Aproaching the end of another year

Another few hours and we have to write 2014 onto our checks and letters. Postage in Canada will be going up in the new year, discouraging most people from sending out letters. I haven't been using regular mail for a long time now. Most of the stuff I sent is by electronic means. I wonder about the people who run Canada Post (I'm sure it is no different in other countries). They think by raising postage they will make more money. They sure have no idea about merchandising. Typical government mentality. If you need more money just raise the taxes, no matter the consequences.

Our railroads aren't run anymore efficiently, either. Mismanagement is one of the reasons they don't make money. Too many people collecting huge salaries and too little production. When I was still in business, I sometimes employed a couple of guys who worked for the railroad to help me out temporarily in wiring houses. (I was an Electrical Contractor). They usually worked nights for the railroad, that's why they had the time and opportunity to work during the day on other jobs. They told me they didn't work much on their regular job. They mostly relaxed and even slept sometimes. It meant they had the energy to still work for me and make some extra money. I heard stuff like that a lot from other people who worked for the railroad.

Anyway, I don't want to get carried away with that. I use my personal blog for venting about stuff like that. As for my own progress with my work, I'm at about 25,000 words with the novel I'm currently working on. No title yet, just the working title: Lews Canon. There is never enough time around Fall and Christmas. Hopefully in the new year I'll get more time to write. I've spent some time on it developing different characters and writing down important date so I can keep the story straight. It is a detective story written in a humorous tone. I hope I can keep it going until the end of the story. And I hope my efforts aren't going to be wasted because people may not want to read it.

I just read on somebody's blog about what readers like. Most like romance and paranormal stories, even romantic westerns. Perhaps I should write romance. When I was a teenager I read a lot of westerns and I loved them. I've always been fascinated with that era in time. Maybe I should try my hand at writing a western with some romance thrown in. I'd have to do a lot of studying up, though, like how cowboys talked and things like that. Shucks, I believe I'm gonna strap on my six-shooter right now, jump onto my bucking bronco and hit the dusty road. Sheriff McCalla is waiting for me down by the corral. I reckon I'll be seein' y'all by the ol' oak tree for the hangin...

It was worth a try...or maybe not.

For now have an easy slide into the New Year

I wish you a prosperous and successful 2014.

Happy New Year

When is a poem a poem?

I don’t consider myself a poet, but I do write the occasional poem, mainly for my wife. She is my inspiration. I usually write her one for her birthday, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Christmas. I’ve written probably over 50 so far. When I told her I want to publish them, she said they belong to her and are not mine to publish. And I respect her wish, but sometimes I make an exception and publish one, like the poem I wrote for her this Christmas. Should you be interested in reading it, please go to my personal blog. ( http://www.hergros.blogspot.com/ ) Much of what I wrote there I wrote here, but you’ll also find the poem.

Writing a poem isn’t much different from writing a story. First, of course, I need a theme, but my heart has to be in it also. That’s why writing a poem for my wife is easy.  I start with a word or line and go from there. Sometimes I sit and wait for inspiration. If I get stuck, I quit and continue the next day. Something always pops up. I may write different short sentences and see where they take me. I try to rhyme the last word of two successive lines. I’ve written some poems with rhyming the first line with the third line. There are probably many other ways to write a poem. The way I write mine works best for me.

Like I said, I’m not into poems and haven’t done any studies on how to write them. I’m sure there are rules. However, sometimes other writers publish their poems on the forums I visit and I must say, I’ve read some awful stuff. Some so-called poems don’t rhyme at all. The writers just make up a string of words, sometimes unfinished sentences, and give them their own lines. This is an example of what I’ve seen (not exactly something I read. I made this one up, but it is close enough to give you an idea):

Ice, Water, cold

Must go swimming

Cold, cold, cold

Wet and strange

Clouds in the sky

Flowers and rain

Beauty everywhere

Snowflakes in the clouds

Fairies dancing

Blah...blah...blah...

Went out into the rain

Saw mud all over the place

Strange, how the sounds make echoes

Everywhere mud and water

Must write a poem about this

Wonderful experience with water

in the can and in the sky

Fell into a puddle

And got wet

And dirty

Crazy people watch

Must fly to Africa (Huh?)

The mantra of the world rests on my shoulders

And it is my calling to follow it

Blah...blah...blah.

I’m not kidding, I read similar stuff like that. It doesn’t make any sense and it doesn’t even rhyme. As far as I’m concerned, any idiot can write garbage like that. Oops, I wrote this. What does that make me? An idiot or a poet. I wonder. Wow! This could be the beginning of something big...Maybe I’m a poet after all. Or maybe another Picasso. Oh, right, he was not a poet but a painter. I never understood his paintings either, but people who apparently know what they’re all about pay millions to buy them. Apparently, it takes a different mindset.  Anyway, I don’t consider that kind of stuff poetry. Unless...? Hmm. Perhaps I don’t understand this whole thing. Makes me wonder...Something to ponder... Hey, that rhymes. Another poem coming up?

SLAP! Let’s get back to reality.

Merry Christmas to you all and may you all have a prosperous 2014 writing many stories, novels, and poems that  make sense.

Changing a title and other musings

After giving it much thought, I changed the name of the main character in the novel I'm presently working on. It is slow going because of other things I'm doing. This time of year is always busy with hunting season just behind me, Christmas coming, and other stuff that pops up. Perhaps I'm not as dedicated to my writing as I used to be. There are many reasons for it progressing so slowly, but I've been trying to write something every day, even it is just a few lines or paragraphs. I have an outline already worked out, now it's just a matter of fleshing it out and writing the story.

As usual, things change as I'm writing the story. New ideas pop up and I'm going with the flow. I changed the name of the detective from Mark Canon to Luus Canon and now to Lews Canon. It makes more sense. You'll see when you read the new posting, or perhaps it is not easily noticed from such a short excerpt. Maybe I'll post a bit more.

I'm at around 19,000 words right now. I have no idea how many words it will take to finish the novel, but as I write more ideas appear and that's how the story moves ahead...one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time. Eventually I will be done with it.

As I wrote in a previous article, I'm not sure where my writing will take me. I'm going to try with this humorous detective novel to see what readers want. I am sort of enjoying writing this one, but I have to admit, I enjoyed writing Fantasy and Science Fiction more. Somehow I can immerse myself deeper in those stories and they seem to flow easier and better. The erotica adds a bit of spice to the writing.

There are no explicit sex scenes in Lews Canon. Sex is mentioned, there is bantering going on between the male and female characters, but everything happens behind closed doors. We don't enter.

I keep reading that most readers who buy ebooks are women. They like romance novels. And they do like erotica. Just look at the success of 50 Shades of Grey. Not many writers actually understand how such an apparently bad novel can achieve such success. It is an enigma, but I'm sure the writer doesn't care. She sold over 50 million copies and made over 90 million Dollars. Who cares if the novel is badly written with many mistakes. The readers didn't seem to mind or care.

It is doubly sad when I think how many hours I spend editing my novels, making certain there are no inconsistencies and no spelling errors (but they creep in no matter how often I read the novel!), just to find that none of that really seems to matter. The readers aren't there for the kind of novels I love to write. Much of the problem, of course, is marketing. I don't want to spend money on advertising and the sites where I talk about my new and old novels have a score of other writers doing the same thing. Competition is fierce and the members (readers and writers) who belong to these groups don't change much, even though sometimes new people join. They prefer to read certain genres and they will only buy from writers they've read before. If I'm one of those writers I am happy and consider myself lucky.

I know I don't spend enough time marketing my books. If my name doesn't pop up all the time, it will be forgotten. But I'd rather write my stories than spend my time commenting on sites (I do that anyway. Sometimes more often than not) or trying to peddle my books. I always hope somebody sees my name and book in the ocean of other writers and books and I hope this someone likes my stuff. That's all I can hope for. So I'll just keep on writing.

In fact, I should have been writing on my novel instead of writing this into my blog. That's just how it goes. Somehow I always get sidetracked, but I enjoy doing this, anyway.