Monday, August 29, 2011

Huh?

I've written stories for years.  Most of them have been fan stories -- stories based on Television shows -- which are, of course, legally verboten because of copyright law.   I've written fan stories because I enjoy them and I get feedback.

But my goal, although you wouldn't think it to look at my "resume," was to write original fiction.   My first story was written when I was eight, illustrated by me, and was something about diamonds.  I wrote poems in middle school, articles in high school, and my first full-fledged story was for a class in high school -- quite frankly, I don't remember what it was about, but somewhere around this house is a copy on onion skin typing paper.

I've always been a bit lackadaisical about my writing, though, and, sadly, it's only been since my parents have been gone that I've gotten more serious about it.

I like feedback.  Sending stories out to magazines -- or agents -- gets a developing writer a standard rejection letter, which tells me nothing.  Was the story all right, but truly not for that venue?  Did it suck big time?  Should I stay with my day job?  (Well, yes, but that's another matter.)  Did the editor have an overwhelming urge to chew it into a spitball and throw it at the ceiling?  (Hmmmm, guess that would only work with paper manuscripts.)

So I've been uploading my old, rejected stories on-line, first on Smashwords.com, then on Amazon.com.  For free.  I have five on Smashwords -- the most hits I've gotten there is 280 something with one negative review, and the others go down from there.

I have three on Amazon.com, and here's the incredible part.  I don't have any perspective on downloads and hits, but my little free story, one that I wrote over fourteen years ago and basically only modified for grammar and structure, -- one that got accepted by a webzine which has long since disappeared into the ether (I received $3.00 for it) -- has, as of two seconds ago, had 10,520 downloads with four returns.

What?

It's had four favorable reviews, one which mentioned "Shrek" (which it predates, of course), and one negative review.

Wow.

This has been since last Thursday, when it inexplicably changed from $.99 to free.  Which I really don't mind, since it's been free for years

I can hardly wait to see if the others do as well which they get discounted.  Of course, I wish I had gotten paid, but -- feedback.  I want feedback, darn it! 

Wow.






Friday, August 12, 2011

Opinions, Privacy issues, and Writing

I've written ever since I was eight, but didn't take it seriously until Ninth Grade and Mrs. VanAtta's English class -- I wrote poetry and people liked it!  After all, I spent most of Middle School relatively friendless -- didn't have any close buddies that I hung around with -- I spent a lot of time reading.  I was determined to be on the school newspaper in High School.

But when I got into High School, the school newspaper was dying. I don't remember all of the particulars anymore, but somehow I connected with an old friend from Elementary school who drifted away -- we were determined that I we needed a school paper.  Somehow, one or the other of us persuaded Mrs. Longanecker to be our advisor, and Sue found a few other people, and the local paper was persuaded to print the articles citywide.  The Wildcat Weekly was reborn.  We wrote articles, Mrs. Longanecker corrected them, and I learned, more or less, how to write for the newspaper.

After a year, I wanted to do more. Erma Bombeck, the humorist, was popular at the time, so I started a humor column under a pseudonym.  Not one person realized who wrote the column until the May before I graduated, and I heard, from my Dad, that even some of his coffee buddies got a laugh out of it. 

And then, in my Senior year, I wrote an opinion column.  After all this time, it doesn't make a difference what my opinion was; the principal hated it.  I got called to the Principal's office for the first time in my life, and the advisor, Barb Erickson (now Stutesman) got in trouble.  (I'm giving the principal a pass; it was his first year as Principal, and I suspect now he felt he had to show his authority.)

My first encounter with the power of opinions.

Fast forward twenty to thirty years:  I've worked at Huddlestun Lumber Company for twenty-five years, and at McLellan and Strohm Accounting for a little over ten years.  I'm grateful to both for hiring me and giving me a living.

But.

As a writer, it drives me nuts.  You see, we have customers at Huddlestun Lumber Company, and we have clients at McLellan and Strohm.  They are all very important.  In addition, there's an implied privacy at Huddlestun Lumber and a very strict privacy issue at McLellan and Strohm's, very similar to the medical world's HIPAA policy.  I like my jobs, and I refuse to embarrass either place.

I also have an opinion of various things that happen around town and the townships.  Can I express that opinion freely?  Not really.  I know that opinions will offend people -- clients and customers -- even when no offense is meant, and I don't want to do that.  And these are some very nice people.

If you look at my website, you'll see a series of columns about a fictional town named River Creek.   I wrote those over ten years ago, and this was my way of commenting about the city at that point.  I keep thinking about resurrecting it -- in fact, I'm planning to insert stories around these "articles."  But, here's my dilemma -- do I write about current things?  Do I dare? 

Is my life defined by being a bookkeeper or being a writer?

What do I choose?