Hittin the ol' dusty trail

Well, all, it's been fun partying (sometimes hardy) on Blogger. But I've decided that, considering long-term needs, it'd be best if I moved my website and all related to it to Wordpress.

As such, this will be the last post I make on Blogger.

To further follow my exploits, please go to www.robertjacksonbennett.com, or to robertjacksonbennett.wordpress.com.

See you on the other side, Ray.

Moving to Wordpress

I've been a bit frustrated recently with Blogger. It may be my own ineptitude with the tools provided, but I've found it difficult to make things look like the way I want them to, and I don't enjoy having to make what are in essence posts permanent pages for all the information about my books and publications.

So I've decided to move to wordpress. I've been told I needed to do this for about two or three years now - basically ever since I became a goddamn writer - but with a new novel coming out, and all sorts of new things in development, I think it'd be wise to face the remainder of 2012 with a fresh face on things.

I won't make the move until next week, at which point in time robertjacksonbennett.com will begin redirecting to the new site. I'll make sure all posts I've made here are retained over there. And starting in, say, March, this blog will begin redirecting to the new site as well.

So, as Poe would say...

Wow

Cartoonist and internet superstar Kate Beaton on the subject of home, and loss.

It's tremendously affecting. I lived in a very small town from the age of three til eight, then a smallish city from nine to ten, which is when I moved to Houston, which is also when my concept of what towns and cities and communities are like began to utterly dissolve. I am still kind of waiting for those concepts to recalcify.

Sometimes I think my ideas of how home should feel is better than how home actually feels: it's an idealism, an idea that can only be seen in rose-tinted glasses. But Kate's cartoon puts those ideas to shame, and I realize I'm very wrong.

I will make sure my son has a strong sense of home. I know my wife certainly does - perhaps these things just spread easier here, in Austin, though it is growing and changing with every passing day.

EDIT: It seems Kate had to take the comic down due to pressure from home.

The third go-round

I’m currently battling a sinus infection, which has gotten a lot better today, mostly because I went to bed at 7:30 PM last night (before even the baby went to bed).

And right now I’m sitting around, thinking about how my third novel comes out in around 20 days or so, and wondering how I feel about that.

You would think that I would have it down to a science now. Hell, I would think that. But I don’t. I don’t know about this one, because this one is different.

Part of it is that it feels like I’ve been promoting it, or at least talking about it, for over a year. This is because A. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and B. whenever I give it to someone to read, they say, “Oh my gosh this is the best thing you’ve ever written, you have to promote this as much as possible because this book is amazing.”

Which is pleasant to hear, because I feel the same way. And I haven’t always felt that way.

I never felt that Mr. Shivers or The Company Man were for everyone in the world. I wasn’t sure if literary circles or genre circles would open their arms to them, because I wasn’t sure if they were the books for them. I wasn’t sure if either books would have appeal to your casual man-on-the-street. When people told me the books were great, and that I had a surefire hit on my hands, I’d kind of wince, and say, “Well, maybe.”

Both of those books were nominated for awards. One of them has won a couple. But neither of them were books that I could just walk up to anyone on the street, stick the book in their hands, and say, “Here, this is for you,” and really believe it.

I think The Troupe is that book. I really believe it. Some reviewers have already started talking awards, but you know, I don’t think I even care about awards for this one. It doesn’t need sales, or having any particular critic say it’s the best, it doesn’t need to be ranked on any site or on any newspaper. Not for me, at least.

I like it. I liked it a year ago, when almost no one knew about it. I like it now, when a couple more do. And I think I’ll like it in five, or ten, or fifty years, should I live so long to see it.

And I’ve never made anything like that before. I’ve never written a book where, once I’m done, I think, “Well, I did it,” and everything afterwards is just... noise.

I’m not nervous. I don’t want to throw up, like I have with the other books on or about their release dates. I’m just here, and the book is here, and that’s the best of all possible worlds, for now.

*             *             *

Turning to more administrative business, I don’t think I’ll be posting reviews as I get them – there’s a place for that, and it’s Twitter – so I’ll do it in one big dump at the start of each week.

There are already a couple of new ones up at the book’s page here at the blog. (Including a blurb from the Booklist review, who gave it a start - hooray!)

And eventually you should start seeing a few at the book’s official website.

Cheers,

Robert

UC Review for The Troupe

University City has reviewed THE TROUPE and given the book a good review, though not so much for the titular troupe:

Magical entertainment like Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Circus of Dr. Lao usually have the protagonist visiting a very strange group of entertainers and becoming changed by the encounter. Robert Jackson Bennett upends the concept. George Carole is a sixteen-year-old, self-taught vaudeville pianist who is searching for The Troupe (trade from Orbit) of Silenus, a series of four acts that move about the vaudeville circuit. He is convinced that their leader is his father. Other strange beings of shadow are also hunting for the act. The four acts are lame; a puppet act in which the puppets seem very alive, but only provide bad jokes, a strong woman bending steel guilders which might as well be made out of rubber because of her lack of charisma; a singer; and a final song that always puts the audience into a trance. It isn’t the acts that are magical, it is apparently the real world. As George gets more and more involved with the troupe, he finds that the world is far stranger than he could ever have imagined and its very fate rests in his hands. This is a memorable tale and I hope it finds award nominations.

It's safe to say that for this month I will be posting just a ridiculous amount of shit about THE TROUPE. This will probably continue for a few months to come, then dwindle into the usual review of the weather, and how I stubbed my toe the other day, and did you see that show Whitney I don't like that show, etc.

Sometimes I wonder if this is redundant. You are reading this blog for a reason, and the reason is likely that you've read my books, and want to figure out what is wrong with me. However, I like THE TROUPE a lot, and feel it is worth being read, so I would probably burn down a blood bank or something to get it in 5 more pairs of hands, let alone blog about it frequently on the internet. So I guess we'll just have to stick it out together.

It's gonna be a fun and interesting time, internet!