Where to go from here
Any time I’m packing an order from our store and I realize that a copy of Hold Horses goes into the box, I feel happy. I wish the occurrence was more common. The holiday shopping season is nigh and I need to be making a marketing push to let people know the book exists. Howard has already blogged about it, but I there just doesn’t seem to be much over lap between his audience and the audience for Hold Horses. Only 350 more books to sell before the project breaks even and I start getting paid per book sold. I know I need to be planning on slow and steady, but thinking like a rabbit just comes more naturally to me.
Lately I’ve found myself thinking about future writing projects for me. I have a middle grade book that is partially outlined and one chapter into a draft. It has been laying idle for nearly a year because I’ve had not mental space for writing. I pulled it out last week and wrapped my head around it again. I even put some more words onto the paper. (Yes actual paper, my office is the wrong mental space for writing, and I haven’t the funds to spend on a new laptop with a warranty.) Middle grade books have fairly low word counts. In theory I should be able to bang it the draft and start working on revisions. But creating the mental space to do it is difficult because so many other priorities rank higher in my life.
The other project that I have been eyeing is a collection of essays taken from blog entries. I’d start with the ones on my website and flesh out from there. I’m more likely to get moving on this one because putting it together will help me to learn some of the features in InDesign that will help with future Schlock projects. I just don’t know that the project will be very saleable when it is done. If it gets printed at all, it will probably end up being produced via a Print On Demand publisher since I can’t picture selling enough copies to break even after a traditional print run. Howard’s audience is not mine and so his publishing experience will not be mine either.
It is a strange mental place to be. Howard creates Schlock Mercenary, so it is his creation. But I know that it could not be created and delivered without my full support. I keep the house running, I manage the schedule, I ship the books, I read the scripts. Through these efforts I feel like Schlock is mine too. Whenever I talk about Schlock stuff I’ve been in the habit of using “we” and “our” as the possessives of choice. But my contributions are not particularly visible. I think that many of the Schlock fans know about my contributions, but that does not mean they feel the same emotional connection to me that they feel to Howard. After all, Howard is the one who makes them laugh every day. It definitely does not mean that the Schlock fans have any emotional connection to any of my non-Schlock projects.
So where does this leave me as a writer? In the same boat with all the other aspiring writers. I get to work hard to create and then work even harder to get my creations noticed and loved by others. Apparently being married to a cartoonist with a large audience doesn’t let me skip as many steps as I would have liked.
Last Saturday I got out into the garden and did a pile of work. Later Howard mentioned that it made him happy to see me working in the garden because he knows I enjoy it. He sometimes feels bad that I spend so much time on Schlock stuff that I haven’t had time for gardening. I do miss having time to garden, but I know I’ll have time again in the future. Our lives are not static. Our business is not static. We’ve just come off of a crazy convention-attendance year. This next year will be one of stability, routine, and getting as many books published as we possibly can. After that? I have vague plans, but there are too many unknowns to see things clearly.