“Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.”
― Margaret Atwood
A writer has to own many hats in today's publishing world. Writing itself isn't enough. A writer must also be a promoter, a marketer, a public speaker, and perhaps even her own publisher.
It's lucky that I happen to like hats. And hats (literal hats) seem to be stylish again. I see hats as symbolic more than simply stylish. Maybe this has something to do with the old movies I love, the characters and plots that intrigue and inspire me.
In the forties and fifties nearly all men wore the same brimmed style that gave them a certain dignity and authority, while women’s hats seemed to offer insight into their personality and character.
The seductress wore a glamorous picture hat with a veil. The plucky career women (or gal, as they were then called) wore a jaunty little number with a feather. The secretary wore a little peaked cap and the artistic type chose a wild concoction with peacock feathers or something equally exotic.
I sometime ask my characters to choose a hat . This leads me deeper into the story. A hat reveals and conceals. A hat is a disguise or a symbol. And that brings me back to full circle. As a writer you have to have a whole wardrobe full of hats.
Yes..I agree that putting on a different hat can change a day, an attitude or even a career in a person...and its great that Royal Kate has brought the classy and stylish 'fascinator' hat back!!
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