Whenever I’m asked for a brief bio for book jackets or as background when I
appear on a panel, I always end it with: "Tierney lives in San Francisco where
he is working on several fiction projects.”
Fiction projects. Those two words allow me a certain freedom,
while giving these "projects" an air of vague importance.
The thing is: it is actually true (not the importance perhaps) But I have been working on some shorter mystery
pieces — 20,000 to 30,000 words. The
novella is a form that seems more natural for me. And finally, after all these years, the form has become more desirable. Traditional publishing,
unless it is a “literary” work, has frowned on books under 80,000 words. This wasn't always the case when pulp fiction had a market share. But since? People wanted blockbusters. In defense of e-book
publishing, its proliferation has opened a few more doors. That includes shorter novels. Fortunately a major publisher agrees. We’re
ironing out the details of what is most likely an August release of a new
mystery novella. When dates, cover, and
availability are nailed down, I’ll probably make a big deal about it right
here.
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I’m also experimenting with what is for me an entirely new
approach, again thanks to the dramatic change in publishing technology. Though I suspect, many have already done this
or a version of it, I’m using the blog format to create a living memoir. That is to say, by using a blog, I can
update, revise, rewrite, add pictures (or delete them) and link information to
other sources at any time during the process, which may be, if I
choose, the rest of my life. When I die or become unable or unwilling to write, the memoir is done. Up to the minute. Meanwhile, the reader may read it as he or she
chooses, starting from the top or bottom or middle, sampling only a bit here
and there, returning to see how what they’ve read has changed or, of course,
finding the whole thing a pain in the butt and moving on to the next blog.
I’ve just begun, so there are only a few posts and I’m going
through photographs now. This is not
just a time-consuming task, but as you might imagine, a sometimes rich and
sometimes painful experience. If you
want a sneak peek at the blog in its earliest stages, click on Albion and New Augusta — A Memoir in Transit. It is not a mystery, but rather stories of my
family. Realizing that I am not particularly famous, nor is my story any more
or less extraordinary than a majority of people on the planet, I can only say
that the merit here, if there is any, is in the form it takes. The blog format enables me (and you) a
freedom that normal publishing does not — going backward and forward in
time.
One other thing, which is relatively new to me, is I am not
writing about fictional characters in fictional places doing fictional things.
I deal only in the challenge of reporting, biased reporting no doubt, but
reporting nonetheless. The stories focus
on my parents and my understanding of their history and the lives I knew. I
observe from my perspective their existence from birth to death not in the way
an organized memoir does, but in the way our minds work — out of order, or seemingly random selections of past events. One
memory leads to the next, but often not in linear fashion. I want to capture that. I want to be able to revise my memories as I
think about them again and again, and link them to letters and
photographs. As I said, it’s an
experiment in form.
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