Somewhere Over the Sun

Sunrise, September 3rd (6:11 a.m)

After a housewarming party and a sleepless night, I drove down the slightly-less-than-abandoned 5 a.m. Vegas streets headed northbound, the sky lighting up to my right. Music sounds louder, more unrestrained at five in the morning, I think.

Loaded with coffee and a battery-less camera, I directed my car up the six floors of UNLV’s parking garage. My friend Edgar showed up a few moments before the sun poked out from behind the aptly named Sunrise Mountain. Sunrises are never anything short of incendiary, although the cloudless Vegas sky kept the spectacle modest, if such a word can be applied.

Sunset, September 3rd (7:05 p.m)

Unaccompanied and basic, but sunsets aren’t the worst time for solitude. It’s funny that it isn’t customary to stop everything you’re doing during these daily occurrences and just watch the sky. I, for one, refuse to pretend that there is nothing special about the sky’s chromatic transformation, just because it happens all the time.

Barring unforeseen complications, the sun will rise again tomorrow, and I’ll be there to say good morning. I recommend you give it a shot too. You’ll be surprised how beautiful the city you’re used to living in is when painted in dawn’s unfamiliar light.

Have a favorite? Let me know and it could end up as my official author picture on the novel! All credit belongs to René Hagedorn.

Is not just a pretty great song by Flogging Molly.

It is also the theme of my weekend. For the second year in a row, I’m making it my mission to watch the sun rise and set every day during the extended Labor Day weekend. I don’t think we take the time to bask enough. Just simply sit within sight of something pretty and bask. I have a theory that beauty works like a marinade and sinks into your pores.

Do you realize that the sun rises and sets every day? Of course you do. But you don’t really. Otherwise, you would wake up at 5:45 a.m or take a break from indoors at 7 p.m and just watch the sky for a while. When was the last time you dedicated yourself to such a silly, beautifully recurring event?

It’s been way too long for me, so I’m going to knock my sleeping schedule out of its already off-beat rhythm and not only take the time to greet the sun in the morning and kiss it farewell in the evening, but write about it for your reading pleasure.

Aside from those posts to come, I will also show you the pictures my sister’s boyfriend took of me this afternoon for my official author headshot. I’ll give you a more detailed, narrative version of the publishing process I’ve undergone with Dog Ear. And soon, I’ll be turning in my guest post at Crazy-for-Books.com, so keep an eye out for that.

Still only one winner in my musical mystery playlist post! Email me what you think the playlist’s theme is and win a hand-written letter and personalized mix cd from someone who will eventually be a published author with a headshot to prove it.

I haven’t introduced myself in a while, and so many of you missed it the first time around. So, hello. My name is Adi, and I’m a writer.

It feels damn good to say that. To explain to a new acquaintance that what I do is write. A friend of mine who is a freelance cinematographer introduces me to all of his film friends as such: “This is Adi. He’s a writer.” It’s kind of a silly, antiquated thing to do- to include a person’s profession in their introduction. But I’m not about to stop him.

I wrote a book. A rather good book if the people who have read it are to be believed. And that’s pretty cool. I’ve been a writer since the 6th grade, when our homework assignment called for twenty sentences using that week’s vocabulary words. I’ve been a writer since before that, probably, when I used to devour Goosebumps books as soon as they came out. The words stayed in my stomach, like swallowed gum, and now reading and writing are just as basic to me as digestion.

Now that the book’s written and in the process of being published by Dog Ear (coming out early November!), I’m doing what I can to promote this site, which is doing what it can to promote the book and its author. It’s hard work, full of obstacles and unpleasant odds.

But I keep on with it, powering through the onset of what could be Carpal Tunnel so that people find out about me, find out about my book and how much they’ll enjoy it once it’s available for them to enjoy. I’m attacking the blogosphere and social networking worlds and introducing myself to as many people as possible.

So, once again, hello.

For a change of pace, I’d like to test my readers’ analytical skills.

Below is a musical playlist with a unifying theme. Tell me what the answer is by clicking on the “Talk to me” link or emailing me at adi.alsaid@gmail.com and you will win a handwritten letter from me and a special prize: a mix cd made especially for you! First five to send me the correct one-word answer win. Use youtube or Grooveshark to catch all these wonderful songs.

1. Poses- Rufus Wainwright
2. A Pair of Brown Eyes- The Pogues
3. Moonshiner- Cat Power
4. The Bar is a Beautiful Place- Ryan Adams
5. The Worst Day Since Yesterday- Flogging Molly
6. Grace is Gone- Dave Matthews Band
7. Sunday Morning Coming Down- Johnny Cash
8. Buildings- Regina Spektor
9. Game Shows Touch Our Lives- Mountain Goats

I’m certain I’m not the only that feels miniscule, shouting out to an unseen, larger-than-life universe that will control my future. Being a self-published author trying to promote a debut novel which hasn’t been released is full of moments of insignificance. There’s a feeling that an immense effort could still yield…not much.

There are millions of books out there, hundreds of thousands of writers trying to make themselves heard. Most of us don’t have very good amplifying auditory equipment, so our yells are barely squeaks that only luck will deliver to ears that can help.  Good books go unheard.

It doesn’t help that I have been forced to brand myself as Self-Published. So many book reviewers and other bloggers in the bibliophilic community will not consider anything that is self-published. I would probably do the same in their position: weed out those whose value has not been vouched for by an agent or publisher for the simple purpose of time management.

So I must yell louder, from farther away. I’ve got to yell past only 20 hits a day on my blog, yell past unanswered emails, yell until my lungs gasp for air. I’ll take a quick breath and keep yelling, until someone stumbles across my whisper. “I am worthy,” they’ll barely hear, not even certain the words came from their own heads. They’ll stick around for a moment and listen for an encore, and if it doesn’t come loud enough again, they’ll walk away. Even those that they hear are rarely ever worth their time, just the desperate pleas of beggars, so they’ve become accustomed to ignoring faint whispers.

And I can’t just hope to reach one large-eared, big-hearted stranger. I need to reach thousands.

But that’s where I start to swell up with some confidence. Because, that’s where you come in, dear reader. You can help me make some noise. I’ve reached you. Maybe only a little bit, since I can’t quite yell out my whole message yet (the book will be available soon!).  But once you get it, I’m thinking you’ll happily shout out with me. Maybe not all of you. But some of you, enough of you. And decibel by decibel, we’ll make enough noise for me to be heard, for any non-believer to at least glance my way and accept that I exist. That I’m a person, no matter how small.

Want to cause some ruckus with me? Recommend this page by clicking the link above. ‘Like’ my page on Facebook and add me on Twitter. Do a little yelling.

Quick update!

I wrote close to 1,000 words for book number two today while sitting at the car dealership idly waiting to be charged way more money than I have.

I’m up to 98 followers! If only I could quickly add about three more digits to that…

I get my first sample copy of Somewhere Over the Sun in 5-7 weeks. If there’s nothing wrong with that, it will be available for purchase and intense enjoyment soon after that.

Later on this month, I will be contributing a post at Crazy for Books, so go show some support to that very fine book-review blog. And a reminder, last week I contributed to Write Words; it’s a post written in the point of view of one of Alan’s fictional characters (can you say meta?), so make sure you look at that post and the rest of the site.

I wrote the following open letter to David Eagleman, author of the brilliant collection of short stories, Sum; forty tales from the afterlives. You’ll notice that I wrote this a while ago, while writing Somewhere Over the Sun.

David,

Reading this book, as a writer, was quite fittingly a spiritual experience. The fact that your words were doing what they did to me was blissful, like a religious person being told that their afterlife exists.

I shook my head in amazement and emitted all kinds of audible expressions of joy and wonder. I made silly faces and laughed out loud in public and texted all my friends and told them to read your book. I was almost moved to happy tears, not necessarily by the stories themselves, but by the realization at how good the writing itself is, how brilliantly human is the mind that crafted them.

I am so incredibly happy that writing like yours exists. I hope the book I’m writing will be able to have such an effect on my readers, if only for a passage. Thank you for a wonderful 110 pages. For complimenting the art of writing and for beautifying the art of reading.

-Adi Alsaid