Priorities, priorities
If this is the state of things in Flavortown, imagine how much worse we all have it.
Nothing rearranges your priorities like a good crisis. Recently my plans have encountered, not so much a speed bump in the road, more like a full train derailment. I should clarify, this was not that well thought out a plan in the beginning. It really only consisted of three steps:
1, Write book.
2. Celebrity interviews, mass book signings, general uproar at the fantasticalness that is said book
3. Retire to the Bahamas
As you can see, the plan had all the kinks ironed out beforehand. What could go wrong?
Its been months since I last updated this blog, and now i will try to explain why. A year and a half ago, when I sat down to ramble out my first blog on this site, I declared my unending desire, my long time dream of becoming a writer. I was wrong.
These past few months have revealed that I don't want to be a writer. I want (what I always wanted) is to be a novelist. Someone who writes something every few years and spends the intervening time reaping the rewards of fame and fortune. Writers, real writers, are the people that put out new content every day, weekly at the least. I have new found respect and admiration for the people who can create articles everyday. Columnists, reporters, hell even cartoonists, you all have my eternal praise for what you are able to do.
I started this blog thinking I could do a weekly anecdote, like i had my own column in the paper. Those guys do it right? I didn't make it two months at that pace. By week 4 I was out of ideas. By week 8 writing something new was like trying to squeeze out toothpaste from an empty tube. I was writing like crap and I knew it. What started as a hobby had become a job I dreaded doing.
Nope.
Yep.
So, that's why the blog has taken the sideline in my priorities. But what of the book? Surely the novel I spent years writing hasn't been shunted aside?! Unfortunately, it has. Something I had never anticipated was just how difficult (read: nearly fucking impossible) it is to get someone to read a book. I have pushed this book on to just about everyone I know. Very few of those people have actually read the book. I have family members, people that have been my close friend for over 30 years that cant finish the prologue. And trying to get an agent to read it is just out of the damn question.
I have spent the last 20 months diligently querying agents from all across the globe. I have a tracker that carefully follows every submission I make, and the date of every rejection letter. I have kept a dozen open queries since February of last year, and the second I received a rejection letter, I sent another query. In all that time, with all those sent queries, I have not had a single request for more material.
Simple truth is that as a first time writer with no fan base and no professional referral, no agent will ever take a chance on my work. The futility of what I was hoping to achieve had finally hit home, and it was a very bitter pill to swallow. I had to face the facts: it was time to go back to work.
I had left my job thinking my three step, foolproof plan was well on its way to completion. But with my complete and total failure to reach step two of the plan, I started to see how that perfect plan just might not be working out. My hobby had become work, my attempts to get it into print had flopped on its face, and what's more, I had become a world-class couch potato.
I always knew I liked TV, movies, and video games more than was strictly healthy for me, but having no job while writing less and less lead to a straight up sinful amount of time spent binging Netflix and doing video game marathons. I put on at least 20 pounds and lord knows what my cholesterol looks like.
Hopefully i got the hotfix started. I'm back at work, real work. Hopefully I can kick my ass back in gear and get healthy. And with writing back to being just a hobby, maybe I'll finally enjoy it again.
I hope to write again soon. Stay happy out there.
