I write a newsletter once a month for my (potential) readers. My reader list came from posting free copies of my book on BookFunnel, where people would read it in exchange for being put on my newsletter list. If you’re wondering what it’s all about, it’s a lot like this blog — a reflection that relates to the books, followed by book news and a freebie link to BookFunnel.
I have 2808 readers, most of whom (I suspect) do not read the newsletter. But that’s okay, some people are reading it. I don’t think any of them have bought a book. But that’s okay, someday they may. That 2800 people subscribe to my newsletter amazes me.
If you want to subscribe, drop me a line and I will put you on the subscriber list.
Indie-publishing a novel was a risk. Writing it was a Big Audacious Goal, but I could have left the book in a file folder forever. Letting it out there for people to read was a big risk.
What is the risk of putting my work out there for others to read? There’s a risk of being ridiculed, of being ignored, of losing one’s confidence in oneself. These bring up a lot of fear, like standing in front of a door, not knowing what is on the other side.
I took the risk by walking through that door. My first book published was a Christmas romance, The Kringle Conspiracy. It was a project whose seeds were planted in a high school short story I’d written. To publish, I had to edit the document, run it across some beta readers, and then the hard part: uploading it onto KDP (Kindle’s publishing arm) and hitting the button to publish.
I could have walked it back. I could have unpublished it before the wheels of KDP released it to the public, but I did not. I took the risk.
My results have been mixed. On one hand, I have not had a lot of readers (except for the 3300 who read it for free in exchange for getting put on my newsletter list.) On the other, the few people who have reviewed it have given it 4.5 stars out of five. It’s a modest success, but that’s not the reason I took the risk. I took it because it was another Big Audacious Goal, one that I could only accomplish through stepping through the door.
I’ve noticed that when I’m having writer’s block, I make a post about it, and then I get back into writing. As if complaining about my writer’s block solves it. Like griping is a magic incantation.
I’m going to have to find an alternate way to break my writer’s block. You all deserve better than to hear me bitch about my lack of production every couple of weeks.
So even though I’m back in a lull, I will not try to convince you that this horrible dry spell is the end of my writing career. It’s just the end of the semester catching up with me.
This is not going to be a very exciting answer. If I were a better person than I am, I would say something like meditation or reading, or walking. But the truthful answer is that I come home, recline in the recliner, and surf the Internet on my phone. I kill time in the most prosaic way possible.
I am a voracious reader of minutiae. It comes from wanting to absorb information and having a short attention span. So I binge-read Wikipedia, science websites, and Quora, looking for things to learn. I also like to read advice columns, because I like to know the right things to do in an awkward situation.
Sometimes I fall asleep in the recliner. I guess this is how one really winds down.
When I was about 11, the music director at the church had put together a children’s choir for Easter. There weren’t many of us, to be sure; it was a small church. We rehearsed in the choir loft on Wednesdays.
On Easter, my friend Kay, who was in the choir, was set in charge of her cousin Denise. Denise was older than us, but she had developmental disabilities and the maturity of a six-year-old. Therefore, she ended up in the choir loft with us. The choir director, Mrs. Rose, said it was okay as long as Kay didn’t let Denise sing because Denise would “ruin the music”.
Denise was crushed. One of her favorite things to do was to sing. As I stood singing, I felt a creeping sense of remorse. This was God’s house, and we were denying Denise an opportunity to worship the one way she knew how. We had decided Denise wasn’t worthy to be heard. This didn’t sound like the God we learned about in Catechism. It didn’t matter to me that Denise would ruin our rehearsed music. I felt the music would be perfect if all our voices were heard.
At the end, Mrs. Rose gave each of us a dollar coin. In those days, a dollar coin was an impressive size and was considered special. I took mine, ashamed of myself for having been one that had rejected Denise. This was my fifty pieces of silver. Soon, I left the choir, and it didn’t last for long after that because there weren’t enough of us.
I tell this story, and most people don’t understand what the big deal was. After all, we had rehearsed for the opportunity, we had a specific sound that Mrs. Rose wanted to capture, and Denise would have ruined it. But I believed that God loved everyone, and that everyone was welcome at God’s table.
Later, much later, I became a Quaker because everyone is welcome at their table. And, if liturgy had been part of their services, they would have let Denise sing.
There are six words that someone can say that make me so nervous, I have to work not to panic. They’re not uncommon words either. All it takes is the phrase “I need to talk to you.” It doesn’t matter if it’s my boss, my husband, or a friend — the phrase makes me spiral.
In my mind, nothing good comes from that phrase. It speaks of being called into the office and reprimanded, or worse. My heart rate goes up, my stomach churns, and my mind searches for what I may have done wrong.
It’s even worse when someone says that to me and they can’t talk to me until the next day. I spend that entire day in near-panic mode. I can lose whole days to the nervousness.
Usually, however, the actual message is not nearly as nerve-wracking as the wait. It’s usually about something like taking on an extra class for the semester or leaving the bath mat on the floor. Nothing worth two days of terror. My mind, however, refuses to believe that the next time someone says “I need to talk to you.”
I advise anyone who says “I need to talk to you” to give me a synopsis of what we’re talking about so I can prepare for the meeting. But really, it’s so I don’t lose my mind worrying.
This is probably me having a Discouraging Moment TM but I’m not feeling that obsession to write. I have three partial novels and one novella, all of which have stalled.
The latest document — I know what’s wrong with it but not how to fix it. I sit and think about how to introduce what it needs and my brain dissolves into mush. I feel like my brain cells are devoted to work and my future garden, the seedlings in the basement and the research proposals on the computer.
I might take some time this morning to talk with my husband and see what I come up with. Then again, I might grade papers. That’s what writing has been lately.
There are several types of social media I use to try to drive readers toward my books. This, my blog, is one of the primary ones. It doesn’t seem to succeed very well. I don’t plug my books very often on my blog (Look here if you’re interested) so that might explain my lack of success.
I also promote my books through Loomly, a social media manager. With Loomly, I can schedule blurbs in Threads, Facebook Pages, and Instagram at the same time. I plug my books much more often on Loomly. This also doesn’t seem to succeed very well.
I don’t do a great job at plugging my books. Maybe it’s because my books are one in a million — literally. Just one in a market of indie books that grows exponentially by the year. I think people are innundated with ads for indie books, and there’s no way to know whether they’re good or not. I can’t seem to make mine stand out. I’m not sure anyone can.
It’s not so bad. I think I do a good job writing this blog, which is a reward in its own right. I don’t have too many readers, but they’re increasing. Thank you for reading.
My mind is cluttered with memories. I feel overwhelmed with the weight of them sometimes. I remember life before computers, the occasional soda fountain, the years of new wave music, times sitting on the Quad at the University of Illinois, my telephone number growing up, the first time someone gave me flowers.
My mind is like an attic, with boxes sitting in dusty corners, and sometimes something reminds me of a box that is up there. I rummage through the box and find the memory and a lot of other things that lived in the box with the memory. So I remember the Drovers’ concert in the student union, sitting with some friends in a little-used stairwell in the same student union, catching the bus outside the Union, my broken leg that necessitated lots of bus usage in grad school … I’m there exploring a moment of time with a cloud of memories and my feelings at the time.
At age 61, there are a lot of boxes in that attic, Some have been placed more recently than others, and those have less emotional resonance because those boxes are newer. The old boxes, the ones from my childhood and college, are the more poignant to go through. I was younger then, the world has changed from those days, and I can’t bring them back. But I can remember them.
When I was in high school, I wasn’t very popular. It had gotten better from the constant harassment I had gotten in previous grades, but I was not the student with a boyfriend ever.
It was my junior year, and of course when prom came around, I didn’t have a date. In physics class, the girls who had dates for prom were chattering non-stop about who they were going with. I knew the purpose was to show off their popularity, but it still brought me down.
Our teacher for physics was Mr. Miller, and he talked about more than physics in his class. He would impart nuggets of wisdom, calling them “Miller’s Unsubstantiated Opinion”. He had one for the girls in the class, which sobered them up. “Do you think you’re going to marry your prom date? Do you think you’re going to remember who you went to prom with in three years? Probably not. You’ll have gone on with your lives, gone to college. This might seem a big thing now, but it won’t be in a few years.
I don’t know if the popular girls had learned anything from that, but I did. My high school years, it turned out, were not going to be the be-all and end-all of my existence, the cornerstone of my memories. I could see how quickly the memory would fade. And from that moment on, the girls’ chatter didn’t bother me. This was just a moment in time, after all.
Words Like Me 