jodyrathgeb

   The above is "A Writer's Journey," as drawn by cartoonist Stephan Pastis. The guy nailed it, capturing the supreme disappointment that comes when you learn that no one's interested in reading/publishing/representing/buying the results of your hard, hard work.

   Staying positive when the world says "meh" isn't easy, at least not for me. When it comes to the "glass half empty or half full" question, I'm somewhere in the middle, preferring to say, "The water's at the halfway mark." I have bouts of optimism and confidence, but when pummeled I'm more likely to crawl under a blanket or, as in the cartoon, into a bottle until I get my next burst of self-belief.

   Some more secure people don't go through this cycle. They are sure that the world is just wrong not to recognize their talents, and they proceed with confidence, even arrogance.

   Those people annoy the hell out of me.

   It's not that I envy their thick skin, although I admit that I do. It's that they often simply don't acknowledge reality.

   I once applied for a job with an advertising start-up that was trying to get a piece of the pie as cable networks were ascending. I listened carefully to the plan, then asked, "What if it doesn't work out that way? What if it fails?"

   The answer: "It won't fail."

   I left the interview fairly sure that I didn't want to work for someone so confident that he had no contingency plan. (And guess what? It did fail.)

   So, no. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to trash the world when it says "meh." I'll just stay and live with my insecurities, waiting for the next boost to send me into full-glass thinking again.

   Yeah, fill up that glass.

   This morning I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the revival of interest in speed reading. The piece by Angela Chen tells us that most people today read in quick hits, often on mobile devices and in 10-minute bursts, leading to this new interest in upping one's reading rate from 250 words a minute (speed for an average college graduate) to 600 or 700 words a minute.

   I read the article at my usual slow pace, whatever it is, backing up sometimes to re-read sentences or check the first reference of a name. And I had a flashback to an eighth-grade class that was an experiment in speed reading.

   I've always loved to read, but I hated that class, in which a machine forced us through the words and I performed horribly on comprehension tests. I never understood how faster could be better if I only barely had an inkling about what I'd read.

   The WSJ article confirmed what I'd learned about speed reading back then: As rates climb, comprehension declines. This doesn't change in the new mobile speed-reading apps, which present one word at a time rapidly ("rapid serial visual presentation," or RSVP). "RSVP hurts comprehension because it doesn't let people look back at previous words," said a professor who has studied the new technology.

   In addition to the comprehension, I would add that speed reading reduces appreciation for language and nuance. Think our national discourse is bad now? Just wait until speed readers are reacting to something that they only half understand!

   Mostly, though, I find speed reading insulting as a writer. It's like the tour group that buzzes through the Louvre in an hour. "Oh, yeah, I've seen the Mona Lisa." Really? I have my doubts.

   Spinning this into the future, I see this zip-through reading reinforcing the self-centeredness that our technology is already bringing us. As we fail to understand what others are saying, our social bonds and community experience will mean less and less.

   Ha! So speed reading equals the breakdown of society! What do you think about that? Or did you read this blog so fast that you didn't understand that?

    I recently have taken to reading my copies of The New Yorker in the wee hours of the morning. My body doesn't seem to want to sleep between 1 and 3 a.m., so I get up and read.
    It's a pleasant way of dealing with insomnia. The place is quiet, except for cat visits, and I don't get the vague guilt I feel when I take time to read from my "productive" daytime activities.
    I wonder, though, about how the situation of reading affects what I read. Eventually, I read most of each magazine, but at night I seem to be choosing the longer issue-based articles over the reviews and casuals, which I fit in during cooking and lunches, and the fiction, saved for pre-bedtime and stolen daytime.
    Do other people read different things at different times and in different places? Is the reading nook reserved for fiction and the office for professional journals?
    I do know that for me, the memory of certain books is often tied to place. I read Lord of the Rings one summer under the maple tree at the farthest end of my parents' yard, and still think of all those elves and hobbits surrounded by green leaves with blue sky behind. Any mention of Theodore Dreiser brings back memories of the student lounge on my college campus, where I read An American Tragedy with a paper cup of hot chocolate from the Campus Club by my side. And I associate the grislier of Andersen's Fairy Tales with a hospital stay when I was 8 years old.
    Fiction writers always hope that our work takes readers away from their present time and place and into the world we create. I want to believe that someone reading Fish-Eye Lens on a snowy day can feel the warmth of island life. But my own experience doesn't separate the book's world from my world. Instead, they connect.
    Is it like this for everyone? Readers, speak up. This inquiring writer mind wants to know.

    

    I like novels. I like short stories. I read both, and I write both. To me, the appeal is similar. So I'm surprised that the marketplace is so heavily weighted toward one and against the other.
    Ever since I got into this publishing game, I've heard the conventional wisdom that publishers don't like short-story collections. That didn't stop me from writing some, as I enjoy the challenge of crafting a tight tale and drawing full characters with a few strokes. Some of my stories have seen publication, but placing a story is a time-consuming process. I began to wonder if pulling them into a collection would be a good idea.
    I got a big, flat "No" on that from Cherise Fisher, a book consultant I met with during the James River Writers conference. "Publishers don't like [short-story collections] because they don't sell. People don't buy them," she told me.
    So much for that. Still, I have to wonder why.
    As a reader, I go to novels when I can see chunks of time to devote to immersion in another world ... like when I'm heading to the island, or there's bad weather ahead to keep me indoors and idle. Short stories are more of an anytime thing. I like to have one or two waiting in the New Yorker or a literary magazine for bedtime reading or to accompany solitary lunches. A published collection is always welcome here.
    I don't like every short story I read, but when I find a really good one it can haunt me for days, even years. They encourage me to try new authors. I would rather buy short stories by someone I don't know than invest both the time and money on an unknown novelist.
    Am I an unusual fiction reader? Do most readers truly stick only to what they know, Clancy after Clancy or a steady diet of romance, leading publishers to play it safe? Even today, with everyone so time-pressed, would someone rather tackle the 700-page Tom Wolfe than sample eight pages by, say, Jordan Langley?
    Really, I want to know. Oh, I'll continue to write small pieces about island people and their lives, because I feel compelled to do so, but I'd love to learn the reasons that they won't be read.

    I always thought these big-name authors were whiners, complaining about having to go on The Book Tour. I was happy to sign up for various book events, interested in meeting readers and learning about potential readers.
    Then I started actually doing it.
    In Richmond, I figured that the long hours at the card table, readerless, were because my book was essentially a "beach book," not exactly a match for people who weren't going to be into the light "booze, sex and gossip" vibe of Fish-Eye Lens. So I put high hopes on the signings scheduled for me on North Carolina's Outer Bans. Perfect "beach book" territory.
    I quickly discovered all the grumps and grouses of all the authors who have gone before me. My selling space is approximately two feet square - certainly not enough to include Eileen, my inflatable palm tree that just might attract attention. No one who works in the bookstore has read even the cover of my book, precluding the idea that someone might direct a reader my way. There's no bathroom! Oh please, make these two hours go by quickly. I'm not selling here, and these people aren't helping.
    To make matters worse, I am situated right next to a display of books by Stephen King. Right. As if his stuff has any relation at all to my happy paean to island life.
    Then the next afternoon, I am standing around waiting for the previous selling author to vacate the card table so that I can at least try to set up an island atmosphere. A romance novel ... series, actually. She wants to hang on as long as possible to the selling table; I want to put on my trop rock and try to create an island atmosphere.
    So this is what the big guys are talking about with the book tour.
    I survived. Two days, two books sold. Whoop-de-do. But I see the big picture. So I vow the following: When I am retired and looking for activities, mine is going to be going to author book signings and local bookstores. I will acknowledge the authors. I will talk with them and learn their stories. I will buy their books, whether or not I plan to read them. Once I've finished, I will pass on these books and hope that someone else will find a new author.
    That will be my contribution to the ... what? the business? the craft? the industry?
    No matter. I promise,