I know it has been a while since I posted. It’s been a while since I wrote anything. I have two novellas and a novel in stagnation, just waiting for me to get back to them. However, life is full of dark surprises and road-blocks, and this year has brought me more than a few.
In January, I had a cyst on my wrist that became quite large and painful. Typing morphed into one-handed pecking, like a demented chicken in a barnyard, so I grew tired of working for hours to get a single page of usable material…if that! They removed said cyst (which had elongated to three and a half inches down my arm, strangling my radial nerves and arteries), and there was a recovery period of several weeks, in which I hurt so much the urge to write simply dissipated into a FARSCAPE marathon-viewing haze. As soon as I was able to return to work, even with some bearable pain and nerve damage (oh hurray for that), my mother became very sick. I drove as many times to the hospital in Columbus where she eventually passed. I was holding her hand at the time, so I feel as if I may have done SOME good for the poor woman. Then, there was the funeral, getting my Dad adjusted, and have I mentioned work is literally killing me by forcing me into extremely long hours just to meet last year’s sales. My friends, a bookstore is not a glamorous place to toil. In any case, I haven’t written a word since mid-January.
Have I missed the writing? Yes and no. I missed it when I had the time, but other matters are so much more important than getting out that next book that a couple thousand people will read. It isn’t my living; sadly, I don’t think many people nowadays can exist on writing wages. With the internet, anyone can put out a book they wrote. And I mean, ANYONE. People fuss and complain if your e-book runs to more than two dollars, but nobody can live on that. And publishers are slowly dwindling away. Their marketing departments have certainly gone the way of the dodo. No, I have to work rtail to pay the bills and put food on the table, and retail is a volatile area right now. We live in a society where people don’t want to pay for products. Everything must be cheap or free – especially intellectual property.
In any case, I am about to kick-start the creative juices. I have been asked into an anthology that is so exciting, I am busting to talk about it (but I can’t yet). This is the first anthology I have been invited to join, a true honor. Somebody out there likes me. It’s nice to know, even if it is a first time. Writing can be a lonely business, possibly the loneliest in the world. As writers, we grasp at any praise or validation of our books and stories. We thrive on good reviews, on people discussing our worlds, on sales for goodness sake! My books have been kind of stagnating lately, and I don’t know why. Everyone who reads them enjoys them for what they are – pure action entertainment. Still, sales of my books are hovering around the HOW TO DIG YOUR OWN LEECH PIT and erotic zombie fiction that runs 4 pages. It’s not a happy place to be.
But I will struggle on…at least for a while longer. Now that I am able to write (at least between shifts), I aim to do so. I need to get those creative juices flowing again. I need to re-catch the writing fever that used to grip me in its warm arms and rattle the words out of my hands and onto the page. I need to regain my hope for the human race again.
This anthology may be the answer. I hope so, as I’d hate to disappoint anyone who actually INVITED me into their book!
Will it work?
Stay tuned.
