| My Blog |
To follow my regular blog, please visit my
Wordpress blog site, incognitopress.wordpress.com
I try to write a new entry every week or so. I look
forward to your comments and hope that you'll
enjoy the read.
If you would like me to write an article on any
given subject, please let me know. I would also ask
for a small donation to cover my research and
composing time.
Any donations will be much appreciated.
UPDATE: Many of you know that I've spent the last
year writing my book during every spare moment I
have. I've decided to temporarily shut down my
blog until the completion of the manuscript. I look
forward to your visits in the future.
Wordpress blog site, incognitopress.wordpress.com
I try to write a new entry every week or so. I look
forward to your comments and hope that you'll
enjoy the read.
If you would like me to write an article on any
given subject, please let me know. I would also ask
for a small donation to cover my research and
composing time.
Any donations will be much appreciated.
UPDATE: Many of you know that I've spent the last
year writing my book during every spare moment I
have. I've decided to temporarily shut down my
blog until the completion of the manuscript. I look
forward to your visits in the future.
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Elisa Romero Hategan
© 2008 Elisa Romero Hategan www.elisahategan.com
My Philosophy...
Until now, if you chose to be a full-time writer you would face an
uncertain, grueling profession - you could get piecemeal publication,
one or two poems at a time in various magazines, and get rejected
ten, twenty times over for no reason other than the editor’s style
does not reflect your own, or they have an idea of an angle for the
new issue and your work just doesn’t fit in. Not to mention how you
paid your rent or managed to put food on the table.
Where could you go for money? One place you tend to assume
artists can get funding from are municipal and provincial art councils.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the jury members on
those arts committees are completely impartial and don't have their
own preferential biases toward certain rather traditional types of art,
which sometimes leads to favouring and funding stale duplications of
the status quo. I'm not talking about all juries, of course - and it's
not an issue of sour grapes because I have had projects funded. But
sometimes biases do happen. And you cannot always assume that
your writing is crap simply because your project is not
recommended for a grant or an award.
Perhaps it is time to step back and look at the historical context of
self-publishing, especially when it comes to poetry, which is mostly
unpublishable today outside of literary journals. A large number of
writers of the past, including the 19th French poets I looked up to,
had all self-published, then distributed, their work in various circles,
until it “caught on”.
No self-respecting publishing house of the time had published
Rimbaud, or Baudelaire, or any of the more scandalous writers of
later day. But those “scandalous” writers - think Henry Miller, Anais
Nin - eventually swayed, and altered the course of the industry.
When the beat poets of the 1970s made up their own poetry, they
were distributing it illicitly, like political manifestos, in taverns and on
the street, and nobody gave a hoot as to whether the prestigious
Harvard Review published them.
When rappers put verse to song, everybody laughed. They’re crazy,
they said. This isn’t art. Until it caught on.
Always remember that demand is what drives any industry. We are
in a new age, where talent only, NOT censors, will control which way
the industry goes.
Once you have something in print, it CHANGES you. It’s hard to
describe -- it’s as though a process begins inside you, deep at the
molecular structure of your being; your self-esteem unwinds, as
does your realization that it IS possible. ANYTHING is possible.
There are so many talented voices out there, and we are all making
our way through the muck. But at least we are shaping our own
futures. We can begin today to promote ourselves and revolutionize
the world. We hold our destinies in our own hands.
Until now, if you chose to be a full-time writer you would face an
uncertain, grueling profession - you could get piecemeal publication,
one or two poems at a time in various magazines, and get rejected
ten, twenty times over for no reason other than the editor’s style
does not reflect your own, or they have an idea of an angle for the
new issue and your work just doesn’t fit in. Not to mention how you
paid your rent or managed to put food on the table.
Where could you go for money? One place you tend to assume
artists can get funding from are municipal and provincial art councils.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean that the jury members on
those arts committees are completely impartial and don't have their
own preferential biases toward certain rather traditional types of art,
which sometimes leads to favouring and funding stale duplications of
the status quo. I'm not talking about all juries, of course - and it's
not an issue of sour grapes because I have had projects funded. But
sometimes biases do happen. And you cannot always assume that
your writing is crap simply because your project is not
recommended for a grant or an award.
Perhaps it is time to step back and look at the historical context of
self-publishing, especially when it comes to poetry, which is mostly
unpublishable today outside of literary journals. A large number of
writers of the past, including the 19th French poets I looked up to,
had all self-published, then distributed, their work in various circles,
until it “caught on”.
No self-respecting publishing house of the time had published
Rimbaud, or Baudelaire, or any of the more scandalous writers of
later day. But those “scandalous” writers - think Henry Miller, Anais
Nin - eventually swayed, and altered the course of the industry.
When the beat poets of the 1970s made up their own poetry, they
were distributing it illicitly, like political manifestos, in taverns and on
the street, and nobody gave a hoot as to whether the prestigious
Harvard Review published them.
When rappers put verse to song, everybody laughed. They’re crazy,
they said. This isn’t art. Until it caught on.
Always remember that demand is what drives any industry. We are
in a new age, where talent only, NOT censors, will control which way
the industry goes.
Once you have something in print, it CHANGES you. It’s hard to
describe -- it’s as though a process begins inside you, deep at the
molecular structure of your being; your self-esteem unwinds, as
does your realization that it IS possible. ANYTHING is possible.
There are so many talented voices out there, and we are all making
our way through the muck. But at least we are shaping our own
futures. We can begin today to promote ourselves and revolutionize
the world. We hold our destinies in our own hands.