{"id":3320,"date":"2011-07-13T08:34:53","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T16:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=3320"},"modified":"2011-07-13T11:41:27","modified_gmt":"2011-07-13T19:41:27","slug":"limited-edition-of-nested-scrolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2011\/07\/13\/limited-edition-of-nested-scrolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Limited Edition of NESTED SCROLLS"},"content":{"rendered":"

My autobiography, Nested Scrolls<\/em>, is out in a limited edition from PS Press <\/a>in England. They\u2019re selling hardbacks and a signed collector\u2019s edition.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I just got my copies yesterday which was, synchronistically, the day I finished the first draft of the next book in the pipeline, Turing & Burroughs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Note that PS used one of my paintings<\/a>, \u201cSurfin Tiki\u201d\u009d for the cover, and my painting \u201cJellyfish Lake\u201d\u009d for the endpapers. They put together a very nice looking book. The Tor edition will look more or less the same on the inside, although it will have a different cover and no colored endpapers.<\/p>\n

Starting on December 6, 2011, Nested Scrolls <\/em> will also be available in hardcover and ebook editions from Tor Books. I see it already listed byAmazon<\/a>, Barnes&Noble<\/a>, Borders<\/a>, and the site for Independent Booksellers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[By the way, we\u2019re not so fond of Amazon in California as we used to be, now that they want to fund a ballot initiative to block our state from collecting sales tax from them\u2026and now that they\u2019ve stopped paying \u201cfinder\u2019s fees\u201d\u009d to the so-called associates (such as bloggers) in California who link to their site.]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But never mind such mundane considerations. The mothership of Nested Scrolls <\/em>is launched. Odd than anyone might ever have mistaken it for a hat!<\/p>\n

To fill out today\u2019s post, I\u2019m printing some excerpts from my Notes for Nested Scrolls <\/em> document. You can read this whole document for free online as a PDF, see the link off my Nested Scrolls page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the way, when I started writing these notes, I still wasn\u2019t quite sure if I was working on an autobiographical memoir\u2026or on a transreal novel.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

July 11, 2008. <\/em><\/p>\n

Who would really want to read a memoir by me, after all? It\u2019s not like I\u2019ve gotten a lot of emails from people who have read the existing autobio note online.<\/p>\n

There should be some riddle whose answer I\u2019m seeking by writing the memoir\u2014or the memoir-like novel. What is reality? What\u2019s the point of my life? How can I be happy? What did I learn by writing thirty books? What\u2019s the missing book that I need to write? How is it possible to write at all? Can I create a completely pure work of literary art? What has it been like to be alive? What was the point?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

July 12, 2008. <\/em><\/p>\n

Looking around Borders Books today, I was thinking about what kinds of memoirs get published. David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs have a whole thing going with rueful tales of personal dysfunction. Back in the 1930s, Robert Benchley, James Thurber and Dorothy Parker were doing something similar.<\/p>\n

Another angle is to present yourself as the Witness to History\u2014for me, this might be the Silicon Valley thing or the cyberpunk thing, though people aren\u2019t responding much to the Silicon Valley idea when I suggest it. It\u2019s like people are sick of Silicon Valley. Maybe if I could clearly cast the memoir as evocations of a bygone era\u2014which certainly it would be. In this context, I think of the Vanished Wild West.<\/p>\n

The point of writing a memoir would be to entertain myself, and to gain a bit more self-knowledge. To have some fun. In certain lights, doing a memoir seems easier than grinding away on another novel. But maybe not.<\/p>\n

Mainly I want to write, and I don\u2019t care all that much what it is that I\u2019m writing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

July 17-26, 2008. <\/em><\/p>\n

Back to the current obsession\u2014why bother writing an autobio? What would I get out of it? Self-knowledge. Bragging pleasure. Self-guidance. Publicity.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s mattering less and less to me if I actually do write a memoir. There\u2019s such a powerful \u201cwhy bother\u201d\u009d haze surrounding any plan for a memoir. <\/p>\n

It might really be more productive to write another novel. Or maybe just a couple of stories first. At the very least, I\u2019m writing in this Notes document. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m writing almost at random in these notes. Which could be a good thing. I\u2019ve heard it said that writers are at their best when they have no idea what they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,: <\/em>\u201cIf the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

I feel like this is getting nowhere. But you never know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

July 26, 2008. <\/em><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s title for the book is Nested Scrolls<\/em>, a phrase I like because it describes the chaotic, self-organizing, artificially alive Belousov-Zhabotinsky simulations that I love. And \u201cscroll\u201d\u009d is good, as it refers to a document or even a sacred text, and if the scrolls are \u201cnested\u201d\u009d that\u2019s fractal and self-referential and heavy.<\/p>\n

I could even get literal with the title, and have the book in the form of a memoir that an aging man is trying to write, and he begins finding extra stuff in the document. Maybe he can somehow zoom in\u2014it\u2019s an electronic document\u2014and he sees stuff that he doesn\u2019t remember writing. And he goes into time-travel flashbacks. And maybe some characters from the past show up. Nested Scrolls.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My autobiography, Nested Scrolls, is out in a limited edition from PS Press in England. They\u2019re selling hardbacks and a signed collector\u2019s edition. I just got my copies yesterday which was, synchronistically, the day I finished the first draft of the next book in the pipeline, Turing & Burroughs. Note that PS used one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3320"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3328,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3320\/revisions\/3328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}