The people have spoken!
And they said, “Ehhh …”
My earnest, ballyhooed, passionate blog pledge drive landed with a thud. Total haul from 10 enthusiasts: $547.
That was four $100 donations, one $52, two $25, one $20, a $15 and a $10. Each donor will receive equal prominence on the acknowledgements page of my new “Use All The Crayons! II,” which I hope to have available for sale by September. And each will receive a free signed copy.
So what do I do with my “windfall?” What’s the splurge? I hadn’t seen my sunglasses in about a month. I’d had them about six years and was eager to update with something stylish. I’d planned on going to The Eyeglass Shoppe on Route 30 today to shoppe, er, shop.
But I found the old ones rattling around beneath the driver’s seat Sunday morning on my way to church.
Nothing’s going right!
Now I’m conflicted about the blog’s future. Certainly, it must change.
I don’t doubt that many people really enjoy it and consider it a welcome distraction. For the first time, I had three months in a row with more than 10,000 unique views from all over the world. That’s not insignificant.
We’re talking Trump inauguration numbers.
And I really enjoy keeping it lively and fresh. It indulges a swampy part of my mind where offbeat ideas stew and seek release.
But, geez, there’s another part of my mind, the minuscule stump where cold logic dwells, that shouts the blog is a tremendous waste of time and energy.
I’d hoped to show that part of my mind a great, big bag of money to refute all its shrill protests. Take that, brain!
Alas, it is not meant to be.
I’ve started a new novel and I think it’s time to really inhabit it, to divert all the time and thought I use for the blog and apply it to a new novel. I intend it to be fast and funny. My goal is write about 60,000 words by Labor Day and have some version of the story on Amazon in time for the holidays.
What’s the book about? It’s a satire about the upheaval the introduction social media wreaks on the afterlife. It centers on a star-crossed Romeo and Juliet couple only instead of Juliet being on a balcony, she’s in heaven and instead of Romeo being on a plaza, he is in hell.
It’s a match made in heaven.
And hell!
And it’s all thanks to Facebook.
Maybe this will be the project that leads to some sort of authorial stability.
Maybe not.
I now know this after nine years: no stability will come from blogging four or five times each week.
It’s like what Branch Rickey told future Pirate Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner when Kiner said he was too valuable to be traded.
“Ralph,” Rickey said, “we finished last with you, we can finish last without you.”
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