AD.


Criminal (test copy) – foto by Smith

Finally finished final edit of book. Took us three years and 23 rewrites. Up until now I had a secret fear the book was not worthy because it kept breaking down, failing here and there. But finally got it all to flow – by the end you want to keep going.

As it says on page 314, “This book exists thanks to Lady. When she first moved in, I started telling her my stories, and she immediately began writing them down. After I ran out of obvious stories, she’d sit down next to me with her laptop and say “Tell me a story.” When that ran down, she started interviewing me to fill in the gaps. She took the twenty true stories I’d written previously and wove them into the manuscript. She also interviewed a few of my friends, then made it all as chronological as possible. After she got it into order, we passed the book back and forth two dozen times, each adding, changing, editing, deleting.”

Criminal
A True Tale of
Armed Robbery, Stolen Cars, Alternative Art, Mainstream Poetry,
Underground Publishing, Robbing the Cradle, and Leaving the Country

by Smith & Lady

3 years writing
60 years of life
=
one book
52 chapters
326 pages
2,448 paragraphs
11,323 lines
103,428 words
112,384 spaces
444,857 characters
pride
&
satisfaction
with a modicum of hope

Now onto the letter of inquiry to the literary agents; then rewriting the non-fiction proposal that has to exist even though the book is already written; and reading Jeff Herman’s Guide To Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents 2010.

To promote the book, Lady frequently reads from it, rather effectively and to robust reaction. One armed robbery and one prison story have appeared in the first two issues of The Delinquent magazine in London, England, while Troubadour21.com/author/smith published five of the robbery and prison chapters of the book. So I know there’s interest, just need to find the connection.

Figure rest of year getting agent, more time for publisher, more time to publish. If reality doesn’t flow right or well, we’ll self publish.

One way or the rudder.


out of the past – foto by Smith

2 Responses

  1. Destined to be a classic! As I wrote in the You Tube description of Lady’s reading from it at Snoetry, “One noted author/critic who read a proof copy has called CRIMINAL “the best underground memoir I’ve ever read – edgier, more engaging and arguably even truer than On the Road, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest combined.”

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