I took a short a break from writing, after putting down 73K words and reading and editing it afterwards. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not still working on the book! I’m thinking of cover art, blurbs, dedications and acknowledgements. I’m thinking of which platforms I’ll publish through and how I’ll get it in front of readers. I’m thinking of the first book and how it needs an update. So much thinking. My head hurts.

I’m thinking about how to economically have a website, preferably one I can sell direct from; and how to take payments on my phone for tabling events. I’ve got one coming up in August, a book fair, and if I’m diligent, I can have this novel ready by then. Might be fun? It’s an annual event and it’s all about books and food trucks. I’ll be sharing a 10x10 booth with another indie author, Alex Harvey Rivas. I’ve never done anything like this before but I decided to face my fears, of crowds, of rejection, of failure… of very the sun in the sky… and work my way through it.

Lots to do. Better get to it.

The camera comes into focus and we see a nondescript thin middle aged woman sitting in front of a small desk, fiddling with the keyboard. She could be anyone’s mother, but she’s not. She’s a modern day marvel, a medical miracle who woke from a semi-comatose state. Catching a glimpse of herself on the screen, she turns to look at her profile, then adjusts the height of her laptop to get a better angle. She pushes a button and begins to speak:

I want to apologize to the citizen journalist who tried to interview me the other day on the street. I am still trying to learn the ways of this time and may not always respond well. I’m sorry. I became flustered and lost my train of thought and shut down. I’m working on that. I’ve been told by the good healers working with me, that this process will be bumpy and take a long time. Be patient, they say. That’s difficult because I’ve got thirty years to make up for. I entered what I call ‘the long nap’ thirty years ago, 1995. Nothing is the same now. I was twenty years old. Now I’m fifty. That’s a lot to take in. So, forgive me for freezing up when you asked your questions, I’ll try to answer them here on this vlog. I think that’s what it’s called?

You asked what I thought when I heard about abortion freedoms being taken away.

I was dumbfounded. How did all the women allow a bunch of rich old men to decide what they can and cannot do with their bodies? How did anyone think that was a good idea to remove bodily autonomy? What are all the people going to do if those old guys decide to outlaw tattoos! Those are everywhere on everyone in this time. That wasn’t as common before the long nap, except for military and motorcycle gangs. I’m still trying to decide if I should get one.

Their ridiculous fixation with what is between a person’s legs is something I’m not used to either. I mean, it wasn’t like it was never talked about much before the long nap, but everyone knew about it and it just wasn’t such a big deal. Well, that’s not true. It was a big deal if you were gay because they were still trying to get legal marriage and a whole lot of people were getting sick from AIDS. It was probably a big deal to my high school friend Jack E., as opposed to Jack J. or Jack O. We didn’t call Jack E. trans, but I think it’s because we didn’t have the language. All I know is, if Jack E. came to a slumber party in high school, it was absolutely going to be fun. We’d do hair, makeup, dance parties and baking and Jackie was just one of us girls, except for the penis, which we never saw and never was a threat. She could be trusted. Around Jackie, us girls didn’t have to worry about someone grabbing our asses or boobs, or spiking our drink… that is, we didn’t worry -about rape- like we did around the high school (and older) boys. And to think, now there is someone called President who did all of that and more! I’ll ask again, how did anyone think that was a good idea?

I remember that guy, he was a playboy wannabe. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and maybe up his ass too. In the interest of being fair, and because I’m totally ignorant on politics, I’m going to do some research to find out why so many people voted for him. My therapist is advising I put that project off for now.

I’ve only ever voted for one President, before the long nap. Bill Clinton. I’m sorry I slept through those years because I had a big crush on Bill. I’ll have to remember to read up on that chapter of history lost to my slumber. I hope I didn’t miss too much although there’s been some troubling headlines, which I’ve been advised to ignore. Ignore all the current news, they say. Apparently, the news isn’t the news anymore. Sometimes it’s just made-up bullshit.

I’m still trying to get used to this wi-fi and streaming thing. Before the long nap, we were unplugging the telephone cord so we could plug it into the desktop to connect. Then we’d listen to a twangy sound while it connected somewhere. It took awhile, not like today. Everything is lighting fast! Being online wasn’t really a HUGE thing, because it was an infant. It is no longer an infant. I’m told it’s now an adolescent on steroids.

They are putting together a list of “safe places” so I’m not led astray. Be careful, they say. Apparently, there are lot of dangerous places out there or forces trying to take things from you. Your identity, your bank account, your reputation, your… I don’t know. Also, avoid or minimize the thing called social media, they say. Apparently, it’s addictive and can lead to mental health issues or maladaptive behaviors. I probably don’t need that. Everyone I meet asks me if I’m on Facebook or one of those other places. Are they all addicts?

To be honest, I get rather overwhelmed by the -all of everything- coming at me. I’ve been advised to keep myself unplugged for a good portion of the day to offset the overstimulation. I think that’s wise. I know change is inevitable but I want to be prepared.

You asked how my family reacted to my awakening.

Sadly, I woke up to find I was an orphan, both my parents had died during the long nap. My brother lives several states away while my sister is only a few hours away. I’ve seen them both, though not together. Apparently, they won’t be in the same room, haven’t spoken to each other in five years. That also has something to do with the President. I asked them if they’d forgotten what Dad used to say about politics, “agree to disagree and find agreement where possible.” He also said ‘blood is thicker than water’ and ‘family is forever’ but he didn’t live long enough to see his family fracture. I’m glad he didn’t live to see it; it would have broken his heart.

Sis assured me she was willing to do as Dad suggested -but- there was no agreement, or meeting in the middle, on certain things, like genocide, slavery, insurrection or whether a felon should be President! Sometimes she sounded a bit hysterical but she actually had a good point. She’s been trying to warn me about this place in time without putting me off too much. She knows my fragile state.

My brother just claimed ‘they all’ were trying to cram things down his throat. His throat became so crammed he couldn’t convey in any rational language what exactly was choking him. But he knew who was to blame: liberals and immigrants and the gays, with their drag queens, and those militant feminazis. After that conversation, I decided not to talk to my brother about current events. We only talk about what it was like before the long nap. It’s better that way. He lives too far away; he can’t visit often.

Now, my sister praised the doctors and medical science for bringing me back and working with me all these months while I relearned how to crawl, then walk, dress and toilet myself. All the things a toddler would experience except with a grown ass adult. I’m doing very well. My brother praises God and the power of his prayer, and maybe it helped. I don’t know. I only know it helps my brother and so I let that go too. Even though my therapist knows that if I want to praise God for my awakening, then I must also must condemn him for my thirty year absence. Something tells me to tread carefully there. My brother has embraced his religion even more than he did before the long nap. It’s gotten all mixed up with patriotism and masculinity and guns, so many guns. My sister blames social media for his demise, so maybe there is something to the warnings I’ve been given. I’m trying to pay attention. It’s a lot.

You asked me what I missed the most about my pre-nap time.

A few things. One thing is board games. It used to be a thing, Friends or family would gather on a Friday or Saturday night and play board games. All over the country, it was a big pastime, and I’m sad to see it’s not as much of a thing anymore. I hear a lot of the games are online and you can connect with other players, but is it really going to be the same as sitting right next to someone? Don’t people miss seeing people in real life? That’s like the second option nowadays. If you couldn’t meet up, then you would miss it, that’s for sure. My sis said most people were reminded of that during the pandemic lockdown. They couldn’t wait to get out and see each other, but now they’re all back to the screens, is what she says. But, my friend at the halfway house I live in, said screens are what saved a lot of people. Physically and mentally. Boy, I’m glad I slept through that!

The thing I miss the most is bookstores. I can’t find but one or two in a hundred mile radius. Thank goodness libraries still exist. It is one of my favorite places since the long nap. Quiet. I can pick up one book or many. I can even get books online which my healthcare team approves. I have a device to read on. They say I’ll get used to it. I haven’t yet. I like the feel of the book in my hands, being able to leaf backward or forward through the pages with ease. I know it’s possible to do those things on the device, and someday I might pick it up but today I am grateful for libraries. There’s something about the way books smell, it calms me.

I miss that I missed out on the first of many things. The first Black President. I’ve watched some of his speeches, he seems like a good guy. I probably would have had a crush on him too, had I been awake.

OK, folks, that’s enough for me today. Tune in next month for another installment of Awoken. Leave your questions in the comments. Oh, almost forgot the magic words of the 21st century, “Like and Subscribe” to get more content.

The screen goes black and she turns to someone and asks, “Did I do that right?” They nod at her and reply, “you did great!” .

I began writing somewhere around the time my little hands learned how to form letters and put them into semi-coherent strings, which coincided with me learning to read. I still recall the lightbulb moment when all those squiggles on the page formed words I could read. I read EVERYTHING. The phone book, encyclopedias, children’s classics, the Sunday funnies. It was a big deal in our house growing up. The library was a weekly trip, and if we couldn’t get a ride we would walk the 5-mile round trip with bags of books. So why am I telling you all about this early love of reading? Because that is where the love of writing sprang from within me.

The early years were typical; I made lovely cards and poetry filled with rainbows and kittens and fluffy fluff stuff you pin on your refrigerator with a magnet. In 2^nd grade, I remember the teacher allowing me to tape extra paper under my art papers, so that I could explain what was going on in my pictures. I got a lot of compliments for it during conference week and I imagine I preened like an peacock. Later, as a teen, there was a lot of angst filled poetry and song lyrics. I really wanted to write songs back then. Carole King and Janice Ian were pulling my strings. Oh, and I won two essay contests at the school, and made some pocket change writing other student’s reports or essays. Even later, as a young adult, there were these (truly terrible) letters and essays and even more poetry and song lyrics that I would write while drunk. Everything went into PeeChee type folders, which were lost or thrown out over the years. Sometimes I burned them around a fire, like I was purging the old me. There was a lot of cringe.

I found myself a young adult with two children and an unstable marriage. I needed to work. I got a Pell grant and went to one of those now defunct business colleges that were popular in the 80’s. This was mid-1980’s. No one had home computers or cell phones yet. I enrolled in a program to learn basic computer skills (on a Radio Shack TRS80), spreadsheets, word processing, bookkeeping. I enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed thinking what I could do with a word processer of my own and one of my first rewards to myself was to get one. Not a computer per se, but traded up the manual typewriter for an electronic word processor. Oh boy, I was on the cutting edge! Especially loved that I could save and edit my work. I think the model was a Brother? It had a tiny window that allowed me to scroll through about 3 sentences at a time.

As I worked in the business world, my writing skills were directed at things like company histories, employee handbooks, policies and guidelines, product instruction, and marketing but it was my bookkeeping skills that were the most sought after. I did what I needed to do and decided that accountants got paid a lot more than bookkeepers, so in my middle-age years I enrolled in college part time. That was when I took my first writing classes as an adult and I loved them. They loved me back. The last day of the last of Fiction III, the instructor asked me to stay after, and he gave me back my graded final. A 6,000 word fiction short story, he told me it was publishable as is, and at the time I didn’t know what a compliment that was. He gave me a handwritten list of journals and magazines that I could submit to. I put everything in a folder for later. I had to make some real money.

By then, I had a new husband, a home computer, a mortgage and my very own laptop. We also had opened our own manufacturing shop. It was busy, hectic, and the years flew by. Somewhere in that time, our home was burglarized and my laptop was stolen. I had not backed it up, or if I had, the storage drive was missing. This was a terrible mistake on my part because I knew better. I backed up our business computer on a regular basis, but with my personal stuff I was sloppy and I paid for it. But at least I had the folder, right? Wrong. I could not find it anywhere, and I feared it had been tossed out in a move or mistaken for trash.

We ran our business for a good decade before the Great Recession of 2008 threatened to bankrupt us. Closing the business, we came up with new plans, looking toward getting to our retirement years and after. I knew writing would be a part of it. The last ten years before retiring, I worked in agriculture, accounting & HR (and gathering tons of experiences for a book about it someday!). One day in 2018, while cleaning out our big old shop, preparing to sell the house and property so we could finally retire, I found two boxes stashed way up high in the mezzanine. The first one I opened had the teacup sets and other old family mementos that I barely remembered packing 20 years earlier. The other one had some books and folders. I found that story and wasn’t prepared for the emotional reaction I had. I sat and cried. That was when I knew I just wanted to write, more than anything.

After I joined a couple of writers groups and shared some of my work, I was encouraged to think about publishing. That set me off on several years of learning about traditional vs. self-publishing… whew boy, I’m still learning and the industry is changing, evolving, constantly. It’s a wild woolly world out there, with millions upon millions of new books offered yearly.

It’s never been about the money but I’ve always been a realist. Writing demands that you give it your time and attention, and it doesn’t hurt if you have at least a few bucks to throw at it when polishing it up. Good editors and illustrators cost money. If one is going to usher their creation out into that wild woolly world, they ought to give it a fighting chance.

Covid sort of forced me into an early retirement, but I took a part time job at the local elementary school after things opened back up. It’s only 2 to 3 hours per day so allows me time to read, write, nap. It keeps me active and is giving me so many ideas for -you guessed it- even more stories! I like to write stories for the kiddo’s too! Over the last six years, I’ve written three novels, dozens of short stories, some poetry, few published and none of it while drunk! I gave that up decades ago. I also gave up burning my work. I gave up thinking I wasn’t good enough except when that imposter syndrome rears its ugly head but now I tell it to be nice or shut up. What I haven’t given up since the time I could grip a pencil in my fat little fist is the desire to tell stories. To make people think or laugh because of something I wrote would be my honor. I almost would feel badly to charge anything for it but I’m working on that.

If you’ve read this far and have a story to tell about your writing evolution, I’d love to hear it. Leave a comment or send me your story and I’ll share it under The Writing Corner at BookStack, or message me and I’ll try and figure how how to do the guest posting collab thing (must have Substack account for that

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Some of this new sight may leak it’s way into the story I’m currently working on. There’s a part in a chapter about a sickness the Under witches were prone too, caused by too much sunlight on their skin. It’s not too hard to recognize that is a stand in for melanoma.

There’s a lot of that in this book. The antagonist, Leon Stone, is a sort of stand in for a certain billionaire who shall not be named but if you scramble the word Leon… just sayin’ But it’s not too hard to figure it out either, I mean, these guys IRL give people like us so much material to work with! I can’t make them shut up and go away IRL, but that’s what I love about writing fiction. Writers can kill or punish the bad guys, and readers love it. I’ve also discovered, it can be fun and therapeutic. It’s also a legitimate form of resistance if done right. I hope I’m doing it right.

So far this summer, I’ve laid down 56K words on this next story in my Magic & Mayhem series. It’s about 80% done. With summer coming to an end, I feel like there is a deadline looming to get this draft finished. Believe it or not, I like the idea of deadlines, they help keep the pressure on and often aid productivity. But I’ve got a lot of work cut out for me. I took my first book off of Amazon, which was the only place I’d put it last year. I want to do a revision on that and republish it when I publish this second book, maybe offer a 2 book set, or something. I dunno, still working that out. I’ll be self publishing, probably through Draft2Digital, and the books will be available in all markets, not just Amazon. But I’m also thinking of opening an “Imaginary Bookshop” website where I can sell my books, and possibly others books, directly.

I am also trying to put together a couple of short story anthologies with some writer friends. Idea stage only right now. And I still haven’t gotten to my father’s poetry, which I want to organize and publish for my family. So many projects, so little time. That doesn’t even count all the things that must be done on the property before winter comes in. Whew. I better get to work.

They walk, wonder filled, into the void of receding frothy surf just before the tsunami hits.

Clueless of the wave coming.

I envy them.

Yes, they were the first to die (physically, spiritually, symbolically),

but right up to the last moment they were certain in their hope for this world or for some unrealized dream.

Unlike me,

On a hillside, shouting warnings above the deafening din,

Because I had a knack for looking on the dark side.

A blessing and a curse.

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I’m a numbers geek. Retired from accounting, thought about teaching math, but I love kids and was afraid that profession may have squelched that love. However, I make a great volunteer at schools and consider that some of my finest work.  Accounting is solitary and was more suited to someone like me, who has long suffered a bit of social anxiety and craved something solid, something that wouldn’t collapse, something that had a yin/yang balance that would make sense. Sometimes my role also incorporated human resources and marketing. So, I learned a bit about people and what might make them tick.

When Covid hit, I left the workplace. I spent much of lockdown cooking, sewing, walking, napping and writing. My writing exploded, but it was erratic and without a game plan. It was a hobby. In 2022, a story came to me, in scenes, and I wrote it with a goal in mind of publishing. I was going to write it no matter what, but publishing it would get my spouse off my back. He, who shall not be named, is certain, that I am a very good writer. More certain than I am but that’s because I also suffer from imposter syndrome. I might be good, or very good, but I can’t always see it and I question everything. I hear that’s common with writers?

So anyway, numbers. I finally published the story last month. It’s no ground breaking literary piece of work, but it is cute and fun and entertaining.  Did I mention that self-published authors must be the most hopeful people in the world? You’d have to be, with the dismal numbers.  In the USA, there are over three million new titles published per year, about 2.5 million of them are self-published. That’s about ten times more books than 20 years ago when self-publishing and eBooks weren’t as much of a thing.  

We must be crazy, or hopeful, in the face of the odds!  But take heart that less than one percent of people who want to write a book ever accomplishes actually publishing one.  So, if you got that far, you’re in the 1% who made it!  However, you’ve made it to a market that is over-saturated. You have less than a 1% chance of your book being stocked in a bookstore. Physical retail bookstores can only stock so much, and it’s somewhere between 100 to 1500 titles max, depending on the type of bookstore. Only about 1/3 of those stocked titles are new releases. They are very selective about which books they will put on their shelves, so if you are an indie author of a new release and it hit anyone’s shelf, know that you have won a lottery, even if it doesn’t carry a big payout. You won the numbers game.

The pre-millennial book industry has taken a real hit because of this market saturation brought on by self-publishing. Supply has vastly outstripped demand. Bookstores have closed, publishers have pushed more and more marketing onto the authors. Bookstores that remain have reinvented themselves, offering more than just books, but other things like toys & games, coffee bars,  events like open mic, author talks, music. These places offer the patrons a sense of community.  Community is key if an author is going to sell books. Word of mouth is still the best way to market. Authors who wish to sell books (notice I didn’t say “successful authors” because just getting that far IS a success) will develop a marketing platform and a plan to publicize and promote their work, preferably before release day. But regardless, it will be an ongoing project if you want to sell more books.

Statistically, about 1% publish, and of those, less than 6% will have significant sales. That’s .ooo6 percent.  If you’re a newbie or unknown, it’s even far less likely. If, like me, you can’t plow a bunch of money into advertising, or haven’t spent a decade building a social media following, it’s even farther away. 

Talk about a needle in a haystack!

I think we know this when we first self-publish, but in spite of all that, and knowing all the work that went into it and work it will take, we have an illogical hope that people will read what we wrote. When they do, it makes us so happy. When they do, we hope they’ll tell their friends.   Yes, we are a hopeful bunch, in spite of these depressing numbers.

Some other time, I’ll lay out what I think are some things authors and bookstore can do to put that yin/yang balance into the marketing mix, and maybe counteract some of these depressing numbers.