Catching up and reaching out

One of the first things I read this morning was a short blog by an author friend about how she’d devoted a day to doing the odd details that often slipped through the cracks of her life. She must have read my mind, because I’d decided to take care of odds and ends—that stack of papers on the corner of the desk needs sorting, and there are odd bits of paper and notes scattered everywhere with things for me to do.

So I called my accountant, called the supervisor of the yard guys and then watched with bated breath while two went on the roof to cut a tree branch that had worked it’s way around a live power wire. Filed some papers for a possible project on down the road and wrote a note to an old acquaintance who’d written after she found me on the Women Writing the West listserv. I had promised to give my suggestions on another author’s query letter—I was pretty drastic and hope she took it well. She used way too many adjectives, and I kept thinking, “Just the facts, ma’am, just the facts.” A synopsis isn’t the place to showcase your writing style—that can come in the actual manuscript.

I sent several emails to friends about everything from last night’s supper to an upcoming gathering to remember a friend who died a couple of months ago. Supper last night came from Eatzi’s—a sort of cafeteria of prepared foods. Upscale and very good. Linda came in from Granbury, and we shopped together for supper. But when I said, “I’ll have a crab cake,” she said, “I will too.” And when I said, “Green beans, please,” she said, “For me too.” We laughed at what they must have thought about us. I also bought a Cotswold cheese with chives—new to me and delicious. The three of us—Jordan joined us—almost ate the whole hunk, so we’ll have to go back from more. The crab cake was almost pure crab, low on filling, and that made it delicious.

But a big thing I did today was to wade through a podcast and a rather long book review friends had said I “must” read and/or hear. In addition, I found a lengthy excerpt from a new book on the online weekday newsletter, Wake Up to Politics. If you don’t know it, do look it up. The excerpt is from The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For, by Charlotte Alter (no relation, but I’d sure claim her). The book appears to be about the changes millennials will bring to our culture and our politics, but in the quoted section, called “The Last Dinosaurs,” she makes some amazing points: Google only launched in 1998; Wikipedia came along in 2001, and the iPhone in 2007. Those social media changes have had an enormous impact on us in a relatively short time. By contrast, the telephone was not in common use until almost seventy-five years after its introduction, and both radio and TV were slow to be found in most households. Millennials are the first generation who never knew anything but this digital world.

The other book that impressed me was Why We Are So Polarized by Ezra Klein. Klein points out that these days few people vote a split ticket—we are less tied to a candidate than to the party. And criticism of our party’s positions doesn’t sway us—we just look for ways to validate our opinions. I confess that I keep thinking that if I can just present the inescapable facts, trumpers will see that he is a thug and a criminal without knowledge and in mental health trouble. I know it really just makes them dig their heels in deeper, but I can’t give it up. The other thing he says is that as our country grows more diverse, representation will grow even less inclusive. Thirty per cent of the population, in certain states with heavy electoral count, will elect the president. It’s a lesson trump learned well in 2016. And what, to me, Klein was basically saying, is that the Constitution as written may not work in this bright new world. He made me re-examine a position that I had denounced as heresy, especially when it came from trump.

All this was heavy reading, but it sure made for an interesting day. Oh, and there was a podcast from “Pod Save America,” which pointed out that Tuesday evening, after the debate, some wag edited the Wikipedia entry on Mike Bloomberg to show his date of death as 02/18/2020. Cause of death? Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Sleep well in these troubled times.

Why do we write?

A little BSP (blatant self promotion)--I got two nice reviews today. One, for Murder at the Blue Plate Café, called it fast-paced and said it makes you think about your view of life and what is truly important. The other, for the older Skeleton in A Dead Space, called it very engrossing and fast moving with characters you can identify with and advised adding it to your must-read list.  Needless to say, both reviews have me floating on a cloud of happiness. Heady stuff, since I still consider myself a fledgling at mysteries. But the reviews got me to thinking about something that's been niggling around in the back of my mind.
The other day I saw on a post that an author wrote that any one who thinks writing is not a business is fooling themselves. While I fully recognize that it is a business, I'm not sure money is why I write. I'm not good at following sales number on Amazon or Smashwords, so checks from those sources always come as pleasant surprises. Checks from my publisher are often a bit of a letdown because I hope for my sales of my current and brand-new works though she assures me I'm doing really well. I don't check reviews on Amazon or Goodreads often (never have figured Goodreads out completely). I'm no good at worrying about Amazon's algorithms or whether or not it's worthwhile to post for Nook or which is better--traditional bookmarks or business cards. Marketing just isn't my thing. I do blog, post on Facebook and Twitters, try to do lots of guest blogs, order bookmarks, hold a launch when I have print books, and that's all fun for me. If any of it were a chore, I wouldn't do it.
But I'm fortunate that I don't have to write for sustenance. I'm retired, have a retirement income and have other assets. My earnings from writing allow me life's luxuries, like my recent trip to Hawaii and the deck I'm thinking of putting on the back of my house. Once, at a gathering of five women, one of them said to me, "Pretty soon you'll be so successful you can retire a second time." I told them that I'd recently gotten a royalty check and if they weren't too fussy about where they went, I might be able to take them to lunch. No wine with lunch, though.
I write because I cannot imagine not writing. I write because telling stories gives me great pleasure, even when I have to struggle to figure out what's next and where the story is going. I'm a longtime believer in listening to your characters and they'll tell you where your story is going. I write because working things out in words gives me as much pleasure as a mathematician gets from working out a complicated formula. My life would be empty without writing.
When I retired, I joined Sisters in Crime and the sub-group, Guppies (Going to Be Published or Great Unpublished, whichever way you want to think about it). Those groups have opened a whole new world for me and kept me busy daily. I've always believed in getting involved in groups you join, so I monitor the listserv one day a week for SinC and I'm on the Guppies Steering Committee. Nothing to do with mysteries, but I also edit the monthly neighborhood newsletter and weekly welcome first-time visitors to our church.
Plus I have family and friends to keep up with, go out to lunch and dinner, and a household to run, a dog to care for. Life keeps me busy, but writing gives it a center and a focus. If I weren't writing, I'd be cooking but that's not a full-time occupation for several reasons--who would eat all that food, since I sort of live alone, sort of don't (one of my part-time residents is a picky six-year-old). And my back is getting too old to spend hours on that lovely stone kitchen floor. No, I write...and cook occasionally.
Writing gives meaning to my life and brings me pleasure--especially when I have a new book come out or, like today, I get a good review. Do I want the income to stop? No way, but it's not my primary reason for writing.