Love and Abomination - The Back Story

I know I have a couple of writer friends who would like to perhaps know a little about the process I went through to get Love and Abomination to this point where it is ready to be published. It is also cool just to read about the process as well! There will be a little about the writing process, a little about the editing process, a little about the publishing process, and a little about the promotional process.

I knew from the start going into this that poetry doesn't sell well. I have read countless articles both online and offline telling me that people just don't buy poetry. That is precisely why I decided to go the self publication route. But, just because I decided to go with Create Space, doesn't mean that Love and Abomination didn't see a critique/editing process nor does that mean it won't be picked up by a large publisher in the future. It surely doesn’t mean I am a terrible poet, however, this is my first book of poems, so who knows what you’ll think of it! You’ll have to buy it! That would be pretty cool if that happened. That aside, what was my approach to writing Love and Abomination?

This book has been long in the making. Which seems silly because it is a short book of powerful political poems. I have read through my old journal entries from my angsty teenage years a dozen times searching for book content. First I was just going to publish my journals raw, but after putting those journals up on both Myspace and here at Good as Gay, they didn't receive nearly the feedback or attention they would need if it had been a full publication. Perhaps, that will be another day’s project long from now. (I am playing with surrealism and tying in concepts of feminism and gender. We will see how that goes!)

Many of you also know I was going to publish a book called MascuFeminity. I had been speaking rather ignorantly of that book for a whole summer saying I was pumping out chapters. But what I had was raw content that needs to be fine tuned for clarity by many experts in Creative Non-fiction (CNF.) Plus, after getting angry and punching a computer in, transferring to a new college, and jumping computer to computer to write the rough draft of MascuFemity, the manuscript exists in a couple of jump drives, a couple of computers, and several emails with Aaron in New Zealand. That fell apart.

I went back to the drawing board and decided on a book of poems called Love and Abomination. I assumed that poetry would be easier than other forms. I was wrong. I had to read through about a hundred some journal entries reaching into the most tumultuous and self deprecating section of my soul while dangerously sifting for content that would fit the title and purpose in my head for Love and Abomination. In one read through I simply selected anything that would fit into this concept of discussing oppression and the damages of bigotry. After selecting portions, I had to rewrite these selections and strain out any content that didn't fit well into these boxes I had created for the book. From there, I rewrote sections to make them sound both more poetic as well as sophisticated. Luckily, I had some quotes and poems that stuck out and fit in nearly perfectly without changes. This was nice. Nonetheless, most of the poems were alterations of journal content. A select few poems, however, were recently created and added in as well. So, it is a mix of a little old talent and new talent so to speak.

At this point, everything was still on paper. One evening I sat down and got everything from paper onto a word document. From there, I went forth to put these poems into chapter sections. I didn't like this, but, everyone seems so happy with chapters these days. I hated putting my poems into chapters because I had to box them into categories which caused me to delete fully written poems that didn't fit in. Though, this was another sifting process that ultimately got rid of pieces of poetry that would throw readers out of line with the original concepts. I was warned to keep everything in a certain topic area. But, one of these days I am just going to throw a shit ton of poems into one book just because I can and because I like to reject any form of convention.

Poetry, especially Love and Abomination, has been more for myself than anyone else. (I do what I want.)
I had my fancy little manuscript. My question was who would want to edit a book of poetry about queer issues? Did I want them involved? Would they tell me I sucked at writing and tell me to never again attempt to put pen to paper?

I found out that my friends were more than willing to help me out in the editing/critiquing process for a small fee. First, as originally planned, I will be giving out signed copies of the final product to those who I selected to help me critique/publish. Secondly, any individuals you ask to help you out are likely to send you copies of their own works to be edited and critiqued. To be honest, I loved giving feedback to their projects of research as well as creative writing. I don't mind that at all. It's a small price to say, you pat my back I'll pat yours. Deal was done.

Lastly, going through the publishing process on Create Space is really simple. For poetry, there is nothing easier. It is terrifying how easily one can make themselves look professional. Or, make themselves a fool because they didn't go through the editing process carefully enough. I am praying that there are no errors in Love and Abomination. But it's hard to tell because I like to reject comma rules and finicky details. Poetry is sort of, whatever these days when it comes to structure. It's free like the birds. And I let loose. The only real fear I had was my cover design. To be honest, you can make a good cover on your own with a little research in graphic design. My cover could be better, but, I have seen worse. Plus, it's poetry and again, I am personally not too concerned about it selling. It could be the best cover in the world and still not sell simply because it is poetry. It's also within a very narrow category as well, gay and lesbian poetry. This could either help or hinder its sales as well depending on a number of factors out of my control.

In the end, I ordered my proof and am very satisfied with the end product. Now I am promoting it. I have a couple of means of going about this. I have some twitter tweeps who are on board for Retweeting, some tumblr friends who I am going to ask to promote the book, and a couple of blogs I am going to guest post on discussing both the bigotry Love and Abomination is trying to obliterate. I created a press release as well which I will share tomorrow. (Send an Email to Jacoblogger@live.com if you are interested now!)  This press release will be sent to bloggers, writers, journalists, etc on the queer interwebs. Basically, the more the merrier. It helps to network as much as you can before starting out. I also want to share individual poems on a couple of online forums and on Tumblr both prior and after to the release of the book of poems. There are also several spoken word events I will likely attend as well in the Twin Cities! I am so excited! I will keep you posted - but it's difficult to tell with studying between doing a book launch! Yikes!

Wish me luck everyone. Thank you to everyone who has been fantastic in the creation of this book of poems. It means the world to me.

Again, press release for Love and Abomination is available upon request. Just email me at jacoblogger@live.com ! I am welcome to any questions as well.
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