The Author
Rachel Gladstone-Gelman.
The title of your work or group:
The Pinata Pages, Commentary On Our Times.
Where do you create?
I’m originally from New York but, in 2006, I moved to Canada.
The genre that gets to claim you?
My background includes mostly poetry and articles, but I’ve also written some short fiction. Closer to flash fiction. But The Pinata Pages is commentary and informational.
In your own words, what is your book about? If you were not the author and trying to explain this awesome book you just read to a friend, what would you say about it?
The Pinata Pages, Commentary On Our Times throws all the Left-Wing and urgent points together and minces few words. It’s about the global damage being done and why. But it’s not just about “blatant” politics. It’s also about an animal held captive in a really polluted area and a desire to go retro due to technology that took some wrong turns. It’s also about self-publishing. It’s a piñata. A Left-Wing, humourous and stern piñata.
What is your writing style? Do you follow all guides and rules? Synopsis, outline, etc. or do you just sit down at the computer and type to see what happens?
I feel the need or compulsion to put my personality into it, and it’s not my intent to sound quite as conversational as I do, but that’s how it usually lands. It also makes the flow easier to achieve, as long as you have boundaries for your conversation and get used to using them. I also try to get to the point. I don’t want readers to have to wade through stuff to get there. I appreciate their time and, if I get their time, I aim to not waste it. I don’t have any real structural guidelines, other than for it to flow, connect and not be too repetitive. And I don’t write it all in one sitting.
Have you ever written anything and thought, “The world has got to see this!”?
Actually, I believe so. If it isn’t the work in its entirety, it’s a particular phrase or message.
Who can we thanks for the look and feel of your book?
For my blog, the root of The Pinata Pages, I’m the editor, too. For the e-book/download, I hired an editor/proofreader, although we did, ultimately, work together to fine-tune it. I got the cover design from Vistaprint. They happened to have just the right design to suit the essence of the e-book.
Who is your favorite author. Not just someone that you read a lot. I wanna know whose book you read that made you suddenly know that if you didn't do this for the rest of your life then you would never be happy.
Well, I have a couple of favourite poets and, in The Pinata Pages, I list some children’s and general audience books and their authors in the chapter/article, “Johnny Can Read Now… But He Doesn’t Like the Book”, but I’ve really just been driven to write, largely because keeping my mouth shut has proven exceedingly difficult, especially since I became political.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
I’m currently going through a bumpy transitional period between American English and Canadian English punctuation. Also, I go to great pains not to plagiarize when providing facts from sources. Informing without copying is obvious—but not so easy. It makes me slow down to check my wording.
Do you write your characters or do they write themselves through you?
I don’t have a lot of experience with writing characters, but, because they’ve needed to be “turned on”, so to speak, or revealed via my own observations or history, I suppose it’s both.
Do you ever write yourself into the characters?
Yes. And family members, too.
Is writing your full-time job or are you “Keeping your day job”?
I’m unemployed as I do this interview, as far as I’m aware. I published The Pinata Pages via Scribd.com in mid-June, so, at the moment, it’s too soon to know. However, my husband is employed.
If you could go back in time and meet one famous person or legend in history, who would it be?
Perhaps, Rod Serling.
There are millions of new books released every year. What, in your mind, makes yours stand out from all those millions in your genre?
I think I talk to people differently. Not at them, maybe even with them, along with putting in some extra umph in order to wake them up to particular urgencies. I really feel the need to do that, but it needs to be done in a digestible way. And The Pinata Pages has so many progressive issues in one place, with little enough time spent on each, so that, if your bus is arriving, you may just be able to finish that topic you’re on.
In the world of Indie, marketing is very difficult, especially if you don’t have the funds to pay for it. Have you found a great free way to market your work that you think other Indies will benefit from?
Well, I’m on the task, but I’ve found a friend in Twitter, insofar as some accounts offer rates I can live with in order to have some kind of tweeting schedule, in addition to my own (the free part). And I found you through Twitter.
Links to find and follow her work:
Twitter: @ThePinataPages
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