October 7, 2012
Day Nineteen of Thirty (nonconsecutive) Days of Writing the rant edition
Writing is the only profession where no one considers you ridiculous if you earn no money. – Jules Renard
Interesting quote today. I certainly wish that were the case these days but it’s not. For as long as I can remember, writing carried with it the same, if not heavier, weight that if you’re doing it, you must automatically want to be doing it for money. If you’re not doing it for the money, clearly you’re deficient in some way. Why not take up an acceptable not-paid hobby like golf or tennis or stamp-collecting or crocheting?
I’ve never understood this mentality. It was especially prevalent during the fanfiction phase I was in. ‘You are such a good writer. You should write original fiction and sell it. You’re wasting your time writing fanfiction.’ That is pretty much what many fanfiction (and original fiction) writers are told when it’s made clear they write because they love it and have no desire to make money doing something they love.
I wonder if tennis players, or golf players, or any sports enthusiast who plays at a hobby level with no designs to become the next Venus Williams or Jack Nicklaus get the same level of grief. ‘Wow, you’re good. You should play professionally!’
You know, maybe they don’t want to. Maybe they’re playing because they love it. Somehow, it’s okay when it’s sports or any handcrafter.
Certainly, I’ve never been told ‘you’re a great crochter. You should try to sell some of your stuff.’ Hell, no matter how good I am, I can’t give my stuff away. There’s a stigma that seems to follow handcraft hobbies that it’s all crap, even though I’ve seen some stunning work put out. If someone tries to sell it, people are appalled at the prices the crafter charges to at least break even on supplies and maybe get some for their time investment, because they have ‘an auntie who does it all the time and sells it for considerably less (or gives it away) ZOMG!’
The urge to bite them is strong. *huff*
Writers? For reasons that are unfathomable to me, seem to get the side-eye when they say ‘nah, I just love to write and I’m not interested in getting published’. I wonder if it has to do with a tangible product in the end. Crafters have a tangible product at the end. They have something you can hold, display, use. Sports enthusiasts do as well. They have their gear, the shape their body is in, time spent being social with friends and family while engaging in their sport of choice. Stamp collectors have their vast collections of stamps to show off.
A writer has electronic words on an electronic page, all created in mostly isolation. When they have a physical book that can be put in physical hands, somehow it becomes more ‘real’ then. Prior to that? It’s a hobby people can’t seem to wrap their head around.
I have to wonder, however, if that isn’t changing now in many respects. As young people are growing up with automatic exposure to the internet, where the electronic exchange of information, goods and services are more commonplace for them, the value of the electronic version of something, a book, a website, a blog, a video has more tangible results for them.
Perceived value of those bodies of work are another rant altogether, so I’ll leave it there and move on to Day Nineteen. Read the rest of this entry »
October 4, 2012
Day Seventeen of Thirty (nonconsecutive) Days of Writing the money edition
The cat sat on the mat is not a story. The cat sat on the other cat’s mat is a story. – John le Carre
My poor Lucy the dog. With a rambunctious kitten thundering about (we now refer to her as yak feet), she’s not getting much quality rest. As Lucy is an aging dog, she needs more restful sleep than normal. She suffers through surprise ambushes with graceful aplomb but there are days she has this air of flagging patience.
It doesn’t help that the kitten has now commandeered every fluffy/soft surface in the house. The moment Lucy hobbles toward one, the kitten gets there ahead of her and flops down in the middle of it. If Lucy turns around and heads for another, insta!kitten appearance. Lucy can’t win for trying.
I haven’t talked about the SSP (SuperSecretProject) in a while. So just to touch in: The month of September saw $40 in sales for four titles. I lost momentum publishing missing a week and haven’t had any new sales during that week at all. I note that it takes anywhere from 2-4 days to see a sale once I publish something new.
A few titles just aren’t moving at all. It could be any number of things that are preventing people from picking them up but I’m not going to do anything about it yet, just keep an eye on the trends until I have more information and titles to compare.
For my first month, I can’t sneeze at how I’m doing. I’ve considered upping my production to two a week. I’ll have to see how that goes. The holidays are coming up and those are notoriously bad for me as far as time and familial obligations are concerned.
And here we are at Day Seventeen. Read the rest of this entry »
September 4, 2012
Getting my groove on – bowchickabowbow
Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire. – Napoleon Hill
I’m in the erotic-writing groove.
At least my brain is there. Everything I read now has pervy connotations to it.
Innocent discussion of stock scams -> mind -> gutter -> fuel for more erotic short stories.
Grocery store stocking -> mind -> gutter -> yet another idea….
Can’t beat that combination with a stick for productivity.
My non-erotica writing is taking a breather, which is, all considered, a good thing. It’s funny (in the ‘makes you go hmm’ way) how that works.
I’ve been wrestling with productivity issues for a while. I have this passion for all these irons ready to place in the fire. My fear kicks into high gear, triggers my procrastination and next thing you know, I’ve lost days of writing time and gotten nothing done except more projects to start and not a one of them finished. Read the rest of this entry »
August 30, 2012
Wherein Isaac cuts me a break and lets me squeeze in a blog post
Courage is nothing more than taking one step more than you think you can. – Holly Lisle
Wel-p!
Yesterday saw my first efforts at self-publishing getting uploaded. In the process I broke the internet and caused a power outage here.
I’m joking. Mostly. I should mention that Isaac is currently blowing around to the south and west of me. We’re still feeling his effects as he moves through with high winds and some rain, but not to the extent that those in his path are feeling it. My thoughts and prayers go out to them. I wish he’d stop making the power go out, though. Read the rest of this entry »
May 4, 2012
Does this tinhat make me look fat? Got it on sale. Two for the price of one!
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann
I’m not a conspiracy theorist. Not usually. Disregard that tinfoil hat on the sideboard, please. That’s reserved for politics, which will wisely stay off this blog if I can help it.
I should clarify that I’m not a conspiracy theorist in regards to publishing. It’s a huge, big, convoluted thing, this whole publishing business. And it is a business. The more I read about the inside stuff, the more my eyes get all swirly. It’s complicated, you guys! A bit fascinating, too. Read the rest of this entry »
April 20, 2012
Start of a cycle
I’d rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I’d rather be a has-been than a might-have-been by far; for a might-have-been has never been, but a has-been was once an are. – Milton Berle
Right. So. Not too long ago I was psyched. I had a purpose for this blog that has seen a few starts and stops and many times of looking at it and wondering what the heck I was doing. Or thought I was doing.
I left ‘social networking’ behind a few years back when I let my fannish LiveJournal go dark. I poked around the edges of the internet and the blogging phenomenon but I didn’t look much more at it. Sure, I had blogs I would visit regularly. Visit people who had Important and Interesting and Relevant-To-The-Times things to say.
Then I started to take writing a little more seriously. I’ve written on and off for the past ten years or so. Nothing stuck and I pecked at it like a hobbyist. There were many false starts under my belt, though nothing really came of it.
Things have cycled around in my life where I’m looking at a perfect opportunity to write and be a Serious Writer. My learning curve was steep (still is!), yet I read everything I could put my hands on. Separating fact from opinion, good opinion from bad has been an exercise in patience and taxing my critical thinking skills.
Amidst the flurry of reading and researching and relearning, some new attitudes have fallen out as well as some new goals. Hence, my post on 4/13.
What does this all mean? Read the rest of this entry »
April 13, 2012
Life is funny
You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you’ve got something to say. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
Life is funny.
I don’t mean in the ha-ha way in this instance. It’s more of a ‘wow, why didn’t I think of that because it’s so natural and I should have been doing this all along’. Sometimes, it takes someone else to point this stuff out.
Like, this blog, for instance. Read the rest of this entry »
the glass 'possum 