The Thursday! Newsletter 1-21: Let's Find Success
Volume 1, Issue 21
I got my first royalty payment earlier this week.
This is, as you might imagine, a pretty big deal for me. The payment isn't exactly enough to pay my rent or buy a new laptop. It's not enough, even, to buy me a nice steak dinner. It might just be enough, however, for one of the deluxe burgers at Red Robin. I might even have enough left over to procure a Freckled Lemonade, which I will sip with pinky finger extended, like the fancy lad I have become!
It feels weird for me to share this with you. It feels like I'm bragging and you won't much care or, worse, you'll bail out on me and the newsletter. Last week's issue was the least-read of any I've sent out and, to be perfectly honest, I'm nervous about this issue. I'm not very comfortable sharing my successes because I feel like I'm rubbing it in, like I'm doing a victory dance in front of you.
But I think there's some value in my sharing this with you because I think a lot of you share the same personal doubts about your abilities as I. Not all of you do, to be sure. A couple of weeks ago, a friend wrote to me to tell me they didn't have any issues with Impostor Syndrome because they've worked very hard to be entirely authentic inside and out. I think that's pretty cool. But I also realize that most of us aren't there and we could use a bit of help now and then. So here's the point of my telling you about my royalty check.
If I did it, you can do it.
If I succeeded, you can succeed.
I'm not blowing smoke here. I gave up writing entirely for pretty close to 30 years. I picked it back up, dusted it off, and gave it a try just for grins five or so years ago. I've written a *lot* of small stories and goofy poems and put them on my website. Not one of them has been read more than a hundred times, give or take. Yet here I am with a published book and actual sales. Here I am with some amount of money in my bank account that I earned with a few of those goofy poems.
You've read my newsletters. You know that I don't have much of an idea what I'm doing. I'm fumbling around in the dark with not much of a writing plan, partly because I don't know what I can do and partly because I don't know what I'm capable of. I find something that works and I share it with you in this newsletter and I fumble around until I find something else that works. I spend days in a dire funk, utterly convinced that I absolutely suck as a writer because the last story I put on my web site landed with a wet thud like a sack of dirty diapers catapulted into a mud pit.
And then I get a royalty check. Not a big one, but more than zero. More than a mere pittance.
And then I see the sales numbers from my publisher and it's not "a few". Again, the number isn't large, but it's larger than I thought it would be.
And I get a little warm glow in my heart. And I sit up a little straighter. And I look at that blank page and start imagining what I might write on it. And I smile and forget those funk days and give my Inner Critic a significant rude gesture. More stories. More poems. More trying things to see what what might work and what just won't.
I know some of you have felt the joy of finding those successes. If you haven't yet, do not despair. You never know when it will happen. Keep doing your thing. Keep making your stuff. It'll come. There's room for all of us to have our own success. Don't press. Don't sweat. Don't panic.
This all seems pretty "rah rah", doesn't it? Well, okay. It is. That's okay. We all need a little encouragement sometimes. I got a bit and now I'm sharing it with you. That's how we all get ahead.
That'd be cool, wouldn't it? For us to all get ahead? Knock down a success and get a boost? Yeah, I think so.
Want an autographed copy of "One Hungry Werewolf and Other Monstrous Rhymes"? Drop me a line and I'l tell you how. It's easy! One for $15 and two for $25.
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What I Wrote and Read Last Week
"Speaking of Pain" features the Trouble Team, a trio of superheroes who have shown up in a couple other stories. I like them. They're going to show up again.
"The Sea and the Old Man" was my attempt to write something sweet and melancholy like Neal Gaiman. It ended up...not quite either one but not not either one.
I've been thinking about writing a cozy mystery story in a setting where you don't usually find such stories. To brush up on what cozies are and how they work, I've found several posts from Sarah Hoyt particularly valuable: What a "cozy" is and what kind of characters inhabit them, how to build one from the first scene, and how to plot one out.
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Here Are the Arts and/or Letters I Promised
Les Réveil des Plantes from JJ Grandville's Un Autre Monde. I am fairly sure if plants awakened like that, we would be far more frightened of them.
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One Last Thing
To borrow a phrase from another smart author, Thursday! is free, but it is not cheap. To show your support, forward it to someone who'd like it or order my book. If you like it, you can add your review to these. Is this your first time seeing my newsletter? You can read previous issues and subscribe right here.
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