!!! WOOHOOO!!!! ONE MORE WIN, AND WE’RE IN THE SUPER BOWL!!! And then I can NON-facetiously say, “WOOHOO!! CARDINALS, SUPER BOWL BOUND!!! WOOO!” ^^;
I dare anyone to say I’m a bandwagon jumper. Really. Go ahead. Just try it ^_^ I’ll refer you to my friends, who regularly mocked me during fantasy football for filling my rosters with Cardinal players. Or my girlfriend, who makes fun of me for liking a team I had no regional reason for liking just because they had a cute cardinal on their helmet.
So, to the Arizona Cardinals, good luck this Sunday! No matter what happens, you’ve already made this lifelong (if incomprehensible) Cardinals fan giddy and half-insane with happiness.
GO CARDS! WOO!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Agents, Sequels, and Pineapples. Oh my.
So I finally burned through most of my excess vacation time, and got quite a bit done. I began the process of researching literary agents, and came up with some very promising leads. I drafted both a query letter and a six-page synopsis for Inventing Vazquez. I still have to proof the first three chapters meticulously, and have them ready to go. My plan, now, is to send out the first batch of queries in early January. And then pray really really hard to the gods and the universe that, this time, a literary agent will want to work with me.
I also started the sequel to Inventing Vazquez, Electing Choi, in earnest. In fact, I completed both chapter ones (a little joke there, thanks to the dual narratives that start the story). My goal is to have the first 30 pages of Electing Choi written by the end of December (you know, a page a day, more or less), and so far, I’m at page 15, so I’m more or less on track. And I’m really excited about this project, not just because I get to work again with Liliana and her crew, but because of the plot twists I’m looking forward to writing down.
I’m going home for the holidays, and I’ll probably get more work done there. I think I’ll focus more then on editing the samples chapters and the query literature, to make sure I’m ready to go when I come back home in January. I hope to also map out the ideas and general direction for the e-zine I want to start, and then ask my friends and bro to join in the mayhem and help me get it off the ground. Have to think more on the title, though. The one I wanted is kind of already taken ^_^;
I also had the chance to compose four new songs, three of which I still need to write lyrics for. Ugh, that’s one thing I struggle with, mostly because I never know what to sing about. Heh, ‘sing’. There’s a lie if I ever said one. The truth is, I’m getting more and more frustrated with my inability to sing well. One of my new songs, Room I-94, I did write lyrics for, and I tried singing it. And I couldn’t stand it. I really need to find a female musician/singer to do these songs. Because I find myself hating my own songs just because I kill them with my crummy vocals! ^^;
But things are looking interesting for The Pineapple Brigade. For one thing, it’s now my sole musical focus. Following all kinds of misunderstanding, I was unceremoniously dropped from the blues band I was with on Sunday. Via voicemail. Because that’s the mature way of handling such things. I was pissed for a while on Sunday, not because I’d been let go (like I always said, blues was never my thing), but because of the way it was handled. It really irritates me that people can’t seem to tell you things in person. In person, they tell you things are great, you’re great, hey, let’s stay together, we love to have you, bla bla bla. But when they decide to contradict everything they told you in person, and leave you a voicemail saying, “Yeah, I’ve hired a friend to play bass, thanks,” you realize you’re probably better off not working with them. Dear gods, what ever happened to common courtesy and manners?
Still, after blowing off some steam and leaving that guy a voicemail calling him out for his lack of professionalism, I saw things in a different light. Now I think this is the universe’s way of saying I’m supposed to be working to make The Pineapple Brigade happen. That I shouldn’t have been spending time on a musical project my heart simply wasn’t into. That now’s the time to focus back in on the music I love and want to play live. And I’ve got a great foundation to build on. I have 12 original songs ready to go. That’s enough not just for a set, but for an album. So maybe now’s the time to keep working on those songs, and some new songs, and work toward making The Pineapple Brigade more than just a ‘project’.
The other thing is that I’ve been in touch with a really cool guitarist who’s recently moved to Detroit. While we haven’t jammed yet, I have high hopes that we’ll be able to work together, now that our musical tastes are virtually identical, we’re the same age, we’re both experienced musicians, and we have the same attitude and passion toward music. If he and I decide to start The Pineapple Brigade in earnest, well, it’ll be a critical first step toward making the whole band idea come true.
So that’s what’s been going on. In other words, nothing much, really. Anywayz, stay warm, folks. And remember: you don’t win friends with salad.
I also started the sequel to Inventing Vazquez, Electing Choi, in earnest. In fact, I completed both chapter ones (a little joke there, thanks to the dual narratives that start the story). My goal is to have the first 30 pages of Electing Choi written by the end of December (you know, a page a day, more or less), and so far, I’m at page 15, so I’m more or less on track. And I’m really excited about this project, not just because I get to work again with Liliana and her crew, but because of the plot twists I’m looking forward to writing down.
I’m going home for the holidays, and I’ll probably get more work done there. I think I’ll focus more then on editing the samples chapters and the query literature, to make sure I’m ready to go when I come back home in January. I hope to also map out the ideas and general direction for the e-zine I want to start, and then ask my friends and bro to join in the mayhem and help me get it off the ground. Have to think more on the title, though. The one I wanted is kind of already taken ^_^;
I also had the chance to compose four new songs, three of which I still need to write lyrics for. Ugh, that’s one thing I struggle with, mostly because I never know what to sing about. Heh, ‘sing’. There’s a lie if I ever said one. The truth is, I’m getting more and more frustrated with my inability to sing well. One of my new songs, Room I-94, I did write lyrics for, and I tried singing it. And I couldn’t stand it. I really need to find a female musician/singer to do these songs. Because I find myself hating my own songs just because I kill them with my crummy vocals! ^^;
But things are looking interesting for The Pineapple Brigade. For one thing, it’s now my sole musical focus. Following all kinds of misunderstanding, I was unceremoniously dropped from the blues band I was with on Sunday. Via voicemail. Because that’s the mature way of handling such things. I was pissed for a while on Sunday, not because I’d been let go (like I always said, blues was never my thing), but because of the way it was handled. It really irritates me that people can’t seem to tell you things in person. In person, they tell you things are great, you’re great, hey, let’s stay together, we love to have you, bla bla bla. But when they decide to contradict everything they told you in person, and leave you a voicemail saying, “Yeah, I’ve hired a friend to play bass, thanks,” you realize you’re probably better off not working with them. Dear gods, what ever happened to common courtesy and manners?
Still, after blowing off some steam and leaving that guy a voicemail calling him out for his lack of professionalism, I saw things in a different light. Now I think this is the universe’s way of saying I’m supposed to be working to make The Pineapple Brigade happen. That I shouldn’t have been spending time on a musical project my heart simply wasn’t into. That now’s the time to focus back in on the music I love and want to play live. And I’ve got a great foundation to build on. I have 12 original songs ready to go. That’s enough not just for a set, but for an album. So maybe now’s the time to keep working on those songs, and some new songs, and work toward making The Pineapple Brigade more than just a ‘project’.
The other thing is that I’ve been in touch with a really cool guitarist who’s recently moved to Detroit. While we haven’t jammed yet, I have high hopes that we’ll be able to work together, now that our musical tastes are virtually identical, we’re the same age, we’re both experienced musicians, and we have the same attitude and passion toward music. If he and I decide to start The Pineapple Brigade in earnest, well, it’ll be a critical first step toward making the whole band idea come true.
So that’s what’s been going on. In other words, nothing much, really. Anywayz, stay warm, folks. And remember: you don’t win friends with salad.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Annie and Her Dirt Bike, Japanese Rockers, a Mousy Latina, and Pineapples
Leave it to me to think that finalizing a 900+ page novel and writing for two web sites and being in a blues band and managing the sales and marketing of Solstice isn’t enough to keep myself busy with. No, apparently, I thought it’d be a bright idea to also take on the task of self-recording a pseudo-album.
But there I was, taking the last week of August and the first of September to record eight original songs and two covers using my Mac’s Garageband program, my good friend Brian’s Fender strat, my Fender bass, and some really shoddy drum work (at least until I decided to let the computer’s drum tracks do it for me) to finalize my so-called album. Oh, and some really, really bad singing on my behalf. But hey, I set it out as a goal for 2008: record the songs I’d written last year, before I forgot them or gave up on them. So there I was, doing just that.
The result was a somewhat rough mix of eclectic tunes, some of them straight-out punk rock, others more indie/alternative, and two odd covers (The Bluehearts’ “Linda Linda,” and an old Spanish song entitled “Ni Tu Ni Nadie”). I consider it a first-draft album, mostly because my guitar work is sloppy, and my vocals, well, they’re just plain bad. But at least I came up with a goofy album and band name for it! The band? The Pineapple Brigade. The album title? Pineapple Diplomacy. It makes sense. Really!
Still, my hope is to some day get a band together, and recording this proto-demo was a first step toward that. While I’m in a blues band now, my long-term goal is to form a punk/pop band to play the kind of upbeat, infectious, melodic music that I just love from bands like Dirt Bike Annie, The Snow Fairies, Deerhoof, Polysics, and GO!GO!7188! And I hope to form a band with people who just want to have fun and go nuts onstage. This isn’t about shooting for fame, fortune, or the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll lifestyle. Certainly not at my age! ^_^ It’s about having fun, and loving the music, and occasionally putting on a crazy, energetic show at the local clubs. Because I really miss playing rock onstage, losing myself in the music, and just thrashing about like it’s no one’s business.
So sometime next week, I’ll finally be updating and setting up my MySpace page (yes, I actually have one), and uploading a few of my original songs, just for the hell of it. I hope, at some point, I can point prospective musicians toward it so they get a sense of what I like playing, and then move on from there. Because it’s so hard to find people out here in Michigan who even know who Dirt Bike Annie and GO!GO!7188! are, and I figure the best way to show them what I mean by ‘upbeat punk/pop music with a Japanese-rock flavor’ is by playing it! ^_^
Anyway, enough babbling about the Pineapple Diplomacy proto-demo.
Still plugging away with the new rewrite of Inventing Vazquez. I’m almost at the half-way point, so I’m confident that I’ll begin an agent search sometime in October or November. Recording the album really did divert a lot of time away from the book, so I’m clamping down and giving Liliana’s story the focused attention it deserves.
Still, it’s an amazingly fun and rewarding process doing this rewrite. They say that a book is always a work in progress, and working on the rewrite, I have to emphatically agree. It’s amazing how many new ideas pop out at you where you least expect them. Ideas for new jokes, quips, or more effective prose in spots you once thought were perfectly fine. I’ve stumbled into new opportunities during this rewrite, finding new spots where Liliana can demonstrate a bit more spunk and snark than her earlier draft incarnations. Although her story follows a sort of mousy-girl-finds-her-spine narrative, her actual narration was always meant to demonstrate she had a lot more brains than her early exploits suggested. Now, I think that’s finally coming out with some carefully-timed quips, sarcastic commentaries, and real-time reactions to the events unfolding before her. I guess time will tell if Liliana and I can pull it off. But I’m absolutely adoring her character, and I hope future readers will too.
Anyway, I’ll be posting my MySpace info soon, in case you want to hear some really rough punk/pop music, and some atrocious singing.
Now, I’m off to build an aircraft carrier or something.
But there I was, taking the last week of August and the first of September to record eight original songs and two covers using my Mac’s Garageband program, my good friend Brian’s Fender strat, my Fender bass, and some really shoddy drum work (at least until I decided to let the computer’s drum tracks do it for me) to finalize my so-called album. Oh, and some really, really bad singing on my behalf. But hey, I set it out as a goal for 2008: record the songs I’d written last year, before I forgot them or gave up on them. So there I was, doing just that.
The result was a somewhat rough mix of eclectic tunes, some of them straight-out punk rock, others more indie/alternative, and two odd covers (The Bluehearts’ “Linda Linda,” and an old Spanish song entitled “Ni Tu Ni Nadie”). I consider it a first-draft album, mostly because my guitar work is sloppy, and my vocals, well, they’re just plain bad. But at least I came up with a goofy album and band name for it! The band? The Pineapple Brigade. The album title? Pineapple Diplomacy. It makes sense. Really!
Still, my hope is to some day get a band together, and recording this proto-demo was a first step toward that. While I’m in a blues band now, my long-term goal is to form a punk/pop band to play the kind of upbeat, infectious, melodic music that I just love from bands like Dirt Bike Annie, The Snow Fairies, Deerhoof, Polysics, and GO!GO!7188! And I hope to form a band with people who just want to have fun and go nuts onstage. This isn’t about shooting for fame, fortune, or the sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll lifestyle. Certainly not at my age! ^_^ It’s about having fun, and loving the music, and occasionally putting on a crazy, energetic show at the local clubs. Because I really miss playing rock onstage, losing myself in the music, and just thrashing about like it’s no one’s business.
So sometime next week, I’ll finally be updating and setting up my MySpace page (yes, I actually have one), and uploading a few of my original songs, just for the hell of it. I hope, at some point, I can point prospective musicians toward it so they get a sense of what I like playing, and then move on from there. Because it’s so hard to find people out here in Michigan who even know who Dirt Bike Annie and GO!GO!7188! are, and I figure the best way to show them what I mean by ‘upbeat punk/pop music with a Japanese-rock flavor’ is by playing it! ^_^
Anyway, enough babbling about the Pineapple Diplomacy proto-demo.
Still plugging away with the new rewrite of Inventing Vazquez. I’m almost at the half-way point, so I’m confident that I’ll begin an agent search sometime in October or November. Recording the album really did divert a lot of time away from the book, so I’m clamping down and giving Liliana’s story the focused attention it deserves.
Still, it’s an amazingly fun and rewarding process doing this rewrite. They say that a book is always a work in progress, and working on the rewrite, I have to emphatically agree. It’s amazing how many new ideas pop out at you where you least expect them. Ideas for new jokes, quips, or more effective prose in spots you once thought were perfectly fine. I’ve stumbled into new opportunities during this rewrite, finding new spots where Liliana can demonstrate a bit more spunk and snark than her earlier draft incarnations. Although her story follows a sort of mousy-girl-finds-her-spine narrative, her actual narration was always meant to demonstrate she had a lot more brains than her early exploits suggested. Now, I think that’s finally coming out with some carefully-timed quips, sarcastic commentaries, and real-time reactions to the events unfolding before her. I guess time will tell if Liliana and I can pull it off. But I’m absolutely adoring her character, and I hope future readers will too.
Anyway, I’ll be posting my MySpace info soon, in case you want to hear some really rough punk/pop music, and some atrocious singing.
Now, I’m off to build an aircraft carrier or something.
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