There are a few things happening and I thought I should list them here. It’s true that I have neglected this space, and there are reasons for it, some of which are even valid, but mostly it is because, well, I have neglected this space. I have been writing over on Medium, which my well be a waste of time, I’m not sure, but it’s there and I’ve posted. As opposed to posting here. This is the surest evidence of neglect.
But a quick look at my Medium page shows that I’ve neglected it as well. Because I’ve been neglecting a lot of things. It’s what the pandemic has created, neglect, and lots of it. I have NOT neglected people, or at least those I love, though I have neglected, um, people, in that I don’t really go out much anymore, even though I can. And by that I mean I live in a place where I can go out and I still don’t. This is not something caused by the pandemic as much as accelerated by it. The pandemic has accelerated a lot of things.
Writing: my agent, who is great but who may have not made the best decision when he decided to represent me, has struggled with my work. Admittedly, my work has pivoted. I am much more concerned with the climate these days, and so my latest works can be classified, if they must, as cli-fi. He is having trouble selling them. Not because the work is not good, which is possible, but because it’s not really the kind of work he sells and so he’s had to resort to asking his colleagues and thus he must deal with editors that perhaps he doesn’t know or does not feel a connection for and one of the things that the publishing industry runs on, if we can say it runs at all, is connections. It’s a very personal thing, this industry. Sure, I’m writing, which is perhaps foolish enough, because the industry is, well, dumb is the word probably, but I’m a dumb foolish writer and what I do is write. So, my agent has had problems selling my cli-fi (how dumb am I? I wrote one book, The Higher The Water, and then wrote another, The Three Valleys, a sequel, that’s how dumb), and while he was having trouble selling that, I wrote another book, a kind of parallel reality sci-fi type thing that is really centered around the world of work. It’s called Redegenerate. And that’s what he’s trying to sell now. There’s sex and death and golf and lots of smoking. It’s set in Maine so there is Whoopie Pie. But still. No takers.
Earlier, like a few years ago, two agents in two countries couldn’t sell a manuscript I wrote called Jones. I still think of that novel fondly. I might just release it, a chapter a week, on Medium. That’s how much I love that book. That one is called Jones. Funnily enough, my agent sold another novel, also called Jones, just a few weeks back. And that writer lives in my neighborhood. Meaning Mile End’s quota for books called Jones is probably past its limit.
I have started a new company. I’m good at some things and the stuff I’m doing with this company actually pays. Or will. Hopefully. I just started. I’m sure eventually someone will pay me.
Speaking of not being paid, I am part of a media start-up called The Solo Project. The content talks about people like me and also talks about people not like me. In some cases, I do the talking: I have a podcast and that’s coming out in mid-September. Here’s the trailer.
So it’s not like I’ve not been busy. I’ve just neglected this page. Life can be difficult. Or not. Sometimes you forget to do things.
