G.L. Morrison's Blog
February 16, 2019
Event: 2/26/19 Poetry Reading Vancouver Washington
Chiaroscuro Kisseshttps://stores.barnesandnoble.com/eve...
I would like to thank Vancouver Poetry Group organizers (and the staff of Barnes & Noble where they meet) for inviting me to be the featured reader at their monthly reading series.
Copies of Chiaroscuro Kisses will be available for sale at Barnes & Noble. Autographs are optional.
Reminder to my poet friends: The reading is followed by an open mic. Join us to roar or yawp or enjoy those who do.
I would like to thank Vancouver Poetry Group organizers (and the staff of Barnes & Noble where they meet) for inviting me to be the featured reader at their monthly reading series.
Copies of Chiaroscuro Kisses will be available for sale at Barnes & Noble. Autographs are optional.
Reminder to my poet friends: The reading is followed by an open mic. Join us to roar or yawp or enjoy those who do.
February (again)
Once a year, I start posting here again. Spring came early this year. Whether that's because of global warming or that I'm busy with readings, events and hoping to prepare for AWP next month... is anyone's guess.
But here we are in the month of lovers and American Black History, wondering how best to inject the literary in the literary blog.
Suggestion to self. Perhaps, stop writing as journal entries. Maybe essays. Pick a subject rather than ramble.
Virginia Woolf on journaling:
"It loosens the ligaments" (of the mind).
"I note however that this diary writing does not count as writing ...and am much struck by the rapid haphazard gallop at which it swings along, sometimes indeed jerking almost intolerably over the cobbles. Still if it were not written rather faster than the fastest type-writing, if I stopped and took thought, it would never be written at all; and the advantage of the method is that it sweeps up accidentally several stray matters which I should exclude if I hesitated, but which are the diamonds of the dustheap."
Fingers crossed that there be diamonds in this dust.
But here we are in the month of lovers and American Black History, wondering how best to inject the literary in the literary blog.
Suggestion to self. Perhaps, stop writing as journal entries. Maybe essays. Pick a subject rather than ramble.
Virginia Woolf on journaling:
"It loosens the ligaments" (of the mind).
"I note however that this diary writing does not count as writing ...and am much struck by the rapid haphazard gallop at which it swings along, sometimes indeed jerking almost intolerably over the cobbles. Still if it were not written rather faster than the fastest type-writing, if I stopped and took thought, it would never be written at all; and the advantage of the method is that it sweeps up accidentally several stray matters which I should exclude if I hesitated, but which are the diamonds of the dustheap."
Fingers crossed that there be diamonds in this dust.
March 11, 2017
On marketing and early adopter-ism
I've been doing a lot of marketing research these days. (Including web seminars and every strange techno medium.) In part I find it so much easier to promote other's work than my own and I want to streamline the process.
It is a process, not a character flaw. I keep reminding myself. Marketing is not a sin. It's just getting the right stuff to the right people. (Just the word marketing gives my anticapitalist soul a rash.)
I have signed up for a few (too many) things. I tend to be a bit of an early adopter. Likewise an early abandoner. But I love to get in early while I can grab "MORRISON" as a username.
Writers! We should be creative and brilliant at self-promotion... but we tend to hide our books in caves like a geo-caching prize. Only the truly deserving, the devout readers, will ferret it out and find them/us.
It is a process, not a character flaw. I keep reminding myself. Marketing is not a sin. It's just getting the right stuff to the right people. (Just the word marketing gives my anticapitalist soul a rash.)
I have signed up for a few (too many) things. I tend to be a bit of an early adopter. Likewise an early abandoner. But I love to get in early while I can grab "MORRISON" as a username.
Writers! We should be creative and brilliant at self-promotion... but we tend to hide our books in caves like a geo-caching prize. Only the truly deserving, the devout readers, will ferret it out and find them/us.
April 18, 2016
A (sort of nihilistic) Hello
While Projects (Yes, I did mean Projects with a capital P like others may write god with a capital G.) are usually started with a hopeful cheer and infectious enthusiasm, it is difficult for me to approach yet another blog (And horrors! A marketing tool!) with that attitude.
The infection of my enthusiasm seems more like an abscess; a recessed thing filled with pus-filled dread and cynicism.
In fact starting a blog with the words pus-filled seems so unlikely to appeal to literary fans, as to be a nihilistic magic trick. Ta da! Long night of the soul. What's the point of any of you/me/this? Curtain. End scene.
Or it may just be a reminder that I need to find a new dentist.
Which brings me back to why I (and by meandering design YOU) are here.
Hello.
The book challenge (for me acknowledge, record, review the books I am reading is the challenging bit) inspired me. (Trepidatiously.) And a goodreads blog is a good place for those snippets to go (possibly scavenging bits for other malingering blogs).
Also goodread events, convos worth repeating, and any other bookish nonsense.
So "Hello!" We'll see what happens. And if this is my one and only post feel free to say "I told you so". Which I will echo. (But at the moment hope will not be true.)
The infection of my enthusiasm seems more like an abscess; a recessed thing filled with pus-filled dread and cynicism.
In fact starting a blog with the words pus-filled seems so unlikely to appeal to literary fans, as to be a nihilistic magic trick. Ta da! Long night of the soul. What's the point of any of you/me/this? Curtain. End scene.
Or it may just be a reminder that I need to find a new dentist.
Which brings me back to why I (and by meandering design YOU) are here.
Hello.
The book challenge (for me acknowledge, record, review the books I am reading is the challenging bit) inspired me. (Trepidatiously.) And a goodreads blog is a good place for those snippets to go (possibly scavenging bits for other malingering blogs).
Also goodread events, convos worth repeating, and any other bookish nonsense.
So "Hello!" We'll see what happens. And if this is my one and only post feel free to say "I told you so". Which I will echo. (But at the moment hope will not be true.)
