... that I also promised posts on rodent ethics.
Really, earning a living takes far too much time and I'd rather be writing. (Which I know some people do for a living, but most of us who have tried and tried and tried and tried and aren't full-time journalists or technical writers or in the .00007% of the happy few who get book tours for their books and NY Times best-sellers cannot keep the rent paid that way.) And helping people to pray and be church. That one at least is a possibility.
I have returned from bringing Benedict to the Quakers, and am quietly at home with Maya Pavlova, and from this brief bit of solitude and silence I shall emerge, late tonight or sometimes tomorrow. Before this it is possible I shall surface with a Summer Series post -- remember them? I've been meaning to share some African women's theology with you all. It's the fall equinox so I'd better hurry up. Ah well, I had to start my "fall" work on August 14, so I get an extra day or two of "Summer" on my blogging and summer thinking.
(I just checked the NASA kiddie calendar, and it turns out we've got another day till this year's Autumn Equinox. NASA's handy educational site, by the way, is here. Go there for detailed help in contemplating the mysteries of the universe.)
Miss Maya Pavlova has had several encounters with a striped lizard in gorgeous hues of electric blue, or perhaps two lizards if the same one is not roaming under two different windows on two sides of the house, and she is resting up from her emotions, because the encounters were of course through a window, she being inside and the lizard out. Her tail was flicking, her nose was pointing, and she was making all manner of predatory little guttural cat sounds.
...but most of us who have tried and tried and tried and tried and aren't full-time journalists or technical writers or in the .00007% of the happy few who get book tours for their books and NY Times best-sellers cannot keep the rent paid that way
ReplyDeleteCome now, you link to two books with your name on them. That is two more than most dreamers like me will ever see. Plus: as one who spent 23+ years playing at being a technical writer, and who couldn't always get the rent paid anyhow, tech writing is not writing: it is taking other people's thoughts or non-thoughts and rearranging them. It's floral decoration without the visual and olfactory beauty of flowers. This will get someone mad, thank God...but technical writing is to writing as John Cage music is to music.
I was referring specifically to the ability to make a living from writing. Not only did I never see a royalty (except for the advance on royalties, which did help me live for a couple of months at the beginning of each books) but I got into debt with the first one -- in other words, I paid for the privilege of writing. And WIDS, the second, which got fabulous reviews and has helped many people, went out of print within a year of its publication because HarperCollins didn't deem it worthy to continue (and lied in print to Publishers Weekly about how many they were printing in the first place), and then HarperSanFrancisco wouldn't take it for a paperback because it hadn't (catch-22) sold enough copies! Then my literary agent, who was supposed to be scouting for paperback publishers for it, vanished, and I was left to peddle it on my own for paperback contract - which I haven't had the energy to finish doing (doctoral work, job-search, then this 60-70 hr/week job) but hope to get done by the end of the calendar year, so at least the book can see the light of day again. I may not make any money from it but it has a few more people to help. But yes, it's a success in a way. I'm just feeling tired right now, and frustrated not to be able to do some of what I love most. (And I have other books in me which I can't hatch right now.) But that time may return. Told you I was feeling cranky.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Yes, a few readers here will wrinkle their noses at the John Cage quip, but Tom and Joe are friendly even when they wrinkle their noses, and they are more into Pauline Oliveros than into John Cage, though Tom does note that Cage has been a musical influence in his life.