Matisse in a new book

It's been only two weeks since the publication of the book/catalogue Henri Matisse: The Cut Outs. I haven't seen the book, but its description sounds mouth-watering: original archival photographs of the artist, copies of his cutout works, articles by leading authorities. All this to accompany the extended exhibition of Matisse's cutouts, which started last month at Tate Modern and will last till early September, to be then moved to New York, for more display and more glory.

"Taking the form of a 'studio diary', the catalogue re-examines the cut-outs in terms of the methods and materials that Matisse used, and looks at the tensions in the works between finish and process; fine art and decoration; contemplation and utility; and drawing and colour."

The book has been edited by a group of very talented curators: Karl Buchberg (Senior Conservator, Museum of Modern Art, New York), Nicholas Cullinan (Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Jodi Hauptman (Curator, Department of Drawings, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Their work has done a lot to promote Matisse in the greatest museums of the world.

My Matisse, whose never-seen-before work occupies the nucleus of my novel, The Matisse Puzzle, is placed, chronologically, slightly earlier than his turn to the paper cutout technique. The action of my novel grows around rumors of this original painting executed in 1930, when Matisse spent a short time in Tahiti. The existence of a hidden masterpiece of this importance kindles fires that go well beyond the work of art.
But that's just me. For a specialist perspective on this incredible artistic journey which was Matisse's series of paper cutouts, the book I have just mentioned is an invaluable piece of art history. Worth all the money in the world.

The Matisse Puzzle promises never to doubt Amazon again

Wow! The amount of surprise...
It took Amazon mere hours to make my book available online. I was very skeptical about the whole thing, knowing I had uploaded the file at the very last moment, and the stories people were telling me made me panic a little. But little did I know Amazon was not a thing to fear - well, not in this case, of course.
Now, The Matisse Puzzle is live. I can see it, I can touch it - well, in the virtual sense of the word, of course. Now I have a real object to talk about when talking about my novel. It's no longer a promise; it is a fact

The way it looks, it makes my heart rate go berserk. There are little flaws I can see, like text lines running their own show and breaking where they shouldn't. But I remember having seen that in books professionally handled by recognized publishers. So all in all I'm happy. As happy as anyone can be when their first book has appeared.
Now I can invite all my followers and friends to please click on the link above or go straight to Amazon and purchase the book. You may be in for a pleasant reading surprise.

The Matisse Puzzle, last steps towards affirmation

The Matisse Puzzle has reached Amazon but it’s not visible yet, as the Amazon algorithm is currently processing the submission, as I am sure you know it does. As a consequence of this lack of coordination (for which I am holding myself entirely culpable), I will have to postpone the Facebook launch party reserved for today. It’s not long: only three days, just to give the Amazon machines time to officialize the mobi file.
Please visit my Facebook author page on Saturday 5.00-7.00 pm EST, for two hours of fun in celebration of my first eBook baby.

I am preparing prizes and giveaways and some competitions to get us going smoothly.

The Matisse Puzzle in search for a reading list

I've been thinking about the books that exist without me ever having heard of them. I'm sure many other people have been thinking along the same lines at least once in their life. Every book we read is, unfortunately, another chance missed by all the other books in the world, since the time we spend reading one cannot be given to another.

Simple logic, painful conclusions. But the question that arises is: wouldn't it be easier to have a list of books worth casting our eyes on? It's not just books we don't know, but also books we have forgotten. It happens, doesn't it? Even our dearest favorites get tangled in the dense web of other things we do or think about, and we find ourselves rediscovering a book as if we'd seen it for the first time ever.

Source: Wikipedia

Well, these thoughts have caused me to initiate this experiment in sharing and participation. I would like to ask people who are following me on any of the platforms I am using at the moment to share their favorite readings with me and with others. I am hoping to compose a list of books able to go into the world as a promise of pleasures.
In concrete terms, what I am asking for is not exactly a bare list of names and titles, but rather descriptions, reviews, thoughts centered on books we have read, liked, and considered worth recommending to others. Two or three sentences will suffice. They will show the world that we really care about the book we are talking about; that we've given it a thought; that we've gone beyond the words on the page.

You can come here at any time and post your short recommendation as a comment below this post. The experiment has been announced on Facebook as well, under the event page I've set up in preparation for the launch of my novel, The Matisse Puzzle. If this blog doesn't sound like the right place for you, you can go to this event page, and leave your review there. I am also present on Twitter, where you can find me as @N1ckMarsh. Maybe a 140-character situation is better suited for an experiment of this type. If you feel more comfortable within this limit, then use Twitter to recommend your book.

Yes, I know there are other places where one may feel more motivated to participate in an exercise of this nature. But what I'm inviting you to do is give a little of your time to test the strength of what I like to call "participatory culture": the thing we've all been involved in ever since we've taken the path of Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads etc.
The resulting list will be published on this blog on April 30, the day The Matisse Puzzle is going live. The event page mentioned above will also carry the message of your wonderful contribution, on the same day or (if things go wild - as I hope they will) even beyond April 30.

The Matisse Puzzle in two short stories

Earlier today, I took over A Literary Perusal on Facebook, where, among other things, I offered to give away an Amazon Gift Card to the author of the most interesting short story containing the words "Matisse" and "puzzle.' I did this competition last week as well, if you remember. Jennifer Theriot was the winner that time, and, as a result of her success, she was invited to contribute a material to the present blog. Just like last week, the story was expected to be 100 words in length, or thereabouts. Today's winner, Gabriela Sin, was duly acknowledged as the author of the winning story, but after the end of the contest another story arrived, which also caught my attention. It had been authored by Belle Marie, who was only slightly late.
I decided to publish both stories here, on The Matisse Puzzle blog, where visitors can read them and, if feeling compelled, pass some comments on them.
Without further ado, here are the two stories:

Gabriela Sin

"He was a beautiful Matisse and I a spectator, always learning something new from him. He would never stop being my own unique puzzle to solve, and I his student to teach. No words would need to pass through us, for us to understand what the other wanted. He would always be there for me and I for him. It was at that moment, walking down the aisle in my father's arms, that I knew that the smiling man I saw in front of me would forever be my other half."

Belle Marie

 “You’re impossible!” She threw her hands up in defeat.
“I prefer to think of myself like a puzzle. Put the pieces together.” He trailed off as he wrapped his arms around her and tried to steal a kiss.
“And what? Make a Matisse? Beautifully complicated?” Lily tried to pull away but his warm hold was too much to resist.
“You don’t have to understand art for it to be art,” Luke murmured as he kissed her softly.“I prefer to think of myself like a puzzle. Put the pieces together.” He trailed off as he wrapped his arms around her and tried to steal a kiss.“And what? Make a Matisse? Beautifully complicated?” Lily tried to pull away but his warm hold was too much to resist.“You don’t have to understand art for it to be art,” Luke murmured as he kissed her softly.“Impossible,” she grumbled.“According to you –  beautiful too.”He chuckled as she rolled her eyes. He had won this round. So damn stubborn.

As it's easily noticeable, the two stories are very different. While the first one is narrative in nature, the second one is based almost exclusively on dialogues (and well done too). However, they have something in common: a special clarity and an inclination toward tender sentiments.
Well done both Gabriela Sin and Belle Marie.

Visitors, please leave your comments below. I'm sure our authors would like to hear from you.

The Matisse Puzzle welcomes guest: Jennifer Theriot

Jennifer Theriot, author, so far, of two volumes from the planned Out of the Box series (currently available on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Smashwords) has accepted to give us a quick glimpse at her experience as an author. Jennifer's books, Awakening and Regifted, have been hailed by readers as "emotional roller-coasters," "full of true romance," "full of love, redemption, and the never say die attitude." I asked Jennifer to say a few things about the way she started writing, the things that motivate and inspire her, and the writing she has planned for the near future. And here she goes:

I started writing in 2012. I’ve always loved to read and had just finished the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, which I’ll have to admit I had to read twice to get the full gist of the story. 

My youngest son played professional baseball in the minor leagues and had just announced to us that he was retiring. Needless to say, this left an incredible void in my life; we’d been going to baseball games to watch him play for almost 20 years from little league, to college, to the minors. It was like a very bad breakup and I was desperately in need of a remedy for my separation anxiety.

My start

I realized that there weren’t many books out there written about middle-aged lovers, so decided to give it a shot. This was just what I needed to take my mind off of the baseball breakup! I took a couple of my girlfriends who are voracious readers to dinner and told them about what I was thinking of doing. I fully expected them to laugh and tell me how crazy I was, but their response was quite the contrary. They actually challenged me to do it. Never one to turn down a good challenge, I set out to write. These two friends have been incredible throughout this whole process and we’ve spent many nights on my patio (OOBA on the patio as we call it) drinking wine and discussing the book. We’ve even come up with OOBA-isms, which are sayings from the book and I’ve incorporated these into my giveaway items. It’s so much fun and my mind seems to be working 24/7.

My inspiration

Music is a HUGE inspiration in my writing. I love all kinds of music. When I hear a song that I like, immediately a scene from the book will come into my mind. I try and develop a scene around lyrics to a song that inspires me.

As for a message in the book, I would say that life doesn’t stop once you hit 50. Good sex and romance don’t die once you hit mid-life. Life doesn’t stop when someone you love stops loving you. Women need to feel good about themselves and step ‘out of the box’ in order to live and not merely exist. I’ve had several readers’ email me thanking me for giving them hope and I can honestly tell you, that’s the best inspiration!

Following up

After writing the first book, I knew there was more of the story that needed to be told. I’ve just released Out of the Box Regifted and am working on the 3^rd and final in the Out of the Box series entitled Out of the Box Everlasting.  I’ll also write a follow up novella which will be from the POV of a character in the book (Todd).

After I’m finished with these, I have another series planned, also about a middle aged woman who finds love after heartache.

 

I should not forget to mention that Jennifer won the giveaway competition I organized earlier this week at Sexyways of Reading, a Facebook venue for aspiring writers managed by two lovely ladies who will be on this blog soon, with their takes on takeovers.

The competition had asked participants to write a short-short containing the words 'Matisse' and 'Puzzle.' Here is Jennifer's entry:

Our relationship was a complicated puzzle with new pieces emerging every day; magical and colorful like a Matisse painting.

What impressed me in this short text was its simplicity, and also its ability to articulate in a few words a metaphor that can stand alone as a story.

Jennifer Theriot can be found at her personal website, on Facebook, Goodreads, and of course, Twitter.

Three things I learned while writing The Matisse Puzzle

When I started doing creative writing (focusing on The Matisse Puzzle, of course) I found it did not flow very easily. It seemed like hard work because I was trying to be clever, trying to get the plot right, trying to employ figures of speech that were hard to get at – all this, rather than simply going with a flow.

I was thinking too much, you see? But writing, as I found out eventually, needs to be more and better than endless reflection. Maybe it’s a bit like golf, where thinking too much about ‘getting it right’ is a recipe for frustration.  ‘Have I got my feet in the right position? Have I got the right club? Will my swing go through the right arc?’ These are not good questions. These are nightmares. They haunt you and never let you take a single step forward.

Sleep impediments and all, it took me a while to get into the flow. But once there, I started following the best advice any writer could ever get: JUST WRITE. I wrote and I wrote, sometimes like there was no tomorrow. And in the process I learned things only someone who’s written at least one novel would know. To me, the most important things I’ve figured out are the following three. 

You may have a lot of characters in your novel. Which means, you're going
to have to learn a lot of languages, to be able to address them properly.
Source: Character Animation

They were the guiding lines of The Matisse Puzzle, so I’ll mention them with the air of someone who’s reciting a mantra:

• Get to know the characters as if they were real people. Form a relationship with them, get inside their heads, and ask them to tell you what they are thinking, feeling, and doing. Most of the time, they will answer.
• Visualize the characters in the ‘movies’ of their life, scene by scene, and write down what you see, hear, feel. I found that this was a lot easier than asking things like: ‘This character is this kind of person, so what would they be doing? What would be good for them to do to generate or sustain a good plot?’ The point is, they know what they are doing, because the logic of the text is their own logic. So just ask them – yes, ask your characters as if you were asking real people. Don’t try to be brilliant on them, by employing some formulaic plot devices, which, if improperly handled, risk being clunky and inauthentic. Be natural. Be friendly towards your characters.
• Learn how to inhabit a place that exists inside your head. Obviously, it helps if you have spent some quality time there yourself. But I found that many aspects of my trips were hard to recall after a while. And then let us not forget: sooner or later, in most normal of conditions, memory dims. So one obvious approach is to take lots of photos and videos of the place when you are there. Take them with the view of using them as aids for your dimming memory. Take them like an author who wants to see details, specificities, realities.

The Future King and Queen of England visiting my Home Town tomorrow

I live in Cambridge, New Zealand which is a small town on the Waikato River, founded in 1864 and named after the Duke of Cambridge, who was the Commander in Chief of the British Army. The two really famous Cambridges in the World are in Massachussets, home of Harvard and MIT, and in England, home of Cambridge University. But these days it's the Cambridge of New Zealand that's running the ball.

Tomorrow morning (New Zealand time) we shall be honored by a British royal visit which has not happened since Queen Elizabeth visited New Zealand in 1954. The town is very excited because tomorrow’s visitors are the Queen’s grandson, William, and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, the heirs to the British throne, who are on a visit to New Zealand with their son, Prince George, who’s only eight months old. George has already become a hit with the NZ public, as this is his first major appearance on the world stage, and he has already put on a show for the cameras.

Today the Duke and Duchess were in Auckland, each captaining an America’s Cup 12 meter yacht and racing each other around the Auckland harbor. The Princess won 2 races to nil, so you can imagine the jokes.

In Cambridge, all the shops have been competing with each other for displays of the funkiest tableaux scenes of England and royalty.

These are all my photos. Cambridge looked pretty prepared for the visit.

So tomorrow is the day for a little bit of history. We will be in the crowds to catch a glimpse of the Royals and get some photos. By coincidence we live in Princes St, Cambridge, which is next to William Street and just along from Victoria and Jubilee St. As is evident, the street names of this village were named after Whitehall, which is just along the road from Buckingham Palace and the home of the Cambridge Royals in Kensington palace.

So your trusty reporter will be on duty tomorrow to bring you the first-hand story of the visit.

The Matisse Puzzle has a cover and a date!

It's finally decided. The Matisse Puzzle will go live on Amazon on the last day of the month: April 30. There will be a giveaway, of course, and - if things go well - a blog tour as well. At the moment we're working on touring, so if any of the readers of these posts are willing to host The Matisse Puzzle for a day, we promise to shower gratifications upon them (in electronic ways, of course).
Insofar as the cover is concerned, we have more or less settled on this one, which is very much within the spirit of the book: enigmatic, clandestine, mysterious.

Another thing we'd love to know is whether anybody is willing to review us. Any interested reviewers are welcome to get in touch with us at any time, and they will be provided with advance copies, around one week prior to the publication date.
In the meantime, don't forget to read our sample, and to give us a little feedback (no matter how small, it will shine some form of light on us: positive or negative).

The first 31 pages of The Matisse Puzzle are now online!

The sample we have been promising for some time is finally available for readers to pick up, read, and comment upon. This is the introductory part (first 7 chapters, 31 pages), where things are set up and characters are introduced.

We have used Google Docs to embed the file, which looks like this:

If you prefer a link, you can click here. You will end up in Google Drive, in an editable version of the document, available publicly.

Note:

• There are links embedded in the document (part of the reading experience). Please let us know if you encounter any problems accessing those links.

• We would very much appreciate your comments, suggestions, critique etc., so please come by and leave your impressions.

• The cover of the book will be announced soon, on this very blog.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 1 DAY!

And here we are, one day away from the date we've set up for the publication of our sample. Tomorrow, The Matisse Puzzle makes its first appearance in the world of readers. A little nervous, a little excited, a little relieved.

The first seven chapters of the novel will be made available right here, on this blog, as a PDF, for all the willing readers to enjoy and comment upon. Comments (positive or negative) will be much appreciated, as will be the spreading of the word about The Matisse Puzzle. We are very intent on returning the favor to any blogger, reader, author, social media enthusiast, who's making the effort of mentioning us in their internet wanderings and beyond. The novel as a whole will go live towards the end of the month, at a date which will be made public in due time.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 2 DAYS

Right where they should be. That's where the characters in The Matisse Puzzle want to be found: in places where the name of the "Master of Color" shines with its full force. Paris, of course, is one place, but let's not forget, a lot of the action takes place in Nice. And then there's California, and Tahiti in the middle of the Pacific.

Our novel is at the same time a thriller and a kind of travel narrative; because places to see are often places to tell stories about.
We're only two days away from the publishing of our sample right here, on this blog. April 6, the day we've set up for the event.

How to measure success in self-publishing?

This is a good set of questions to ask: What sails one’s boat when it comes to writing? What makes a writer jump for joy? Is it the money? Solely the money? Or could it be something else? Anything else?

ALLi (The Alliance of Independent Authors) asked this simple question today: “How do you judge self-publishing success?” The question is a pertinent one, because it invites reflection on a fundamental aspect of the profession of writing: is happiness to be found in numbers? One is tempted to answer with a loud Yes. At the end of the day, self-publishing has emerged as an alternative for those who are ignored by traditional publishers and editors: those who have been rejected again and again from the banquet of the ‘chosen ones,’ where they eat the caviar of celebrity and get drunk on the sparkling wine of public recognition.

The business of writing

Because of this rejection, because of being pushed to the margin and regarded with scorn, self-publishing is first and foremost a business. Not that the other type isn’t, to be frank. At the end of the day, success of any type, is measured in numbers. It does come down to thinking with the mind of an accountant, who calculates success in a money-earned-per-time-spent manner. But here’s the point of difference between the two: in the case of self-publishing, the money aspect is at the forefront; in the case of traditional publishing, the money is hidden behind protective discourses of quality, of pride, of respectability, of worth. Take a look at these nouns, and you’ll see how abstract all of them are. So abstract, in fact, one would wonder: does this writer live on pride on toast, on macaroni and quality, on roasted respectability? If people are honest enough, they will easily admit that behind all these abstract notions there’s a paycheque to be cashed. What’s more, ‘respectable writers’ also benefit from the patronage of official bodies. There are governmental grants, politically-backed prizes, institutional commendations, fellowships to die for – all for the sake of the writer who has been growing in the shade of this institutional jungle.

Source: The Minimalists

What of all this is available to the indie author? Nothing, or almost nothing. So the thing about making money is not, as one is often tempted to say, a deceitful scheme, a self-centred, egotistic practice – it is a matter of necessity. Whenever I say this I like to think about Knut Hamsun’s novel, Hunger. That’s the exact place where writing is perceived as a survival technique, as one man’s way from one meal to the next, by means of text production.

Success may be elsewhere

But the question still remains: if making money is what matters, what about the book itself? The three answers published on the ALLi’s blog give an indication that the object we call ‘book’ may have a lot more under its name than just financial joy. Of course, a book doesn’t have the same practicality as a pair of shoes. One doesn’t wear books, doesn’t eat words, doesn’t protect oneself with the spine of a bound volume.

Source: Alexis Grant

The worth of books is in the way they are read. They turn out to be valuable when they change one’s mind, one’s perspective on life, one’s state of happiness. These things, of course, are not quantifiable in money. The book we’re talking about may be a candidate for the Noble Prize; or it may be a poor exercise in the writing profession. But there’s one sentence in this underling that strikes – one word after another word after another: the right sequence, the perfect concoction for the healing of one troubled soul, the mover of one spirit, the inspiration of one mind. And that is enough to change everything. Everything. Kids in one school start drawing the characters in your book; fans send you messages from all over the world. The book (self-published or not) has reached another dimension, where financial gain is only a pretext. It has reached the place where writing is universal. And nothing can beat that thing – we know it; nothing in the whole wide world.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 3 DAYS

Another day, another quote, and the sample from The Matisse Puzzle has reached closer to the date of its appearance on this blog.

Tension is a guiding force throughout the novel. And so is its relatively fast pace, meant to create that itch that makes readers want some more.
April 6: the date when The Matisse Puzzle makes its first appearance in the world of readers, in the shape of a 30-page sample.

The Matisse Puzzle begs the question: Are editors important?

Somebody asked me the other day if getting your book edited is a good idea. My answer, in two words: hell yeah.

An editor means a new set of eyes cast upon the product of your brain. Not only do they read the text from the outside, but they do it the professional way, i.e. by looking precisely for the things the public is responsive to. You may have a very good picture of where the story goes, of the chronological order of your episodes, of the nature, density, and personal development of your characters. But, surprise-surprise, things that are crystal clear in your brain may be opaque as muddy waters in the brain of somebody else. And while it’s advisable to have your book read by friends, relatives, and well-wishing acquaintances, the kind of reading performed by an editor goes well beyond kitchen wisdom or family commendations. And that’s because they read not with the heart but with the mind.

It sometimes feels like this, I know: senseless murderers killing
all that was good in your book. But take a step back and think again.
Maybe they're right every now and then.
(c) Picture Book Den

An editor is trained to see mistakes you fail to notice, even after going over the text for the tenth time. From grammatical inconsistencies to spelling mistakes, and from structural flaws to logical slips, there is an impressive range of things they have their eyes open to.

In saying this, you might want to ponder this: what exactly are you looking for – a copy editor, or a developmental editor? And since the question has been asked, I better try to say a few things about these two.

Copy editors

A copy editor may be trained to do a lot of things with your book. However, they will most likely concentrate on things to do with grammar, typography, punctuation, capitalization, paragraph structure, titles, hypertexts (if applicable) and such things that pertain mostly to the material aspect of your text. In other words, they make sure you look good through your words. The role of a copy editor cannot be in any way diminished. Readers respond often caustically when encountering a poorly edited text, full of mistakes and dirty with editorial inconsistencies. Sometimes, a mere typo gives way to a deluge of malicious criticism, which is very hard to get out of without sustaining some serious injuries to your ego. And so, the thing about copy editors is this: they are vital.

Developmental editors

But there is another type of editors, whose role is of equal importance. Developmental editors are trained to look for things that transcend simple copy. Yes, they will tell you if grammatical mistakes have slipped into the final copy. They will tell you if you’ve used the apostrophe in the wrong way or if you missed to capitalize ‘The Matisse Puzzle.’ But what they are even better at doing is pointing out to you mistakes of a different nature. A developmental editor looks primarily for flaws in character development, in narrative progression, in the chronological order of your chapters or episodes. If you have a character who kills someone at 7am in chapter three but then is found still asleep at 9am in chapter six, you’re in trouble. As with all kinds of self-reading, it is very likely for mistakes of this kind to find their ways into your text. You don’t have to chastise yourself for it. Great authors who are read by millions have gone through similar processes. And because they used good editors, they succeeded only with the embarrassment of having to buy them a coffee for every major mistake found in the text, rather than having to face the rage of disappointed multitudes. If you don’t know what I mean, think of all those websites priding themselves in being the champions of chasing for mistakes in movies. Take that, and apply it to books – it works the same way.

First page of JG Ballard's Crash: a case of editing to show that authors
are used to not being completely pleased with themselves.
Source: LitReactor

So get that editor, no matter what

As Paul Jarvis says in his Write and Sell Your Damn Book, if you have any budget saved for the purpose of this book of yours, spend the money on a good editor. Forget about fancy covers, about paid ads, and other similar money-eating things, which can’t even guarantee any success. Get instead that editor who can give you the peace of mind that the text is safe and sound, and that it can stand the test of avid readers.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 4 DAYS

There is something about simplicity that struck us as necessary to The Matisse Puzzle. And so we decided that the text had to speak for itself. Not through over-wrought metaphors that move the focus from plot to language; not through reflections that complicate reading; not through descriptions done for the sake of description.

The Matisse Puzzle, the way it sits, is a work given primarily to plot. If there's no action, there's no satisfaction: this is the guiding principle of our novel. We wanted the work to be a page turner: one where what matters most is what is about to happen, rather than what has happened. Of course, readers will be the judges of this. Whether we succeeded or not, is a matter to be pondered as soon as our sample is out; which is going to happen, yes, you guessed it, on Sunday, April 6.
Four more sleeps and we're there.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 5 DAYS

We have tried to achieve color in this novel. Local details, narrative bits that undermine the quietness of the patient reader, things that make it easier to immerse oneself in a world which is primarily concerned with color, shape, composition.

And so, five days are left until the publication of the promised sample, which will take place on this blog, on Sunday, April 6. We would like readers who come by to read, judge, and give us feedback. At the end of the day, this is as much a test as it is a sample. Like painters who try colors until they reach their mental representation, we too are interested in finding the right voice, the right niche, the right path that can take us to where readers feel most comfortable.
So don't forget: April 6, here, on The Matisse Puzzle blog.

The Matisse Puzzle and 3 things about self-publishing

Now, when The Matisse Puzzle is almost finished and a sample is set to be released on April 6 right here on the blog, I can reflect (if briefly) on choices I have made along the way. The first and most obvious issue to bring up is, of course, the fact of self-publishing.

From: The Escapism Project

I have decided to go with self-publishing because of a number of reasons. I will be mentioning some of them here, but there are many, many more. I’m sure you know of better reasons why self-publishing is such a good alternative to traditional, print-centered publishing. So if you do, please leave a comment and let’s share collective wisdom the way it works best: through nothing else but sharing.

Control

To start with, I realized pretty early in the process that self-publishing helps me have full control over almost all stages, operations, and work methods. I know I’ve written my book, so there’s one tick for me right here, but there are options out there, on freelancing sites, where people pay for their books to be written by others. Well, the concept of ghost writing is not exactly a new-born baby. It has been going for quite a while, and with considerable success. And knowing how ridiculously small royalties often are for books published via traditional ways (i.e. printed, bound, and distributed through professional booksellers), writing a book for another person may be more lucrative for truly active authors. This means the market is well provided with good ghost writers, who are not always expensive, and who can do a lot of good work. Without the pretention of providing the best solutions, I would suggest sites such as Freelancer, or Elance, which are quite reliable, judging from the large number of users they have acquired over the past years.

Of course, nobody will ever (and I mean ever!) skip the stage of reading the final product and giving it the necessary twists (if such are necessary), to bring the ghost-written product up to one’s own standards. Ghost-written or not, your book will bear your name, and that should be enough of an incentive to make people realize how important it is to check for quality. Plus, as you know, writers are idiosyncratic by nature, and what’s perfect for one may sound ridiculous to another. So if you ever contract a ghost writer, make sure you read everything and put your personality into the book – because you are the one who’s going to face negative critique and bad reviews.

Low costs

Self-publishing is a lot more affordable, not only at my end of the process, but also for the reader. If you aren’t what I call ‘a champion of electronic wisdom,’ i.e. if you don’t know how to format a book, how to upload it to the major eBook vendors’ sites, or how to promote it by digital means, you can go for Fiverr, and get the job done for the price of your morning coffee. Of course, there are things to consider here, since what the contractor posts on Fiverr may be beautiful and promising while it may also fail to harmonize with your profile. But since the user base is already large enough (and growing by the day), I guess it is becoming easier and easier to find the match for your perfect ‘electronic marriage.’ And thus, your self-publishing project gets the right boost at some point. All that’s needed is a little patience.

The problem with Internet resources is that people think everything you find online is delivered instantaneously, or close thereby. Things, however, don’t always behave like that. You may have to try three or four options before deciding over the one that ticks all your boxes. So have courage and take your time.

From: J.T. Geissinger

Affordability

All you have to do is check out on Amazon a title that is available in both eBook format and in print. Often, they are available in both, thanks to the so-called POD (Print-On-Demand) option, which can be contracted from various sources, such as Create Space, or Lulu. Sometimes, it’s ten times more expensive to buy a bound copy, if not more. You can do the maths.

Not to mention the cases where the eBook is available for free, during promotional periods, or thanks to websites specialized in facilitating access to free eBooks. I’m thinking of Project Gutenberg, which has been working since a time when eBooks were not even a daring dream, but the options are a lot vaster these days. Take the examples of free-ebooks.net, ManyBooks, GetFreeEBooks, ReadingFanatic, only to name a few. And notice I haven’t mentioned things like Scribd and its likes, where you get the promise of having unlimited access to eBooks, but only at the cost of a monthly fee (which doesn’t quite make them free, does it?).

My advice

Don’t throw a tantrum if things don’t move in your direction the second you have logged in. At the end of the day, the best creative work is done by humans, not computers. And humans, if you look deep in the mirror, are just like you: made of flesh and bone, busy, easily distracted, pretentious, perfectionists etc. etc. etc. Just imagine you’re working with yourself.

The Matisse Puzzle asks: A questionnaire for passionate readers

We've just created this short pseudo-interview, where questions we're addressing are related to reading habits, but also to the general impression people have about the line that divides fact from fiction (if that line were real or relevant). Readers of this blog, you are kindly invited to answer these questions. Our hope is to create a communal 'reaction' or, in other words, to take the pulse of those who think there's more to fiction than fact.



Our intention is to keep this form going for almost a week, but time can be extended indefinitely, depending on the results we see by the end of this following seven days. The first results (if any are collected by then) will be made public on April 6, the day when we are releasing the sample from our novel, The Matisse Puzzle.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 6 DAYS

Water is essential to the way our narrative goes. It's in the way the parts of the novel are joined together: like waves coming and going. But water is important for other reasons too. Part of the story is set in Nice, a beautiful tourist spot facing the sea. Another part takes place in Tahiti: surrounded by the ocean, facing what Matisse himself painted and what he recreated through sone of his wonderful cutouts.

Important scenes are, therefore, tied closely to water. As in the quote presented here.
And not to forget, we're one day closer to the publishing of our sample (April 6).

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 8 DAYS

We're one day closer to the publishing of the book sample, set for April 6. And right now, we're thinking of the 'Matisse blue.' Of course, ours is nothing like the blue he was capable of. But it's a good support for our quote.

As already mentioned in our previous materials, the plot of The Matisse Puzzle moves easily between locations. The entire adventure, in fact, is centered on this mobility of plot and characters. One of these locations is Tahiti, the place where, like Gauguin before him, Matisse went with high hopes of reaching artistic Nirvana. The blueness of his Polynesia paintings is a testimony to how intense his experience in Tahiti must have been.

In The Matisse Puzzle, characters move from book to the internet and back

Why shouldn't characters live as valid a life as their creators', indeed as real as the way their readers imagine them? What is reality anyway? Can we blur the edges of fact and fiction, of author, character, reader? Can we make life more interesting by pushing beyond the traditional boundaries? If characters step off the page, or jump out of the movie screen, they may very well have a chance to live in the ‘real world,’ rather than the one they have been placed in. What if they want to cry ‘freedom’, and be independent of their creators, and stand on their own feet, inventing their own life, instead of just saying the lines written for them?

Characters popping up in the real world

In Woody Allen’s movie, The Purple Rose of Cairo, the audience in a cinema are watching the characters in a film playing out the plot, the way they are expected to. Suddenly, one of them declares he wants to join the audience and experience real life, and he steps out from the screen and starts talking to a girl he has noticed from his film-set world. 

The film has this strange effect many of Woody Allen's films transmit: the breaking of boundaries between the real and the virtual, between life and fiction. I want to explore this side of the narrative mystery. I think it is likely to fascinate. I think it is likely to make life seem fuller, rounder, better articulated. In The Matisse Puzzle (released in April, this year), we have made an attempt to replicate this strange multidimensional effect.
Another avenue worth exploring is the fact that characters may start in the mind of their author-creator in one way, but every single individual who reads the book has an image and sense of the character which may be different from the one intended.
Is that not a valid definition of existence? Even a character so well known as Jane Austen’s Lizzie Bennett, will have a unique identity in the mind and heart of every fan. So in a sense Lizzie lives in different forms in each of those individual readers. So who can say she is not real, when she exists in some dendrite of each of those brains.

The wonders of the internet are great

Recently, the Guardian ran a story about children’s authors being interviewed by their characters played by child fans dressed up in appropriate costume. This was just a basic Q and A session, but it opens a door to deeper possibilities.

These days, crowd-sourcing and fan fiction sites are used to invite fans to create more characters or more plot lines: in fact as many plots as there are people interested.

Isn't that fascinating?, we asked ourselves while we were creating the book we are about to launch. In The Matisse Puzzle, we want to explore some of these intriguing possibilities. In our plot, some of the characters are fictional, some are fictional versions of real people. Some of them live not only through the book's plot, but through their own blogs, through their own avatars, through their own digital ID's, in which the book (the object) turns out to be insufficient to cover their full complexity. Social media take center stage in this novel, which we hope to be as original as the promises we are making here.
So let us know if you'd like to read a novel of this kind, which explores not only story, but also the media capable of carrying the said story along.

The Matisse Puzzle - COUNTDOWN TO SAMPLING: 9 DAYS

The Matisse Puzzle, no mystery now – is the book I have finished not long ago. It will be out on the market in April. I haven’t set the date yet, since more needs to be done in terms of editing, formatting for eBook, and advertising as well. Everything’s good at this stage. The excitement of debut runs high, but that’s normal – I know. I’m treating it with deep breaths and patience.

While waiting for the last loose ends to be tied up, I will organize a sampling session. I have some buddies helping me on this – just like my fictional buddies in the novel. Fiction and fact get mashed up together, which makes life really interesting. The first chapter will be up on this blog on Sunday, April 6. I will be very much interested in receiving feedback, so please come by, read, and leave a comment. I hope you all agree with me on how important it is for a debut novel to be discussed before it grows its proper wings. So please, do leave your comments here as soon as the sample is up. There will be plenty of reminders beforehand, on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, and possibly Goodreads as well.

Here’s the first flyer I’ve created and distributed through social media.

I'm keeping this in my Pinterest board, Thrillers,
where all future flyers will be stored as well,
along with my favourite books and other relevant pins.

I hope the quote will whet your appetite. If it does, I’m happy to give away some copies of my novel, at a date that will have to be established. There will be more of these little snippets to come, as I’m pretty seriously engaged in the process of making myself and my book known to my dear virtual public.

I am also interested in hearing from people who have ideas for original promotion strategies. Until then: good time to all of those who read and happy writing to all of those who write.

Why the Matisse Puzzle?

A couple of years ago I was visiting my son in Valbonne in the South of France. I spent a couple of days in Nice and went to Cimiez - the upmarket suburb where Matisse lived his last years, invented the famous ‘cut outs’, and died in 1954.

Cimiez has a fascinating history with the remains of a Roman ampitheatre and thermae, as well as a17th century Franciscan monastery.

Musée Matisse in Cimiez

The Olive Grove

La Regina

View of Nice

The Matisse Musee is in the Villa des Arenes, a fantastic villa set in an olive grove park which he used to regularly promenade in.  It houses a very particular selection of his works. Opposite it is the cemetery where Matisse is buried. To the left of that is the La Regina palace hotel where Matisse rented an apartment suite with a view over the city. I stood and looked at the same view and sunlight that Matisse lived with. I gazed at the bright terracotta roofs of Nice and the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean.

Out of all the quite different exhibits in the museum I was particularly struck by the extraordinary huge hessian sheets filling two rooms which featured crude cut outs of Polynesian objects from the sea and sky- including jellyfish, seaweeds, fish, seagulls, sharks, and corals.

Tahiti and the cut outs

Matisse spent three months in Tahiti in 1930 in search of fresh inspiration from tropical light and colour, following the path blazed by Gauguin. But there are puzzles. Why was Matisse not inspired to paint a series of Tahitian scenes in oils? Why was he so fascinated by the experience of looking underwater? What was the link between his lagoon snorkeling and his revolutionary cut-outs which date from the 1940’s and are about to enthrall Londoners at the forthcoming Tate Modern Exhibition in London next month?

Matisse wrote in his Tahiti diaries:

“I bathed in the lagoon, I swam around the colours of the corals, set off by the piquant black tones of the holothurians (sea cucumbers).I plunged my head into the transparent water in the absinthe depths of the lagoon, my eyes wide open, and then I jerked my head up out of the water and gazed at the shining totality’

(in André Verdet, Préstiges de Matisse, Paris, Editions Emile Paul 1952)

Henri Matisse, Polynesian Sea

I started chatting to an eccentric in the Museum – a Matisse nut I, would call him. He was dressed in a Matisse-style striped wide lapel suit from the 1940’s, complete with waistcoat. He even had a grey goatee beard. He was obsessed by the Polynesian connection and whispered to me had I heard the rumours of the existence of a secret masterpiece.