Writer’s Life … To buy a plum bun

Graphic credit

It happened on a city block. It happened in rural farm towns. It went like this:

Mom is home washing, cleaning and cooking. She waits for the sounds of a man shouting his wares outside her kitchen window. She listens for the knock at the door, for the next delivery, the next salesman.

If you can’t get out to the world market … the market will come to you.

A man lumbers down the avenues, a giant suitcase on casters, in tow. It is filled with dresses for the misses and the little girl of the house. They can be purchased “on time,” and there is always a variety of styles and sizes available. Don’t see what you want today? He takes out a little note pad and a number two pencil and puts you in his book. “Next week, I’ll have that one in blue.”

They were the merchants who sold their wares, the milkman who delivered milk, cream, butter and eggs. No equal opportunity for women, it was a postman who carried a heavy bag over his shoulders, and another man who wrote down your weekly insurance payments. One policy for each member of the house. He worked for Metropolitan Life or Prudential. If anyone was lucky enough to own a car, he might be the one to take your weekly payments for the car insurance.

Simple wasn’t it?

Books?

Do you wonder if there was a man who carted books in a horse-drawn carriage? Did he have a designated day to roll down your block with the wonders of Twain or Dickens? Did he carry those dime store novels you were told would rot your brain? No silly, those were in the Five and Ten Cents Store.

Most books were sold in tiny bookstores, or the corner of the drug store, the far wall of the Woolworth. They were borrowed from libraries, and Scholastic reader came directly to your classroom.

Life was so simple then. Writers could knock on a publishers door, introduce themselves and plunk down their 250K word manuscript on the editor’s desk. Then we all grew up and the rule book for the National Football League and Random House changed.

To market, to market to buy a fat pig,
Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

The way things are sold has also changed. The insurance man doesn’t come to your kitchen and talk to the man of the house about his “coverage” while the little lady is making a plum pudding.

The way we shop has changed. You get on a personal computer, click a mouse and upgrade, order, cancel, pay for or add on to insurance, utilities, cable bundles, buy music, play games, order games, read books, order books, or even buy dresses for the misses or the little girl of the house.

It’s called instant gratification and something about that concept makes some people worry, judge or define when enough is, enough.

To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Home again, home again, market is done.

If you can’t get out to the world market … the market will come to you.

Writing and selling, printing and delivering books has changed. Right now we are on the apex of the most important change since chapbooks were replaced by hard covers. More important than when the small presses in rural cities, were replaced by the Big 6, more important than when the little bookstore on the avenue was sucked up by the Brick and Mortar giants.

Oops, the tale is no longer David and Goliath … the tale is a battle to the death of several Goliaths. They are choosing their weapons, defining how you should buy the books you want to read. For those who wish to write books, they are defining how you should publish those books.

I recently read a post by Anna DeStafano: Publishing Isn’t for Sissies: On the Radar. Take the time to read the entire post. You will thank yourself. I site one paragraph.

But this is MY business to manage, not my traditional publisher partners’. I’m convinced (and I’m not the only one) that multiple streams of income are the way through this period of upheaval and change.I’m exercising my more technical skills, “officially” editing now with a digital-first publisher I believe in, one with great distribution, foreign sales, and subsidiary plans and author-focused contract terms. I’m also submitting digital projects that seem to fit that more flexible market better than more traditional avenues (I’m an outside-the-box kinda girl whose creativity frequently doesn’t “fit” an inflexible mold, no matter how hard I might try). While I keep my options open to even more opportunities.

What about those books you want to write?

Voices are echoing in tunnels, shouting from street corners, pushing their carts in your direction. Write, print, publish, market, sell and sweat with ME.

I am on the right side of this debate and I know what’s best. If you go with “them” you can’t be seen by my readers. If you don’t go with “me” you probably aren’t literate enough to lunch with “us.”

Makes me feel ancient, like that old guy in the supermarket who tells you how much he used to pay for milk, cream, butter and eggs.

Oh hell, I’m tired. I think I’ll go outside and wait for the ice cream truck, the Good Human man or the little Italian guy who shaves ice, pours bright liquids over it and calls it an “icie.”

Damn, are they gone too?

Does it all make you think you should roll up your wares and wait for a better day?

fOIS In The City

The Writer’s Life … Pot Holes

Picture this:

You are driving down the highway to share a Sunday picnic with the family. The sun is high in the heavens, the kids aren’t fighting, and no one turns off that favorite song you play fifteen times a day. Then from out of nowhere, BAM, the front axis is cracked by a pot hole the depth of the Grand Canyon.

It’s raining. You’ve been shopping all day. You pick up the kids, drive into the take out window of your favorite fast-food joint, and load up on high carb, low nutrition dollar bargains. You are wet and tired. All you want to do is make it home before they implode and start throwing cheese doodles all over the back of the station wagon, the RV or your sedan.

Leaving the fast food joint you look both ways, see that distant puddle, and remembering your cracked axis, drive around it, and SPLAT, that sheet of water on the other side of the puddle covers a pot hole the width of the Indian Ocean.

Pot hole cartoon here

Translated into your life and hard times as a writer? You finish that first mad draft. The rush makes you feel giddy with excitement. You put her through a quick spell check, do a fast re-read and carry it off to the Critique Group.

The fifth and next to the last draft is finally revised, edited and ready for publication. You click send, and your first-born travels through cyber space to Agent A.

The sixth, and next to the last rewrite is polished until it shines like your grandmother’s china cabinet after she puts the 1,500th layer of bee’s wax. “Don’t use that Pledge stuff honey. Good old fashion bee’s wax, and muscle is what you need.”

You heed your grandma, ’cause what are grandmas for, if not good advise? You polish your WIP, do another query, and send it, and ten sample pages off to Agent B.

Down the road you travel, one book can use up more of your energy-saving gas than an entire fleet of taxis in New York City.  It devours paper and printer ink, and it occupies copious space in your hard drive, external back up drive, two flash drives, and a CD for good measure.

Your Critique Group was less than enthusiastic the first five times, and by draft number ten, they are secretly wishing you crack your axis and miss a meeting.

Agents A, B, and C, don’t send a rejection. They remain white noise on the world-wide web. Agents D, E, F, and G send form rejections, probably written and mailed by an intern.

By this time, you have hypothetically, cracked your axis, blown three good tires, bent one rim, scratched a fender and scrapped the underside of the engine and still, CRASH, another pot hole swallows you, your car, the kids and the groceries. It takes a tow truck and the jaws of life to get you to safety.

Wanna give up driving? Think it’s time to turn in your license and take the bus?

Do you secretly believe that writers are plagued by an inordinate number of pot holes, pit stops, dead ends and electrical storms that short-circuit their GPS on a dark, lonely highway?

Ready to give up, cave in and find a real profession, hobby, craft, pastime or vocation?

Maybe you think being a struggling painter might be easier? All it took Van Gogh was one lousy ear, being dead for decades, another hundred years for his bones to rattle in the grave, and he sold at Christie’s for millions.

As many New Yorker’s have discovered, there is no solution to pot holes. Each winter they open up like the graves in a horror story, or the creaking door on Inner Sanctum.

Each spring the Highway Safety Commission, blocks off funding, and little trucks roll onto the highways and byways and fill in the little suckers with fresh black tar.

Being mindful of law suits, the Mayor often announces that our Safety Patrol will post little yellow flashing lights at the opening of said pot holes to warn off unsuspecting drivers.

Each day another group of little trucks deliver the yellow lights. Each night the kids swipe them, and along with the STOP signs and STREET SIGNS,  they adorn the kid’s bedrooms like coat hangers.

No, there is no solution for pot holes in New York or anywhere else.

A solution for your writer’s life? STOP.

Yes, I said stop. Sit down and read what you have written. Read it a loud to yourself, and listen.

Since you can’t trust the Mayor of New York, the Highway Safety Commission, or dear old granny … trust you.

When you slow down and learn to trust yourself … amazing things can happen.

Or you could drive into the sunset, ride off a cliff,  and never be seen or heard from again.

How about you? Do you really think there is a conspiracy of nature, and college interns trying to wreck your dreams?

fOIS In The City

Note: Any viable solutions to pot holes should be mailed directly to your local mayor.

Finale … The Writer’s Life …

What separates those of us in the writer’s life from … let’s say … quasi-normal folks? Are we much different from other artists, photographers, musicians, those driven to perform, entertain and enrich the everyday life of others?

The answer is simple. Heck no!

We want to entertain, we love to draw you into our circle of thoughts, weave a magic web to ensnare and capture those special moments for your singular pleasure.

We also love to talk to each other, support and cheer on, help and advise, and set positive examples for each other. Do you have a problem with character development, point of view, or plot points? Is that opening sentence driving nails in your head?

Can you remember how many times you’ve rewritten the first paragraph or are you so secure, you have revised, rewritten or torn apart everything else except that first paragraph?

When you get bogged down with self-doubt does your critique group or partner bolster your resolve and encourage you to move forward? How many times have you felt lost or stupefied and your best reader saved your day and a few hundred pages of your draft?

The most defining separation of the artist and his solitary journey, the author and her writerly life is not only our singular determination, but the knowing that when things get rough, we have each other.

That’s the best part of the writer’s life.

Being in this business is like having an entre to the inner circle, being a member of an elite group of men and women who gather in small and large, local and national groups and offer each other the support and inspiration we desperately need to continue.

Social networking is not only for the means of gaining recognition, it is also the means whereby we can find shelter from the storm, a light at the end of the tunnel, and a like-minded group of other writers who understand why we can’t seem to walk away and take up knitting.

The next time you visit a new blogger, or you leave a comment on a post, remember you are also helping yourself. The expression is perfect … pay it forward.

It’s like the writer’s golden rule. Go visit the new guy’s blog and let them know they are being heard. Leave comments on places you visit daily. Read side columns on other blogs and find new resources.

Don’t be afraid to change, add or delete and find the best places to learn and expand your world.

During this week alone, I have commented and read three blogs and an author’s web site on the subject of e-books, the issue of self-publishing, and finding and saving new places where you can get free advise about your query, your first 250 words or your first sentence.

I have added newbies to my fav file and in time I will begin to visit new sites and leave comments or leave quietly. Oh yes, leave quietly, and if you don’t like something or someone the first time, try a couple more times.

If you get no response or the tenor of the posts are not to our liking, keep it to yourself and move on. There’s plenty room enough in cyber-space to satisfy every little devil.

What do you find in a blog that makes you want to return and/or leave comments?

fOIS In The City

Note:   As this week ends my finalist entry on Write It Sideways is being posted Saturday, Sunday and Monday; April 23, 24 and 25. I’d be delighted if you detour to WIS and read my entry, and leave a comment only if I have earned it. Voting will be in May. I’ll remind you, I promise.

Please read and enjoy all eight finalist. I am in the middle of an amazing group of bloggers. 

Tomorrow through Monday, I’ll leave a reminder at the top of my post.