Pulling the guitar string through the tuner, wrapping a few times then a luthier’s knot, I twisted to tighten and –snap—it popped. The high E string. A fresh set. The other five ready to go. Sparkling, beautiful. New. An inauspicious start.
Not how I planned it.
I wanted to play, not do maintenance.
This scenario, though, is often how my writing starts. I begin any sort of way, discarding each as boring, base or unworthy, until finally landing on a sentence to entice the reader.
Probably a lot closer to how marketing for publishing works. The one idea I’m sure will launch my book inevitably fails. The iterations eventually reveal a working approach.
Writing teaches one thing over all others, the power of perseverance. 70,000 words don’t happen by accident. Particularly when each of those words have been touched more than a baker’s dozen on the way to you, dear reader.
My latest example is the re-release of an audiobook. In a day I sold and distributed as many of them as I did in the first year of print publication. There is an audience and that audience is not always readily apparent.
What does show up? Me. I appear and continue to chip away because if I tell my story and just one of you is relieved of your worry and pain for the shortest time, I am a success.
That’s what the story is for. That’s what all of them are for.
Be well ~ jefe
Catch What I’m Reading This Week
Finished
He does some cool stuff with timelines and structure in here. Just be sure to wash your hands! (You’ll know once you’ve read it.)
Started
The prologue is chilling and opening chapters enticing. Always wanted to read this after I heard him interviewed on Book Worm when it came out. (Rest in Peace, Michael Silverblatt.)