Archive | May 2017

What do You Want From Me, God?

May8

Seriously.

You’re planning to pull the rug out from under me AGAIN? Fer Chrissakes, WHY? I’m still cleaning up from the last time. I’m tired of being Your tool to teach life lessons to others, especially when I have to take the hit first before You drop the hammer.

I’m closer to  60 than 50, Lord, and this is not a good time. You may have eternity; I don’t. I don’t have a backup plan, and I don’t have a safety net. The time is going to come when I don’t land on my feet and this is becoming a game of Russian roulette.

Do me a favor: let me sit this one out. Let me stay housed among friends, employed, rebuilding my life. Use someone else as Thy instrument of justice. Leave me in peace.

Reasons Why

May5

It was suggested to me that I should make a list of all the reasons why I write stories, make bracelets, and some other things I’d like to get going (graphic t shirts). I’m going to do that here (and has anyone heard of a magazine called Pyramid? or The Pyramid?)

 

  1. Books: I like to create stories.
  2. Books: I get inspired by all kinds of things that can play out into multiple acts with beginning, middle, end.
  3. Books: I’d like to make enough money from writing to support myself.
  4. Books: It’s cook to get to the point where the characters stop “listening” to you and have been fueled enough with detail to start acting and talking on their own.
  5. Books: I like to explore ideas.
  6. Books: I wrote These Foolish Things because I thought older lovers are interesting.
  7. Books: I’m writing short stories because I’m used to writing essays, briefs, and papers.
  8. Books: I’m writing erotica because it’s legal (for now) and I can give it my own twist.
  9. Books: I want to create characters that people care about, want to have as their friends.
  10. Books: This is a lasting legacy.
  11. Books: I’m good at this.
  12. Books/writing: I like to entertain people. My words get a better response than me as myself.
  13. Books/writing: I want to write things that inspire people to think differently about a subject, to see themselves in, to learn something
  14. Books/writing: I have something to say
  15. Books/writing: my great-grandmother, Daisy Washburn Lovell, wrote two books, “Glad Tidings” and “Glimpses of Early Wareham.”
  16. Books/writing: If Grandma Lovell is going to be in the Library of Congress, so am I
  17. Books/writing: I think if I get these stories out of my head and onto paper, I may be able to sleep better.
  18. Books/writing: I get a kick out of autographing copies.
  19. Books/writing: Reviews: so far, they’re positive
  20. Books/writing: I have an excuse to attend group signing events
  21. Books/bracelets/T shirts: the American standard for judging the quality of your talent is whether someone is willing to pay for it.
  22. Bracelets: I have friends with issues that certain stones can treat.
  23. Bracelets: I love handling the stones.
  24. Bracelets: Researching which stones do what is fun.
  25. Bracelets: The bracelets are beautiful
  26. Bracelets: I enjoy earning money from something that I create.
  27. T shirts: It’s fashion, in a fashion
  28. T shirts: It’s fun to come up with messages
  29. T shirts: colors, glittery print = FUN
  30. All of it: I am more than my day job and goddammit, I aim to prove that.

Let Me Entertain You

May1

This blog, this here blog, which got its most hits for a post titled “I Am an Idiot, I Admit It Freely” is supposed to be a marketing tool. “Content, content, Content!” (With the accent on the first syllable to indicate that there is something in the post v. accent on the second syllable to indicate being happy and serene. Given what I see you guys spell and post, – INCLUDING PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS. JEEBUS! WHERE ARE YOUR EDITORS??? – I may have to start posting the basics of composition, spelling, and grammar. You just give up one hour of reality TV per week and I’ll have you whipped into shape. I will). Not always easy to come up with something. I have products to promote. Do you bastards ever buy my books? No. 99 freakin’ cents! For good stuff! Seriously! I’m throwing links in here.

I have two books currently available on Amazon under my own name: ” These Foolish Things” and At Last.” As Kindle e-books, they are $1.99 and $.99 respectively.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Thatcher/e/B00DPX0S7E/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

And, coming May 13, a short, sassy, sexy NC17 story under a new pen name, Monique Desoto:

https://www.amazon.com/Patti-Goes-Dungeon-Monique-DeSoto-ebook/dp/B06Y1C5W69/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493595526&sr=1-1&keywords=patti+goes+to+the+dungeon

I am reluctant to plaster my social media accounts with promotions and ads. I can tune out ads I find annoying and tune them out quickly. I don’t want to be one of those promotions. It’s a fine line between getting noticed and getting ignored because you overdid it. A friend who is in advertising tells me it takes five times for someone to see something (an ad) before it registers and the percentage of conversion narrows down in a swift, steep funnel. Not encouraging. I know authors who will hit all of the Facebook author/reader groups they belong to and hit them all daily for a period of time. I don’t know if it works or not; I haven’t felt compelled to buy a lot of books from that method. Kind of like reusing a tea bag. The Law of Diminishing ReturnsI confess: I am not diligent about tweeting (except to respond to the current President’s Twitter feed) or Instagram or Tumblr, Google +, etc. I don’t have a reader group or  a street team. Yet.

I get good advice. Do I follow up on it? Eh, not so much. See previous post about being an idiot.

I have great dreams for these books, that they’ll find their audience, word of mouth will take over and I’ll have sleeper hits beloved by millions. I don’t know if that’s appropriate self-confidence, self-delusion, or the inner six-year-old playing in the backyard and saying, “I’m the greatest batter/dancer/actor/singer ever!”

Greatest? No. I couldn’t dream up a tenth of the scenarios Margaret Atwood can or O.Henry did (Monique DeSoto writes short stories). I do have an imagination. I like to think I write terrific dialogue and while I don’t think I have an entire Universe in my like J.K. Rowling, I do down roads less traveled, like first real love at forty or humorous erotica.

Look: Click the links, buy the books. Get your friends to click the links and buy the books. All 3 are less than one of those Unicorn Frappucinos they had at Starbucks.

Let me entertain you.