THE VERY WORST THING ANYONE EVER SAID TO ME
TO DISCOURAGE ME FROM WRITING
by Christine Trzyna
For some time, I spent a large chunk of my day, sometimes every day, in a privately owned coffee house on a major boulevard in a ritzy shopping district. That it was a ritzy area is mentioned here, only to say that a lot of people who came into this place had a lot of money and time to burn. But not everyone. Not most of the writers who decorated the place. I was one of those writers who was tolerated for hours with my laptop taking a small table, though not without purchasing. I bought a lunch and nursed a few refills and once in a while one of those people with money to burn filled my cup for another 50 cents.
My purpose was to write in an environment that was somewhat stimulating so that when I needed to take a break and have a good, intelligent, conversation, I could. I wanted to write in a place where food and beverages were easily affordable and available and that wasn't too far from my place. (I did meet some interesting conversationalists there.)
I think a lot of writers do the same, escaping their environments not supportive of their writing by taking their laptops and heading out. There is even a kind of club for some that suddenly ups and goes to X, abandoning Y, making the owners who counted on them, for their bread if not their butter, wonder what they did wrong. Usually it's just the in-crowd as they think of themselves excluding someone they are tired of.
HERE IS THE VERY WORST THING ANYONE THERE EVER SAID TO ME ABOUT WRITING and PUBLISHING A BOOK:
"You go to the book sales at the libary or to garage sales, and you buy books for a dollar or a quarter, and after all the time and effort, that's where your book ends up."
The guy who said this to me was a rich bum, the equivalent of someone satisfied to live off a trust fund and not do much of anything, not even volunteer work.
Of course I think it's WONDERFUL that books get recycled and go from one reader to the next, that those books got cleared out of attics and bookshelves, so that SOMEONE ELSE could READ THEM! I know that the moment for the author themselves to profit from the sale of such a book is over, yet, this is how some people become familiar with a writer, through an old book. You can't put a dollar on that. And writers write for publication because they want to share with the world. When I get a book from the library that I love and want, I too look for it at library and garage sales. I THINK "GREAT! AT SOME POINT A WRITER GOT PAID FOR THIS WRITING!" That's better than being ripped off from the get go!
SO NO I AM NOT OK with someone stealing my intellectual property, which has happened. That's one of the reasons I don't send work out as I used to, having trust and faith because someone claims they have a great opportunity for me; it seems that promises made by certain chap book publishers (I should sue) and even people with Doctorates in Literature who put out anthologies (I should sue) turn into BS.
A steaming simmering pile of BS...
Hey, thanks for reading!
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
