The Wild Energies of the World
And personal writing news
Last Week
Drs. Bart Welling and Jennifer Lieberman invited me to the University of North Florida last week to keynote a conference, “Green Fire: Energy Stories Beyond Extraction.” It was an off-year conference for ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment). “Green Fire” refers to the words Aldo Leopold used when he shot a female wolf and watched the green fire die in her eyes. That moment was pivotal in his transformation to ecologist.
I gave a talk I called “AI and the Wild Energies of the World.” Here’s a small section from the end of the talk.
AI & the Wild Energies of the World
We’re trained away from the mysterium. We’re not taught ways to access it, to reach into it, to pay attention to it. We turn away daily with the reductionism of science away from mystery, until we get more comfortable with linearity, and vice versa, uncomfortable with nonlinearity. We don’t want to be the brunt of jokes, so we join the scientists in chuckling at mystery.
Artificial Intelligence, as we are calling it, is one step farther from the mysterium.
We have a fear of wildness, a fear of the ability to transcend humanness.
We get convinced that the feeling sense—that we can feel with our gut—does not exist.
However, we are not the only beings with intelligence, with communication, with tool-making, with meaning-making, with an understanding of the other. Every living system has a neural network, often larger than our own.
Look at the mycelial networks of entire forests, how fungi on the roots of trees act as conduits for hauling resources. A new science is expanding our understanding of the world and undermining this entire reductive worldview.
I propose to you that you consider, as you try to find the GREEN FIRE of the wolf in your own eyes, that you attempt to tap into the mysterium of this amazing world. You have to become a different person to do this. You have to go to the place where the mysteries show themselves to you.
What you find is a strange, exhilarating energy. It’s an energy that is soul-based, non-extractive, relational, transformative. It connects us with wild intelligence in an ecological restoration of our interior world.
Where you find that energy you find strange, exhilarating stories. Go there.
Pushing Forward on the Book
Today I plowed through a 2-hour Zoom meeting with my web designer, Dana Harvey of Modern Masters. She’s a treat. I had a long list of website edits, and we worked through most of them. I put up a new lead magnet, which may not be live yet since Dana had to connect some broken links.
Dana helped me set up a new email app. I chose Brevo. For some reason, Mailchimp was not an email app that worked for me. My mind rebelled against it, probably because of the cost. I chose Brevo solely because instead of charging by number of emails in a mailing list, it charges by number of emails sent. I have thousands of emails but I rarely send out an e-mailing.
Dana also put the new book up as a product in the bookshop on my website. The book is not for sale yet, of course. It will only be available via Kickstarter for the first couple of months. Right now the button on the website takes you to the Kickstarter Pre-Launch page. Clever, huh.
Pre-Launch Numbers
I checked today and 247 people have clicked to be notified when the book launches. Most Kickstarter rewards are unlimited—paperback book, hardback book, bookmark, book launch—but a few events have limited seats. These early folks will get first dibs both on the book and on the limited-quantity items.
Not trying to entice you or anything, but….
My goal is to have 500 people on the Pre-Launch, ready to roll when the book launches. I have 14 days to go until June 4, launch day, and that means I need 18 people a day. That’s a lot, especially since I haven’t scheduled any podcasts or guest blogs or anything.
Because
I pitched one podcast, and I got rejected, and this thing happened inside me. All the trauma of gatekeeping flooded back—how much I’ve submitted, petitioned, waited to be picked, got rejected, accepted poverty, accepted silence. And honestly, y’all, I can’t handle that any more. I simply can’t handle it.
There’s one way I think I can manage the feelings, and that’s if I submit pieces, applications, and pitches via Submittable. Submittable feels like a third party submitting FOR ME, not me doing it. I can accept those rejections.
But I can’t handle a personal email coming to me saying “no.” The word “no” is not working for me right now.
It’s weird, because some of y’all tell me that you get knocked down when you get a rejection, and I think, “Great job. Now go get another rejection.” Getting rejecting means you’re doing what it takes. At some point the response won’t be “no.” It will be “yes.”
I am not telling you to quit trying for the gated things. If you don’t show up you can’t get picked.
But right now, I’m not doing it. Maybe next week or next month or next year.
How I’m proceeding
So I’m going to launch this new book
with the help of friends.
by budgeting some money for Meta advertising.
by leveraging social media in every way possible.
by boring you to death with it in my newsletters.
by sending out postcards to the folks who have written me letters over the years.
When I asked y’all for help last week, five people offered to do reviews. That means the world to me. I may not get in Lit Hub or the NYT Review of Books or anywhere a traditionally published writer would go, but I have an amazing congress of friends who are at the ballot box pushing levers for me. Thank you all.
Speaking of that, I only have possible venues for a couple of reviews. Does anybody know where we can publish a review of the book?
Maybe 3 of your friends
Since my launch is grassroots, I wish you would think of 3 friends who are writers or interested in writing or want to write AND—this is important—would not be displeased by ideas of mystery and magic. I hope you will tell them about the book.
Below is a graphic you could share, if you are moved to do so. No worries either way. I have a Zen attitude about books, that they get where they're supposed to go.
And the link to KS is
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janisse/craft-and-current-a-manual-for-magical-writing?ref=8kvi84
Thank you. So much.
Other News
Mainly I’ve been singularly focused on getting the text and covers for the Craft & Current book ready for publication. I say “covers” because each edition requires an adjustment of the cover, which has meant many emails to the designer, Erin Kirk.
I bought ISBN numbers, although you can get them directly from Amazon at no cost. I proceeded to mix up the numbers, meaning I used the same ISBN for two different editions of the book. It’s easy to confuse these if you don’t note the assignment right away.
So not only has Erin had to adjust the cover sizes, she’s had to re-do barcodes on back covers. I feel really bad about that. I don’t like causing people extra work.
Georgia Writer’s Museum
If you live near Eatonton, Georgia, I’ll be at the Georgia Writer’s Museum on June 4. Tickets are $20 and benefit the museum. These “Meet the Author” events are fun. That evening we’ll be talking about The Woods of Fannin County, and the museum has copies of the book for sale.
Pop-up Workshops
A writer friend wrote me today and asked me to teach a workshop or do a tutorial on using Kickstarter to launch a book. I don’t know enough yet, but when this KS is done, I will be a flipping expert. So yes on that.
If there are other subjects you’d like me to cover in a pop-up workshop, let me know, because soon this book will be done, my sabbatical will be over, and I’ll be at the chalkboard again trying to help you get where you want to go. And trying to get there with you.
As my dad used to say, “Help thy brother’s boat across and lo, thine own hath reached the shore.”
The part of your talk that you shared really moved me. It is so beautiful and important and life-giving. Thank you!
I absolutely love your comments about Mystery and Wild Energies. Thank you.