Incidental Musings …

Greetings my beloveds,

I suppose, today’s blog post will be more of a “thinking out loud” type of thing, as opposed to my usual targeted thoughts, sort of post. Truth be told, lately I’ve been doing more thinking and less writing. Be that for good or bad, I’ve yet to determine.

I do give fair warning, however, you may not necessarily be entertained by anything that I have to say today, as most of these thoughts aren’t aimed towards any one individual or incident.

I often wonder, Why the intentionally-unintentional competition between writers?

Please, do understand that I could very well be wrong, or misreading the signals that are being put out in the universe. Nevertheless, the question begs further analysis, and perhaps YOU can help me come to a more finite conclusion.

In recent days I came across a very new publication whose title will remain unsaid so as to not offend any readers/authors.

Said publication was a very, very similar story to the premise of “50 Shades of Grey“, the well known Bondage/Domination fictional tale by E.L. James. Much prior to this, in many occasion I stumbled upon myriad a story which were variations of “The Twilight Saga” by Stephenie Meyer.

This got me to thinking if the author that writes the story, which mimics the original, is truly “flattering” the authentic author—as in, “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery“—or is doing something else entirely?

Does the secondary author believe that his/her story can outrank the success of the first? Do they, perchance, believe that their rendition of the story will be better than the authentic narrative?

This is a perplexing idea to me. Perhaps it is because I yearn to be original. I desire, more than anything, to tell my own stories and not recycle tales that have already been told too many times to count.

On one occasion many moons ago—several years now, in fact—I was on Twitter and I noticed a tweet that read, and I quote (keeping the book title anonymous, of course) “Blank story kicks ‘shimmery vampires’ ass. Twilight has NOTHING on Blank.” Then there was a link provided to Amazon. Upon clicking on the link, I read some of the reviews written of this book that claimed to be so much better than the Twilight Saga, and what I saw astonished me. Readers were complaining about how poorly written said book was, and how the claim to fame that it professed was a hoax.

Immediately, I pondered on if that author even took the time to edit her book, or just jumped the gun to publish it because her family member read it and said, “Hey Missy, this book kicks Twilight’s ass”, so the author ran with it.

I find that, universally speaking, not everyone is going to love your story. Yet, I cannot understand the reasoning behind, “I can tell this story better than you“. So, is in fact imitation the sincerest form of flattering, or is it a silent competition to prove something?

Some weeks ago I was dared to check my email every day. In keeping to my word, I’ve done just that. Why is this relevant at all? Well, because the person whom dared me to check my email every day wanted to see if there were things that I perhaps was missing do to my weekly check.

What I’ve found is interesting …

I’ve been checking my email every day, at least once a day, and in all actuality I haven’t been missing much of anything. This might have something to do with that fact that I haven’t had much writing activity as of late. I did notice that when I was in the middle of writing projects that the email flow was more voluminous. Yet, now that things have simmered down some, the email flow has also slowed down.

One thing that I have realized though, in keeping true to the task, is that I’ve now gotten in the habit of checking it. So, in all fairness, I do believe that’s a good trade off. It helps keep me in the loop of things.

Speaking of writing …

As most of you whom follow me know, I’ve been working on my short story compilation which I’ve dubbed “Syncopation of Ravishing Intensity” after my catchphrase.

In recent weeks I’ve opted to help a friend of mine—who is a single mother of an autistic child—with babysit her child on the weekends as she works during that time. While I adore her and her child, I’ve realized that in having to care for him, it’s impacted my productivity in writing. I’m finding it truly hard to concentrate and produce anything of substance during this time. I honestly want to continue to assist her in this fashion, but I need to find a balance between caring for him and producing quality works for my upcoming anthology, for if I do not, I fret that I might not release the book.

Authors helping authors …

Anyone who follows my blog knows that I am all for helping other authors in cross promoting. Yet, what happens when people you network with vouch for someone who, in the end, dose not comply with you?

I’m not certain if that thought makes any sense, but I am of the mind that explaining is better than telling.

Recently, an author who networks with my Publisher released a book. My Publisher reached out to the lot of us to ask if we’d be interested in helping him spread the word about his upcoming release in the form of a Blog Tour. I offered my assistance, and immediately sent said person a question (yes … just one) for him to answer so that I could post something about his upcoming work. The man in question never responded. Yet, because I am a person of my word, I still posted the announcement of his book release.

Is that fair? Is it right that I attempt to offer a helping hand, yet the person whom I’m offering it to does not comply and still I help? What is to say that in a moment when I need the cross promotion, this very same person will come through? I doubt that he will.

How does one garner a name for oneself when all one has to offer is short stories and anthology participation? I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this. I am not a novel writer. It’s just not my forte. Everyone has their gifts, and novel writing is simply not one of mine. My gifts lie in short story writing. Yet, without a novel of my own to showcase, how then do I tell the world about what I do?

It seems to me that short story writing is among the hardest type of writing to promote (along side poetry). Perhaps one of the reasons is because most people do not consider short story writing an actual art form. Perhaps, it’s because word count is more valued than substance. I cannot say for sure. Yet, the conundrum exists. How can I share my art, when art like mine isn’t valued as such?

Hmmm … I do believe that I’ve gotten everything that I’ve wanted to get off of my chest, off of it. LOL. 😀

Please, if you can relate at all, do not hesitate to share your thoughts. I would love to hear from any of you on any one of these subjects.

All the best,