The wonderful, weird world of fiction writing

I've been struggling with this blog post, which usually isn't the case when it comes to blogging. Typically I just throw it up and then fling it at the world like a monkey, but for some reason or other I've been balking about the subject.

What I've been wanting to write about is how strange it is to be a writer in the modern world. Yeah, it's kind of a worn out subject, but one I've never really touched on before.

I mean, let's face facts writing used to be a very solitary(and when it comes right down to it, it still is) activity where the guy or gal doing the writing would labor for years and years perfecting their craft and accumulating drawer fulls of rejection letters until finally an editor or agent saw something in the writer's work and they were suddenly skipping down the road to success and bestsellerdom.

Or they would just keep pounding away at the keyboard and collect more and more rejections.

Or they would just give up and move onto other professions, other ambitions.

Of course, none of this really happens anymore. I'm sure there are more than a few folks out in the world who are laboring Bukowski style, living as artistic hermits, pounding the keys, wall papering their shack with rejection letters. It seems so romantic to live this way, yet in the modern world, it seems utterly impossible.

Ever since I began my "career" as a writer close to four years ago, I've been on some form of social media or other - hell, I still even have a Myspace page where you can find my early attempts at blogging and links to my early stories (Sadly, so many of those stories are long gone.) - promoting my writing and attempting to gain an audience.

Yes, I was trying to gain an audience even before I'd built a body of work or discovered my true "voice" as a writer. (I am, in many ways, still finding my voice)

Was this arrogant of me? Did I really think I was so great that I felt the need to broadcast to anyone who would listen that I had a new story or blog post or review or whatever?

No, it wasn't arrogance, it was because I could.

Now the next question is, just because I could, should I have done things this way? Should I have waited until my narrative voice matured before sending out and then broadcasting both my success and failures.

Once again, the answer - at least for me - is still no.

And for me, this is the most interesting- and the strangest- thing about modern writing. There's simply is no apprenticeship period where a writer labors with their craft. There is no private time of despair and self doubt because everything is done so publicly now. The reader can watch as the writer grows and improves, or in some cases, fades into obscurity after too much frustration or real life gets the better of them.

And the last question, is this "new" style of writing good or bad?

Coming from a guy who jumped headlong into this "new" (Yeah, I keep adding quotation marks because after ten years of social media promotion, there really is nothing "new" about any of this.) style of media, I can honestly say I have zero regrets.

Anyway, enough my blathering and onto stuff I've been up to.

Last week my story "A Beginners Guide to Dog Sitting" appeared in [PANK] Magazine's special crime fiction issue. I was included in there with the likes of Chris Offutt, (Kentucky Straight, and the television shows True Blood and Weeds) Anthony Neil Smith, (Yellow Medicine, Hogdoggin') Frank Bill, (Crimes In Southern Indiana) Kyle Minor, (In The Devil's Territory) Aaron Michael Morales, (Drowning Tuscon) Art Taylor, (Art's story, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", kicked the living shit out of the rest of us, so make sure to check it out.) and Mr. Eric Shonkwiler. So if you haven't had the chance to check out the issue, you can do it right HERE.

Also, LitReactor went live yesterday (Well, the landing page did. The site itself won't go live until October 1st.) I'll be conducting interviews and writing book reviews for the site and I'm super exited about this one. The staff that's been assembled for the site is literally a who's who of culture blogs and websites, and I'm still scratching my head wondering how I became involved with it . . . . But it's better to not look a gift horse in the mouth and simply roll with it and enjoy the ride. But if you want to stay abreast of all the happenings of LitReactor you can "Like" them on the Faceybook right HERE or follow them on the Twitters right HERE.

Last but not least, this time next week I'll be heading to St. Louis for my first ever Bouchercon. This one is promising to be huge and I already have three interviews lined up for the conference.

First up is St. Louis' reigning king of smut, Mr. Scott Phillips, next is my good friend Frank Bill and last but not least is the great Daniel Woodrell. I'm sure I'll have a few more lined up as the conference moves along and, of course, we'll be debuting Crime Factory: The First Shift at Bcon.

So if you see me (I'll be the pudgy half in the can guy with the flip video camera and armload of books...but then again that's going to pretty much describes everyone there.) don't be afraid to stop me and say hello or punch me or whatever.

See you next time, folks.