Mystery Writer Frustration

Well dear readers, it isn't the fun that I thought it would be. Yes, I did finally get the novel out -doing that dastardly act of "Self Publishing." The truth is that I needed to get the book out. Yes, I went the traditional route of contacting and querying agents. But the book had been sitting on the shelf in my closet for five years and finally I had the courage and will power to do the editing. But I have another novel in my head. I was encouraged by my writer's group to continue writing. They think, "brilliant." But I had stopped. Stalled is more like it.

So I self published. But my half a million readers at ehow have not run over to Amazon to buy a copy of the book. And all the friends I have on facebook and throughout the internet world haven't purchased the copies that they said that they would. And a woman from the writer's group took a copy with her to England on the plane and returned some weeks later telling me that it wasn't proofed or corrected and she barely got through the first five pages.

So I'm thinking, okay, I've written a brick block. Maybe I can use the few copies that I purchased as a door stop, or to line the birdcage if I had a birdcage. Maybe that's just it for the book. A part of me thinks that it's up to the book to perform itself. That it has to show it's true worth. Yes, I had a message to deliver to the universe...but I've got to tell you, dear reader, that I never intended to say half of the garbage that comes out of the protagonist's mouth. Reilly says her own things. It's as if the characters took on lives of their own and they rebelled against the writer.

I know alot of readers won't understand this, but I have to tell you that we writers very often are channeling. Who knows where it comes from. I think the philosophers call it "muse." But my responsibility was just to get it down. That I don't agree with what the character says or does - seems not to matter. I have to be true to the characters - even if I don't agree with them. It's what they call, "verisimilitude." And the fact of the matter is, we don't always agree with what our characters say or do, or even believe in what they're preaching. My protagonist has a habit of "sermonizing." But she doesn't stand behind what she says, and that's a character flaw.

And so do we just write what we feel is right? If we do that, then we have a flat character.

But book/brick aside. I did try at marketing.

Do you know that last Thursday, after going to an interview for a temp job in presentation work (which is what I've been doing to pay the bills) I took myself up to the 21 Club on West 52nd street. I did this because I wanted to get some details for the new novel = which I hope I actually get to say some of my own words in. There's an entire conversation that happens in the bar room. But I found that I couldn't remember anything.

So I sat at the bar and got a whiff of the air. I looked at the table where my characters have a lengthy conversation. The table has a red and white checkered tablecloth. The artwork around the room is by and large ink drawings by Remington. I also forgot a key detail - the toys hanging from the ceiling! This is a big thing to forget. Tara, the barkeep and I had a lovely conversation. She told me all about the various trucks and planes, Reynold Wrap box, etcetera. She said it started in the 30s with a British Airline company. The adman hung a plane above the table for the client to see. Howard Hughes saw this and hung his own plane, and so on and so forth and now there are literally hundreds of items hanging from the ceiling!

I told Tara about my book. She introduced me to the PR lady, Avery. I didn't happen to mention that I had self-published. So they're thinking I'm this famous published novelist, instead of just plain old little me. I had dinner, the organic chicken -which was divine and two glasses of a fine white wine and topped it off with some pear brandy and expresso. I met a guy, "Steve" who told me about his history with the place - very interesting, and I felt like I had come home. But then the check came and I realized that I wouldn't be able to do this too often.

I went to one other bar but failed to hand out business cards. I'd become something of a shy little mouse. I don't know where this person had come from as I'd always been, as one friend described, "a caricature of myself." But these days I am just small.

Well I'll tell you this (and this is hard for a writer to admit), but I don't do the big drinking until all hours anymore. I'm not that person any longer. I used to go out with some friends I'd met in NYC. But they were much older and now they're all gone and it's just me, and I think that while you can be young and drunk, you can not be old and drunk. And I'm not a happy drunk these days, probably having residual anger and bitterness leftover from what I thought I might have done or been had I not been this, a writer.

But there are thousands of pages written through the ages by sages, okay enough with the rhyming, but there are enough bitter also rans out there - people who didn't measure up  or writers who died trying..and I am not going to be one of them. In this the 21st century we can do any thing world, whatever we set our minds to and develop and create. As I always say, GO BE DO - CREATE! And realize this, no matter what your station, CHANGE IS POSSIBLE!