Andrew McEwan's Blog: Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life - Posts Tagged "blogholes"

I have to admit this is largely my own doing. I don't write books people want to read and I'm terrible at self-promotion. Not that I write bad books; it's just a matter of taste, or rather convention, for folk are impossibly conservative when it comes to their likes and dislikes and most won't travel off a given path unless persuaded (by recommendation) or pushed.

Self-publishing has opened a can of worms over recent years. Some have made a great success of it, whilst others have merely added to the growing pile of worm sloughings. I like to think I have something original to offer, but originality is no guarantee of readers; indeed, the opposite might be said to be true. And round we go again. So what's the answer? Clearly there isn't one. One, in fact, must simply persist, laughing off the one star reviews and smiling at the £0.14 Amazon now and then drops into one's bank account. Years of hard work and effort are besides the point. Conform or die, publishing says. Well, publishing, fuck you.

I had major surgery to remove a tumour four weeks ago. First they cut open my belly and remodelled my stomach. Then they opened my chest under my right shoulder and cut out my osophagus, along with the offending part. My stomach was then joined to what remained of my gullet and I was glued back together again. I had drains in my sides, tubes in my arms, nose, belly and winky. I only spent eight days in hospital, however, which was pretty good going, and now I can drink wine and munch crisps again.

Life has never been particularly kind to me: my true love was lost, I've only ever received rejection letters from publishers and agents, I've been bankrupt, have no pets or kids, not had a holiday in decades, and in the fourth year of junior school I wasn't made a prefect. Some of these things still rankle. I'm fifty next year. And you know what? I don't give a shit. And neither frankly should you.