Following Your Own Path

I've written several blog posts on about writing. In my view, writing is a social thing. You tell a story to an audience and they react by liking it or not. In that way, it is like having a conversation. Writing is also entertainment, of course, and so it should entertain, allow the audience to escape for a time, suspend their disbelief, and so on.

I've also talked about how the business end of sell books for a newly minted author is like having a small business. I'll be the one carrying much of the load to sell, promote, and push my books into the hands of others.

But there's another aspect to all this which occurred to me the other day. Up until recently, I was a victim of fate in the sense that I used by skills and experience to deal with whatever came my way. I wasn't actively charting a specific course, I was just going whichever way the wind was blowing.

Oh sure there were brief moments where I made plans and saw them through but those were the exception not the rule.

But then I began writing and eventually I reach a point where I had a book that was worth publishing, at least I thought so and I began seeking a publisher. I've described some of those efforts here and how they met with rejection until late last year. Now, with my novel only a few months from release I see that I am in fact charting a course. A very specific one. One of my choosing. And this too makes me very much like a small businessman. It is the American ideal come to life, where a man chooses a path and follows it.

I won't belabor that or whip into some romantic notion. But the notion did surprise me because I think of writing as an art but you need to be part businessman too. It also is kind of exciting in a way. I hope it does well. But regardless of what happens I will follow this new path that I created and see where it leads. In a way, that makes me like a character in one of my novels, spelunking some dark caverns or exploring the wilderness to see what treasures might lie just beyond the next turn in the road.

Keep writing everyone.