Faith In The Future
Recently, most of my posts have been about me. My books, my release dates, and what I’ve published. Thinking back now over the last few months it’s all been about self-promotion. It’s a difficult world we live in that your “sell” is more important than what you are actually offering.
Being an author is no easy path — until you make it of course, and then everyone wants a piece of you and they seek you out. It’s not just Murder, he wrote, and then published! It’s not just about editing into a perfectionistic splendour or literary mastery. It’s far more than just crossing your tees, spanking naughty characters, and pulling rabbits out of your book jackets!
It’s about all of that just for breakfast and then you progress to getting out of your pajamas and getting ready for the day! Some days I do nothing but social media. Anything from updating timeline images to promote my latest book, announcing the next one, and posting something relevant on my public profiles. Sometimes Mister SEO is the only one remotely interested enough to index what I have written.
Other days are spent updating my own site to provide visitors with downloadable content. On particularly extraordinary days, I have the unenviable pleasure of editing my own writing! Think back on the days of school and detention when you were asked to stay behind and write, “I will not fall asleep in class” a thousand times on the blackboard. Now multiply that by another boring thousand. It is still nowhere near the torture of editing your own work.
Then there are electronic days. These are a painstaking perfectionist’s special hell. The time has come to take that book and turn it into an electronic reading pleasure … for readers! It’s basic web design for your book but with the added twist of transcribing words into ePub code that looks as lovely as well typeset print! You try to make sure you don’t break the code by forgetting one of these </p> and you remember to place <em>for all italics</em> so that they show as proper italicus legitimus.
So any one of these days can be a typical day at my desk. Sometimes the monotony is broken by a quick chat with a friend or a funny cat to repost. Ah! A quick video of some crazy youngsters playing “Hit me several times” by I’m not a “Brit or Speared” on nothing more than two violins and a drum machine! Replace the strings on the bows and repeat exercise!
Some days I even write. I like writing … it’s rather fun! So I’m not complaining! Really, I’m not. In between a Twitter and a Tweet, a post and an update, a launch and the forthcoming, I’m loving what I do.
I took my Saturday off yesterday! I decided I would not lift a finger to strike any keys to type or do any “work” to do with publishing. I did succeed with my steadfastness until 2am when I decided to sit in bed and write this. By now you may be wondering what the motto of this blog post is? Gosh, so demanding! Well, I’ll get to it then shall I?
Sometimes in life you just need to “believe” in yourself and what you are doing. You simply just know you are doing something that just is “write” for you. You need to ignore the naysayers, the clairvoyants with no vision, the misguided advice that “there’s no money in it”, and merely go with your gut and have faith that it will not lead you astray. If it does … well, now you really have something to write about!
There are times in your life you are called upon to let go of the fear and just believe. My wish for today is that everyone follow their “write” path! It’s always worth it even with the annoying sacrifices one sometimes has to make.
Who cares what anyone else thinks unless it is your bank manager or someone terribly cute you seek to engage with? Be a little daring and achieve your greatest potential. There is simply nothing like it. I love to write ….
