The Waiting Game, Advice, and Other Musings

Well, here I am once again, sitting in one of my various "offices," and starting to find that the rat race that I spent six years trying to get back in so I could "make a living" is taking its toll on me.

I'm certainly not unhappy to have a job, and to also have the health benefits that go along with it. Right now, no amount of holistic living, nuts and berries dieting and other obsessive ideas would be enough to keep me alive. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, I lack the time, money and expertise in the field.

Too much travel. I drive too far, too often, etc. in order to make this living, and yet it is what I must do. Moving is not an option. There's not enough to make that work or worth it.

So when do I write? I don't. I do edit, and I do map things out, and consider, but actual writing is something I have to really make time for, and there's little of that.

I do not mean to complain. I know too many people in worse situations. I also refuse to succumb to Grumpy Old Man Syndrome, which I'm sorry to say afflicted certain people at said job. 

People who cannot accept change become an issue. Daily whining, bitching and moaning about the "way things used to be," and "back in my day, we did it like this..."

Change is very difficult. Veteran broadcasters, just as much as new people can have a difficult time learning new systems, new ideas, new procedures. It's not always fun. But when you go into it with a mindset that the new way is WRONG, and the boss is WRONG, and that everything is WRONG WRONG WRONG, you're not gonna get anywhere.

I am going to recall a passage from one of my favorite Douglas Reeman stories, "Pride and the Anguish." In a certain exchange, the first officer tells the navigator what he thinks of the ongoing, rancorous dislike between the latter and their captain. This fellow was disagreeable, stiff, and not always right, but he did have leadership qualities, stuck up for his men, and would never let them be put down by superiors who knew nothing about the war they were involved in.

The Number 1 tells the navigator (paraphrasing), "Your whole problem with the captain is that you have never even tried to get along with him, and never even tried to work with him!"

There's your point. This is not to play company man, either; you have to do what you can, best you can. If you can see changes needed, then you speak out, and you find a way to get them in.

I felt weighed down, sad to say, by certain people who are my friends, but who allowed ego and not getting their way to be their undoing. Someone wouldn't see any need to change; someone forgot who is signing the checks; someone who was out for themselves; someone who did a lot of nothing; someone who got all butthurt because he/she didn't get their way on something.

It gets a little easier as you get older, if you let it.

So I'm not unhappy as I've said. But is this what I really want? I have said I would take less money to have a little better quality of life. And more time to do what I want to do.

Now...about that:

We are at this time waiting for "A Moment in the Sun" to get a release date. I have to look over the copy one final time, I must wait for the cover art to be finished off, and then we can start getting ready for the push.

Have you see it yet? Have I mentioned?

Yes, I'm sure I have. If you see my Facebook posts or anything else, this cover by Mitch Bentley is all over the place. Yes, I'm shamelessly plugging this fucking thing.

I have to consider a book release event, a physical one, somewhere that is central to my location, and one that people would actually show up to. I'd like to do that, and hope we might generate some interest, and yes, sales.

These books to not make themselves. I would rather sell books and make a living like that, but as someone in "A Moment..." says the life of an artist making one's living that way is not practical.

But it would be nice.

Anyway, I am considering ways to get the word out there that my work will be available, and trying to get it into the right hands. 

Now, the good thing about my publisher, Sunbury Press Books, is that they primarily work with indie bookshops. Those odd little places that don't have gigantor space and signage, the one where actual, physical BOOKS can be bought, read, and so forth.

The online world has killed shopping of just about any kind...

[phone call, hang on]

I don't get many of these. But yes, one of my team got in touch, wow.

Okay, I gotta get going, but yes I am soliciting ideas for places, and things I can do to get YOU to buy and read my book...shameless, I am!

Peace, Out.