May 18th, 2020

I am…
not a good writer.
I say this not based on the reviews of my book, Dark White. Those kind enough to review my first novel have indicated that I have some talent at storytelling (though I apparently leave something to be desired as an editor).
No, my lack of proclivity in writing stems from a lack of discipline. Writers write and I, at times (too frequently), do not. I’ve tried all the tricks to force myself into a routine, please do not feel the need to educate me on the best way to trick myself into writing. I promise I really have tried them all. It comes down to this… deadlines.
I need them.
Not generalized long term deadlines, they do NOTHING for me. I need near term, immediate deadlines with consequences. These are tough to come by when you’re writing a novel of eighty some-odd thousand words. My format is setting me up for failure.
that my dear reader is where you come in. See, the period when I had the most success in actually, well, writing was when I was publishing scene by scene, chapter by chapter segments of Dark White (then called Murder Ballad) on this website.
I knew I had to get something out at least once a week to keep my pageviews up and build an audience, and it worked while I was doing it. When I finished that first draft and began editing, both my writing and maintaining of this site slowed to a glacial rate. And in return, so did my enjoyment. But I told myself that it was all part of the plan. I was going to publish and make a living as a professional writer.
This is the part where you laugh.
Well, last month I achieved a milestone goal. I got my first royalty check from my first novel. Three months of sales paid me a total somewhere in the neighborhood of $50. Now by neighborhood I mean the way Naperville is in the neighborhood of Chicago.
At first I was distraught. I was going to be a writer. Move to a houseboat in Savannah, GA and bang out novels on a typewriter for the rest of my life. $200 a year wasn’t going to cut it.
Then I had a revelation. I hate marketing, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to write and have people read what I write. Money would be great, it’s a goal for sure, but if I had to choose writing and an audience or a trickle of shoe money and the agony of spending more time marketing than writing, well, that’s no choice at all.
So I’m going back to basics. I’m a writer because I write. I’m going to maintain this blog, at least a post a week. Sometimes it will be about writing, sometimes it won’t. Trust me when I say the non-writing related parts of my life are way more interesting than the writing related parts at times. And I’m going to start posting chapters again starting now. Chapter 1 scene 1 of the new rewrite of bishopCHURCH is up now, here.
Your job is to keep me honest. The comments sections are completely open on both the blog andthe chapters. Be honest. Be brutal. DON’T be rude. You can communicate with me on Twitter and Facebook and believe me I respond. If I’m late on a post, call me out on it. Let’s make this writing thing fun again and make me a writer.

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