The Tightrope

Every morning I get up and work on the second memoir. 

Even work days; the moment I am semi coherent I’m editing.

Part of me is proud of my diligence, part of me wonders if it’s wasted effort—

What’s the point in turning out the second memoir when you’re not promoting the first one?

I should be marketing, making connections, winning people over…I understand that.

So, I feel accomplished and a failure at the same time.

I’m sure many of you writers out there understand.

Perhaps you are even frustrated, as I am, struggling to balance improving as an artist with making people aware of the books you have to offer.

We can wring our hands, wail our laments, but in the end it’s simply the way it is.

For us Generation X people, it feels like balancing on a tall fence.

When I started writing—(a few weeks into the Bronze Age)—the internet wasn’t even a skeleton, it was just a clump of calcium. 

Self publishing was very expensive and involved book binders licking their lips and furtively touching themselves as they eye fucked your checkbook.

So most of us followed the usual route: Approach a lit agent or a publisher with the goal of a traditional book deal. Social media didn’t exist, Tik Tok was something grandma’s clock did in her dusty parlor.

The publisher handled all the promotion, you just had to go out on a book tour.

That was the first years of me working towards being a published writer—

And then the internet came along and everything changed—

I see that patch of ground off to my right, the current reality—

But I still see the patch of ground off to my left, the past.

And I miss it; I know it’s stupid, clinging to a memory, a dream I had in my early 20s, but there it is.

Maybe you’re old enough to understand.

Maybe you’re young enough to alternatively mutter “Okay boomer” and be curious about how it was.

Either way, thank you for being here...