Guest post: Is everybody in the whole wide world a Hemingway?
Today I’m hosting a guest blog post from fellow author Jon McDonald. I met Jon late last year through a blogger link-up site, and we hit it off immediately. His writing is witty and sharp – I’m currently reading his book “Divas Never Flinch” – and what he says here I could not agree with more. So with that, I’ll turn it over to Jon.
Has it finally come to this? Is everyone now a literary creative superstar? One would think so, looking at the world falling in love with their instantaneous tweets, texts, and emails. Remember when one would sit under a tree on a lazy summer afternoon engrossed in the intricacies of a complex, unfolding plot, with multiple, gripping, and engrossing characters. Remember falling in love with the wry stories of Jane Austen?
Alas, I guess I’m showing my age. Raised with books, and delightful jaunts to the library, I would sit on the floor perusing the lower shelves of the children’s section searching out my favorites – The Little Engine that Could, Fernand, the Bull, and one about a steam shovel that becomes a household furnace (can’t remember its name). There was time to read. No distractions. One could read and think, muse on the characters or story line, and live a life outside of one’s self.
I recently read a horrifying statistic. Eight-eight percent of American families own no books at all. I assume that means digital books as well. How about that? Eighty-eight percent! That’s whole families, not just individuals.
So we’ve become a society tweeting our every thought; stressing about our lives in texts, and so self-absorbed we delineate our lives in 140 characters.
No wonder no one is making a living as a writer anymore. I am a writer with 6 books of fiction. I started with a publisher – they did nothing with marketing and I switched to a second small publisher, hoping they might be more involved, and again – nothing. I am now in the process of taking back three of my books back from the second publisher and self-publishing them along with my other three already self-published books. At least now I have more control over the content and can market them myself. However, there is still the challenge of competing with 750,000 other books published every year.
However, I’ve come to the conclusion that in the world we live in now there may never be a market for thoughtful, reflective fiction like there used to be. Now everyone is their own Hemingway, lost in the amazement of their individual lives – the true fiction of the 21st Century. I have come to peace with the fact that I shall remain a gentleman writer, penning my delightful fantasies for myself, lost in the dusty corners of another century – or even two – long gone.
About the author:
Jon McDonald lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He currently has six published works of fiction:
• Divas Never Flinch – a satire about Santa Fe
• Bloodlines – the Quest – a humorous vampire thriller
• The Seed – An Ironic Political Thriller
• Ya Gotta Dance with the One who Brung Ya – sex, scandals and sweethearts – an eclectic collection of stories
• Divas in Cahoots – a reprise with the gals from Santa Fe as a murder mystery.
• The Hunt for the Lost Treasure of Lower Kal Ory – a children’s andventure and cookbook
He won first prize and was published in the Santa Fe New Mexican holiday short story contest, 2009. He has also been published in Raphael’s Village, ImageOutWrite, Bay Laurel, and Jonathan. For more on Jon, visit his website, www.jonmcdonaldauthor.com.
