After years of good intentions punctuated by starts, stops and neglected self promises, I have finally written a book. Actually I ended up with seven novels, The Pig Parts Series. I hope to get them published.
Everything I read from publishing experts informs me that I should establish an active presence on social media if I am to have a chance of publication in a world rife with aspiring authors and legions of hopeful manuscripts. Hence this blog.
The deliberate involvement of strangers in my life does not fit with the privacy I have always enjoyed. It was difficult enough to record fictional thoughts and feelings knowing others might one day read them. Documenting personal observations and opinions to attract potential readers to my hopeful literary career is foreign to my sensibilities. I was raised on the philosophy underpinning the famous quote from Thomas Fuller, a seventeenth century English churchman and historian: “Fools names, likes fools faces – Are often seen in public places.” Amen to that.
While I want to be published, and I want my books to be enjoyed by others, I have never desired fame. Fortune, of course, would be nice.
I have always wanted to write a book. I suppose I wanted to be like J.D. Salinger, a writer so skilled that the only interaction he had to have with the reading public was to speak cordially to the post office clerk who accepted his manuscript for posting to his publisher. After that, he escaped back into self-imposed exile in the countryside. His publisher took care of promoting and selling his book. Salinger was left with more time to do what he did best – write. That sounded good to me.
But alas! That world appears to be long gone, at least for a wannabe like me who will never measure up to Salinger. So here I am interacting, or so I hope.