I never thought I’d have a blog or website … ever. Plain and simple. Heck getting a Twitter account wasn’t something I planned on. I didn’t feel that the world needed yet another set of self-indulgent ramblings by someone with an inflated sense of self-importance. But here I am writing one, while also praying that it’s not self-indulgent.
If you want to get a book published, you need an online presence according to many people. Some even say that you need one at least a year before you start submitting your manuscript, but others said that a social media and online presence isn’t vital, so it’s impossible to tell who’s right. Either way, it was something I didn’t have. I’ve thought about getting rid of Facebook on numerous occasions and for the past four years my posts were relegated to “Hey we’re having a baby”, an occasional thank you or anniversary post about my wonderful wife, and sports. Mostly sports. Why? It’s non-offensive really unless you’re rooting for the other side.
Though I am extremely passionate about both I stay away from politics and religion. Generally, I find that those kinds of posts accomplish little save for virtue signaling and making half the people you know angry.
Anyway, here I am, seemingly years behind the times scrambling to throw myself fully into the quagmire of social media. While it may be a means to an end, after the countless hours I’ve spent writing in the last two years, I’m willing to put in the work if it helps me accomplish my goal: to get my novels published.
That sounds so weird to me and undoubtedly to the people who know me. I’ve always liked to read but was never known as a writer. As a history major in college I had to do a lot of writing but didn’t particularly enjoy it and hadn’t written fiction since 8th grade. I’m also not a person that anyone on the planet would mistake for ‘an artist’, so all this, even two years in, feels surreal. As does the idea of constantly posting about myself. It truly seems odd since I’m just not that exciting. After almost a decade in the insurance industry (which is not exciting), I’ve been a stay at home dad since January of 2015 so there isn’t much of interest there, particularly to those who don’t know my family. So in lieu of writing essentially about myself, I thought I’d write about the process of writing and trying to get published.
While I am realistic enough to know that statically this will likely be a fool’s errand, I am going to give it a shot. When I started writing in June of ’16 I thought that the chance of me actually finishing a book, much less a series, was outlandish and was the reason for the longest time that I didn’t tell anyone. Even my wife was in the dark for a couple of weeks until she demanded to know why I was constantly typing away on my computer. I would like to extend a big thank you to her for that moment because she didn’t laugh at me. Not that my wife isn’t supportive, she is. So much so that it’s mind boggling at times. But just the sheer fact that I was writing a novel seemed so outlandish to me that I just knew she would be so shocked that a laugh was sure to come out. But it didn’t. Had that been the case I likely would have stopped there.
Anyway, I’ll end my ramblings for now. Hopefully this has been interesting enough to peak your interest to read future installments. Doubly so if you’re a publisher. In fact, if that happens to be your vocation, why wait? Go ahead and contact me now, you know you what to.
