On March 17, 2006, an unsuspecting group of (mostly) Friends of Frank
received an e-blast from me. It started this way:

“Please pardon the anonymous salutation. This is an eblast.”

That primitive communication now reads like Alexander Graham Bell
shouting “Mr. Watson — come here — I want to see you!” into the first
telephone. Look how far we’ve come in just 10 1/2 months.

That first e-blast had just one purpose: to flog my novel To Love
Mercy. It seemed to work, so, over the next six weeks, I sent out
several more purely marketing messages.

But on May 2, I posted a message with the subject line “Everyone should
write a novel.” The ground began to shift beneath my feet.

In the months since, I’ve blogged about writing, sinus attacks,
English majors, Chicago (in general) and Chicago fiction (in particular),
Starbucks, Vienna (not) Kosher Hot Dogs, my new skis, Amazon (three
times), Barnes & Noble (at least twice), and famously (or notoriously),
religion and race. After I was “trashed by freshmen” at my old high
school, the reactions from y’all went on for a full month.

And now the stuff is being broadcast too.

Bill Roth, my friend since high school, has a talk show on KRML (1410
AM), a great jazz station broadcasting from the Eastwood (as in Clint)
Building in heavenly Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. (Pardon the plug.
Bill deserves it. So does Carmel. So, even, does Clint.)

Bill has already broadcast “Don’t go for the coffee” (about how
Starbucks and its imitators have become our new town square). Shortly,
he’ll broadcast two more recent postings (”New skis” and “There were no
Negroes”).

I didn’t start out to be a blogger. Indeed, when my web guru, Brian
Lieberman, suggested turning the e-blasts into a WebLog (or “blog”), I
asked why in the world. Only after he explained it would draw traffic to
our website by making every word in the blog Google-searchable, did I
cave in. (Another reason: My e-blasts are now archived at the “blogspot.”
Read them all at http://tolovemercy.com/frank_joseph_blog/.)

It’s still about the marketing; that’s no secret. The proportion of message
to marketing has risen dramatically; but you all still know that, before I’m
finished, I’m going to try to sell you something.

But it’s about more too. I’m discovering a voice I didn’t know I had. And
now, some of you are suggesting this material is publishable.

For the life of me I can’t figure out how; it’s perishable, it’s parochial, it’s
personal, it’s like … who’d care?

I could be wrong though. I had such thoughts about To Love Mercy
while I was writing it, and now “TLM” is in its second printing.

So … I’m open to suggestions. If you have any ideas on new ways
to wrap this fish, I’d love to hear them.

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. Ray Van Houtte’s book group invited me to appear last night for
their discussion of To Love Mercy. Much good food was consumed,
fine wine imbibed, and heartfelt conversation shared. I’d love to appear
at your book group too, in person or by speakerphone. Contact me at
301-656-8753 or by e-mail.