fragment and my fresh face

As I was driving down the highway Thursday, a poetic fragment lodged in my head, so I thought to share it here.

Even unrequited
love endures
if sure and pure
there is no cure

William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.

I have been offered a chance to take part in a New Writers' Night in May at a Barnes & Noble, targeted to those who have a book (or in my case several of my books, but not all) through POD publishers. I am split on this. On the one hand it is exposure, but just as I do not like open microphone nights, I am uncomfortable with the label "New Writer"...as would be my readers, my fans, those who have known me in a leadership position in the digital renaissance and those who rely on me as a mentor or a contest judge or contributor.

Sort of like Angelina Jolie being offered a magazine spread as a "fresh face"...er, I love the lady, both for her work with worthy causes and the unwholesome thoughts she generates when I look at her, but she's not a fresh face. She's been around as an actress about as long as I have had books out, and I have been a published writer since before she was born (and, let's face it kids, I am a little long in the tooth to be considered an ingenue).

I think I shall decline. I love expanding my audience but it would be disingenuous of me to take part in the forum. My decision to use the POD route for my last several books is entirely based on my desire to have complete creative control (something no standard publisher has ever offered me). It does hurt distribution and marketing, but I am not playing for rackspace next to Tom Clancy at Safeway. I'm playing for the vision a reviewer in "Imagine" said about my work years ago, that "I have no doubt that 500 years from now a young man will woo his lady fair with the words of this poet".

That's my plane of existence. I think I'll stay loyal to it.