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I’m taking a bridge class; I’ve joined the board of a group that raises funds for the only mental hospital in Austin; I’m in a ladies’ book club; I’ve re-begun to swim laps, a much-needed exercise; I’m a longtime supporter of Austin’s symphony; and I spend a lot of time with Bill when he is off work.
He sees his days off as our time together. In short, he’s a dream husband. So it’s difficult for me to tell him, sorry, dear, I have to blog when he wants to have a picnic, play golf, swim or sail. Besides, I would rather do the latter than blog.
Where is This Tending?
My UMKC writing professor James C. McKinley once marked this note on a chapter in my first attempt to write a novel, “Where is this tending?” Just like today’s post, I have no clue.
I will add something that may excite you: A literary agent is reviewing my manuscript for To Leave a Memory. That in itself gives me hope for publication. In other posts, I’ve ranted about the difficulties of querying literary agents and the rather dismal opportunities for new writers to break into publishing today. I’ll let those who are more informed tell you about this, such as this article by NPR about the rise of e-publishing, and another by Bloomberg about why traditional book publishers can indeed survive the digital age.
As for the agent who is reviewing my novel, there’s no way to predict if I’ll get that wondrous phone call instead of an e-jection.
Until that time, I’m mapping the outline for A Merry Little Opera, the working title for my next novel. It’s a “who done it” set in Austin, starring a the widow of a Ponzi schemer who leaves her holding the bag for his financial downfall and blamed for a murder she didn’t commit. It should be a fun work, and I hope a commercial success.
But right now, I’m blogging, which begs the question why keep this up? I receive a lot of spam. I’d prefer to hear from followers, but that requires I blog about something worth your comments. As you can see in this particular post, I’m not saying much…simply adding fresh meat, although I fear today’s blog begs another question, “Where’s the beef?”
Food for Thought
To feed this blog, I came up with low-cholesterol and low-salt recipes in one section, but the tedium of entering recipes bores me. However, the recipes get the most hits, which is understandable. Food is a popular topic. Who searches on Google for “musings; rants and raves; or ramblings about writing”? Who even wants to read such things, except my friends and family? God bless you all.
Initially, I thought one’s blog might be something like a journal, a diary, although my attempts to express thoughts and feelings on certain topics have lead to push back. It seems I’m not supposed to say certain things that others might read, so I’ve had to stick with somewhat generic ramblings or rants, too often political.
Independent Thoughts
On the subject of politics, I no longer know if I’m a Democrat but I’m certainly not a Republican. The current climate of the Republican Party frightens me, especially the pandering to the evangelicals. There was a reason our nation was founded on the principles of separation of Church and State. The pseudo-Christian Right’s insistence that we force pregnant teens and poor women to give birth scares me far more than the fuss about homosexuals marrying. If gays want to marry, why should I care? Would Jesus? I doubt it. I think Jesus was probably a Democrat.
I’ve tried to be a Democrat, and I even participated in Democratic politics as a Hillary delegate during her run for the presidency. But I realized how skewed the Texas Democratic primary is with something they call the “Texas Two Step.” First, the public votes, but then Democrats vote again at precincts after the polls close to determine the number of delegates a candidate gets for the county convention. (See this Houston Chronicle article for a more complete explanation.) In 2008, Hillary won the Texas primary popular vote, but lost caucus delegates to Obama. I found this process sneaky. No wonder my very Republican mother always called the Democrats “dirty.”
Time to turn off the oven. The meat is done.
There’s no way to end this blog without adding another completely off-subject topic, so for now, I say, enough musings and ramblings … I’m signing off to outline A Merry Little Opera and I thank you very much for visiting my blog.
Where, indeed, Pat? As one who abandoned the agent-query rat race last September and elected to go indie, I can attest to recent, first-hand experience with the frustrations of trying to integrate various social networking elements with writing the “real” stuff. The short version as I see it so far is this:
There’s never enough time to do it all, and it’s a constant process of adjusting priorities. I wish you the best of luck with the agent, but even with a legacy deal you will more than likely have to do most of the publicity effort yourself. Your professional background qualifies you to handle that easily, but it also puts you right back to dealing with the problem of not having enough time for the rest of life. And I submit that with the exception of a very few at the top, the vast majority of legacy or indie writers have to either hire someone or take an active personal role in mining the elements of social networking. Based on everything I’ve dealt with so far, an online presence with a blog and all the corollary components is essential.
And for most writers, that will end up being a self-perpetuating publicity whirlpool with everyone looking across the abyss at everyone else. It’s not much more than closed-loop mutual promotion except for a select tiny percentage who have a well-written book (or better yet, books) with a market, and who find/stumble upon a key action that catapults them into the spotlight sufficiently to gain sales momentum. Stories of such success are sprinkled among the various forums, give everyone else hope, but offer nothing in the way of specific answers for any given writer.
I’ll cross my fingers and hope that this all becomes old news when you receive an offer of representation, a contract you can live with from a Big 6 publisher, including a publicity budget, so that you, Dr. Bill, and your two car window-opening rascals can enjoy life the way you like it.
Tosh
Ah, we dream, don’t we? As for promoting the book, I’m all for traveling the country in a souped up RV to speak at old ladies’ book clubs.
Thanks for visiting my blog and especially for commenting on today’s little bite.
Pat