It’s obviously time for my annual crisis of confidence.
I’m feeling twitchy and irritable, and that’s never a good sign. The universe is trying to tell me something and, as usual, I don’t want to hear it.
The writing itself has been going very well this year so far, with new novels placed with Dark Regions Press and Darkfuse, new novellas and a new story collection coming from Dark Regions, and short story sales in several pro markets and high profile anthologies. All of this will get me a higher profile than ever before. My recent publications are picking up good reviews too.
But… but… for me, there’s always a but.
The ebook side of things is showing signs of grinding to a halt. Whether this is due to the glut of free ebooks on the market, or just the natural end of a good period of strong sales, I don’t know, but as it stands, I’ll be losing a big chunk of my income in months to come.
So that means there’s a new urgency for me to break new ground and find ways to make enough cash to pay the bills.
I said this at this time last year, and the year before.
“I’m unsure about my eye for the market. I write what I want to write, producing books that I would want to read. But I’m a fifty-something man steeped in pulp fiction from an early age. I want the big deal, to see my books on shelves in shops all over the world. That’s always been the dream, but my obsessions just don’t seem to cut it in the wider marketplace.”
And another year on, that’s still what I’m doing, still writing pulpy fiction that makes me smile.
The -big- dream that is world domination and the Hollywood deal is still far off, still the golden ring to strive for.
I love writing, love the pictures that flow in my mind.
But is this all there is?
I’m not big on retreating into a shell and gazing at my navel, but maybe that’s just what I need to do.
Or maybe all I need to do is keep writing… it’s taken me twenty years to get here. If it takes twenty more to get where I want to be, so be it.
