November 23, 2014

On stage with Amanda Palmer

Ron Vitale asked: "I'd love to look into your mind and see how being on stage went, your fears and how you pushed through."

As you all know, last week darling Amanda Palmer stayed at my house and allowed me to feed her borscht and vodka, and then the next day we went for a walk in the morning, played chess, had lunch, and in the evening got on stage at Seattle's Town Hall. Amanda sang her beautiful songs, and talked about her beautiful book THE ART OF ASKING, and sang again, and invited Jason Webley to come up. He sang songs too. He is so good at it. They both are. And I sat in the first row, fidgeting, waiting for my turn to come up and, hopefully, lend my hand to entertaining the audience. I was dressed in ballet attire--tutu, ballet tights, leotard and everything--because Amanda asked me to. She asked me to be her guest, a writer in a tutu.

November 18, 2014

Writing is loving

by Ksenia Anske

This is a random post. On love. And writing. And all the things happening in my life right now. Beautiful things. Not so beautiful things.

Tonight I will be on a stage. On a big stage. The stage in Town Hall in Seattle. The stage where I saw writers like Tom Robbins read. A while ago I couldn't imagine it happening. And now it will. I'm Amanda Palmer's guest on her book tour. For her beautiful book THE ART OF ASKING. "How did that happen?" Many people ask. I think it happened through love. I give away my books for free, which is giving love. Amanda gives away her music for free, which is giving love. Someone noticed, told us about each other. We started talking on Twitter, and yesterday we shared borscht. I cooked it, with love. She ate it, with love. Tonight we will be talking more about it, about what it means to ask, and to be vulnerable, and, underneath it all, to love.

My daughter sent me love yesterday. She animated IRKADURA cover. And it made me cry. Because the song at the end, it stirred memories. It was her showing me that she felt me. What could be more beautiful?

October 17, 2014

On writing, reading, and THE ART OF ASKING

by Ksenia Anske

I have held a heart in my hand for a couple days. A real beating heart. Bleeding, too. I held it a couple days in a row. I was reading THE ART OF ASKING by Amanda Palmer, and I was bleeding with her. I couldn't believe that there was someone out there who got my shit. And I mean, really got it. It was one of those rare moments you experience when you read a book and you want the author to be your best friend. No, better. You actually think the author is your best friend already. You think alike. You have the same ideas. The same feels. The same rhythm of a heartbeat.

Isn't this why we write?

We write to connect our hearts. Isn't it true?

August 21, 2014

How to make an awesome book cover

by Ksenia Anske

I suppose it's perfect timing to talk about book covers, in light of Amanda Palmer releasing the naked cover of her book, The Art of Asking, or, rather, her being naked on said cover, and in light of me saying, hey, it's high time I should be naked on a cover too, and her saying, that is a fine idea, and her photographer Allan Amato saying, would you like my rates, cause I'm looking to photograph more naked ladies for book covers, and me saying, well, I gotta write a book on which I could pose naked, and Twitter saying, why don't you write a book on writing and call it something like, EXPOSE YOURSELF THROUGH YOUR WRITING, and me saying, sure, I can totally do it, people have been asking me to put together a book from my blog posts, and, holy shit, this is the longest sentence I ever wrote.

Anyway.

Book covers. We're talking here about us struggling indie writers, well, maybe not struggling exactly, bad choice of words, more like, having to be not only a writer but also the toilet cleaner and the accountant and the marketer and the book cover designer...wait. Book cover designer. Well, some of us can afford to hire those. But, despite the fact that some of us can, the result is not always, how to say it nicely, very favorable. If I'm not being nice, I would say (and I'm prepared to take full consequences and feel the hotness of your wrath on my skin), most indie book covers are ugly and unreadable.

January 24, 2014

It's okay to be wrong, and what does WRONG mean anyway?

by Ksenia Anske

I've been pondering for a while what to write about this time, as several things happened this week, all of them sorta kinda pointing in the same direction. Number one, I had a breakdown, thinking I suck, my writing sucks, and I wanted to quit. Like, for 1 hour I wanted to quit, for real. Then I got really mad for thinking that and wrote 5K words. I got over it. But other little things kept happening, and I started thinking, what the hell? Why do I suddenly doubt myself? I'm on my 3rd novel, it's supposed to be easier? I told everyone it's easier? Now what? What is going on? And I think I know. I'm guessing I'm graduating to some other level, not so much in my writing, but in this tricky thing called self-belief. I stopped being afraid, I know I can write, I'm still not satisfied with my writing (I hear writers never are), but I'm not a total newbie anymore. And what happened is, at one point I got so relaxed and so myself, that I thought, oh my God, what if people think I'm wrong? Who do I think I am, to feel so comfortable? I'm doing it wrong, I'm doing everything wrong! And it kept going like this in my head in circles. I imagine you had something like this happen to you too. I think it happens just so you can get over it and get to the next stage, to be okay with how you are write, YOUR WAY. I think that's what it is.