CHAPBOOK & LIFE UPDATE - PROGRESS AND PREORDER
This year has definitely been the most challenging yet. I honestly don't know sometimes how everything has moved to this space and how on Earth I am still breathing, still beating, still believing in something. Maybe I'm just not, maybe this is just adulthood; maybe all I know is this.
It's not been easy and I don't think I've been open enough in myself to admit that I'm not doing okay, that I'm not handling as much of what is going on as I could be and I definitely need to take this second for a deep breath and to extend myself as honestly as I can.
In this year, I have known life like never before. I have known loss in every facet of my life and I have come through it even warmer and more optimistic than I ever could.
2019 has been an incredible year of change and this is the kind of real change that burns your insides and leaves space for ash-loving flower. bathroom sink (and all the many faucets) captures this and I am so excited to be releasing a chapbook more in-tune with the person I am now, as opposed to the person I was holding onto.
This new chapbook, brutal in content but lighthearted in nature, aims to go to the core of self and drag out the most grubby and gruesome to remind you that dirty isn't all that bad; as long as it's honest. This concept has been sat on since the production of dim lights and it has been an incredible thrill to come at it so intensely over the last month and see so much success in everything we'd planned.
bathroom sink is already available for preorder, on this site for 25% off until the 14th of August, (just two days away!) exactly one week before release. We have already received numerous orders and are in the very final stages of production; it looks at this stage that everything will be set for release ahead of schedule! All preorders will come with an extra bathroom poem and hand-signed letter, similar to what was released with dim lights. Clearly, we're getting a chance to see our sales and marketing skills grow, the challenges from the first project being solved and even innovated through the next and all we can imagine is how much more we have to learn.
It is at this stage that I am slowly starting to see a direction in publishing and will be working toward establishing a strong team and possibly a name and ABN once the chapbooks have all cleared their sales. Please do get in contact, as always, if you wish to become a part or even just want to discuss the creation of a publishing company. It has been a long-standing dream for me to be creative, but to create only while in support of others and I believe opening an independent publishing house based in Australia for young and aspiring artists where the most authentic and honest voices can be vocalised and heard, maybe for the first time, would mean more to me than just writing alone. I would like to, annually and once established, a couple voices on our side, do a charity book of art and poetry and writing that raises money for different small and direct charities each year. I want to change the world, but what scares me most in this world is honesty and how afraid of it everyone has become. I want to make that change. I want to give that honesty and reality and wholesomeness back to people, stuff it down their throats; remind the big companies and big hives that there is always a place for art, always a place for rebellion and always a strength in thinking for yourself. The greatest power is information. Lets keep that accessible, right?
In succession to all of this, there has been very definitive talk of raising the price of dim lights, dim reality to a steady $5, possible $7 after this year This decision has been an incredibly tough one for me to make. Everyone I am involved with both personally and professionally has pushed me to value my work highly, that if I place that worth it will be received. However, this has come as a real challenge to the person I am and the writer I'd aspired to be. As much as the pricing of a piece of work does reflect the writer releasing, I feel it doesn't reflect the consumers and, to me, poetry is the one art that should be flowingly accessible, so accessible that you can sit at home with your thirty different self-published chapbooks or zines because most of them were either free or a couple bucks - because that's what writing for the people really is, right? However, this opinion of mine piggybacks off a much deeper need to feel like I shouldn't take up too much space - that I do not deserve more than I have - and regardless of how great that might seem for my writing, it's something I do need to address. To open up to myself and to honestly admit that I am part of a community of writers is to take credit where it is due but to remain humble where truly necessary.
For that reason, dim lights will raise in price due to the intense amount of work and money that was initially put into what I will always consider my first child. All of my other following chapbooks will be priced initially and will remain at their price as I have come to see the honest value in my work and how I can discount that just enough to be affordable, but not too much that I'm losing a great margin.
I think this decision, as well as many of the decisions that have been made over the last few months have been a sign of the growth I am making internally and the professionalism I'm starting to come at my work with. I have also received numerous emails in regard to guest contributions on my site and the choice to allow some of these bloggers to work toward something for me is a decision I make for the good of the community, not for the aesthetic of my site or the purpose of growing followers, but the fact that if somebody has enough guts to get in contact with me and can fit to my content well enough, then they've earned it and who am I to say no? For this reason, there will be a few guest posts on this blog, but I am currently doing my best to tweak everything to keep it honest, authentic and brutally real.
I thank everyone for all that they have offered me this year and all the years leading up to this. I cannot say it is without good progress and good change that I have struggled through everything I have. I now know and feel deeply in myself that I am loved and looked after not just by those left to say it, but by all of those that have energy that resonates within me, who look down from some cosmic star or space or knowledge and are proud of what I have become and what I have grown through to become this.
bathroom sink (and all the many faucets) is set for release in nine days and I could not be more proud of myself.
Thank you for reading, thank you for
sticking around,
Stay safe, stay honest,
stay brutal,
Charlotte E.E. Griffiths
@C.G.POETRY