To Write or not to Write

I have received a few very touching comments asking when I am going to write something. Of course that is what I do several times a week but I think people mean write something which would get paid for and published. As far as I know there are over 400,000 blogs on WordPress, never mind any other platform and a significant proportion of bloggers, possibly over half, would also like to be writers. Sadly, there are rather less publishers and they all want to make money. Publishing something is very expensive and whether you are published or not seems to depend, in part, on your self-marketing skills. At least that is my impression.

Being me presents me with certain problems. I have failings which, though never threatening hopefully, can be exasperating. One of them is I am not entirely self-aware and this makes me a very poor marketer.  Perhaps it is the same for everyone. What I want personally is not something I often consider. I don’t know why. I can become dissatisfied with things which I think are inefficient or unfair but as to actually wanting anything. My mind is a bit of a blank there.

As a young man I worked for a time in the music industry. On an almost daily basis a sack of tapes used to turn up from song writers and “would be” recording artists hoping someone would give them a break. Given the numbers we received only a randon few were even listened to at all , and that only for a bar or two. If the song or band did not stand out significantly it was the trash can for them: the process was brutal. On occasion, you would hear something which made you listen some more and then say yes “I like this stuff: it’s really good”.

Later you would have to take it to your boss and say I think you should listen to this. He was a hard-headed man in love with money and self-importance and  would only back something which would give him a cash return. He was not  a romantic when it came to anything but his own looks and ability with the ladies. The numbers of people who got through that process was very small. and we are talking single figures.  He wasn’t looking for excellence, or the new direction and his preference was for girl bands playing middle of the road stuff that an audience would not find too challenging. I learnt from that being the best and getting a recording contract where not necessarily the same thing. There was a large amount of luck and personal bias in the process.

We all have dreams and things we would like to express.Others just want to escape from where they are and be able to breathe freely without fear: there are many of those too. On this site you “meet” with people recovering from a horrid marriage break up, or trying to lose weight, or meet someone who will complete them, or just to amuse or intrigue their fellow bloggers. I wish we could all make our dreams real and that one person’s dream did not get in the way of another achieving theirs, but life is erratic and unfair. We have to deal with that.

Some of you have made me think about mine,and that is very touching.It is a daunting and possibly nerve-wracking challenge, but given your comments I am seriously thinking about ” giving it a go”. Thankyou.