This past week has been devoted to doing another round of proofing for RUINPORN, which is getting closer to finished and a wrap and will be ready for release come just after Thanksgiving. It feels important it come out in November, however cursed with badness /blessed with goodness this coin-toss month always seems to be. I did one pass as an editor looking for anything amiss in the text, than another eagle eyed one looking for misalignments, punctuation anomalies, font weirdness, and any margin shifts. This is similar to my final pass on chapbooks before saving that final file. I'm confident this latest proof, which arrived today, probably only needs one or two changes and I am ready to order the first batch. I've already started sharing teasers for the book on Instagram, and next week, time willing I will be making some reels and a book trailer, as well as promo graphics.
This is the longest full-length I've ever published, topping out at just over 150 pages. It seemed strangely unwieldy, and I almost removed one section before putting it back in place. My slimmest books are the book length project manuscripts like THE SHARED PROPERTIES OF WATER AND STARS and GIRL SHOW, both of which are just over 50 pages total. Everything else falls in between, the longest probably being DARK COUNTRY. Of course the borders between chapbook-length and full-length mean less and less. GRANATA was probably only 35 pages of poems with another 30 pages of collages, so a book, but as a manuscript more of a chap. THE POET'S ZODIAC was technically around 50 pages, but always felt like a chap, the printed version saddle bound and handmade.
Occasionally I glance at the books on my shelf, soon to be 15 longer projects, and have to pinch myself, thinking who knew I had so many words in me. Or maybe more who knew I could even get them out. That I could shake the body or the brain or the soul and out would fall so much language. Sometimes I am the girl with her teen bookshelf stacked high with horror novels or the college/grad student whose every surface held a little bit of everything. Poems, fiction, plays. It still seems surreal that I have written so much in the past 30 years. Or that it was published (half by traditional presses, another half my own hand.) Also that there is more to come--a whole other manuscript of smaller series called WILD(ISH) and the longer carnival project , WINTERING, that feels like a sibling book to GIRL SHOW--all complete and just need some edits and a revisit--both of which I will likely release next year. Also another book that the title just unveiled itself for that is about fifty percent written and a couple other projects we'll see if they get their wings.
