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My book: Tabula Rasa

Last November, I participated – for the second time – in National Novel Writing Month.

Just like the year before, I waited till the last minute to take the next step, which was cleaning it up a bit and sending it over to GC for formatting. He whipped it into shape in a couple of hours, and sent it back as a PDF file, which I submitted electronically to Create Space. I fiddled around with cover templates and options and photos and blurbs for a couple of hours, and then pressed the submit button.

Last week I received the free proof copy of my book. It’s a benefit they offer all National Novel Writing Month winners, which is anybody who succeeds in writing 50,000 words in November.

So now I have TWO real books on my shelf that were written by me (I covered up my real name with a knitnut.net business card in the photo, by the way). This book’s way cooler than the last one (Inside Out Pork Bellies). That’s because the type is a little larger, the book is a little longer, it has a photograph in it, and it has a dedication and some blank pages before the book actually starts.

It’s titled Tabula Rasa and it’s 244 pages long. On the front cover there’s an antique picture of a Scottish home care nurse. This picture was found along with two dead babies, wrapped in newspaper from the 1930s, in ancient abandoned luggage in an apartment storage locker in LA. On the back cover there’s a picture of me. Just like a real book!

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Tabula Rasa is a collection of kaleidoscopic fragments written by (Zoom) in November, 2010.

Created during National Novel Writing Month, Tabula Rasa is not a novel. It is simply writing: stories, ideas, memories, character sketches, writing exercises, first lines, lists, snippets and other unpolished gems. Nothing in this book has ever been finished or edited.

This is an extremely rare book. You are holding in your hands the only copy in existence.

Nobody is allowed to read it. Ever.

I’ve read it, and for what it’s worth, I think it’s pretty good. (And I’m my own worst critic, so maybe it’s awesome.)

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