A regular feature of this site is to provide easy-to-get with examples of emotional insight, via great works of art. Today we’re going to look at a powerful poem by Dylan Thomas.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
by Dylan ThomasDo not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Here’s another big, easy-to-get with example of emotional insight from J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Holden Caulfield is trying to find his little sister Phoebe at her school:
I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another “Fuck you” on the wall. I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something. It wouldn’t come off. It’s hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn’t rub out even half the “Fuck you” signs in the world. It’s impossible.
A short time later Holden is waiting to meet his sister. He’s looking at the exhibit of mummies in the Museum of Natural History in New York.
I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you’d never guess what I saw on the wall. Another “Fuck you.” It was written with a red crayon or something, right under the glass part of the wall, under the stones.
That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact.
One thing I’m noticing more and more lately is that there are cases where intellectually it may not be at all apparent what the emotional insight is referring to; and there are other cases where there’s no doubt about it. This example from “Catcher” is an example in which the author is putting the literal thing he’s having the emotional insight about right in front of you — all the FU’s he sees written on walls in places they should never be.
What Salinger is conveying here more than the literal fact of those FU’s — it’s the emotional impact they have on him; it’s how Holden feels about them and the meaning of those emotions. If you read the passage you’ll feel the emotional insight Salinger is communicating. It can’t be expressed in any other words. That’s why we need works of art!
(Illustration via Listal)
In this passage from J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye,” Holden Caulfield has finally gotten back to his house. He’s sneaking in so as not to wake his parents, whom he’s trying to avoid. He’s hoping to talk to his dear sister, Phoebe.
It was dark as hell in the foyer, naturally, and naturally I couldn’t turn on any lights. I had to be careful not to bump into anything and make a racket. I certainly knew I was home, though. Our foyer has a funny smell that doesn’t smell like anyplace else. I don’t know what the hell it is. It isn’t cauliflower and it isn’t perfume–I don’t know what the hell it is–but you always know you’re home.
That’s a perfect example of emotional insight. Intellectually you might say, “Of course you know you are home. It’s your house and you opened the door with your key.” Yes, of course. But emotionally something happens that is beyond that – something that can’t be expressed at all in any intellectual terms. It’s a meaning that can only be felt and understood by the use of your emotional abiliy. It can only be expressed in a work of art.
Read the quote from “Catcher” again. Do you feel it?
One of the things I do regularly on this site is to post big, easy-to-get-with examples of emotional insight. Emotional insight conveys a meaning that can only be grasped using your emotional ability.
Here’s another great example, from Robert Frost.
Love and a Question
by Robert FrostA stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light. read more →
I’ve posted previously about how a work of art communicates a meaning that only your emotional ability can appreciate. Today’s Dylan Thomas poem, “In My Craft or Sullen Art”, is a great example.
In My Craft Or Sullen Art
by Dylan ThomasIn my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms, read more →
Marnie Pehrson explains how to find out how many books you have to sell on Amazon to obtain Amazon best-seller status in the category of your choice.
…and, incidentally, how to figure out how many books everybody else is selling in any category you want. Brilliant!
What standard of achievement in terms of self-published book sales is the threshold for impressing pros in the traditional publishing world? Major book agent Mollie Glick. provides the answer:
The Book Doctors: What is the threshold for sales of a self-published book that make you go, “Wow!”? And in what time frame are you looking for with these numbers?
Mollie Glick: Good question. I’d like to see someone selling at least 5-10k copies and hopefully more like 20k on their own. And it’s not so much about the time frame as what price they’ve set their novel at. A novel selling hundreds of thousands of copies at a dollar a pop is still intriguing, but you do wonder whether those fans will keep buying once the book costs more like ten dollars.
A guest post on Renee Pawlish’s blog provides tips on using the free promotional features of Amazon’s KDP Select program:
I wanted to share some of the information I have gathered from two 2-day free events with Amazon. It took a while just to get to the point where I could understand some of the complexities of the industry. I have created a simple template to share with you in order to record your information whenever you begin a new campaign. You can print out this template and record the numbers manually if you like. For the purposes of this look-see I am limiting the data to February 1 & 2, as well as Feb 13 & 14, 2013, a snapshot in time. I will also draw some amateur conclusions from this set of data. It is not meant to be representative, as on any given day the data may not reproduce from one instance to another due to the variables noted above.
This was one of the first 3D movies my wife and I saw together. We liked it. 90 minutes of food jokes, but they keep being funny. 
I watched it last year on a 3D TV and, unlike most 3D movies I see that way, it gave me a headache. I’m guessing they’ve improved the 3D for the sequel.
Library Thing has made a list of 261 titles that were a part of Monroe’s personal library. Books on the list include: Out Of My Later Years by Albert Einstein; Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert; The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner; as well as poetry collections from Robert Frost, John Milton, and Edgar Allen Poe, among others.
Writer.ly is giving away free copies of Guy Kawasaki’s new book, “APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur – How to Publish a Book”, to people who register. A nice deal!
Bo Bennett has built a ebook company over the last two years that manages 2,000 titles. He’s just released a free book of promotion and marketing tips.
Readers who think marketing advice is necessarily complicated, esoteric, and expensive will applaud Bo Bennett’s decision to release his new ebook ’50 Tips for Promoting and Marketing Your eBook’ at no charge through his company’s own bookstore. The book offers tips that come not from a single author, but from Bennett’s experience supporting and observing the successes and failures of hundreds of author-clients at his firm, eBookIt.com.
via Mark Coker: 5 Steps to Boost eBook Sales – Listening to Readers.
What if you don’t have reviews? – This is as big of a problem as poor reviews. If your book has been out for more than three months and it’s not selling and you don’t have reviews, consider setting the price to free, at least for a limited time. What do you have to lose? Readers aren’t finding you anyway.
This is the course of action my wife and I selected with Boob Tube. For the first two years (2008-2009), Boob Tube sold horribly, maybe 20 copies total. It had only one or two reviews across all the retailers. My wife and I decided to set the price to free for six months. We got 40,000 downloads, a lot of reviews, and even our first fan mail (yay!). Then we set the price to $2.99 and it started selling. Without reviews at the retailers, Goodreads, LibraryThing and elsewhere, few readers will take a chance on you. FREE helps readers take that chance.
via Digital Book World - After a Roller-Coaster Ride, Ebook Prices Have Stabilized Somewhat in 2013:
Prices have since stabilized at a low level as retailers and publishers jockey for position among consumers who generally like and want lower ebook prices. We are now seeing some of the largest publishers experiment with discounting even newer titles. This past week, the average price of a best-selling ebook dipped below $8.00, driven mostly by $2.99 and $1.99 big-six titles.
via TechCrunch: Google Is Building A Same-Day Amazon Prime Competitor, “Google Shopping Express”:
Google is stealthily preparing to launch an Amazon Prime competitor called “Google Shopping Express.” According to one source the service will be $10 or $15 cheaper than Amazon Prime, so $69 or $64 a year and offer same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar stores like Target, Walmart, Walgreens and Safeway (though no specifics were mentioned by our sources).
When and if it launches, the product will be a competitor to Amazon Prime, eBay Now, Postmates’ “Get It Now” and even smaller startups like Instacart.
It seems likely that this service would offer readers a new place to buy Ebooks — especially Ebooks that could be read on Android phones and tablets, since Google is the maker of Android.
Fiction by Vik Rubenfeld
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