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Dec. 30, 2004 It took 25 years to write my novel, The Perfect Song. And now I’m learning more about the book than I ever thought I could. But some background: I grew up on a farm on a dirt road in north central Pennsylvania. It was lovely and lonely. On summer evenings we listened to the bobcats in the swamp below us. A bobcat’s wail sounds like the screams of a woman being murdered. In the summer we slugged hay bales and picked huckleberries on Armenia Mountain, watching for rattlesnakes and bears. I started playing in a band when I was 14 and continued until I was 45. At age 18 I took a job as a regional reporter for a daily newspaper and in the next five years I matured two decades covering fires, accidents, meetings and murders. I was kicked out of one town and threatened exile by my hometown. With another story I split a town into two emotional, warring factions. I didn’t mean to, of course. Burned out by the time I graduated from college, I took a job managing a tobacco store in a mall. This lasted through the Flood of ’72, after which I was fired without notice. I probably wasn’t a good manager, but it was the gypsies who did me in. I didn’t know about gypsies at the time. I found a job as PR director at a planning commission, and after a few very mixed years, became the assistant PR Director at Elmira College. That’s when The Perfect Song began evolving. I was working on it when I became PR Director at Mansfield University. Here’s a quick synopsis of the novel. Mendel, a young, frustrated songwriter, sets out to travel around America on foot to gain experience, learn about nature and write the perfect song. He quickly creates a pattern of writing passionately, then later throwing away most of his compositions. Poul, a shiftless man looking to make an easy buck, comes across some of the pages and gets them to a publisher, J.W. Beasely, an ambitious entrepreneur haunted by his dead father. Beasely recognizes the genius of the work and buys them, thinking Poul is the author. This sets Poul across country in search of the writer. Poul hates nature but finds ways of tracking Mendel without ever being seen. Poul admits that he is not the writer and describes Mendel to Beasely, who creates an image, a myth, and feeds it to the world. Over the years, Mendel becomes the most famous writer in the world, but never knows it. Poul finds riches way beyond what he ever imagined and Beasely becomes powerful beyond his wildest dreams. But the popularity gets out of hand as pro and anti Mendel forces begin rioting around the country. There are plenty of plot twists, a love story, murder and discussion about reality, marketing, media manipulation, among other things. Mostly the The Perfect Song is about the quest for the meaning of life. The book has had good reviews by critics and by readers, and for that I’m grateful. I’m glad it took me 25 years because I’m daily reminded how much has changed and how much as remained the same. I started the first draft on a Smith Corona portable manual typewriter in 1979. Jimmy Carter was President. The big film of the year was Kramer vs Kramer. Both Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Street won Oscars for their performances. Disco reigned with several hits from The Bee Gees and Donna Summer. Rod Stewart hit #1 with “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” Now Rod records pop standards from the 40’s sand 50s. The Knack’s “My Sharona” was #1 for six weeks. The Sugarhill Gang had a hit single with “Rapper’s Delight” which marked the commercial birth of hip hop. Popular TV shows included Charlie’s Angels, Dallas, Diff’rent Strokes, Little House on the Prairie, M*A*S*H, Mork & Mindy, Taxi, The Waltons, and my favorite show, WKRP in Cincinnati. ESPN started in September 1979. The first gay rights march in the U.S. was staged in Washington, DC in October, 1979. Iraqi President Hasan al-Bakr resigned and was replaced by Saddam Hussein. As I moved through the years as a parent and working professional, the The Perfect Song was set aside. When I picked it up again, I wrote on the newest technology, a Smith-Corona portable electric. I thought it was the greatest invention ever! There is no way back then that I ever could have imagined how my final draft would be handled. In the early 90s I put my novel on a computer and stored it on a 5 ¼” floppy drive. The next step in the evolution was a 3 ½” floppy. With each draft I made more progress, sharpened characters, added scenes. And with all the life experience came more depth, more empathy, more of a feeling in the characters of having really lived. During the 1990s, my family and I traveled across country, once for a month, another time for three weeks. For me, it was a chance to see the scenery I was writing about. Last year I realized time in this life was running out and I had to do something with this project that had been so much a part of me for so long. As a PR director and as a freelance writer, I knew how long the process is of sending out query letters, manuscripts, etc. The technology had advanced enough that self- publishing was not only an option but my preference. The product was good and the price was right. With the explosion of the Web and the increasingly efficient technology, the manscript that was born on a portable manual typewriter was now being shipped back and forth over the Internet. I made changes to the cover art through PDF files. I learned that my cover artist was based in Singapore! Life had become digital and global. To someone who spent a quarter of a century working on the piece, the few months it took to bring it into publication was a whirlwind, one that I’ll describe another time in hopes that what I learned – and I made some stupid mistakes – will help other writers. Twenty-five years ago I would not have dreamed of doing what I am today to promote the book. Book signings, presentations, yes. But also Websites, Dreamworks, Fireworks, digital photos, links, meta tags, spiders, robots. . . . But that’s yet another essay . . . . ------------ About the author: Dennis R. Miller has been PR Director at Mansfield University for 24 years. He has numerous articles, short stories and poems published over the years. He writes under the pseudonym of Damon. His Website, www.perfectsong.net contains excerpts from the book, tips on writing, and a weekly journal. The Perfect Song is available at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.booksamillion.com Email: theperfectsong@stny.rr.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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