One last blog for 2009

The shopping is done, the presents wrapped and unwrapped, the holiday goodies eaten and possibly regretted. Time to turn our thoughts to the new year, to ponder what New Year's Resolutions we will make. Whatever mine turn out to be, some of them will be about writing, of course.

What possible resolutions can one make about writing? You might be surprised. How often do you write? How much time do you spend on it per week or per day? How many times do you plan to rewrite a piece of work? How do you decide where to submit it? How many times do you submit it before you stuff it in the bottom desk drawer and move on with a new story?

And a little less directly connected to writing, but still important – How do you get your name out in front of readers? Do you review other's books, have a website, blog, tweet, give readings, or what?

These past couple days, I heard about a writer who wondered what he was doing wrong in the self-promoting arena. The way I understand it, he blogged a couple hours each day, tweeted about the same, updated his website at the drop of a hat… About this time, I was seriously wondering, When does he write?

In my life, I don't really expect to make a living from writing fiction; very few authors can. That means I have another job to pay the bills. That takes 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, plus travel time. 6-8 hours per day to sleep, with luck. I also have a house to take care of, personal items to complete (lest I offend my co-workers) and a family who likes to interact with me occasionally. I figure most writers have similar commitments for their time. If I were to spend two hours a day blogging, I'd get a LOT less writing done. I suspect I would get so little writing done, I would have no reason to worry about blogging, tweeting or otherwise promoting myself as a writer.

It's all about priorities. And as a writer, I believe the highest priority has got to be to write. If you don't write, how can you call yourself a writer?

Choose your resolutions carefully. See you next year. Trudy

Disquieting News This Week

A well-known blogger outed himself as a her. She became a 'him' almost by accident; in the midst of trying to make a living as a writer, she used a male pen name, and acceptance of her/his work (and the pay for such) came much easier. So the pen name continued to be used. She was only acknowledging her gender because another writer (also a woman writing as a man) had blown the bugle, so to speak.

This is SO disquieting, on SO many levels.

First, what makes the second writer so superior that she felt she had to 'cast stones' at someone for doing exactly what she was doing?

Second, this completely blows my fervent hope that humans (or at least, those of us who live in supposedly civilized parts of the world) were moving past those prejudices against people based on gender, race, and so on. Apparently not, if women must use a male nom de plume in order to make a decent living as a writer. Bummer.

As I stewed about this turn of events, I wondered if I needed to take a male pen name. Women have been doing it since … forever, practically. Occasionally, a man will take a female pen name, but usually it's the other way around. Writers take a pen name for any number of reasons. There's even instructions in some of my reference books aimed at the beginning writer on how to correctly identify your work and pen name, without confusing the editors.

This particular instance sounded more serious – why would the acceptance and money be any different if the editors/clients had known they were dealing with a woman and not a man? So apparently, she had some way for them to issue checks to her as a man. Now, how did she do that? I've checked with a banker; I can't set up a bank account in a fictitious name. If I sign a check as "Female Name AKA Pen Name", the clients would soon figure out I'm female. (Or maybe not – these days, most banks do not return checks to the initiator like they did in the old days.) About the only thing we could figure out was that the writer needed to set up a business, have the checks made out to that business, and sign the checks as the owner of that business.

Obviously, hiding your gender as a writer is possible, at least for several years. Then what? Pick a new pen name and start again? I just find it so depressing that in this day and age, any of that is necessary. It's the twenty-first century, for crying out loud! Humans have made some wonderful progress in the last two thousand years, even in the last two hundred years. But I like to think 'progress' is not just technology, that it's also a way of thinking. In that respect, we haven't made nearly as much progress as I'd like.

Color me bummed. Trudy