Damn Fine Words: Writing

“Don’t read at the table.”

“Leave your book in the car!”

“We paid good money for these tickets for you to just sit there and read?!”

“Give me that flashlight and go to bed!”

I was probably the only child I knew whose parents had to fight in order to get her to NOT read every moment of the day.

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As I grew older, I started to realize there were a whole slew of experiences that I “missed out” on.

But there were a whole ‘nother slew of experiences I’d never have had:

The tears and catch in my throat at the end of Bridge to Terebithia, Where The Red Fern Grows and Summer of the Monkeys.

The puzzles in Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew mysteries, The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, and most Agatha Christie mysteries.

The camaraderie in Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles and the delicious torture of puns in Piers Anthony’s Xanth series.

As I was tormented by one of the worst of many stupid decisions, the full-fledged crush and love I felt for Sherlock Holmes who defeated my own extreme loneliness through thought and reason.

More recently has been the intellectual joy of the concepts in books such as The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner, and The Thursday next and Nursery Crimes series by Jasper Fforde.

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There have been many, MANY books in my life. Far too many to name every single one.

At 36, that’s a LOT of books and, while I don’t have all the books I’ve ever read (or even their titles), the sum total of those books create the experiences within me. Those unnamed and forgotten books and their authors are still a huge part of my life, sometimes popping up like Easter eggs in software programs — I’m reminded of a story or a character or a scene and… bam! They’re back!  It’s like meeting up with an old friend.

I want to do the same for others.

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My goals are simple:

I write and publish.

Others read and share.

Thus the lives of others are enriched by my stories. Just as my life has been enriched by the stories of others.

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As an author entrepreneur, I want to build a network of people who love reading and writing just as much as I do.

The gatekeepers are changing in the world of traditional publishing and, you know what?

I want to be a part of that change!

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I believe that the new “gatekeepers” in the realm of the self-published will be:

Fantastic stories and characters that stay with the reader for days after they finish reading.

The ability to reach the readers that your stories will matter to.

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I’ve read and subscribed to numerous blogs and find that, a lot of the time, I unsubscribe from them a few weeks after I subscribe because their posts grow unsubstantial and too touchy-feely, the lack of solid content overwhelming.

I’ve read cheesy sales pages and sales pitches where I stop reading what their item does and know the price is going to be out of my price range by how many emotional strings the writer is attempting to tug on.

And I feel that my own blog has been this way in the past — my posts have no solid or evergreen content or eventually become my own online journal entries.

Nor am I a salesman — I want to provide people with what they want, not try to convince them they need something when they don’t.

Damn Fine Words by James Chartrand of Men With Pens would be a stepping stone to the business-side of being that author-entrepreneur that I long to become.