No Comparison

Been hearing some disturbing things in my writers' groups. Things like "it takes 10 books to get noticed and 30 books to get famous." Or something close. Shock shut me down for a little bit when I heard it.

That is one statistic I hadn't heard yet. 

I guess it's a good thing I don't want to be noticed or famous. Even assuming America exists long enough (which I don't believe it will), it would take me 60 years to produce 30 books at my current rate.

Did you hear the one about the grandfather clock? The little alarm clock asked how old it was and the grandfather clock began to explain just how many ticks it had ticked and the alarm clock blew a gasket just thinking about it. "How do you do it?" the alarm clock asks. "One tick at a time."

I can't afford to think about "30 books from now" or "10 books from now" or even "the next book." Well, maybe the next book. That gives me hope there will be a next book.

It really gets annoying when folks start rattling off all their "next book" ideas. Good on them, yes, for being all energetic, but I'm old and tired and my brain turns more toward spreadsheets than RPG maps these days.

Praise God the depression has loosed its hold, or I'd be eyeing the toaster oven and considering how the laptop might fit inside.

On a slightly brighter note, taking my recovered, non-lazy writing goals to heart led to a spurt of rewriting that has turned out pretty good. Instead of a polite "oh, how do you do, why, yes, we know the same people" boring scene, I now have a "whoa, sorry about kneeing you in the back, I guess that's a bit unfriendly since we're actually on the same side, huh?" scene. It was easier to write, too. If I really want to get excited, I should throw in some blood and head-lopping, but it might be a bit early in the relationship.

Happy Friday, everybody. Be safe. It's icy out there.