It Was the Best of Writing and The Worst of Writing

IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period.

So writes Charles Dickens in his epic novel "A Tale of Two Cities." Not much has changed except I think the pace of the times. It used to be the horse drawing the carriage of clock, now it is a plane, train, or automobile. Or is the clock pulling us? I wonder. Space and Time are related in some Einsteinian manner. The faster we travel in space, the more time literally flies. We are always going.

Books are a way to be, to set aside a period, to be metered by something else than the digitization of our days. Even as we read off of our Kindles. The medium is not the message...the message is the message despite the medium. The medium is the mode of delivery. As one who has just published his first book On the Edge: Transitioning Imaginatively to College...

I am quite excited that my book is now available worldwide in less than a minute for someone who has the Kindle technology. Search Bierker on Amazon. My book is above my Mom's who wrote about Sexual Abuse a few decades before the Sandusky scandal. My book is considerably more upbeat.      

The issue is now that there is no so much noise that it is hard to be heard. In the old days, not that long ago, the book publishing business was dominated by Bramhims. Now Dalits like me can get into the circle and break Karma. I have spent a decent amount of time talking to people in the circle and I guess I have sensed the vibe of "another self-published author" with taking little account that I have worked on these issues of college transition for 25 years and have a Ph.D. on the topic. Yep, I am a wannabe that is gonna be a gonna-be. I have paid my dues.

My editor Mike Pollis leaned heavily on the book and broke previous versions. What stands has endured some serious editorial winds. Like whole previous drafts blown off the cliffs as a flimsy shack. And on the rubble I built anew only to have it blown down again. Finally, a book that has borne the winds and stood.  I admire his dogged insistence that I not take the easy path to mediocrity. Instead, his vetos were actually affirmations of his best voter instincts. I paid him to be my literary critic and he was.

Jen Brown of NYE Design here in Lancaster has captured the essence of the book in her cover illustration. Art can inspire and incarnate a message and her illustration does this so well. I had to nix the previous cover about three weeks ago, sensing that it was off on the wrong direction. That is tricky business for a man with no graphic design chops. It just did not feel right. So, we started over again with another idea. I paid for the wayward path but rather than stick to it, I had the intuition that what was lost was lost and we had to turn around. I sense it was the right decision. Perhaps the crucial decision in the book's future. The courage to say something did not feel right.

What is the goal of my book? For young adults to build beautiful and imaginative lives. Beauty hurts our souls. It reminds us, in the words of C.S. Lewis, "The scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news of a country we have never yet visited."  Good writing can kick our ass towards heaven and out of our hells.