We seem to have a short series of less than chirpy blogs here, but as this series of posts is following me on my writing journey (like an Albatross stalker with a hard-on and a thought about how my eyeballs might taste) I guess that doesn’t matter. Having a low time writing-wise at the minute, which I know we all do, and in the ‘why do I bother’ doldrums. Part of this may be mid-life crisis of course (half-century birthday last week) but in this case I doubt it. I would write, reflect on my readings and writings anyway. As I’m an antisocial bugger, blogging is often preferable to speaking to humans anyway but when deciding to give this a go, I may not have considered fully the commitment I was making. Not to the writing or making things available, but all the rest; the social media, the promotion and search for reviews, the reading of writing magazines and sites when I could be writing, all in search of the elusive spark to make people read my work. As people always say, it doesn’t matter what you write, if no-one reads it. I disagree with a part of that, but its certainly true it doesn’t matter what you publish or make available if no-one reads it.
I’m also watching Twitter followers vacillate up and down, but always under fifty, I do wonder why I bother. I even tried a cheap trick posting a puppy but to be honest it feels a little dirty most of the time, soliciting for a one night re-tweet to tease me that more will follow. Like many of us I suppose, I don’t like selling myself, or my soul, and want to beloved for me. That’s why I may have hashtagged where appropriate, but I don’t follow the various promotional routes that means your followers are strangers. I think I had in mind that I would at first, but I’d rather grow my following organically, if at all, even if that means it never gets that high. I’m not saying I’ll never tweet, it’s fun sometimes, but it’s not really my scene. It seems you should be relentlessly chirpy, angry and judgemental, or plead for love. I know I’m getting a bit stream of consciousness-ey here but why not?
Likewise with this blog/website. Fun to set up and gives me a platform, but disconcerting to see so few visitors. Nice that I get repeat visitors, usually the most elusive I know, and my search engine presence good, but sometimes hard to motivate if you know there’s no audience. Not that I’m going to stop, I still want to put my thoughts out there and introduce you to new works that influenced me, but my grand designs may be scaled back. I think the idea of asking for votes on what I write next is a mistake right now, so that may come down soon. I may do it again in the future but a lonely poll just reminds me I’m not engaging enough people to do that right now.
A specific thing I’m also aware of is that I make a rod for my own back with my writing. While I have things in all styles I enjoy doing, what I’ve put out there so far, and much of my output, is very low on plot and action, being of a more philosophical and character-focused bent, and that limits the audience, and also makes pitching incredibly difficult. Say what happens… fuck all sometimes. It could be that my pitching skills are just very poor, and they probably are, it isn’t fun to do, and there’s always that thought at the rear of the mind. If I could encapsulate the novel in one page, or for some purposes a couple of paragraphs, then there wouldn’t be a need for the novel itself would there? I don’t like having to boil complex things down to a level where all nuance is lost, necessary as I understand it to be.
Next posts will be back to more practical on writing, and more reviews, I promise. Just thought I’d get this off my chest.
Stay safe,
Eeyore