I only allow myself to buy books and DVDs during even-numbered months. On August 1, therefore—and before 8 a.m.—I opened the catalog whose pages I’d been folding down for several days and logged on to its website. Click, click, click. What did I order? The first thing I’d seen on the cover: a book titled Shakespeare’s Genealogies. It’s all the family trees of all the characters in all forty-two plays. Wow! You really need that kind of resource when you’re watching the history plays. I’ve got a bookmark in my Riverside Shakespeare on the page with the family tree of Edward III, many of whose descendants were fighting (on both sides of the Wars of the Roses) to gain the English throne. The Wars of the Roses are really confusing. History is complex. Even Shakespeare’s version of history is complex, and he was writing a Tudor-approved version of history.
So I ordered the Shakespeare genealogies book, and then I ordered books for my son and daughter-in-law for Christmas, but I won’t name them here because my kids read this blog. Then I picked up another catalog and … oh, goody!— The History of the Pun. Anyone who’s read anything I’ve written, especially Finding New Goddesses, knows how much I like puns. Why shouldn’t there be a serious study of wordplay? Click, click, click.
Then to Amazon and my shopping cart. First, I ordered a 1966 D’Oyly Carte production of The Mikado because I wanted to see the operetta in the Japanese costumes and acting style that Gilbert and Sullivan themselves might have seen in 1885 when they wrote it. I’ve seen lots of Mikados, of course, including one production that used the costumes and sets that were used in Topsy-Turvy, but my favorite is the English National Opera production of 1987 starring Eric Idle (yes, the Monty Python Eric Idle) as Ko-Ko, the cheap tailor turned into Lord High Executioner. This production isn’t faux-Japanese; it’s 1930s English society with BBC enunciation. Nanki-Poo sounds a lot like Jack Buchanan.
I also ordered Terry Pratchett’s newest Discworld novel, I Shall Wear Midnight, and The Annotated Archy and Mehitabel. The novelist in Secret Lives who is not me asks Madame Blavatsky, the talking calico cat, if she knew archy and mehitabel and—
OH. YEAH. SECRET LIVES. What I wanted was to be able to hold the book in my hands on my birthday last month. That didn’t happen. Then I thought it would be a book by mid-August. Well, Mercury is retrograde … so I’m working (really hard) on going with the flow. I used to know a metaphysical teacher who had her own little offset press that broke down every time Mercury went retrograde. Mercury rules communications (among other things), so writers need to be pretty careful during retrograde periods. Well, maybe everyone does. Don’t get upset with stuff. Don’t insult people. Don’t start fights. Be careful what you sign. Be nice to your computer.
I am therefore soldiering on. Last week, I put in two days reading the semihemidemipenultimate pdf of the 650+ pages of the text. Tuesday—10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday—noon until 8 p.m. Sherry had made all the changes from the previous proofread, so I had fewer for her this time. As my authors know (possibly all too well), I’m a Major Fussbudget, so I had more picky changes (commas, niceties of phrasing) this time. When she made those changes and sent me the next pdf of the text, I didn’t read the whole book again. I just checked the changes. And sent her three more corrections.
She told me it was time to go to CreateSpace and set up my account. I went to their website. Have I mentioned that websites make me crazy? What is supposed to be “intuitive” on websites—including Facebook—for most people isn’t for me. I just sit there. “Huh? What am I supposed to do now?” When I phoned CreateSpace and the nice man asked about some little detail, I couldn’t even answer him. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So I phoned Sherry. “I’m on the website and have no idea what to do.” She’s had a lot of experience with CreateSpace. She calmly walked me through it, I sent them a credit card payment, and Secret Lives got its very own ISBN number (which numerologically adds up to 7, the number of the scholar). I think the process I’ve just been through is kinda like Janie’s menarche ritual and Marie’s croning—a rite of passage into a new stage of life. Next Sherry and I talked about the copyright page. We added credits for her and my daughter-in-law for their good work on the book. Then I added urls. First, for the free rea—FREE READER’S GUIDE (I decided uppercase will get people’s attention), which will be on this website pretty soon. Second, for my Facebook Secret Lives page. Third, for this blog. I also updated my Facebook page again.
And now I’m also pedaling as fast as I can to catch up with my editing. What am I working on? A nice metaphysical book by an Austrian author who currently lives in Italy and is trying to come back to Los Angeles. A Ph.D. thesis by a graduate student at Lancaster University in England. This is my fifth Ph.D. thesis from Lancaster in a row. The candidates just pass me along. It’s lovely. BTW, Wallace and Gromit live in Lancaster, but I don’t think they’ve been to the university. A long novel about world issues encountered by the philosophical protagonist and his family as they build a new business. A science fiction novel that I think is heading toward being about the Sumerian gods. A witty book of astrology on the Lady Asteroids (plus Chiron). A novel about a man who frees himself from the corporate life and learns about cosmic mysteries. A history of Bolivia. A book about fitness for which the authors coined the word “intensercise.” (It means intense exercise.) Good for them! I love variety. I seem to have a lot of it. My authors are all smart and interesting people.