Nothing Gets Me High Like Writing

Nothing Gets Me High Like Writing Nothing gets me high and offers relief from the suffering like blackening pages, writing.  ~Leonard Cohen This is the part of our profession that we quickly forget. The sea of authors is just that. . . an undulating sea. They rise up with glee about the release of a book. . . then slide down and bottom out when the sales arent as expected. Highs and lows, but mostly about publishing. Most of them blame someone else for their writer problems. Of late Ive seen them blame: 1) Amazon algorithms 2) Amazon promoting its own imprints before other publishers 3) Amazon allowing used book sellers to appear before new books 4) Publishers being greedy 5) Self-published authors gobbling up market share 6) Or vice versa, traditional authors gobbling up market share 7) The glut of cheap sales free, 99 cents, etc. 8) A bad editor 9) Indie bookstores not wanting indie authors And in all that blame, the writer forgets why they started writing in the first place. . . for the high of sculpting words. For the joy of designing that perfect sentence. The business side of writing is in flux, and that flux changes faster and faster. Technology and creative ideas fly like bullets as writers attempt to take advantage and break loose of the fray and be seen. . . and make sales. Fight to be different than all the other people out there writing books. If we dont constantly market, we backslide. And if we constantly market, we write less. And write less quality. Most businesses will tell you to return to the basics when things are not going well. For writers, thats writing well, writing for self, and reaching for that writing high. Sink into writing. Then when its written, come up for air and publish, because if you think about publishing before you finish the book, youll be outdated in your thinking