WHEN WILL "A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA" BE PUBLISHED?

 WHEN WILL “A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA” BE PUBLISHED?

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© January 20, 2012

REFERENCE:

Readers have read the exchange between Billy and Mary with me after completing the manuscript, and have inundated me with when can I get a copy of the book.  This is representative of that reaction:

A READER WRITES:

Jim,

OK, you have me hooked.

When will I be able to purchase a copy of A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA?

Wayne (:>))

*     *     *

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Wayne,

Thank you for your comment.  The book is only in manuscript form. 

You are one of many who found this exchange interesting.  The process of book writing-to-publication, at least in my experience, is a time consuming and lengthy one. 

You, like many others, have been kind enough to write, and will be alerted when and if this manuscript reaches publication.  My sense is that it will not be this year.  Sorry. 

A book tells a story, but the process of scribbling framed in some form finally reaching closure tells a more interesting story.  The operational word is "process" and it has its own denouement. 

I have been trained in both the hard and soft sciences to maintain a focus on process not results, on the means not the ends, as the correct process, and not the reverse of this dictate the results and ends. 

As I write these words, I am still working on process seeing if the story I wish to tell in A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA is the story I am telling.

Once this idea of process and framing the problem (i.e., defining it) was not a radical idea, but somehow we have lost sight of this fact. 

I don't know if you have watched the insanity of the Republican Debates, which reached the bizarre last night, but that comedy speaks to my point and is indicative of societal drift. 

Book publishing, as with everything else, is symptomatic of this frenzied state of affairs, that is, of getting the story out before the story is ready, telling the wrong story completely, the old saw of the cart ahead of the horse, or indeed, appealing to the lowest common denominator in our collective psyche.  Take the debate last night. 

The focus of the debate veered off process immediately, away from “How do we get the economy back on course and more people back to work,” to run off the road and into the ditch with the CNN moderator asking a soap opera question of infidelity to Newt Gingrich, and then compounding this error by asking an equally inappropriate question of Mitt Romney: “When was he going to release his income tax returns?”

Such questions are titillating if the objective is gossip on a reality show, but irrelevant to process when the problem is assessing competence to be president. The media have lost their moral compass and their way, and it is embarrassing for the viewer to see. 

When the focus is on the person and not on the problem, the future is left up for grabs whoever is elected.  This is not very heartening.

Returning to writing, mentioned in that exchange with Billy and Mary was Aldous Huxley's book, "Point Counterpoint" (1928).  I read it 55 years ago when I was a sailor on the USS Salem (CA-139) in the Med, and still have my annotated copy. 

The book made an impression on me showing how much conversation (i.e., process) is the music of life, and dictates outcomes (i.e., results) when it has a palpable focus.  Artists often appear to be going nowhere in conversation, and this book is no exception, but it stuck with me -- they were involved in process and clarification. 

If I have a skill as a writer to that of many other scribblers, I believe it is in dialogue, as I remember the rhythm and yes, point counterpoint to conversations that I have heard over my long life.  Aldous Huxley had a recorder in his head, as did author John O'Hara.  I think I do as well.

Be always well,

Jim.