Greetings...
This new blog is created to serve as a platform from which I will muse, strike out, thrash, hustle, sing, create, destroy, and play with verbs as I go about exploring Adventures in Publishing.
If that sounds rather odd, well, it should!
I am a writer.
I write.
Every day.
And despite the fact that, in addition to writing a newspaper column for the Cape Cod Times as well as columns, feature articles, reviews, and assigned pieces for a wide variety of publications both traditional print and online digital -- because like every freelance writer I am something of a whore when it comes to writing, being willing as I am to write for any editor who promises to pay me.
The realization that far more of what I write never gets published than does was never a surprise to me, and I will explain why.
Writing is The Monkey on my Back
I am a writer who, in addition to writing pieces that get published, chooses to indulge my need to write across a spectrum of beats, genres, and subjects. Make no mistake about that, when I say that I need to write I mean I need to write.
When an idea for a short story, or a tech piece, or a feature, or even a poem pops into my head it is like an insistent and persistent child that constantly pesters me until I satisfy it by writing. I view that as both a blessing and a curse.
Over the course of the past twenty years I have written eight full-length books in both fiction and non-fiction -- or I should say eight fully completed manuscripts since none of those have actually been published.
Then there are the stacks of articles, features, and even reviews that I wrote with almost no intention of seeing them published because why? Because I wrote them for me!
Most of the pieces I write get written in order to scratch the itch that prompted their creation -- to get that almost overpowering need to write the piece and explore the subject out of my system so that it no longer hunts me down like a beast.
Recent events in my life -- particularly several health scares that happened to people very close and very dear to me -- have served to remind me that the clock is ticking.
I am not sure that I have the time or the energy to pursue getting my unpublished work published in the traditional ways, those and their non-traditional poor relations being grist for the mill that will become this blog.
So welcome to Adventures in Publishing -- a blog that I have created whose function is to chart the paths that I will embark upon in order to plumb the depths of publishing.
With any luck this may well turn out to be an entertaining ride -- but entertaining or not you can count upon me not to pull any punches or candy-coat the journey. You can also count upon me to not be consistent because deadlines and current assignments will prevent me from going at this full time.
I mean to share every aspect of this, and in particular the results of each effort both good and bad, or perhaps bad and good? I suspect that the good results will be far rarer than the bad - but we shall see.
To sum up the aims of this blog I have made a list of the different projects that I should be trying to get going; a list of projects that are a mixture of my own desires (to see my work published and therefore shared with readers) and the result of suggestions and outright declarations made by others to me about what I have written -- and what I have failed to do with it!
Proposed Publishing Projects
The following projects will be part of the focus of the blog -- and my Adventures in Publishing -- with a little explanation of the motivation included:
Digital Grind Project: During one of my guest spots on NPR another guest -- who was part of the radio program and who is a well published author with successes both in the traditional book venue and in Publishing on Demand (PoD) told me that I should be putting together collections of my newspaper column into book form and getting them published.
Video Game Reviewing: Another acquaintance tells me that I should write a book about reviewing video games because the approach that I have created in addressing that rather predictable topic is unique enough to warrant such a project.
My Fiction Books: I am reasonably certain that the primary motivation behind the writing of the five completed manuscripts that are the fictional stories that I have written were, largely and with no apologies, written to please myself. Still my mother thinks they are good and so does my wife, and who am I to argue with the two most powerful and influential female influences in my life?!
My Non-Fiction Books: Fortunately they are not time-limited or dated, which means that there is as much a potential market for them today as there was a decade ago when I began (and finished) writing them, and if I am going to include the five fantasy stories above there is no good reason not to include the trio of non-fiction creations as well.
Collections of Unpublished Tech: The majority of the articles that I have written, and that were written without a market in mind, tend to lean towards commentary and the exploration of the potential for each subject, and I can easily see how they might come together as a theme.
That Will Do for Now
The fact that the short list above came together without my having to think about or work on it does not soften the reality that doing anything about any of the above projects will require time and effort on my part.
Still the fact that this short list of projects for Adventures in Publishing came together with little to no effort on my part makes me feel like they are the worthy opening gambit in this what? This blog and the efforts that will go into it are The Project.
That being the case, despite having declared each of the above a project in their own right, in the grand scheme they are actually sub-projects of this guiding project, and we will leave off at that for now.
So I thank you for indulging me and reading this "Hello World" post. As my Adventures in Publishing progresses I hope that my experiences -- both good and bad -- will somehow manage to attract an audience with an inerest in the outcome.
Until then, I thank you for visiting, for reading this post and those that will follow, and extend to you the sincere invitation to share this adventure with me. Your comments will be appreciated. With any luck and, once the above sub-projects actually get published, your impressions once you have an opportunity to read them, will also be appreciated.
Cheers!
CMBF
