Vacationing the Rodential Way
Alone, that is. Yup. Solo. Just the four of us: me, Kajolium Broadwick, Mantissa Etherbright, and Pansy Schneider-Horst. With Fernij Ängster on the wire via text-message.
Before we get to my report on that fabulous all-expense-padded vacation of your dreams, let's look in on the literary news.
In today's newsy-nooz, here is interestingly fresh young writer S. Usher Evans on why you shouldn't self-publish. Lots of good reasons to throw in the towel and hide on the beach with Banyani. (Unless you're a masochistic rodent like some folks we know.)
The soul-crushing bottom line for "authors" of all stripes may be the statistical realization that someone will probably win the lottery and cash in, but it won't be you. Even if you're a best-selling wunderkind, you're unlikely to make a living at wordsmithery. The rodential advice of the day is: don't give up that day job!
Oh. I think I'll stop reading "news" now and get back under my rock where I can publish as I please, no matter what gets in my way. The roadblock certainly won't be a pile-up of eager readers because statistically speaking, as we know, nobody will read your book anyway...
Stopping for a brief side-bar here... In mid-term SROP sales news is the headline: sales have seriously tanked this year, and we attribute it to ennui; lack of energy needed to continually flog for miniscule returns. So far, sales are down 84% compared to last year. In December, we may have to burn down our warehouse and try to collect on the insurance; or at least end up in prison where we can get some free square meals regularly. ;-)
Meanwhile, back on the road... We four had a "vacation" recently during which we wrote almost no prose, edited only a paragraph or two, and read less than half of one novel. But we sure chewed up scads of hours by driving around a lot (approximately 2400 miles, much of it in the forest) taking photographs of detritus and decay with Pansy Schneider-Horst. After a quick pre-vacation lunch with a marvelous writer and her family, the vacation started with lunch in Lynwood, Washington (with friends). Then, we went to Twisp where we encountered lots of smoke from a big forest fire, and also encountered no Internet access for a day. That was a shock. Then we went on to Packwood, Washington where deer roam at least one of the two streets in town. Then we buzzed through Beaverton, Oregon on the freeway en route to smelly Tillamook, Oregon, and eventually to Depoe Bay for a night, where we paused for a quiet quadraphonic tête-à-tête dinner at an Irish pub. After that, we stopped for a long lunch with friends in sunny Corvallis. The day after that, we watched a man play the cello for an hour or so in Lithia Park (which is in Ashland, Oregon) while wild turkeys and deer roamed around. We then paid obeisance a second time to the headwaters of the Sacramento River near the town of Mt Shasta, California. The last hurrah was a lunch stop in bustling San Ramon, where half the population of California seemed to be converging at once. We followed on with a day of post-vacation decompression by touring Santa Cruz before coming home to safe little Santa Banana, where it's always eternal spring and the surf is always just right.
The really big news to come out of this vacation is that next year we may be in a good position to publish an official SROP calendar full of half-naked fire hydrants in compromising poses.
Before we get to my report on that fabulous all-expense-padded vacation of your dreams, let's look in on the literary news.
In today's newsy-nooz, here is interestingly fresh young writer S. Usher Evans on why you shouldn't self-publish. Lots of good reasons to throw in the towel and hide on the beach with Banyani. (Unless you're a masochistic rodent like some folks we know.)
The soul-crushing bottom line for "authors" of all stripes may be the statistical realization that someone will probably win the lottery and cash in, but it won't be you. Even if you're a best-selling wunderkind, you're unlikely to make a living at wordsmithery. The rodential advice of the day is: don't give up that day job!
Oh. I think I'll stop reading "news" now and get back under my rock where I can publish as I please, no matter what gets in my way. The roadblock certainly won't be a pile-up of eager readers because statistically speaking, as we know, nobody will read your book anyway...
Stopping for a brief side-bar here... In mid-term SROP sales news is the headline: sales have seriously tanked this year, and we attribute it to ennui; lack of energy needed to continually flog for miniscule returns. So far, sales are down 84% compared to last year. In December, we may have to burn down our warehouse and try to collect on the insurance; or at least end up in prison where we can get some free square meals regularly. ;-)
Meanwhile, back on the road... We four had a "vacation" recently during which we wrote almost no prose, edited only a paragraph or two, and read less than half of one novel. But we sure chewed up scads of hours by driving around a lot (approximately 2400 miles, much of it in the forest) taking photographs of detritus and decay with Pansy Schneider-Horst. After a quick pre-vacation lunch with a marvelous writer and her family, the vacation started with lunch in Lynwood, Washington (with friends). Then, we went to Twisp where we encountered lots of smoke from a big forest fire, and also encountered no Internet access for a day. That was a shock. Then we went on to Packwood, Washington where deer roam at least one of the two streets in town. Then we buzzed through Beaverton, Oregon on the freeway en route to smelly Tillamook, Oregon, and eventually to Depoe Bay for a night, where we paused for a quiet quadraphonic tête-à-tête dinner at an Irish pub. After that, we stopped for a long lunch with friends in sunny Corvallis. The day after that, we watched a man play the cello for an hour or so in Lithia Park (which is in Ashland, Oregon) while wild turkeys and deer roamed around. We then paid obeisance a second time to the headwaters of the Sacramento River near the town of Mt Shasta, California. The last hurrah was a lunch stop in bustling San Ramon, where half the population of California seemed to be converging at once. We followed on with a day of post-vacation decompression by touring Santa Cruz before coming home to safe little Santa Banana, where it's always eternal spring and the surf is always just right.
The really big news to come out of this vacation is that next year we may be in a good position to publish an official SROP calendar full of half-naked fire hydrants in compromising poses.
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I just came back from a long winding multi-state drive-through myself and it was a nice reminder that there was much to be said for physical interactions and experiences, no matter how much one enjoys reading or composing. And quite frankly, publishing has always been a dreaded chore for me, which is why I've put off doing anything about the revision of number 4. If the compulsion is strong enough, or if there are the occasional requests, I do it. Otherwise, I let it be.But then again, my whole approach to reading and writing is the same as my approach to life in general: it's interacting with one's environment to learn/experience something new and to share, when appropriate (i.e. someone wants to know), my own experiences / musing. Since the latter doesn't happen nearly as often as the former, it's a good thing that I have a day job and no calling to be a professional writer, trad or indie. And it certainly lets me spend my free time (whenever some comes my way) the way my whimsy takes me.
Thanks for sharing the articles and the travelogue. I hope we can shift some of the east-side rains and water over there and get your fires out.
@RFG: There are several styles represented in the set. For some reason, a few years back I started snapping pics of fire hydrants in odd places...@PJ: At some point I may share a few pictures, but I haven't had time/energy to run through them all! :-)
I think I've taken better than 6,000 pictures over the last four years or so, but none of fire hydrants.I remember when I was a public servant, there were hydrants in weird places, streets the cops asked us how to find, and all sorts of things to make you go hmmm.
I look forward to getting more packing cushion materials (have the boxes) so I can wrap the hard part up. That I'll take a picture of.
P.J., as much as I'm driven to write, Her Grace finds ways to shift my focus. As for free time, what's that? Soon I'll be working on retaining walls, walkways, turning cleared junipers into chiminea fuel, and helping someone learn about life outside the cities. Sometimes having a day job is a lot less exhausting.
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Good news is most of our books never got unpacked. Okay news is I get to build bookcases.
Smashed-Rat-On-Press
The main purpose of this blog is to announce occasional additions and changes to the SROP catalog or the site. And it doubles as a soap-box from which to gesticulate and babble...
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That calendar sounds interesting. Are there any closeups of the hose hookups? And would those be standard modern hose hookups or the old-fashioned half-size?