I am sitting a second in the early morning going over my list of things I need to do when I am not writing. A huge responsibility is knocking in my mind. I fell off the wagon again about a commitment I made myself.
I am trying to read an independent book at least thirty minutes a day. The past few weeks I have been meaning to blog about it but then, well the story I was currently working on, (#WIP) was demanding time. And in my quest for finding gainful employment a painting I was commissioned to do was finished. I am working on a side project of making the frame for it and that is becoming troublesome, while one of my children is developing some allergies.
I digress. I need to finish reading this book.
It is well crafted and full of entertaining and insightful observation of the nature of humans, corporate greed and society where it is. It is hard for me to read. Not because of that but, because who I have become in life. The young 20-year-old I was at one point would have devoured it in a day or two.
I am reminded of the first independent book I assigned myself to read, it was a romance. A friend had written it. I had bought it before I had finished my rewrites and I had assigned it to myself as my first read and review of an independent author.
The writing community I follow on Twitter is full of speculation about getting people to read their books.
I completely understand the issues. I remind myself what it takes for me to read a book. What I put a book through before I read it. I need to see it at least five to ten times. I will read the description. I will read the first few paragraphs. Then I will usually put it in my wish list. Like most avid readers I have a pile to be read. There are authors I enjoy and if they publish something new, I jump them in the line. There have been amazing books I left in my to be read pile and wish I had read sooner.
In the end when I ask someone to read a book I wrote; I get it is not as immediate decision to make I am literally asking them to spend some time swimming in my mind. I get that. I also get why most of my sales come from direct contact with me as a person.
Not a scalable model. So, I am dabbling in the bizarre world I of marketing which I call Voodoo. Part of that will include me reading other authors books and reviewing them.
This also involves some hurdles. Reading has been my escape for a very long time and sometimes even though a book is great my mind is not in the right place for it I enjoy the leisure of setting it down. So, I am relearning the skills I had from school over twenty years ago to dive into a read of stuff that Is not my first choice, but I will definitely learn something from.
I have to suspend part of my ego since my mental philosophical place is in a very different place then some of the things I will be reading.
The first assignment for myself of romance book was difficult and challenging since I just finished a marriage and relationship that lasted 27 years. Traditional romances are hard for me. I find them to be filled with false hope and things in my personal experience that don’t necessarily last. And yes this is funny statement from a fantasy writer. I get escape and hope can be part of a book. I had to shut my inner dialogue off during that read. Vent to friends and then dive back in.
This book full of darkness is difficult since I came from a nihilist place when I was young. But where I am now is so different. There is an interesting side effect about being the parent of a special needs child with severe medical issues. You end up seeing the good and honorable around you in the world. You find that humanity has not lost its way, despite the issues of corporations and politicians. When I go out in the world with her, people make space; I, we, get encouragement from all aspects of the human condition. I have had men drunk out of their minds and stoned who will stop their rant and run to the door of a shop and open it for us. The look between us being I see you and I see your struggles, let me get the door.
That is not a soul a person who is lost or apathetic. It is a being raging and struggling for who they are and the world. And that is what I hold on to anymore. This has reminded me that the book I am reading has that message too.
Ok, back to reading.
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