We’ve been talking a great deal about book promotion here recently, and I wanted to take a moment to share with you one of the more delightful fruits of one’s labors … namely, the responses of readers.
My best experience in this area was a letter I received after the publication of my novel Wings. One of the characters in Wings, Sarah Martin, is modeled on Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to hold a pilot’s license. The letter read, “My husband knew Harriet Quimby, and he says she would have liked the life you gave her.”
A few years ago I wrote a book called Open Your Heart with Geocaching, and have had very nice feedback on it indeed. But even better is when what you write inspires others, makes them take your thoughts further, allows them to appropriate truths from it for themselves. So I was pleased to receive the following email:
I hope you don’t mind me sharing a few thoughts with you relating to my experiences after I started reading your book on Geocaching.
I have struggled for years to find a hobby that I can really get interested in. I tried woodwork for a while, but it just didn’t grab me. Then at the start of this year I stumbled across Geocaching and everything fell in place. I think it is the way in which the sport manages to pull together all the different interests that I have. It does not matter what your interests are, you will experience the same ability of Geocaching to pull unexpected things together at the most unexpected places.
I find it extraordinary how your mind gets informed of something and you then shortly thereafter encounter it in a totally different context – almost like a confirmation! In the copy of the listing of “Dark Satanic Mills” in Appendix C of your book, you quote an excerpt from Jerusalem by William Blake. I am one of those types that read more than one book at a time. It was therefore at the same time quite surprising but also entirely expected that a few days later I found a quote from Europe by William Blake (1794) in the story of the 9 remaining moon walking astronauts – Moon Dust by Andrew Smith (Bloomsbury 2005). What makes it quite incredible is that this quote is a very accurate description of the experience of the earth at creation which is similar to that which one can expect to experience while you are out in nature geocaching: “every particle of dust breathes forth its joy”!
The use of poetry in Geocaching is quite special. I recently did a multi-cache that also makes use of poetry in its various waypoints. This cache is situated in a very well kept cemetery – the Fourways Garden of Remembrance. Fourways is a suburb approximately 25 km from the centre of Johannesburg. The cache – Celebration of Life GC1CWP6 – is extremely poignant. The celebration of life in a cemetery is a beautiful concept – the use of poetry appearing of various graves makes it all the more special.
Here your advice to breathe and experience the location really made sense.
Look for the delight that your words can bring to others. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!
