A little over a year ago, I retired this blog. It wasn’t exactly a conscious decision. For a couple of months, I kept thinking. “Oh, crap. I have got to get something up on that blog.” But it just never happened. Why? To make a long story short (and, I’m sure, annoyingly cryptic), that was a fairly crappy time for me. There were things I couldn’t stop thinking about, but couldn’t bear to write about. After a while, it just seemed easier to let the whole thing go.
Happily, in the intervening year, life has gotten a whole lot better. And thusly, more bloggable.
And more exciting. Over the past year, my outlook on writing and publishing has changed a lot. Over the next several months, I’m planning to work toward the self-publication of my novel, currently titled The Big Life— and soon to be titled something much better.
I’ve also started a podcast, called The Indie Book Podcast. It’s about reviewing self-published books, and discussing the future of publishing.
Frankly, the experience of doing this podcast is the very thing that gives me faith I can make self-publishing work. I mean, just two months ago I decided to be a podcaster. Now I am one. And while I don’t have a lot of listeners yet, the numbers are moving in the right direction.
That’s the world we’re moving into: where you can just do stuff, and no one can say you nay. Maybe you succeed at it, maybe you don’t. But the audience–and, hopefully, the quality of your work–is what makes that determination.
The podcast is doing other things for me, too. It’s weaving me in closer with the community of writers. It’s giving me more confidence in my public speaking skills. And it’s teaching me tons about marketing, through the simple expedient of forcing me to do it. Even though it takes time away from my writing, it seems like the best thing I could be doing for my career right now.
I’m nowhere close to perfect at it, and I hope I will improve. But anyway, it’s exciting. It’s published. And it’s beginning to feel very real.