Cruising the Green of Second Avenue

Wild Child Publishing has issued the second volume of short stories in Cruising the Green of Second Avenue. The tales take up where Vol. I left off — bringing back Klein the Biker, Straight Charlie and Sammy the Madman while introducing new characters stumbling over life’s difficulties in the late 60s. Vol. II is an e-book published by Wild Child Publishing that you can download, save as a pdf (Adobe) file and print. Read both volumes and see that life isn't all that serious. Find it at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and other online book sellers.









Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Enjoying the Slings and Arrows

Sorry to have been away for so long, but I’ve been writing. And reading. And socializing. But I had a sudden insight this morning that I’d like to share. I published a humorous satire yesterday on Every Day Fiction. “Brand Management in an Age of Anxiety”, at http://www.everydayfiction.com/brand-management-in-an-age-of-anxiety-by-walt-giersbach/. One of the many nice things about EDF is that the publication invites reader comments and assigning “stars.”

This story garnered 63 comments, and replies to those comments, and replies to the replies — all in 24 hours. Some were quite critical, others uplifting. Some went entirely off the track and was the subject of the publisher’s cautionary notice about do’s and don’ts in commenting. So the insight came to me that reading a story — even a novel — is at heart a Thematic Apperception Test. This psychological test checks underlying motives, concerns, and the way people see the social world through stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people.

Some readers were turned off by the brand names in my story (even though this was the magnet that drew two superficial people together). Others felt the story needed more editing, that they were “fooled” initially into thinking the male author was a male narrator, and that this wasn’t the “reality” they were expecting.

(In full disclosure, let me note that EDF balked at buying the story until I had rewritten it. Their editorial team was clear in what bothered them, and I corrected the copy so it read more smoothly and clearly.)

My response to these varied reactions is that they’re all simply marvelous. It shows the wonderful diversity of our makeup, our subliminal literary expectations, and the “anchors” we drag with us to a reading task.

I often say I write hoping there will be some one — or more — who exclaim, “Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I’ve felt that way myself.” This particular insight into reader kinship came to me years ago when I was editing travel guides. I received a letter saying, “I’m wheelchair bound and can’t get out, so I read your guides and imagine I’m traveling the country.”

Those are the people I write for. That stranger out there who comes into my world. The other critics — often right, sometimes wrong — are vastly amusing.

No comments: