My great grandfather was an officer in the American army that sailed to the Philippines in 1898 to liberate the native people from the Spanish. An imperialistic venture for sure. In his writings, his observations, I was impressed with his absolute belief in his country’s venture, his faith in a quest much bigger than he. His generation’s beliefs, goals, and ideals had a strength of character that is woefully lacking today. Whenever I take pen in hand, I do it with the intent that there will be some positive response from the world, a reward, even if small, some kind of pat on the back to make me feel warm fuzzies. Given that there are millions of writers today, working as fast as they can for their warm fuzzies, it becomes mathematically impossible to have warm fuzzies staring you in the face.
Now that that’s cleared up, it’s easy to see how loss of faith could devour even the strongest, most determined, sitting in your loft type, trying to create the perfect fiction/non-fiction for the world to laud praise on. So it boils down to luck, no, no not that stupid word you’re saying, but wait . . . as of the last few years luck has been spelled out to be ‘when preparedness meets opportunity’. That’s awful, throwing it back your shoulders, well its true. As you become more prepared you will see an opportunity, and then you’ll live happily ever after. Sounds too good to be true. Well . . . there’s a little more to it than that, as you find out. Because there are zillions of others out there competing with you, you have to expend some effort, okay, a lot of effort to have this adage work. One way is to join clubs. Sounds depressing joining lots of clubs. Like writing clubs if you’re a writer, art clubs if you’re an artist, engineering clubs if you’re an engineer. Then there’s the social networking clubs or media. Tweeter – tweet every day. Doesn’t matter how you feel when you get up, go right to your pc, login and tweet at least three enterprising bits of wisdom about your field. It will seem like no one‘s seeing your stuff, however its required to keep you visible. Then there is Facebook, an egotistical place where everyone puts their newest and latest thing repeatedly, day in and day out. Why do this? Because in the vastness of the 901 million users on Facebook there just might be someone who’s sees what you uploaded to your Facebook page and says ‘I have to have what he’s selling’.
So now you’re thinking that’s okay, Tweeter and Facebook aren’t bad, au contraire, now there’s this wonderful place on the net called Pinterest where you pin displays of your art, or engineering models, or God forbid you should write a book, tome, tale, a copy of your latest self-published brilliance. It may seem pointless, but it’s the only way to compete with the masses, no not the messes. Those are something you make for yourself.
I will end this like my favorite sage Puppetji, Namaste
will aebi is a writer/publisher of 6 fictional novels, he has been writing off and on since 1989. His love of the written word has pushed him to write the next one coming out in 2013 called the Cat & the Rooster - a take on the troubles in north Ireland. Overcoming a stroke on 3/10/2008 he is now up to speed 4 years later and feels the motivation necessary to write until his fingers fall off.