I am reading Ariel Gore’s How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead because, of course, my daily angst is all about how I’m not a famous writer yet. It’s a great book. Read it. You can buy it directly from Ariel herself at Yo Mama’s Bookshop and she will make more money than if you buy it from Amazon or in your bookstore. That way, you are supporting your local artist (or not so local, if you don’t live anywhere near Portland) instead of the evil corporation that is, in this case, Three Rivers Press (a division of Random House, which is also my publisher, and WHOM I LOVE.) I love Ariel’s DIY philosphy which pervades every page of the book. She’s not saying, “Don’t go with the big presses,” she’s simply pointing out the myriad of ways (yes, Ariel, I used the word myriad!) to get your writing out into this world. 

Here’s my problem with books like this one: Now I want to be an anarchist! Now I want to create and print hip zines and declare my allegiance to the underworld! Now I want to become a radical feminist lesbian communist revolutionary and publish things that really change the world!

Only my problem is, I don’t know anybody in the underworld. Unless you count the homeless teenagers I work with every Friday afternoon in San Francisco’s Haight district.

And frankly, I’ve never been good at revolution: I was never into the punk scene; I have always been pretty straight (with some bi inklings on occasion, like when I kissed a girl on the neck and thought, “Wow, she smells really nice,” but that sure never flowered into full-on gay fruition); and unfortunately for my image, I never joined a revolutionary movement (but I am pretty damn sure I would look sexy in fatigues, holding a machine gun. SEE ABOVE & BELOW!).

I’m just this pacifist, who isn’t very radical about it though I kind of want to be; a truly terrible Catholic–at least, any conservative Catholic would be pretty much appalled by my viewpoints which I won’t list here for fear of appalling a number of conservative Catholics who read my blog regularly, but they’re probably all the things they’d guess at anyway, that anybody reading this would guess at; an advocate for immigrants and a lover of all things African except, of course, genocide and kleptocracies; recognized by some as a hippie, others as a lover of reggae & Afro-pop & indie music; and obsessed with studying liberation movements of all kind, especially those that link religion with Marxism, or religion with violent revolution.

Probably the weirdest thing about me is how much I like teenagers, whether they’re dorky, goth, depressed, cool, smart, not so smart, suicidal, druggies, pretend druggies, alternative, mainstream, artsy-fartsy, science-geek, etc etc so on and so forth. The only teenagers I don’t like are cheerleaders, which I have tried to get over so I could like Claire of save the cheerleader, save the world fame.

And that, of course, is all part of Ariel’s message in the end: just be your own quirky self, gravy stains on your T-shirt and all.

Yeah, so I guess I won’t be going the way of radical revolutionary anytime soon. But I am becoming a publisher, or rather, I have become a publisher, and I hope to venture into the world of ezines and zines in the next couple of months, and in the meantime, I keep writing my stuff for publication in traditional formats.

It’s all part of feeding the beast.