Italics are mine

The Tribe

A funny thing has happened over the past few years - in spite of the challenges of living in the quintessencial small town, and thanks to the joys of being an academic and composing a life on my own terms (which includes heading out to far bigger towns whenever I can), my tribe has kept growing. I've always been an all-or-nothing person who don't waste time "half-liking" people - I either will move mountains to help them or I will pay them no attention whatsoever - but only for the past three or four years have I been able to put my philosophy into action and not just attitude.

I've got to say, I really enjoy being an all-or-nothing person. It is very liberating. I wish more people would try it, instead of making big smiles to a person one day and gossiping behind that person's back the next. It's not something I was taught, but rather something that evolved from my personality and ideas I read that intrigued me.

For instance, a chapter in The Success Principles (a graduation favorite) by Jack Canfield and Janet Switzer explains that "99% is a bitch, 100% is a breeze." The idea is that people who are only 99% committed, for instance to their marriage, waste a lot of energy evaluating whether a new opportunity will fall into the 1% of times where they renege on their commitment, even if they don't articulate it in so precise terms. If you think it would be ok to cheat on your spouse if you find the right opportunity, then whenever someone attractive comes around, you have to decide whether you are attracted to that person. But if you decide you'll never, ever cheat on your spouse, then the problem is solved and you never have to waste any energy considering it. (You might decide to divorce, but you won't cheat.)

In my life, this translates into having a tribe of people whom I will help no matter what. They might mess up, they might do things I wish they hadn't done. But if they're part of the tribe, they're my people and I'll fight for them. I don't have to think about it. If I hear they have a problem, I don't waste any time evaluating whether I want to lift a finger or not - I'll start thinking of a plan to make things right. I'll call someone, I'll get in my car - whatever it takes.

Of course, that means I've got to be selective as to whom I let into my tribe. A lot of people, including people ten or twenty or thirty years older than me, prefer to gossip and badmouth while remaining all smiles when facing the person. Those are people who prefer to drag others down to feel better about themselves. I have no place for people like that in my life. I care about people who focus on being the best they can be, stand by their values and help others being the best they can be too in the process. We make a small tribe, but a very good one.

On the Pulitzers

i wish I could focus on the fact that Silent Night, which I will see at the Opera Company of Philadelphia in February 2013, won the Pulitzer Prize in Music but of course if you follow the news in the publishing world, you will know that everyone is talking about the board's decision not to award a fiction prize this year. The decision means big dollars lost for booksellers, as Ann Patchett points out in her op-ed for the New York Times.

It is also embarrassing for the two finalists who are still alive (the third one is deceased), and especially the one of the two whose book has become a bestseller, to be told in such unceremonious terms that their novel may have been good enough to make the short list but didn't deserve to get the prize, even if none other did.

But I also wonder whether readers will notice. If you see a book cover in the bookstore with "Pulitzer Prize winner" embossed on it, you will certainly be more likely to pick it up, but if you don't see such a cover, you may not even think about it - you'll simply continue browsing, and if you really want to buy an award-winning book, other prize-winners will beacon. You might assume the bookstore ran out of copies of the Pulitzer-winning book.

Shrewd businesspeople in the book trade should publicize the list of finalists and ask for a popular vote. This would create demand for all three books. Cities already have programs such as "One book, one Philadelphia", where a single book is selected for a whole city to read and discuss. The Pulitzer brouhaha would make a great opportunity to engage readers in discussing what makes a great book.

According to Goodreads, Swamplandia has a low average rating of 3.17 (over 8,588 votes) while Train Dreams, with 1,007 votes, averages a much higher 3.92 and The Pale King, with 2,227 ratings, averages 3.98 (as of April 19). This suggests Swamplandia would come in third, while the other two are locked in a tie. I will have to buy both.

New Novel

I started writing the new book last week (April 10). I only got about 600 words done - the semester is drawing to a close and I had a quiz and a conference presentation to prepare - but I like to think it's already about 1%. (I routinely underestimate the number of words a novel will have, which I guess is a good thing: if I knew in advance how many words I'm going to need, I'd get discouraged).

It's fascinating to me how I always return to writing when I get swamped with mindless tasks to refocus on what is important to me, even if it's just one page late at night in the middle of looming deadlines. Once the spring semester is over I also want to revise the previous novel and give it some of my attention back. The working title for my second project is Second-hand words. (This is not the final title.) It will be a while before anyone beside me can read it, though!