Month: August 2009

Apparently my previous post sounded a little down. I’m not depressed or upset about anything. Not really.  Maybe a little frustrated with the absence of my muse lately, but certainly not depressed. There’s no reason to be. The print edition of THE WAGONMASTER has met with very positive reviews. 🙂 Gotta love that.

The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys move And the part about not making any money at writing wasn’t a complaint, just an explanation as to why I don’t feel I should really make myself miserable spending all my spare time on promotion and stuff.

I don’t write for the money. (Right now there isn’t much money to consider. LOL) I write because I enjoy it. Maybe one day when I make the big time, money might play a bigger role in my decisions, but not now. Now I write (and promote my writing) when I want to– because it’s fun. When it stops being fun, I have to take a step back and reevaluate things.

Romeo Is Bleeding buy

The last post was just about that reevaluation. That’s all. I think my muse’s defiant refusal to cooperate is because I was spending too much of my free time doing stuff that wasn’t bringing me any enjoyment.  There were things that were causing me stress. I don’t like stress.  LOL 

Blue Collar full movie Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning trailer So, as evidenced by the lack of posts, I’m currently spending my free time doing things I enjoy, like reading, having lunch with my daughter, or playing video games with my son. I’m thinking that maybe if I let go of some of the stress related to writing (and especially the promotion of it,) I can coax my muse into returning.

• Bubba Ho-tep rip

That’s the plan anyway. The General Died at Dawn rip

Nita

• Street Revenge ipod

So I haven’t posted in a month. I tell myself I should, but my response is: Why? Nobody ever reads this thing. And if they do, they don’t leave a comment. Seems like a waste of time, really.  I’ve tried sprucing it up with different layouts. I’ve tried having guest bloggers with some really great posts. I was embarrassed by the lack of response my guests received. 🙁

The Fly buy The Salton Sea film

As you can tell by the lack of posts, I’ve decided that it’s just not worth the time and effort. I’m sure I’ll post occasionally when I have something special. There’s no reason to shut down the blog completely. I spent hours setting this thing up– I’m not going to ditch all that work.

The Guitar movie

I’ve entered a couple of contests with The Wagonmaster. If I make the finals in either one, you’ll see it here. If my muse ever returns from her currently AWOL status, I’ll post about my writing. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial rip

For now, I’m just not going to work so hard at this second job of mine. I’m a little burned out. As RWA is very quick to point out, electronic and small print authors don’t make much money from their writing. I write because I love to write. Usually. But if I’m not really in the mood, it becomes a chore, a job. And it’s one that doesn’t pay well at all. Other than a very few dollars, the salary I gain from writing is the pleasure and enjoyment it gives me.  

Some of you who aren’t electronically published will think I’m exaggerating. I kid you not. For my tax return, I had more than double the amount of expenses (web hosting, advertising) than I had in income. And I didn’t even include my RWA and chapter dues or $500 worth of expenses I could have claimed for a conference I went to.

So if you don’t see me around much, it’s because I’m trying to get away from the mundane work of promotion and get back to the joy of writing. So many friends and fans (yes, LOL, I do have a few fans) have asked me when my next book is due out. Heck, I don’t have anything finished, much less contracted. My muse has apparently gone on strike. I need to focus on why I started writing to begin with and spend less time blogging and promoting. If I don’t get back to writing, I won’t have anything to promote anyway.

Nita