R. Kirk White's Blog, page 2

Football: a right of passage

    Football has come to symbolize the change of seasons. Summer is drawing to a close. We stop thinking of where we'd like to vacation and start thinking about what we want to get done before the year's out. It's the start line of the winter season. As always, the return of football brings hope. Hope that our teams will have a good year. Hope that our work year will be productive. Hope that our life will just plain be better. 
    Some teams, like some dreams, come crashing down to reality almost immediately. A key player gets hurt, our team loses right out of the gate, a deadline is missed, an opportunity lost, and suddenly we are faced with another precious year going down the drain. Football, after all, is a fantasy. We identify with our teams. We feel we are part of that great comeback, that last second victory; or, conversely, that last second failure.
    I admit I've had trouble finishing this post which I started around the beginning of the football season.  As a writer, there will inevitably come a time when we wonder why we do it at all. It's so time consuming, so isolating. Our very originality makes us wonder if others will 'get' us. Then even after we have completed the herculean task of finishing a novel there's still a long hard road ahead promoting the work. Add in the demands of the 'day' jobs most of us writers have and the whole e-publishing venture begins to look like a crap shoot. 
    I don't know about you, but I could give a rat's ass about being discovered after I'm dead. I write because I believe I'm good at it, believe what I have to say is worthwhile, and because I want to become financially independent; so, I can quit that dreaded day job and spend more time cultivating my craft. 
    For many writers attaining financial independence is much closer too being a fantasy than  a reality. However, like football, there's always the chance of a 'Hail Mary'. As long as we keep at it that right set of eyes might cross our work. The ones that can propel our creations to their rightful place on the best-seller list, or to Hollywood for movie consideration. Like the perfect pass, or the spectacular play in a football game that turns the season around; we are all just one break away from the life we dream about. Go Dolphins!
    

Are you Normal?

Let's face it. There's a certain way people expect you to act in any given situation. Deviate from that and you might be called strange, hard-headed, weird; any of a number of things that point out your failure to adhere to expected behavior. But if being normal is not working out so hot for you, why act that way? Most people who make it big as an entrepreneur, or as a writer, or actor, or artists or whatever did it differently than others, or created something that was definitely not normal. Epublishing grew out of a need to circumvent the normal way of getting a work published. 
    Being normal means doing what others expect you to do, usually so they can get their hands in your wallet. Screw 'em. Time is slipping away, and the more time you spend being normal the less time you have to do all the things you really want to do. As far as I know we only have one life, at least in this world. When my time is up, I want to be able to say that I at least tried to live the way I wanted to live and to have accomplish the things that were the most important to me. 
    Now, for all your aspiring writers, I want to repost a couple of agents who are looking for new novels that I read about on the Writer's Digest site. One is Jessica Negron who you can read about by clicking on this Link: Jessica. The other agent is Bridget Smith. Check out the article on Smith by clicking on this link: Bridget. 
    So, keep the faith, keep working, and remember; once you create your own fictional world and publish it, it could last forever.