Nov 28 2008
When I am an Old Woman….
There are not very many books that really stick with you. But recently, after I had a very bad week, I asked a fried to lend me some books. And one of them was When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple, edited by Sandra Martz. And it was like meeting an old friend.
I read this book back as a teen and it had an impact on me then although I don’t know really what it was. The idea of being older was something I looked forward to then–just to get out of the hell of high school. The thought of eventual death was some terrifying but distant horizon. The idea of me, personally, being old was somehow absent from my world and this anthology was a kind of frank but gentle introduction to the idea.
Reading it it again in my mid-thirties feels different but again this book is so vivid to me. Being ‘old’ feels closer now, not imminent, but closer. I think that in this culture it is hard for most woman, myself included, to look forward to being old. But through this collection there is a feeling of the naturalness, the calm inevitability of being old and the diversity of that experience for women.
Reading now I feel the pieces written by young women about older women sometimes have a slight air of pretension to them, but in general they combine realism with an understand of being old as… just being old. Not better than being young, or middle-aged–and not worse. Just a place that we go and some snapshots of what it is like to be there from both the point of view of outside observers and old women themselves.
It is so rare to find a book that is about understanding and accepting, but not mindlessly glorifying or sugar-coating–that is positive without being cloying. I don’t know why this balance seems so hard to find. Whenever I hear something like: “60 is the new 40″ I think: what they hell does that mean? 60 is 60. What it means to be 60 may have changed just like everything else does over time, but what of it? We can learn to think different about that life stage, I am sure. No color is ever really the new black, and no age is ever some other age–and saying so seems to me to spring from a denial of aging, not a positive outlook on its new possibilities.
And even disregarding the topic of the book there is something about its tone that I think speaks to me. I have said to several people recently that I think someone needs to write a book of positive affirmations for cynical bastards. I am a positive person, but it is a practical positivism. I try to be a good person, through my work I try to make the world even just a tiny bit better, I enjoy my leisure activities and appreciate my successes, and I value so much about the world and am (as I should be on this day) thankful for my lot. I am a very fortunate person and I try, in my own way and probably not as much as I could, to help others.
But I do not believe in a positivism that glosses of realities, risks, the possibility of failure or the existence of dangers and obstacles in the world. I do not thinking meaning well substitutes and any way for doing good. And not being a saint, or someone given to extremes, I generally aim to do ‘tiny acts of goodness’–like providing information about small presses to authors through my website ERECsite.com.
But so often when I ask questions or give information, like mentioning that a certain small publisher might have rather limited abilities when it comes to selling books or is doing something that some authors might find counter to their own ethics to some degree (that determination being up to them), this is characterised as negative at best–and even jealous, spiteful, mean, witch-hunting and McCarthy-istic. And there does seem, to me, to be a gendered tone to it along the line of ‘good girls know that if they can’t say something nice they shouldn’t say anything at all’. (Except there also seems to be a high level of hypocrisy in the ad hominem responses.)
But all I want is for other authors to meet their own goals, which normally involves selling a good number of books. I want to encourage them to place their book with the best publisher for them. I don’t even know them but I want to urge them to make consider their options, gather their facts, make good choices and enjoy the success they dream of. If, having realistically judged the likely level of success they will achieve with a certain publisher, they make that choice. I don’t care what an authors goals are, or why they choose a certain publisher, so long as they are not walking blindly into disappointment because they choose to be willfully ignorant of the limitations of the company they selected.
I want all writers to achieve their goals and I want all publishers to prosper. The latter is not something I can have much impact on, with the former I do my meagre best. I love writing, I respect writers and publisher, I adore ebooks and small presses and the opportunities they have given me and so many others. But there are publishers that sell a lot, a little, or just a few copies of each title. This is much a fact of life as people being different ages. It is not a value judgement to say one epublisher tends to sell 1000 copies in the first year, and another only 20. This is just a fact and it can be proffered out of a positive desire to inform, completely without condemnation or judgement. And if an author think 20 sales combined with whatever else that press is offering them meets their goals for that book, then that is the publisher they should choose.
Epublishers are not the new commercial paperback presses. They are simply different things and feeling the need to foretell the end of print publishing, or pit the formats against each other, seems to me to spring from a failure to understand the value of epublishing and small presses in their own right. (e.g. epublishing is not the new paperback publishing–although it is much bigger and netter than it used to be). Epublishers and other small presses are accessible, diverse, flexible, adaptable, fill niches others don’t, and offer a source of stable (if not enormous) income that can be a lifesaver for people (often women) working from home, in their spare time or seeking an outlet for their creativity. It is fully in the knowledge of this value that I say some of them can also be unstable, not follow the industry norms, and be not only unprofitable but in some circumstance causing the author to experience a net financial loss–and to never actually get their book in the hands of readers that would have appreciated their work.
So I guess what I am saying is that an anthology can mention the infirmities that come with age, and still inspire a positive understanding and acceptance of aging. And I can mention the meagre sales and uncertainties that are part of publishing with a small business and yet still support small presses–which I so fervently do in having publishing in excess of 20 novels and novellas through several of them.
So maybe I do need to add to the cause of pragmatic positivism somehow–and actually come up with some positive affirmations for cynical bastards. Like maybe: trying to help strangers is more important than being liked by them, or speak truthfully (but retain a good lawyer) or try to to do the right thing, but don’t expect applause. If you have any other suggestions that fits the general theme of being positive without being credulous, please let me hear them. Because although I know what I am trying to do here it is proving a lot harder that I expected.
