What Comes Next – blog

So, I write.

A lot.

I know, you’re shocked.

SHOCKED!

Since getting off of social media I have written a LOT more.

I have the opportunity and I need to write because my head is just full, full, full of things and writing is the best way to get them out of myself. Blogging is what I write the most, as you can, maybe, tell. I blog a lot. I don’t think anyone CARES what I have to say, mind you, but I still say it all the same. The HOPE was that folks would find my site and get interested in my books and buy one – SOME! I never would have guessed though that random reviews of indie found footage films would bring people here on the regular.

HI!

Welcome.

OH, you’re not here for this, nevermind.

I love the traffic but, since it’s not monetized – BUY ME! – I am sorta just blogging for me.

Again, that’s fine.  

I suppose this took my social media posting, just, in much longer form.

With the world in the state it’s in, I have a lot to say.

A lot, a lot.

SHOCK!

So, I write.

I had thoughts of reviewing every movie I had watched over quarantine but man, I watched nearly three hundred movies a year so, well, that’s just too much reviewing, and honestly, who cares?

I didn’t.

Which is why I am sticking with the indie found footage stuff I find.

As a fan of the subgenre, it gives me something weird to check out that not everyone has seen. If I can be a beacon of information to that end, I shall be it.

But back to writing.

So, I write a lot.

I wrote Reliquary In Black over National Novel Writing Month and then edited it and expanded it earlier this year. Then I moved on to another book about two weeks later that I wrote in about a month. That book is a slick little thing about loss, grief, and the things we do to survive.

It needs work, needs some editing, but it’s a mean machine.

I think it can be something really special though and look forward to fooling with it a little more.

I THINK that that’s a 2023 book.

That’s the thing, with no real demand for my books out there, and doing everything via self-publishing, I am really the engine that drives it all. Now that I am not doing in person shows anymore that really curtails my opportunities to sell so, well, the WHY I put the books out is more up to me just wanting to get them out into the world. That’s why. There’s no great investment outside of time so why not?

Why Not Look For A Publisher?

I did.

A lot.

For years.

I wasn’t what they were looking for.

Which is fine.

The market is what it is.

The problem I have with the ‘market’ and with publishers is that they MAKE the market. They don’t really let it become a think naturally. Oh, it still does occasionally but there are either BIG publishers or SMALL ones and both have their focuses and fetishes, and I just don’t want to spend my time chasing after markets where I have to shove what I do into it.

I have written over twenty books now.

I have written them, edited them, designed them, laid them out, released them, and marketed them.

I don’t want to take my own power away and hope someone else will have the passion I do for this stuff. I would love it if they did. But I can’t trust they will. I have friends who were published, and the book was put out, was supported for a couple of months, and then it was just a name on a list. I don’t want that unless someone wants to pay me a bunch for that pleasure.

My experience with publishers isn’t great.

More on that in a moment.

Since I wrote the one novel about grief, I started another that I am halfway through. I was slowed down while I have been sick but now that I am getting better, I feel a little more power in the engine. It’s another book about grief and loss but this is one about greed too and the lengths we’ll go to get something we want. I like it. It needs to be finished and will take some work when I get to it to clean it all up and make it live but the bones are good, and it’s got a good idea behind it.

Just need to bring it home.

*crosses fingers*

That isn’t counting into the whole equation two books that are done and ‘waiting’.

One is another book for children that I wrote in honor of my mother-in-law after she passed away. I wanted to create a tribute to her, like I had done with my own mom. I am hoping it sees the light of day eventually, but this is one of those – it’s out when it’s out books.

I like it, though. It’s the story of a tough girl playing on her property when she has to deal with some bullies.

Then there’s the ‘other’ book, which I am sure I have mentioned before.

So, a couple of years ago a fellow writer messaged me on social media to ask if I knew anyone that would be interested in writing a ‘cozy’ mystery, or if I had an interest. Cozy Mystery is a TYPE of mystery that is quaint and doesn’t feature cursing, strong sexuality, or strong violence. Think Murder, She Wrote.

Cozy.

I said, no, I didn’t know anyone, and went on with my day.

But I thought about it.

And thought about it.

And thought about it and reached back out and told him, ya know what, I’ll do it.

GREAT!

Only, I had a month to write it.

A novel.

GAH!
I had never done that before.

Not that I COULDN’T, but that I hadn’t.

I write at my own pace, when I want to write. Since I do it all myself and there’s no publisher involved there’s no one pushing me. And since it’s not my job, well, again, there’s no rush outside of myself. My GOAL is to put a book out a year because I have since 2009 and before that it was ten years between books. I appreciate that I have a finite amount of time on this old world and want to make the most of it. Why wait around to put books out when I can do one a year pretty easily. The most I have done is two, staggered by months. This is a weird year in that I could put out much more than one book, but I also don’t want to flood the nonexistent Chris Ringler market with too many books. I like to at least let them all breathe a little.

I took a moment to think about what I wanted to write for this mystery and set about doing it.

It was tough.

Real tough.

Tough because I felt a time crunch to get X number of words done in a month, while working, and because it was not a natural idea that I felt a pull towards. It was forced. Slowly though I chipped away at the book and as it all started to come into view, I started to like it. I started to love it. 

There were constant check ins on my progress and how things were going, and I shared what I had and chugged away at it.

I can say that by the time the month was out I had a finished book that I was pretty happy with.

It needed work, like they all do, but it felt good.

My contact was thrilled to get the book and we batted ideas for a couple things about and I caved because this was a spec book, after all, and we decided on a name it’d be published under, so it wasn’t connected to me. I’d have to check to see what it was. I think it was a woman’s name.

And that was that.

My contact was going to edit the work and add his own flavor, and I’d hear back when there was more to know.

I had no contract and only a vague idea it’d be published in February of the coming year, so about four months away, give or take.

No contract came.

No more word came.

I was added to a group with other authors that were part of things, and no one knew what was going on.

Eventually I saw a release calendar and my book was pushed back by months.

Frown.

No big deal really, but still a drag.

And still there was no contract.

Hrm.

I reached out and was told that my contact was not the contact for THIS project now and that I’d hear from someone else.

I never did.

I never have.

I was eventually told, as we all were that were part of this group, that the books were all on hold because the small publisher we were working with was going to have these books distributed by a much bigger publisher which was great news.

Not everything was part of this new deal, but my book seemed to be.

HOORAY!

But then there’s been no update in a year.

And I am torn.

Do I call it, and put it out myself?

OR

Do I wait, wait, wait.

I haven’t been paid.

I have no idea WHAT I might be paid.

I have no idea of ANY contract details, if there are any.

I hate to give up on the hope of being published traditionally – a whole book that is – but then, it’s not really ME getting published, is it?

It was a project I took on, in a genre that isn’t a passion, under a pen name.

So, does it even count?

A little?

Sure.

But really?

Naw.

Not to me.

The plan for that book, as of this moment, is to give it until it’s been a year since I heard anything and then just take the book back and eventually edit it and make it truly mine and put it out myself.

It won’t sell but at least it’ll be mine and released, which it, and I, deserve.

What comes after that, I can’t say.

I constantly tell myself I should stop.

If no one is reading/buying, then why put the books out?

I can still write, but why go through the rest?

I dunno, to be honest.

The books will last as long as I last, and then be lost to the ages.

A sad thought but not a new one. Look at a record store or a used bookstore and you see thousands of works that are lost to time and forgotten by history.

There is beauty in impermanence.

Let future people paint their future dreams.

They don’t need my voice to tell them what they want to see or be or imagine.

I would love to be remembered.

I would love for my ideas and dreams and monsters to live on beyond me, but I won’t delude myself that that’s how this will go.

So, I’ll keep doing what I do and touch the lives I can and maybe next year I put out a weird little mystery just because I can.

…c…

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