The Fine Line

Aaron Polson, a terrific writer of dark speculative fiction, wrote a great blog post today on the nature of marketing. I can relate really well to what Aaron is saying there. Creative people (which equates to all seven billion living, breathing human beings on the planet Earth) only have so much time to do creative things. How much left do they have to get others interested in those creative things? 


I owe my agent a book. She's been patient in checking in with me. I'm just about finished with it (it won't be much longer, B, I promise!), and I think it's a good novel.


But other things always take precedence. Teaching, grading papers, committee work and office hours chew up a good chunk of the week (I'm back officially on Monday). I spent many hours this year in pulling together applications for both sabbatical and admission to graduate school at UCF. I also have a two-year-old, and we'd like to have some more kids. I like to run and fish and play golf. I need those things, just like I need to take my wife to the movies and our whole family to the zoo or the arts market and the beach.


And then there's the hour or two I actually devote to growing and refining the stories I enjoy writing. I had a great January and a solid February. With work starting up again, I'm not sure what will happen to my productivity, but I'll wager it'll drop. Oh, well.


Marketing? I just don't have much time to really become very active in forums. I have my blog and I like my Goodreads page, but I haven't gotten into Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace, Google + or Twitter. Maybe I will down the road, but it'll be more likely for professional networking and staying in touch with family or friends.


I woke up today battling a stubborn chest cold. I had designs on writing for a few hours, but instead I went to the doctor and I dropped by the college to pick up some texts and I raked the front yard and organized The Horrible (its our cabinet filled with small kitchen appliances, and the cords and crockpots and blenders all meld together like some awesome junkyard robot, but it makes getting the rice cooker out of the back a real bitch, so I cleaned it).


I wrote some chapter notes and this blog post, and that's the extent of what I do with marketing on a daily basis. There it is. It's not too effective, I know, but the girls will be home in ten minutes and then we're going for a walk and I'm certain the last thing we'll talk about is how much fun we all had today in sitting in front of a computer... 


Edit: Oh, in the meantime, I forgot to add that Amazon dropped the price on Survival. For a limited time, you can purchase the novella for just .99 (BAM! marketing)!