"So What the Hell am I REALLY Doing?"

So here we are...starting a whole new year! Full of new energy and positive ideals, ready to make a change for the better!!!!!!!!!!  Yeah really.....

So what the hell am I really trying to do? What am I trying to accomplish with my small time book career? Why do I keep doing what I do? Obviously it's not the money. God KNOWS it's not the money. One of the first things I ever learned about children's book publishing is that if you're doing it for the money...DON'T DO IT!!

My third book was released last fall to not a whole lot of pomp and circumstance. No release parties, no book signings, not a whole lot of anything. Truth is, I really am tired of trying to be my own publicist. My publishing company really doesn't do much in terms of advertising or promotion, they never really have, most of the time I'm just happy that they want to publish my stuff.  But after years of trying to chase down reviews for my books and trying to get some book signings going, I've realized it's just a bunch of hard work...and I'm just feeling tired. What ever happened to the joy of creating? What ever happened to having time to do it? Why did I get into this in the first place?

...and so I've started working on a new book. 

I have no idea of whether or not my current publisher is even going to continue releasing new material or is even interested in this book. I'm not all that sure of what their business plan is since one of the owners passed away last summer. His wife is continuing with the business, but I'm not really sure if her heart is into it anymore. I'm really not at liberty to be making a lot of assumptions on this situation I suppose, I just have this gut feeling that a change is in the works...and I may not be included in this change.

I guess I'm just doing it because I want to.

The story itself has been written and revised a couple times, fact is, I wrote this little ditty  several years ago. I've always liked this story and decided to bring it back to life, it seemed like the right time to do it. I have no deadline this time, I have no expectations of what it should or shouldn't be...I'm just trying to make the most of what I have to work with. 

Now I'm into the illustration mode. I'm dusting off an old, incomplete dummy I made of this book and am reinventing my vision of this story. The dummy I made was pretty limited, but it did have some good illustration ideas that I am now expanding on.  I've decided to try to be more inventive with this story, and I've decided to be more patient. I must admit that my artistic skills are quite good, but must also admit that as an artist I'm rather lazy. Sometimes getting from the inspiration stage to the completion stage can be a struggle...who am I kidding...it's always a struggle!! The urge to get it over with is overwhelming when you have limited time to begin with. Sometimes I feel that if I don't get it done within a certain amount of time, it will never get done. So I slap dash everything together at the last minute or go the easy route illustration wise.  Being an artist doesn't give you the magical power to simply create perfection at the snap of your fingers, it's mostly a lot of time consuming work. Not that I don't enjoy it mind you, it just takes time, time that you sometimes don't have. 

So that is why I'm closing, because I've spent way too much time on this here blog thing today. Too much time venting about things most people could really give a damn about...too much time wasted on being noticed.

Sorry if this wasn't the optimistic message you expected.  I guess I could whip up some satisfying and uplifting ending to this post...but I don't think I have time for that.