Hello, my friends and the occasional relative!

I watched an interesting video on why folk do not read self-published fantasy. You can watch it here.

I get the concerns of readers. I understand the option offered by published works, and the great undiscovered fantasies of the past, of around the world. There’s a lot there before you may feel the need to take a chance on something new. The unknown, unreviewed new. Yeah, that does suck.

It would be easy to be defeatist or defeated in the face of this sentiment.

But hey, I barely market.

But hey, I’m not a purveyor of AI slop. Being an easily identifiable human writing idiosyncratic books will be a plus in the future. See my publishing schedule? It screams human. Yay me!

But hey, I have worked on my craft, hired professionals, done the work to make the best of each book I have produced.

So I am not bummed out by this.

In fact I’m encouraged.

Encouraged to do something foolish.

Even more than I have before, I’m going to write exactly what I want to. (And this is from a writer who had his lead character commit infanticide on the page. Not for shock, or as a gross out, but because that was what the story and the circumstances demanded (yes, everyone says that, I know). I was not going to sugar coat my murderous main character and make him a cuddly serial killer who only kills bad guys. But, if you read that sequence, you can see the reluctance he has to talk his way through, to justify his reasons and the act itself to the people he knows are listening, trying to sell the necessity.

It was incredibly hard to write. I know many readers (many of the those who read it) will snap my book shut right there. I still did it, because I felt that the story, the character, the novel had to have it: no cop out to a baby in a bulrush basket floating out to an unknown future. This is a long parenthetical.) Made you look!

So now, if I’m to howl into the void and be ignored by the reading public, I’m going to write the way I want, go for my experiments, no hand holding, have a go at ‘literature’ every time. Write for literate people who want an adventure, and a challenge. Even if they never find me on a shelf, virtual or otherwise. I’ve already tried to do this, but I’m determined now to go harder. I’m still learning, I hope to get better, and now I am reminded by this video that I want to be true to myself in my writing, even if it is flawed, even and especially if it fails.

I am free. Or delusional. You decide. But the shackles are off. Until I get to the edit, and put them kind of back on, hahahaha! To thine own self be true means I can both go for it, and then put the seatbelt on afterwards. But going for it will be fun.

Have fun, my friends.