Fatal Gift of Beauty arrives--amidst the usual turmoil

So, The Fatal Gift of Beauty and Other Plays by Christopher E. Ellis is finally available. Order your copy now from your favorite bookseller. (Amazon has a great discount on it right now, no pressure.)

So the book that would not be published is now published and I would have blogged about it last week, but I had another bout of computer woes. A virus attacked me. It was ugly. I'm still getting things put back together. So much was lost. I try not to think about it.

But The Fatal Gift of Beauty is published. Have you ordered your copy yet? What are you waiting for?

Let's see, what else . . .

Clearly, I'm in a rambling mood . . .

Here's something that I find interesting and unexplainable. As I may have mentioned some months ago, I dipped my toe into this publishing venture with a self-published collection of short pieces I wrote nearly ten years ago for my then home congregation (First English Lutheran Church, Austin, TX). Named after the church's newsletter (The Echoes) and the fact that I wrote for it for 3 years (36 months), Thirty-Six Echoes was a hodgepodge of writings and styles. It is some of my very earliest "serious" writing and as such, I see some places where I've grown, and I see some places that are still some of my best writing. It's probably wrong, but I'm still quite pleased with the line, " . . . and like the travelers on the way to Emmaus, you wish you had paid more attention."

Well, this odd little book (with pieces that were republished in places like The Door and anthologized just pages away from Frederick Buechner in A Voice of Many Waters (I think that anthology is still availably, I'm not sure . . . it was edited by Kay Snodgrass) was sort of created and set aside. I didn't market it because it has all the earmarks of a self-published book---disparate content, quickly and a bit carelessly typeset pages, some design choices I wouldn't make now---and it really was created just to see how it was done. I was gearing up for Able to... and I didn't want to experiment on strangers' work.

But last week, suddenly 6 copies were sent out from my distributor. I have no idea to where or why. I have a slightly unlikely suspicion, but I may never know for sure. It's as if a bookstore was ordering stock of the book. Or someone was buying it for gifts for a group. Very odd. Pleasing, but odd. Unexpected, at least.

Then, there is the copy I had at the bookstore where I'm employed. They had let me order in a couple just to see if it would sell. Well, we sold a couple of copies, and I know who bought them and it was sort of people supporting me because they're nice people. One last copy sat on the shelf for a very long time, though and I suspected I would be buying it myself one day. Except it sold last Saturday. I don't know who bought it or why. But it's gone. And it's kind of cool.

This is, I'm sure, just a strange hiccup. It's certainly not a sign that this little practice book is "catching on" or anything. But it's strange that I watched 7 copies move last week and so far as I know, they didn't go to someone just being nice to me.

Let's hope this carries over to my other published works . . .

That's enought rambling tonight. Next time, I'll talk a bit about what I've read recently. I haven't done that in a while.

Until then . . .