"My sister and I went to Blockbuster earlier because the store is closing and everything is on sale; apparently some discounts are bigger than others. Their magazines, called "Literature" on the sale sign, was only 10% off, whereas everything else was at least 30% off (that was the TV seasons; most movies were 40-60% off, DVD or BluRay). Anyway... I understand that video stores are notrequired to sell magazines, but if they're in a closing store, shouldn't they be priced somewhere in the range of everything else IN the store?
But anyway, never mind the price... I was looking at the titles. Some of them, such as Fangoria, Star Wars, and Rolling Stone, fit right in. Those are movie and entertainment magazines, so I get. It's a movie rental store, so those magazines make sense. However... Maxim, Tiger Beat, and Spin struck me as peculiar choices, as did the WWE magazine. Yes, some of the stars whose pictures grace the magazine covers are in movies and as such are in some of the movies Blockbuster is selling... and WWE videos are present there, too. However, is this stuff really literature?
I read an article where one writer (unfortunately I forget which one) was put in the position to just make up interviews with big celebrities and it was published in those magazines. While that kind of thing is popular in some circles, I don't know if I can say I respect the writers who go along with that. I'd invent an interview with a dead author (I read one of those online before and it was amusing) for the fun of it, but to get a paycheck? As I mentioned earlier, I'm a writer with (some) principles... or at least I'd like to think so... now I'm not so sure...
As I also mentioned earlier, I received a tax form citing my royalty earnings for the entire year of 2011 as a whopping $10.55. I keep telling people who inform me that it's not about the money, "I know it's not about the money." But... as long as it's been since I've actually completed a novel (about six years) and longer still since I've completed a novel I was happy with (I honestly forget the year in which I wrote Relic), I'm starting to wonder what it is about. Telling stories, finding an audience? Those things sound very attractive, and always have... but I'm approaching 33 years of age and still living with parents (paying them rent, no less) and getting a monthly SSI check for my lunacy. Is it a realistic calling at this point?
I found a book at Goodwill Wednesday about not giving up on your dreams. Being a writer (an acknowledged writer who can get by on that alone, might I add) has been my dream since I was the tender age of FOUR. Not fourteen... four. I started with bond paper and crayons before I was even in kindergarten. I started reading Stephen King and Michael Crichton at 10, and writing novels in 5-subject notebooks when I was 15 or so. I taught myself to type (badly) and hammered out my first novel when I was 16. I had high hopes back then... Now it's kind of hard to remember what that feels like.
It's crossed my mind that I'm experiencing a late quarter-life crisis (missed it by 7 years!), or that maybe I'm doomed to die at 65 and this is my true midlife crisis... but I'm just stuck. I just now am publishing stuff I wrote about a decade or longer ago and I can't finish a new novel even though I still have (seemingly) great ideas (to me, anyway), and it's frustrating. I try to tell others about these problems, but I come away feeling like they're really STUPID problems and I'm probably just being selfish for thinking that they are problems in the first place... Nobody seems to be willing to be bothered with them, so... I'll post this on my Facebook wall, where it will be ignored by virtually everyone, as Facebook rarely posts Notes on Home Feeds. It feels better to vent, even if it's just to the Zuckerborg. It will be assimilated, resistance is futile.
(I don't even like Star Trek that much. Oh well, it's there, I'm not deleting it. Hm... That's always been my biggest problem as a writer! It's times like these when I wish I were a drinker...)"
So ended yesterday's note. I was depressed, and wondering exactly what options I had for some kind, any kind, of success. But today... Well, if you missed it on the Home Page (and you folks on Goodreads did)... my publisher, Firefly & Wisp, got approved for a distribution deal with Penguin/Putnam. Amazing, right? So... instead of being an indie author without ,many sales and not much acclaim, I'll soon have a hardcover and the possibility of book signings at brick-and-mortar bookstores in the area. I'm very freaking excited about it, as you can imagine. So yeah, what a difference a day makes! Depressed and feeling hopeless yesterday over my ADP 1099, and feeling on top of the world today, even though my book won't come out until nearly the end of this year. That gives me a lot of time to think about what my next publishing project will be... which is a lot of pressure, but hopefully I can deal with it. ;-) Hooroy!