March 2018
Blog
Do-Over
I’d like
this to be my last time on Earth, for I am stardust and must rejoin the
Universe.
Do
Over: A Haiku
I’d
not wait ‘til my
Next
incarnation; I’d like
To
get life right now.
Can
I just start the year over again? I can’t believe that two months have slipped
by already.
It’s
not that I haven’t done anything in two months. It’s that what I’ve done has amounted
to little actual accomplishment.
Maybe
this month will be different. I’m calling for a do-over. Oh, I know I can’t get January and February
back. I’m just calling for an early reset so that the rest of the year doesn’t
slip away.
I
think I’ll start the month with promotion. I just got this neat book by Rachel
Thompson (Bad Redhead Media) called “30-Day Book Marketing Challenge.” I’m
about to plunge into it.
Okay,
so I got the book a couple of three weeks ago and started it once, but as
usual, I got sidetracked with life and only made it through Week One – the week
on Twitter promotions.
So,
for my do-over, I’m starting again. I’m taking the 30-day challenge from the
beginning for the month of March.
Hope
I can learn to boost my sales for the rest of the year. Social Security just
doesn’t stretch too far these days. My writing needs to step up and fill the
gap.
I’m
checking my backlist of books available on Amazon. I’m only counting seven
published. (Somehow I thought it should be nine. Don’t know how that happened.)
Besides promoting what I have published, I need to double my output. Actually,
I could triple it with all the Haiku chapbooks I have started.
I
also need to get my books on audio. I can’t believe I haven’t done that yet. So
many people “listen” to books these days. It’s ridiculous I haven’t even tapped
this outlet.
I
may even need to set up a studio to read the poetry books myself. Although I’m
sure there are some excellent poetry readers out there, no one can know all the
nuances that a poet thinks into the writing of a poem.
Besides,
I love reading my poems and have always enjoyed recitations of my work. Guess
I’m just a ham at heart.
Lots
of other things I’d like to restart this year, but life is a linear
progression. Although the older you get, it seems to tend to the exponential.
It will suffice if I get my “authoring” life in order. Other things may
naturally fall in line.
Back
to the neat book I’ve acquired from my favorite source – Amazon, of course. I
bought a hard copy of the “30-Day Book Marketing Challenge” because I love to
make notes and mark up the pages.
I’m
glad I also acquired the Kindle version, because there are so many links to so
much great information. And the links are live in the Kindle version. I’ll take
a live link any day to having to type a long string of words and symbols and
then getting them wrong.
My
current manuscript now has the dubious honor of having taken the longest to
write of any of my novels ever. I’ve done pretty well on it so far this year.
I’m planning to finish it by Easter. Actually, it’s my 40-days of Lent project,
but I’ve missed a few days. So, I’ll be practicing catch-up again. (When am I
not?)
I’m
about to get distracted again. I’m outside, sitting in the sun and the wind,
watching a squirrel skitter along the fence behind the only one of my dogs who
has braved the wind with me.
The
squirrels love to play games, it seems. They manage to stay one step ahead of
the dogs, although sometimes, just barely.
I’m
also listening to the birds chirping for their afternoon offering of seeds.
They (and the squirrels) have become my morning and afternoon companions. There
is nothing more freeing (to me, at least) than to sit in my backyard with pen
and paper and write amidst birdsong and squirrel antics.
Thank
goodness winter has been cooperative. We’ve had the mildest winter in years
(which probably doesn’t bode well in the wake of climate change and global
warming.)
That
reminds me, one of my Haiku chapbooks will be titled “Global Warning”. I’m
gathering a lot of my Earth and weather-related Haiku for that one. It will
come out after my next one – on writing.
I
hate to think what will happen to our children’s children’s future. I’ve
noticed the changes even in my lifetime. If we do nothing about it, the future
will be far different from the past – and not to the good of mankind.
As
I look forward to the long month of March and the beginning of spring, I would
advise the writers among my readers to double down on their efforts. Write
whenever and however you can. Edit what you’ve written to the eye of the reader.
Publish your best efforts – cast you work upon the waters. You never know who’s
going to swim by and lap it up (my unabashed cliché for the month). And then promote, promote, promote.
Until
next month, I welcome your reactions and responses to any of my blogs. I love
to hear from my readers. Also, here are links to my Twitter and Facebook
accounts, if you care to share your thoughts with me there:
All
of my books are available on Amazon.
This
month’s featured novel is my 1940’s noir fiction “The Seasons of Sam Rock” https://tinyurl.com/ydftx4xq
This
month’s featured poetry chapbook is “Life's
Lemons and Lemonade: A Collection of Haiku: Volume One: One for the Book” http://tinyurl.com/zuayqu8
