No AI training. Just stop. You don’t have my permission. #stopthescrape

Wow, have I been waiting for this year to come! Yes, I’m hopeful. Perhaps even more so than I was this time last year. I’m going to body swerve everything else that’s going on in the world and stick to the plan. This post, like every Monday going forwards, is about my writing. Literally. For the readers among you, it might be interesting to see how I go about writing, and for the emerging writers there might be a nugget or two that helps you move forward and publish your work.

Warning… it could get a little random! 🙂

I used to call myself an emerging writer, back in the early days when I was finding my feet in this somewhat brutal industry. It took some time for me to stop caring, and only when I did, did life and my writing start to get better.

What’s that? Am I saying you shouldn’t care about your writing?

Yep. Absolutely.

Once I grasped the heart wrenching truth that no one cares, that there was no such thing as perfect, I started to enjoy myself. It took a few years to get my head around it, and then another when I tried to prove it wasn’t so. But, finally, once I focused on the writing and cared less about what people thought, life took off.

Before that, and immediately after I signed with an agency, I used to get up early so I could be “ready for the call” anywhere from 8 a.m. every day. I relaxed a little on the weekends, but not that much. I just assumed that I would be inundated with offers and that I would be hitting the big time with my books by the end of the month, or, at the latest, by year’s end.

It was May, I think, 2018.

I kept my parents and Jane’s family updated… constantly. I would ring with ‘no news’ just to keep them in the loop. Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? It could happen at any time, and I had to be ready.

And when it didn’t happen, then, well, I took it on the chin and just knew ‘it’ would happen the next day. Maybe the next month. And, as the year drew to a close, maybe it would be next year. You just can’t tell with these things.

Then something did happen, and I signed some deals, pitiful deals, that alerted me to the undeniable-slap-in-the-face truth that this is not a lucrative get-rich-quick business. Far from it.

I think the pandemic cleared my head.

I was just about ready to jack it all in in April 2020. Sales were way low (albeit not as low as they have been of late, 2023) and I couldn’t see a way to make it work. It was so bad, I started taking teaching jobs!

And then, people were home, often on full pay, and when they were done with Netflix, they started to read. And, among other things, they read my books.

At this point I had stopped caring. I had quit my agency, and I was writing for myself, by myself, and loving it. I wrote what I wanted. Some of it sold. Other stuff which I though should sell, just didn’t. Never has. But I didn’t care. I was having fun, because I finally understood that the only person who cared was me.

I only had to please me.

And you know what?

I’m easy to please. 😉

So, with my back to the wall, the only way forward was, well… forward.

I write to keep the lights on. And when they flicker, I start to wonder, and then I just write with some fury, turning the lights back on and following Petra on some crazy adventure. I might ask her once in a while, if she’s sure about this direction, and if it wouldn’t be better to take that one?

She just smiles and says, “Trust me.”

And I do.

I trust me.

And I write.

I publish.

And I repeat.

Sure, this is one of those fluffy posts, but I’m just getting into my groove with these new thematic posts. I’ll pick it up again next Monday.

Until then, Happy New Year folks!

Chris