There's this guy I knew way back when. Let's call him Jack Weinstein, which is appropriate since that's his name.
Jack was a year behind me at college and lived for a year in the dorm room next to mine. We were friendly, but not what I would call friends. As with other people with whom I was friendly-but-not-friends, Facebook has allowed us to reconnect in the virtual world for occasional glimpses into each other's lives. In the years since Plattsburgh, while I moved from journalism to public relations to sales, Jack became a philosopher. Seriously. He's a bona fide, published philosophy professor who writes a blog and hosts a public radio show called "Why?" once a month.
Just the other day, Jack dispatched through his philosophy-themed PQED blog a post that struck a chord in me. It was as though someone with a greater vocabulary, keener insights, more rapidly firing synapses, and a brain far less clouded by books like "Who Moved My Cheese?" decided to write an essay expressing my thoughts about the creative process and the inner voice that all too frequently seeks to crush creativity. It's easy to dismiss the inner voice that nags at you with unfounded fears and then berates you for having believed and acted on those fears. It's much more difficult to dismiss, however, when someone other than yourself drags that inner voice into the harsh light of day to lay bare just how insidiously harmful it can be.
Eight years ago, I realized two decades had passed since graduating from SUNY Plattsburgh and I had yet to fulfill my dream of writing a novel. Had I, or had I not, majored in writing? The only thing stopping me was fear of failure. To warm up to the daunting task, I started this blog. I figured if I couldn't write short essays about movies, parenting, candy, or clogged toilets then perhaps the novel was just a pipe dream. Fortunately, clogged toilets are great blog fodder. Is Ramblings of a Very Pale Man a great American work of living art? No. Did the novel I eventually get around to writing win a Pulitzer? Not by any stretch of the imagination. I never expected art, prizes, accolades or monetary windfalls. All I wanted was to find out if I was capable of accomplishing the task. The experience was so pleasurable that I wrote two more short books, introductory episodes in a series aimed at middle schoolers. Then, just as I finished drafting the third entry in the middle school series, something quite unexpected happened.
I lost faith.
When you lose faith in yourself, it's easy to blame other things for your lack of productivity. Busy work schedules, family responsibilities, the nasty political climate in the country -- anything becomes an easy scapegoat to avoid admitting the real problem lies within. After six years of writing blog posts and books for fun, it suddenly became a chore. And why? After the first year, people stopped buying my books on Amazon. The blog's tracking of visitors had plateaued. There were the occasional digs, as well, by dismissive people. No one other than me seemed interested in my writing. Perhaps all those people who weren't me were right to be disinterested. Who was I to judge my writings worth reading?
[NOTE: My Lovely Wife informed me, upon reading this post, that she misses my blog and that I am, and I quote, "a doodyhead." She would be correct.]
During the past two years, and despite having completed a first draft of that third book, I fell back into the tried and true, unfocused, fruitless endeavors of a nay-sayer. I started writing and outlining at least four different books without conviction or success, considered trying my hand at a screenplay, and entertained other lofty dreams when, in reality, what I wanted to do was write more silly blog posts and finish the middle school series. But, because no one cared about them, they weren't fun anymore. They were unrewarding, or so I thought until a few weeks ago.
Frustrated at my inability to move any project beyond a few chapters, I opened that third book in the middle school series and started reading. It didn't suck. It wasn't perfect. It needed some nips here and tucks there, but it didn't suck. Before I knew it, I found myself in full rewrite mode and enjoying it. How could I have forgotten how much fun creativity can be? That inner voice lied to me and I was stupid enough to believe it. It told me my writing didn't matter because it wasn't worth anything to anyone else when all it really needs to be is valuable to me.
When Jack's blog post about creativity titled "Maybe Your Work Isn't Lame After All" appeared in my Facebook feed, it was a perfectly timed validation of what I was already coming to understand. While his post presents a longer list of ways to assess the value of one's own work than I needed, since all I need is my own personal satisfaction as a contented hobbyist, the basic message was clear -- don't let self-doubt crush your creativity. That's what relatives are for.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a book to edit and a blog post about deadly apple slicers to write.
2018 Mark Feggeler
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogging. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Thursday, February 13, 2014
The Year of $100
One-hundred dollars.
That's roughly how much money I earned last year as a direct result of my writing. Three books and this blog as a platform to tell the world about them and all I managed to make off those books was one-hundred dollars. Sounds about right to me, and let me tell you why I think so.
For starters, I ain't no Shakespeare.
I realize that, as an author, I should be the first person shouting from the rooftops about why you should buy my books. I should be that person you avoid at parties, the one who'll bore you to tears with details about the painstaking care I took to plan out plot twists, afflict my characters with bizarre yet endearing traits, and leave the story dangling precariously at the edge of a precipice so the reader achingly yearns for the resolution offered in the sequel. But, even after years in sales, I've never been a fan of the hard sell.
What do I think of my books? I like them. I enjoyed writing them. They were fun to outline, fun to write, and fun to edit. I had a good time creating the covers. And while they are far from perfect, I think you might like them, too.
Secondly, I never planned to make a living off this.
Hobbies should be just that -- hobbies. The problem I see is when people experience the smallest taste of success or attention, they tend to run wild with it and get way ahead of themselves.
One of my lifelong dreams was to write a book. Just because I realized that dream doesn't mean my book is any good, or that I deserve legions of adoring fans tripping over themselves to hand over their hard-earned money. That I have a collection of blog posts and two finished fiction books to my name (with a third coming out in the next few weeks) means just as little. All I did was find the time in my busy schedule to indulge in my hobby. Nobody owes me anything for that. It's the difference between chasing your dream in the hopes of realizing fame and fortune and chasing your dream because it brings you a sense of fulfillment.
Sad to say, on those occasions when I do peruse the blogs and websites of authors with similar track records to mine, it seems these authors spend far more time than I working the market, buying ads, attending book signings, managing social media, and for what? So they can end the month having sold seven copies of their books on Amazon? No, thanks. I have far more important things to do (like spend time with my family and earn real money by being good at my real job).
Thirdly, I'm cheap.
If my hobby were wood-working, I wouldn't spend hundreds for a professional to design the rocking chair I planned to build in my basement. If my hobby were painting, I wouldn't seek out a mentor at a national art gallery for pointers on how best to paint a picture of my dog.
Likewise, with writing as my hobby, I'm not about to spend hundreds of dollars on cover designers and editors, regardless of how many times established authors tell me I should if I want to be taken seriously as an author. I'm a hobbyist. By definition, I don't give a crap if people take me seriously.
Of course, I do feel warm and fuzzy when people compliment my books in reviews, or tell me in person that they enjoyed reading one of my books. I'm not immune to feeling a sense of pride or accomplishment when someone shows appreciation or admiration for what I've created, but I try to keep it from going to my head. Publishing success (either through self-publishing or traditional publishing) is, like any other success in life, equal parts hard work and luck. Call me a no-fun practical stick in the mud, but I'd rather put my energy into my day job which yields success in the form of a paycheck every two weeks.
So, at the end of the day, I enjoy writing and hope that my skills improve with each book I complete. If what I write brings a few fleeting moments of enjoyment to friends in my neighborhood or strangers halfway around the world, so much the better.
© 2014 Mark Feggeler
That's roughly how much money I earned last year as a direct result of my writing. Three books and this blog as a platform to tell the world about them and all I managed to make off those books was one-hundred dollars. Sounds about right to me, and let me tell you why I think so.
For starters, I ain't no Shakespeare.
I realize that, as an author, I should be the first person shouting from the rooftops about why you should buy my books. I should be that person you avoid at parties, the one who'll bore you to tears with details about the painstaking care I took to plan out plot twists, afflict my characters with bizarre yet endearing traits, and leave the story dangling precariously at the edge of a precipice so the reader achingly yearns for the resolution offered in the sequel. But, even after years in sales, I've never been a fan of the hard sell.
What do I think of my books? I like them. I enjoyed writing them. They were fun to outline, fun to write, and fun to edit. I had a good time creating the covers. And while they are far from perfect, I think you might like them, too.
Secondly, I never planned to make a living off this.
Hobbies should be just that -- hobbies. The problem I see is when people experience the smallest taste of success or attention, they tend to run wild with it and get way ahead of themselves.
One of my lifelong dreams was to write a book. Just because I realized that dream doesn't mean my book is any good, or that I deserve legions of adoring fans tripping over themselves to hand over their hard-earned money. That I have a collection of blog posts and two finished fiction books to my name (with a third coming out in the next few weeks) means just as little. All I did was find the time in my busy schedule to indulge in my hobby. Nobody owes me anything for that. It's the difference between chasing your dream in the hopes of realizing fame and fortune and chasing your dream because it brings you a sense of fulfillment.
Sad to say, on those occasions when I do peruse the blogs and websites of authors with similar track records to mine, it seems these authors spend far more time than I working the market, buying ads, attending book signings, managing social media, and for what? So they can end the month having sold seven copies of their books on Amazon? No, thanks. I have far more important things to do (like spend time with my family and earn real money by being good at my real job).
Thirdly, I'm cheap.
If my hobby were wood-working, I wouldn't spend hundreds for a professional to design the rocking chair I planned to build in my basement. If my hobby were painting, I wouldn't seek out a mentor at a national art gallery for pointers on how best to paint a picture of my dog.
Likewise, with writing as my hobby, I'm not about to spend hundreds of dollars on cover designers and editors, regardless of how many times established authors tell me I should if I want to be taken seriously as an author. I'm a hobbyist. By definition, I don't give a crap if people take me seriously.
Of course, I do feel warm and fuzzy when people compliment my books in reviews, or tell me in person that they enjoyed reading one of my books. I'm not immune to feeling a sense of pride or accomplishment when someone shows appreciation or admiration for what I've created, but I try to keep it from going to my head. Publishing success (either through self-publishing or traditional publishing) is, like any other success in life, equal parts hard work and luck. Call me a no-fun practical stick in the mud, but I'd rather put my energy into my day job which yields success in the form of a paycheck every two weeks.
So, at the end of the day, I enjoy writing and hope that my skills improve with each book I complete. If what I write brings a few fleeting moments of enjoyment to friends in my neighborhood or strangers halfway around the world, so much the better.
© 2014 Mark Feggeler
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Two Books and a Blog
It's amazing what can be accomplished when you apply small bits of time and attention over a span of years.
In January 2010, when I decided to start writing this silly blog, I hadn't written a thing in more than 15 years. And blogging? I'd heard about the practice, but didn't have the first clue how to make it happen and whether or not I could dredge up enough posts to last a month.
I felt the same way in May 2010 when I began writing my first book. Figuring out how to structure the novel, how to manage the small amount of spare time available to yield the greatest results, and how to maintain enough interest in the project when, at best, I could produce only a handful of pages each week, were daunting tasks. Had I known from the start it would take close to three years to move the project from first draft to finished product, I might never have attempted it.
Yes, the blog has suffered in quantity and quality due to time spent writing the books, but it's free, so you're getting what you paid for. That said, the books also have had to wait on the blog from time to time. The fact is I can't write when I'm supposed to be working, and I won't give up the fun of family and friends just to hunker in the solitude of my basement to write, so time really is limited.
 |
| Covers for my first two books. |
As hobbies go, writing is a rewarding experience I recommend to anyone considering giving it a try. The biggest obstacle to overcome is the fear of sharing what you've written. Once you move beyond that, the rest is easy.
© 2012 Mark Feggeler
Monday, July 25, 2011
A Little Break
So, I've been taking a little break from the old blogger mill lately.
Not that I've abandoned it to some cyber alley to fend for itself amongst the digital derelicts of other well-intentioned yet uncommitted bloggers. I really do enjoy allowing my mind to wander and my fingers to follow along the keyboard as I create my fluffy bits of piffle to amuse, primarily, myself. They help me to vent many of the distractingly silly thoughts that bounce around inside my head.
There are times, though, when maintaining the blog becomes an arduous task of searching for the next best thing about which to write. Following a month in which I've handily managed two posts per week, I'll find myself suddenly dry of ideas and struggling to patch words together. In the year-and-a-half since creating "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man," I've deleted one post for every two that survived to publication. Trust me, if you've found some of the posts that made it to the blog lackluster, you should have seen the turkeys that faced the firing squad.
The simple truth is that communication is a tricky little beast. Too little of it is unhealthy. One must be able to communicate effectively with spouses, family, friends, employers, coworkers, pets and plants in order to live a productive life. Too much communication, however, can leave a person longing for silence. My Lovely Wife and I experience this fairly regularly. Both our jobs require steady streams of conversation with our respective clients that often drain us of any desire to make conversation with anyone.
This isn't anything new, of course, but in our modern age in which every person has a Facebook account, Twitter account, LinkedIn account, personal email, work email, Hotmail or Yahoo email just for junk mail, cell phone with unlimited texting, voicemail, e-fax number, and an old MySpace account to which we've forgotten our username and password, the potential for over-communicating is greater than ever.
And if it isn't bad enough that we have way too many means of intruding on each other's lives, there is a heightened level of importance associated with it all.
I'm old enough to recall a time before answering machines. If someone called for my parents and neither was in, I wrote a message on a piece of paper and left it in a conspicuous spot in the kitchen, which was where "the" phone was. I couldn't call, text, or instant message them to let them know my hypochondriac Grandfather had called with news of his monthly visit to the proctologist. Heck, if he were alive today, he'd probably be able post a photo of the lab results of his fecal exam to Facebook using his iPhone before he got home from the appointment.
Anyway, back to the blog, or not back to it -- whichever. Now that I've publicly declared it difficult to come up with ideas, I'll probably be inundated with them and shoot out four or five in rapid succession. But if I don't, it hardly matters. I doubt the fabric of society will unravel if the handful of people who read this blog have to wait another week for the next post.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Not that I've abandoned it to some cyber alley to fend for itself amongst the digital derelicts of other well-intentioned yet uncommitted bloggers. I really do enjoy allowing my mind to wander and my fingers to follow along the keyboard as I create my fluffy bits of piffle to amuse, primarily, myself. They help me to vent many of the distractingly silly thoughts that bounce around inside my head.
There are times, though, when maintaining the blog becomes an arduous task of searching for the next best thing about which to write. Following a month in which I've handily managed two posts per week, I'll find myself suddenly dry of ideas and struggling to patch words together. In the year-and-a-half since creating "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man," I've deleted one post for every two that survived to publication. Trust me, if you've found some of the posts that made it to the blog lackluster, you should have seen the turkeys that faced the firing squad.
The simple truth is that communication is a tricky little beast. Too little of it is unhealthy. One must be able to communicate effectively with spouses, family, friends, employers, coworkers, pets and plants in order to live a productive life. Too much communication, however, can leave a person longing for silence. My Lovely Wife and I experience this fairly regularly. Both our jobs require steady streams of conversation with our respective clients that often drain us of any desire to make conversation with anyone.
This isn't anything new, of course, but in our modern age in which every person has a Facebook account, Twitter account, LinkedIn account, personal email, work email, Hotmail or Yahoo email just for junk mail, cell phone with unlimited texting, voicemail, e-fax number, and an old MySpace account to which we've forgotten our username and password, the potential for over-communicating is greater than ever.
And if it isn't bad enough that we have way too many means of intruding on each other's lives, there is a heightened level of importance associated with it all.
I'm old enough to recall a time before answering machines. If someone called for my parents and neither was in, I wrote a message on a piece of paper and left it in a conspicuous spot in the kitchen, which was where "the" phone was. I couldn't call, text, or instant message them to let them know my hypochondriac Grandfather had called with news of his monthly visit to the proctologist. Heck, if he were alive today, he'd probably be able post a photo of the lab results of his fecal exam to Facebook using his iPhone before he got home from the appointment.
Anyway, back to the blog, or not back to it -- whichever. Now that I've publicly declared it difficult to come up with ideas, I'll probably be inundated with them and shoot out four or five in rapid succession. But if I don't, it hardly matters. I doubt the fabric of society will unravel if the handful of people who read this blog have to wait another week for the next post.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Friday, May 13, 2011
Bloggie Limbo
So, Blogger has been down since Wednesday.
Not that I noticed straight away. It wasn’t until yesterday, when My Lovely Wife bemoaned the lack of recent posts, that I tried and failed to log in due to the service being down. Actually, My Lovely Wife didn’t so much bemoan the lack of recent posts as she bemoaned the lack of recent good posts. Ouch!
Since I typically publish new posts only two or three times a week, the inaccessibility of Blogger really isn’t all that impactful on my bloggericiousness.
Measured on the great bloggometer -- which runs from “I Wrote One Post Then Gave Up” all the way to “I’d Kill a Nun Holding Three Kittens and an Orphan In Order to Publish My Next Post” – I am somewhere between “Mildly Amused” and “Reasonably Dedicated.”
If anything, Blogger being down is a welcome treat. Nothing new posted? Blame blogger. Can’t come up a good idea for the next post? Doesn’t matter! Couldn’t post it if I wanted to.
At this crazy busy time of year, Blogger being down gives me a guilt-free break from blogging that I am finding strangely therapeutic. Maybe I can take this time to think of some “good” topics to write about.
2011 Mark Feggeler
Not that I noticed straight away. It wasn’t until yesterday, when My Lovely Wife bemoaned the lack of recent posts, that I tried and failed to log in due to the service being down. Actually, My Lovely Wife didn’t so much bemoan the lack of recent posts as she bemoaned the lack of recent good posts. Ouch!
Since I typically publish new posts only two or three times a week, the inaccessibility of Blogger really isn’t all that impactful on my bloggericiousness.
Measured on the great bloggometer -- which runs from “I Wrote One Post Then Gave Up” all the way to “I’d Kill a Nun Holding Three Kittens and an Orphan In Order to Publish My Next Post” – I am somewhere between “Mildly Amused” and “Reasonably Dedicated.”
If anything, Blogger being down is a welcome treat. Nothing new posted? Blame blogger. Can’t come up a good idea for the next post? Doesn’t matter! Couldn’t post it if I wanted to.
At this crazy busy time of year, Blogger being down gives me a guilt-free break from blogging that I am finding strangely therapeutic. Maybe I can take this time to think of some “good” topics to write about.
2011 Mark Feggeler
Friday, April 29, 2011
I Got Nothing
You know the great thing about Disney movies? There are so many of them, it doesn't matter if a few of them suck.
"Pocahantes?"
Wow! That one really sucks. Nothing like making a movie for kids that makes you feel guilty about being white. Not that I think white kids don't need to understand the ugly truths about American history. They do. I just don't believe it's up to Disney, Mel Gibson, and a personified raccoon to shove a big morality lesson down their throats.
And sucky as "Pocahantes" is, it's not nearly so miserably awful as "Hunchback of Notre Dame." You have to wonder about the thought process behind funding a kid's movie about a disfigured man, a super hot gypsy woman, and a sexually deviant clergyman. What exactly about that screamed "children's feature length cartoon musical" to the suits at Disney's not-so-wonderful world of executive decisions?
The great thing about what makes something suck is that it's entirely subjective. For instance, my list of all time most horrid Disney films differs greatly from My Lovely Wife's. Topping her list would be "Wall-E."
See? I don't understand that at all. "Cars" maybe, but "Wall-E?"
What gets Disney off the hook for its occasional putrescence is its prolificacy. (It's a word. Look it up.) For every sucky movie Disney made that tanked at the theater, there are four others that soared through the air like Tinkerbell.
My point is that anyone, even an uber-imaginative braintrust like Disney, can suffer dry spells as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. (More specifically, the desert side of the Grand Canyon, where the Brady Bunch went on vacation and got locked up in a ghosttown jail because apparently that's hiliariously good fun.) Which is why I don't worry too much about these blog posts being perfect. If Disney can afford to suck a little, then so can I.
There are times when all the bloggerific ideas are locked tightly away in some secret little vault to which I do not possess the key. Now and then I look back at the increasingly long list of posts I've published and am surprised by a few I had forgotten. Then I read them and understand why I forgot them. They suck.
Same thing goes for the fiction I'm working on. Sometimes I belly up to the computer or notebook with all the enthusiasm in the world, but nothing worthy of being written presents itself. At these times, I force myself to write something, anything, just to keep up the practice of writing.
I know if I maintain my productivity, and achieve a prolificacy, I stand a good chance of sucking less than more.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
"Pocahantes?"
Wow! That one really sucks. Nothing like making a movie for kids that makes you feel guilty about being white. Not that I think white kids don't need to understand the ugly truths about American history. They do. I just don't believe it's up to Disney, Mel Gibson, and a personified raccoon to shove a big morality lesson down their throats.
And sucky as "Pocahantes" is, it's not nearly so miserably awful as "Hunchback of Notre Dame." You have to wonder about the thought process behind funding a kid's movie about a disfigured man, a super hot gypsy woman, and a sexually deviant clergyman. What exactly about that screamed "children's feature length cartoon musical" to the suits at Disney's not-so-wonderful world of executive decisions?
The great thing about what makes something suck is that it's entirely subjective. For instance, my list of all time most horrid Disney films differs greatly from My Lovely Wife's. Topping her list would be "Wall-E."
See? I don't understand that at all. "Cars" maybe, but "Wall-E?"
What gets Disney off the hook for its occasional putrescence is its prolificacy. (It's a word. Look it up.) For every sucky movie Disney made that tanked at the theater, there are four others that soared through the air like Tinkerbell.
My point is that anyone, even an uber-imaginative braintrust like Disney, can suffer dry spells as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. (More specifically, the desert side of the Grand Canyon, where the Brady Bunch went on vacation and got locked up in a ghosttown jail because apparently that's hiliariously good fun.) Which is why I don't worry too much about these blog posts being perfect. If Disney can afford to suck a little, then so can I.
There are times when all the bloggerific ideas are locked tightly away in some secret little vault to which I do not possess the key. Now and then I look back at the increasingly long list of posts I've published and am surprised by a few I had forgotten. Then I read them and understand why I forgot them. They suck.
Same thing goes for the fiction I'm working on. Sometimes I belly up to the computer or notebook with all the enthusiasm in the world, but nothing worthy of being written presents itself. At these times, I force myself to write something, anything, just to keep up the practice of writing.
I know if I maintain my productivity, and achieve a prolificacy, I stand a good chance of sucking less than more.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Why Write?
Thanks to that pesky little prankster known as the internet, there's a minor revolution occuring in the publishing industry these days. You can't look at any author's webpage, blog, or tweet history without stumbling headlong into one of many prognostications about the future of print media.
Are traditionally published books a dying breed?
Will ebooks and the immediacy of the digital medium turn all authors to self-publishing?
Can the traditional publishers and self-publishers co-exist in a harmonious and symbiotic relationship of peace, love and grooviness?
While I have an opinion on the matter, it can't be said I have much of a financial interest. I run a free blog with only 12 confessed followers (67 if you count my 68 Facebook followers and subtract me from the list). My only book is a self-published collection of items one can get for free on this blog, and I'm almost one solid year into the first draft of my first novel. Literally speaking, I am a literary nobody. Not even a speedbump, I am a grain of sand on the eight-lane super-highway of the publishing industry.
Not only might I never, I very likely and almost certainly never, will need to kindle a fire in my brain over whether to accept a major traditional publishing deal over going it alone as an indie author. When my novel is finished to my satisfaction and released on Amazon and whatever other digital format I'm able to sufficiently comprehend, I'll be happy if anyone buys it at all.
So, why write? If I'm so convinced an audience won't flock to my digital doorstep, why go through the time-consuming process of writing a book, or even a blog?
Well... It's just... Well, because! That's why.
As interesting as the discussion about the future of publishing might be to a wannabe author like me, I didn't start writing my silly little murder mystery last May because I thought I could make a big splash in the literary world. The book is mine. It's being written first and foremost for me, to prove I can do it, to prove I have the creativity and fortitude to push beyond the self-doubt that for twenty years has buried the idea of this book under excuses.
And the reality is that even if the book does sell reasonably well for a self-published, indie author's first attempt -- even if it blows the designer casing off your Kindle or Nook as it rockets to the top of every digital platform's best seller list -- I still won't make enough money to quit my day job and live in luxury on some private Greek island.
And that's okay. I don't like olives anyway, and I'm pretty sure I'd end up with some variation of skin cancer from over-exposure to the sun.
I have no grand illusions. I don't expect a movie version of my book in the offing (although with a few tweaks it could make for some seriously awful local dinner theater). I don't expect a mass audience to sit up and take notice, or critics to fall over themselves lauding the book's superior qualities, or even for my Mother to like it. It's very likely the F-word appears far too often for her tastes.
The fact of the matter is not every person who writes dreams of being a best-selling author. Some of us simply dream of being authors of finished works. That might put me a rung or twelve lower on the indie author ladder, but so what?
So what if I achieved only 1,300 new words this week on the novel? It's 1,300 more than I had when the week began.
So what if the only people who read my novel are friends and family? Aren't they the people I care about most in this world?
So what if I don't sell a single copy?
I didn't start writing because I had big green dollar signs in my eyes. My vision consisted of a well-told story, with believable characters and a compelling mystery. And, if I'm lucky, the cover art I slap together won't be too cheesy.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Are traditionally published books a dying breed?
Will ebooks and the immediacy of the digital medium turn all authors to self-publishing?
Can the traditional publishers and self-publishers co-exist in a harmonious and symbiotic relationship of peace, love and grooviness?
While I have an opinion on the matter, it can't be said I have much of a financial interest. I run a free blog with only 12 confessed followers (67 if you count my 68 Facebook followers and subtract me from the list). My only book is a self-published collection of items one can get for free on this blog, and I'm almost one solid year into the first draft of my first novel. Literally speaking, I am a literary nobody. Not even a speedbump, I am a grain of sand on the eight-lane super-highway of the publishing industry.
Not only might I never, I very likely and almost certainly never, will need to kindle a fire in my brain over whether to accept a major traditional publishing deal over going it alone as an indie author. When my novel is finished to my satisfaction and released on Amazon and whatever other digital format I'm able to sufficiently comprehend, I'll be happy if anyone buys it at all.
So, why write? If I'm so convinced an audience won't flock to my digital doorstep, why go through the time-consuming process of writing a book, or even a blog?
Well... It's just... Well, because! That's why.
As interesting as the discussion about the future of publishing might be to a wannabe author like me, I didn't start writing my silly little murder mystery last May because I thought I could make a big splash in the literary world. The book is mine. It's being written first and foremost for me, to prove I can do it, to prove I have the creativity and fortitude to push beyond the self-doubt that for twenty years has buried the idea of this book under excuses.
And the reality is that even if the book does sell reasonably well for a self-published, indie author's first attempt -- even if it blows the designer casing off your Kindle or Nook as it rockets to the top of every digital platform's best seller list -- I still won't make enough money to quit my day job and live in luxury on some private Greek island.
And that's okay. I don't like olives anyway, and I'm pretty sure I'd end up with some variation of skin cancer from over-exposure to the sun.
I have no grand illusions. I don't expect a movie version of my book in the offing (although with a few tweaks it could make for some seriously awful local dinner theater). I don't expect a mass audience to sit up and take notice, or critics to fall over themselves lauding the book's superior qualities, or even for my Mother to like it. It's very likely the F-word appears far too often for her tastes.
The fact of the matter is not every person who writes dreams of being a best-selling author. Some of us simply dream of being authors of finished works. That might put me a rung or twelve lower on the indie author ladder, but so what?
So what if I achieved only 1,300 new words this week on the novel? It's 1,300 more than I had when the week began.
So what if the only people who read my novel are friends and family? Aren't they the people I care about most in this world?
So what if I don't sell a single copy?
I didn't start writing because I had big green dollar signs in my eyes. My vision consisted of a well-told story, with believable characters and a compelling mystery. And, if I'm lucky, the cover art I slap together won't be too cheesy.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
I'm A Guest Blogger!
Okay, so this isn't one of my traditional blog posts. But I'm all a flutter about being a guest blogger for the very first time on someone else's website!
Go to author Jack Wallen's website, Get Jack'd, to see my post in his series of guest authors telling about their first writing experiences.
Go to author Jack Wallen's website, Get Jack'd, to see my post in his series of guest authors telling about their first writing experiences.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Negative Blockage
There are times when you simply don't know what to write. No topics come to mind, no words fall out easily onto the page or through your fingertips to the keyboard. You struggle and search in vain for ideas that do not come.
Then there are times like this past week, in which many ideas present themselves, but there isn't enough time to address them. Notes are scribbled on scraps of paper while driving at 80 miles an hour down a rural highway to man a tradeshow booth. Errant thoughts, worthy of further consideration, pass fleetingly without so much as a moment's pause as you sit through mandatory meetings. The hectic schedule of work and family and extracurricular activities leaves no time for the quiet reflection necessary for creative writing.
I've come to the conclusion I would prefer writer's block to the inability to write when the ideas are flowing.
Somewhere in the past 168 hours, I've lost at least four decent ideas for blog posts, two plot twists about which I seemed pretty excited when they came to mind for the murder mystery I'm writing, and most of the details for the conclusion of the short ghost story I work on when the murder mystery has me temporarily stymied.
And the notes that survived the week are so cryptic as to be almost useless. I don't know what I was thinking when I hastily jotted down the word "fencing" on a pad of paper next to me in the passenger seat of my little green car. Was I intending to write about sword fighting, split rails, or people who sell stolen goods? Did it relate to the blog, the book, or the short story? I'll never know.
What I do know: Despite being away from home and family for longer than I like, this week also brought many personal rewards only a fool would wish away in order to obtain the solitary confinement required for writing.
Did I spend two days away from home to attend a conference in Washington? Yes.
But I also was home the night my twin boys performed in their school musical program. The Italian sang his heart out and square-danced around the stage, and the German got to play the xylophone for an audience of hundreds. Even their big sister got into the act by serving as a volunteer handing out programs to families as they arrived.
Did I spend two days in a row manning tradeshow booths on military bases and repeating the same spiel over and over again to hundreds of people? Yes.
But I also made it to Fayetteville from Camp LeJeune last night in time to be one of 19 people cramming around a table at Red Robin (yum!), after which we all headed over to Crown Coliseum to meet even more friends for a FireAntz hockey game. The game was terrible -- the only fight saw one of our home team guys getting his butt kicked with no back up from his teammates -- but we laughed and yelled at the players and had a great time.
Did my Lovely Wife and I spend most of today making up for the demands on our time that kept us from our normal weekly routines? Yes.
But I got to spend a beautiful weekend with my best friend, our three amazing children, and a bevy of friends.
If the blog sits for a week without a new post, it isn't the end of the world. If the short story never gets finished, it's okay. If my book has to wait a few days, or even a few years, for me to get back to it, it's not a problem. I have the rest of my life to write. My life, on the other hand, won't wait for me.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Then there are times like this past week, in which many ideas present themselves, but there isn't enough time to address them. Notes are scribbled on scraps of paper while driving at 80 miles an hour down a rural highway to man a tradeshow booth. Errant thoughts, worthy of further consideration, pass fleetingly without so much as a moment's pause as you sit through mandatory meetings. The hectic schedule of work and family and extracurricular activities leaves no time for the quiet reflection necessary for creative writing.
I've come to the conclusion I would prefer writer's block to the inability to write when the ideas are flowing.
Somewhere in the past 168 hours, I've lost at least four decent ideas for blog posts, two plot twists about which I seemed pretty excited when they came to mind for the murder mystery I'm writing, and most of the details for the conclusion of the short ghost story I work on when the murder mystery has me temporarily stymied.
And the notes that survived the week are so cryptic as to be almost useless. I don't know what I was thinking when I hastily jotted down the word "fencing" on a pad of paper next to me in the passenger seat of my little green car. Was I intending to write about sword fighting, split rails, or people who sell stolen goods? Did it relate to the blog, the book, or the short story? I'll never know.
What I do know: Despite being away from home and family for longer than I like, this week also brought many personal rewards only a fool would wish away in order to obtain the solitary confinement required for writing.
Did I spend two days away from home to attend a conference in Washington? Yes.
But I also was home the night my twin boys performed in their school musical program. The Italian sang his heart out and square-danced around the stage, and the German got to play the xylophone for an audience of hundreds. Even their big sister got into the act by serving as a volunteer handing out programs to families as they arrived.
Did I spend two days in a row manning tradeshow booths on military bases and repeating the same spiel over and over again to hundreds of people? Yes.
But I also made it to Fayetteville from Camp LeJeune last night in time to be one of 19 people cramming around a table at Red Robin (yum!), after which we all headed over to Crown Coliseum to meet even more friends for a FireAntz hockey game. The game was terrible -- the only fight saw one of our home team guys getting his butt kicked with no back up from his teammates -- but we laughed and yelled at the players and had a great time.
Did my Lovely Wife and I spend most of today making up for the demands on our time that kept us from our normal weekly routines? Yes.
But I got to spend a beautiful weekend with my best friend, our three amazing children, and a bevy of friends.
If the blog sits for a week without a new post, it isn't the end of the world. If the short story never gets finished, it's okay. If my book has to wait a few days, or even a few years, for me to get back to it, it's not a problem. I have the rest of my life to write. My life, on the other hand, won't wait for me.
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Dear Amazon: I Love You
The first thing I ever wrote was a meandering story about a high school student traveling through time and experiencing firsthand the many historical events discussed in his social studies class. I thought it was the greatest thing ever written and shared it with my friends who, like me, were pimply high school sophomores.
Ever since then, I've known I would become a writer.
Deep inside me, longing to escape, was that great American novel. It took shape gradually over years, the first foundation stone laid in my senior year at college when I decided it would be a murder mystery about a guy named Ray. Seriously, that was all I had at the time, but I held onto it like it was a Nobel prize winner.
As I moved through my life, Ray took on new characteristics. For a while, he was a newspaper reporter. Then he was a doctor, then a lawyer, and then back to a reporter when I realized I knew nothing about doctors and lawyers. But I was a reporter from 1990 to 1993, so it seemed best to stick with what I knew.
After ten years, I had gone from "murder mystery about a guy named Ray" to "murder mystery about a reporter named Ray." Doesn't sound like much, I know. Keep in mind I've been working on this for twenty-two years and you'll better appreciate the magnitude of the development.
In the last twelve years, I found myself inventing additional important things for the book, such as a plot, a murder victim, a reason why the victim was murdered, and a cast of characters to support the story. These details came in bits and pieces, in dreams and daydreams, in blond moments when I should have been paying attention to more important things, and quite often only after I had given up on the dream of writing the book.
In other words, the book wouldn't leave me alone. It wouldn't allow me to give up.
Oh, to be sure, it wasn't jumping out in front of me with it's arms flailing, yelling "Here I am! Write me! Write me!" It would throw just enough of a bone to me when I least expected it to keep me struggling forward.
But then I did something the book wasn't expecting. In January of 2010, I turned my back on the book and started writing this blog, primarily because I wanted to write and I didn't care if it was a book, a blog, or a birthday card. Blogging offered a release through which to vent the overwhelming need to write.
After a solid year of posts, I suspected I had enough to fill a small book, so I began compiling them. Sure enough, at approximately 120 pages, the first compilation of posts from this blog -- "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man: Volume One" -- is now available for Kindle through www.Amazon.com.
If you had told me two years ago that I would become a published author on February 6, 2011, I would have laughed in your face. Had you told me that first book would be a collection of humorous essays instead of my beloved and long-suffering murder mystery, I would have called you crazy.
But thanks to Blogger and the astoundingly simple process Amazon has created to self-publish I can now call myself a published author. Without trying to make more of this than is necessary you must understand that I have, within the last twenty-four hours, achieved one of my life-long dreams. It might pale in comparison to my wedding day and the births of my children but it's a dream come true all the same.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my friends who have been kind enough to read this blog. Thank you to all of you who have forwarded posts to friends, joined the Facebook fan page, left comments about posts, and otherwise encouraged me.
And a special thank you goes out to the mystery shopper in the UK who was the first person -- and presently only person -- to purchase the book. I have no idea who you are, and you have no idea how much you mean to me.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
Ever since then, I've known I would become a writer.
Deep inside me, longing to escape, was that great American novel. It took shape gradually over years, the first foundation stone laid in my senior year at college when I decided it would be a murder mystery about a guy named Ray. Seriously, that was all I had at the time, but I held onto it like it was a Nobel prize winner.
As I moved through my life, Ray took on new characteristics. For a while, he was a newspaper reporter. Then he was a doctor, then a lawyer, and then back to a reporter when I realized I knew nothing about doctors and lawyers. But I was a reporter from 1990 to 1993, so it seemed best to stick with what I knew.
After ten years, I had gone from "murder mystery about a guy named Ray" to "murder mystery about a reporter named Ray." Doesn't sound like much, I know. Keep in mind I've been working on this for twenty-two years and you'll better appreciate the magnitude of the development.
In the last twelve years, I found myself inventing additional important things for the book, such as a plot, a murder victim, a reason why the victim was murdered, and a cast of characters to support the story. These details came in bits and pieces, in dreams and daydreams, in blond moments when I should have been paying attention to more important things, and quite often only after I had given up on the dream of writing the book.
In other words, the book wouldn't leave me alone. It wouldn't allow me to give up.
Oh, to be sure, it wasn't jumping out in front of me with it's arms flailing, yelling "Here I am! Write me! Write me!" It would throw just enough of a bone to me when I least expected it to keep me struggling forward.
But then I did something the book wasn't expecting. In January of 2010, I turned my back on the book and started writing this blog, primarily because I wanted to write and I didn't care if it was a book, a blog, or a birthday card. Blogging offered a release through which to vent the overwhelming need to write.
After a solid year of posts, I suspected I had enough to fill a small book, so I began compiling them. Sure enough, at approximately 120 pages, the first compilation of posts from this blog -- "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man: Volume One" -- is now available for Kindle through www.Amazon.com.
If you had told me two years ago that I would become a published author on February 6, 2011, I would have laughed in your face. Had you told me that first book would be a collection of humorous essays instead of my beloved and long-suffering murder mystery, I would have called you crazy.
But thanks to Blogger and the astoundingly simple process Amazon has created to self-publish I can now call myself a published author. Without trying to make more of this than is necessary you must understand that I have, within the last twenty-four hours, achieved one of my life-long dreams. It might pale in comparison to my wedding day and the births of my children but it's a dream come true all the same.
I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my friends who have been kind enough to read this blog. Thank you to all of you who have forwarded posts to friends, joined the Facebook fan page, left comments about posts, and otherwise encouraged me.
And a special thank you goes out to the mystery shopper in the UK who was the first person -- and presently only person -- to purchase the book. I have no idea who you are, and you have no idea how much you mean to me.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
Friday, January 28, 2011
I Heart Slovenia
I am continually amazed, surprised, flabbergasted, and flummoxed by the attention this little blog receives. While I am fully aware it is not a break-out success with thousands of loyal followers, I'm still shocked when more than two people actually give a poop about what I have to say.
Just last week, the blog passed 5,000 hits. That doesn't mean 5,000 visitors. It simply means the blog's 63 Facebook fans, who receive an email every time I throw a post out here, have been kind enough to return many times. Some of you also forward links to your friends and family. (By the way, if you have forwarded my blog to other people -- Thank you!)
What makes managing the blog especially interesting is seeing where the hits come from. Last October I removed the Feedjit tracking tool that identified individual visitors because (a) it was a major distraction and (b) it had a bit of a Big Brotherish feel to it. But Blogger still provides basic statistical information so I can identify the most popular posts and tell what parts of the world you readers represent.
As of this moment, 96.3% of all hits to Ramblings of a Very Pale Man have come from within the United States of America. Where in the U.S., exactly? I don't know, but I can hazard a good guess that the meat of them are from New York (where I was born and raised) and North Carolina (where I've lived for 20+ years).
But that means 3.7% of the hits come from other countries, and not necessarily the most obvious places. It can be interesting to see which posts attract visitors from what countries.
For instance, somebody in Russia loves the "72 O'Clock" post from September 2010. Every now and then a Muscovite still finds his way to that post. I don't understand the attraction, since it isn't even one of my favorite writings, but I do appreciate the continuing interest.
And the most recent post -- "Backpack Revolution!" -- was the first to draw interest from visitors in South Korea, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, among other countries. Couldn't have something to do with the use of the word "revolution" in the title, could it?
Regardless of the reason, and in spite of the small percentage they represent, I am tickled so many foreign visitors have found their way to the blog. In order of number of hits, these visitors represent the following countries:
Russia
Canada
Denmark
Slovenia
Germany
Poland
United Kingdom
Sweden
France
China
India
Netherlands
Australia
South Korea
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Brazil
Iraq
Pakistan
Taiwan
Vietnam
The best part is learning about places I'd never heard of before. When Slovenia suddenly popped up last month, I had to research it on Wikipedia just to figure out where in the world it is.
Just think about it. One of the two million people living in the third-most forested country in Europe -- possibly in the bustling metropolis of Ljubljana along the Sava River, or the quaint mountain village of Slovenj Gradec with its 15th century religious frescos -- has returned to the blog 15 times in the last 30 days.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, thanks for dropping in!
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Just last week, the blog passed 5,000 hits. That doesn't mean 5,000 visitors. It simply means the blog's 63 Facebook fans, who receive an email every time I throw a post out here, have been kind enough to return many times. Some of you also forward links to your friends and family. (By the way, if you have forwarded my blog to other people -- Thank you!)
What makes managing the blog especially interesting is seeing where the hits come from. Last October I removed the Feedjit tracking tool that identified individual visitors because (a) it was a major distraction and (b) it had a bit of a Big Brotherish feel to it. But Blogger still provides basic statistical information so I can identify the most popular posts and tell what parts of the world you readers represent.
As of this moment, 96.3% of all hits to Ramblings of a Very Pale Man have come from within the United States of America. Where in the U.S., exactly? I don't know, but I can hazard a good guess that the meat of them are from New York (where I was born and raised) and North Carolina (where I've lived for 20+ years).
But that means 3.7% of the hits come from other countries, and not necessarily the most obvious places. It can be interesting to see which posts attract visitors from what countries.
For instance, somebody in Russia loves the "72 O'Clock" post from September 2010. Every now and then a Muscovite still finds his way to that post. I don't understand the attraction, since it isn't even one of my favorite writings, but I do appreciate the continuing interest.
And the most recent post -- "Backpack Revolution!" -- was the first to draw interest from visitors in South Korea, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, among other countries. Couldn't have something to do with the use of the word "revolution" in the title, could it?
Regardless of the reason, and in spite of the small percentage they represent, I am tickled so many foreign visitors have found their way to the blog. In order of number of hits, these visitors represent the following countries:
Russia
Canada
Denmark
Slovenia
Germany
Poland
United Kingdom
Sweden
France
China
India
Netherlands
Australia
South Korea
Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Brazil
Iraq
Pakistan
Taiwan
Vietnam
The best part is learning about places I'd never heard of before. When Slovenia suddenly popped up last month, I had to research it on Wikipedia just to figure out where in the world it is.
Whoever you are, wherever you are, thanks for dropping in!
© 2011 Mark Feggeler
Monday, December 27, 2010
Renewed Resolve
A few days ago, I started writing a blog post all about my New Year's resolutions.
In it, I reflected on how I feel I've grown as a writer since starting the blog in January, and how I was setting goals for my writing for 2011 in regards to both the blog and the murder mystery I am writing. I expounded on my methodology for maintaining "quality" in my writings and achieving self-imposed deadlines. I even began rehashing why certain blog posts might have received more hits from readers than others.
What a load of self-indulgent crap!
I enjoy writing. And now that I have fully embraced it as a hobby and publicly professed to family and friends my enjoyment of it, I intend to continue doing it. I sincerely do hope to finish the book and continue blogging in 2011. But the dictionary describes a hobby as "an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure."
Regularly. Not religiously. Not daily. And for pleasure, not out of some sense of obligation or requirement or addiction.
I have perused blogs by established authors and get the same advice thrown at me over and over again. "Make it perfect!" "Write, edit, rewrite, edit, continue..." "The writing must consume your every thought!" "Write for as broad an audience as possible, not just your spouse." "Read books by authors succeeding at what you want to do and emulate them." "Make it perfect!!"
That's a lot of pressure for a hobbyist, and to all that advice I say "Go screw!" If my spouse is the only person who reads and enjoys the book I'm writing, then I'll be content. If my spouse is the only person who reads my blog and she enjoys them, then I am happy. And just in case anyone thinks a spouse is incapable of proper constructive criticism, I would love to introduce them to my Lovely Wife and teach them otherwise.
Rather than focus 2011's resolutions on myself and my own selfish wants and desires, I've decided to listen to the voice in my head that speaks when I'm kneeling in the church pew during the extraordinarily brief moments of reflection. Not to digress, but can I ask for a true moment of silence when the church program calls for one and not just a millisecond of semi-quiet pause? I barely get out the "Hi God, it's me again" by the time we've moved on to the next calisthenic exercise...
Anyway, here are my resolutions for next year:
1. Be a better husband. I'm often lost in a fog of my own forgetfulness and entirely neglect to show my appreciation for all my Lovely Wife does for me and our children. This isn't rocket science I'm talking about, either. No big mystery to solve. I simply need to be more helpful, reverent, romantic, silly, and generally expressive of my love for her.
2. Be a better father. This includes not losing my temper and not responding crankily to the many minor requests received daily. It involves being able to acknowledge at all times -- not just when convenient -- how fortunate I am to have three beautiful, healthy children who genuinely enjoy my company and aren't embarrassed to show their affection for me in front of all their friends.
3. Be a better person. This one encapsulates many different smaller resolutions into one big one. It includes being a better son, brother, friend, parishioner, employee, coworker, volunteer, and member of my community. It addresses such things as living up to my promises and making promises I know I can keep.
If I can do these three simple things in 2011, then I will have a richer life than any book or blog could ever provide.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
In it, I reflected on how I feel I've grown as a writer since starting the blog in January, and how I was setting goals for my writing for 2011 in regards to both the blog and the murder mystery I am writing. I expounded on my methodology for maintaining "quality" in my writings and achieving self-imposed deadlines. I even began rehashing why certain blog posts might have received more hits from readers than others.
What a load of self-indulgent crap!
I enjoy writing. And now that I have fully embraced it as a hobby and publicly professed to family and friends my enjoyment of it, I intend to continue doing it. I sincerely do hope to finish the book and continue blogging in 2011. But the dictionary describes a hobby as "an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure."
Regularly. Not religiously. Not daily. And for pleasure, not out of some sense of obligation or requirement or addiction.
I have perused blogs by established authors and get the same advice thrown at me over and over again. "Make it perfect!" "Write, edit, rewrite, edit, continue..." "The writing must consume your every thought!" "Write for as broad an audience as possible, not just your spouse." "Read books by authors succeeding at what you want to do and emulate them." "Make it perfect!!"
That's a lot of pressure for a hobbyist, and to all that advice I say "Go screw!" If my spouse is the only person who reads and enjoys the book I'm writing, then I'll be content. If my spouse is the only person who reads my blog and she enjoys them, then I am happy. And just in case anyone thinks a spouse is incapable of proper constructive criticism, I would love to introduce them to my Lovely Wife and teach them otherwise.
Rather than focus 2011's resolutions on myself and my own selfish wants and desires, I've decided to listen to the voice in my head that speaks when I'm kneeling in the church pew during the extraordinarily brief moments of reflection. Not to digress, but can I ask for a true moment of silence when the church program calls for one and not just a millisecond of semi-quiet pause? I barely get out the "Hi God, it's me again" by the time we've moved on to the next calisthenic exercise...
Anyway, here are my resolutions for next year:
1. Be a better husband. I'm often lost in a fog of my own forgetfulness and entirely neglect to show my appreciation for all my Lovely Wife does for me and our children. This isn't rocket science I'm talking about, either. No big mystery to solve. I simply need to be more helpful, reverent, romantic, silly, and generally expressive of my love for her.
2. Be a better father. This includes not losing my temper and not responding crankily to the many minor requests received daily. It involves being able to acknowledge at all times -- not just when convenient -- how fortunate I am to have three beautiful, healthy children who genuinely enjoy my company and aren't embarrassed to show their affection for me in front of all their friends.
3. Be a better person. This one encapsulates many different smaller resolutions into one big one. It includes being a better son, brother, friend, parishioner, employee, coworker, volunteer, and member of my community. It addresses such things as living up to my promises and making promises I know I can keep.
If I can do these three simple things in 2011, then I will have a richer life than any book or blog could ever provide.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Privacy Schmivacy
Recently, I changed the look of this blog by removing the Feedjit tracking application that told me who visited and when. In its place, I installed a simple counter so I can still get an idea of general traffic flow.
Although I had received one or two comments about the "Big Brother" feel of the Feedjit tracker -- as if Big Brother cares if you're reading a blog about Disney removing hamburgers from a few of its menus -- concern over your privacy is not why I removed it. The reason the tracker no longer adorns this blog is because I was wasting too much time and energy checking and rechecking the stats it provided.
It got to the point where every time I passed a computer, a sudden compulsion overtook me and demanded I pull up the blog to see who had visited last. Was I getting an even distribution from different regions of the country? Were most of the hits coming from the areas of the country in which I've lived? Someone from Wisconsin visited -- should I try to write something funny about cheeseheads?
Part of the problem is that I live and die by numbers at my day job. Understanding the trends, patterns of use, pacing, and return on investment of each of my accounts -- in addition to being able to forecast future revenues with reasonable accuracy -- is essential. It's only natural I should fall into the same micro-analysis of the data offered to me about my blog.
Unfortunately, the "cool" factor had worn off and it started making the blog seem more like work. I was trying to read into the data information that possibly wasn't there. This defeated the very purpose of the blog, which was to allow myself an expectation-free zone in which to practice writing and have a chance to vent my thoughts on whatever subject struck my fancy. It's called "Ramblings" for a reason.
I admit to liking the map feature, which I blogged about recently (see post HERE). It was interesting to know people in different countries had visited my blog but it didn't tell me anything useful. After all, does it really matter whether someone from Bali accidently stumbled across a random post while surfing the internet?
"Hey Putu, come here!"
"What is it Nengah?"
"Read this funny post about PayPal. No, wait. That one isn't very funny."
So, as of this week, the visitor tracking is out and the simple hit counter is in. However, don't kid yourself into thinking your information still isn't being collected by Blogger and every other website you visit. The internet is all about cookies, and data mining, and hounding you to the point of being able to tell what brand of tissue you prefer or where you might want to take your next vacation.
But that's okay. Privacy is overrated and really just a perception anyway. Every time you step out your door -- or even before if your blinds are up -- you are subject to the scrutiny of the public eye. Why should the internet be any different?
Think of every website you visit as just another shop at your local stripmall, or storefront next to the corner deli. If you see a storefront selling something questionable or unsavory to your tastes, don't go in. If you choose to go through the door, the proprieters will make assumptions about you, try to collect your information, and try to sell you something before you leave.
And in the non-virtual world, you'll probably end up on countless security video tapes, so make sure you dress nice and don't pick your nose.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
Although I had received one or two comments about the "Big Brother" feel of the Feedjit tracker -- as if Big Brother cares if you're reading a blog about Disney removing hamburgers from a few of its menus -- concern over your privacy is not why I removed it. The reason the tracker no longer adorns this blog is because I was wasting too much time and energy checking and rechecking the stats it provided.
It got to the point where every time I passed a computer, a sudden compulsion overtook me and demanded I pull up the blog to see who had visited last. Was I getting an even distribution from different regions of the country? Were most of the hits coming from the areas of the country in which I've lived? Someone from Wisconsin visited -- should I try to write something funny about cheeseheads?Part of the problem is that I live and die by numbers at my day job. Understanding the trends, patterns of use, pacing, and return on investment of each of my accounts -- in addition to being able to forecast future revenues with reasonable accuracy -- is essential. It's only natural I should fall into the same micro-analysis of the data offered to me about my blog.
Unfortunately, the "cool" factor had worn off and it started making the blog seem more like work. I was trying to read into the data information that possibly wasn't there. This defeated the very purpose of the blog, which was to allow myself an expectation-free zone in which to practice writing and have a chance to vent my thoughts on whatever subject struck my fancy. It's called "Ramblings" for a reason.
I admit to liking the map feature, which I blogged about recently (see post HERE). It was interesting to know people in different countries had visited my blog but it didn't tell me anything useful. After all, does it really matter whether someone from Bali accidently stumbled across a random post while surfing the internet?
"Hey Putu, come here!"
"What is it Nengah?"
"Read this funny post about PayPal. No, wait. That one isn't very funny."
So, as of this week, the visitor tracking is out and the simple hit counter is in. However, don't kid yourself into thinking your information still isn't being collected by Blogger and every other website you visit. The internet is all about cookies, and data mining, and hounding you to the point of being able to tell what brand of tissue you prefer or where you might want to take your next vacation.
But that's okay. Privacy is overrated and really just a perception anyway. Every time you step out your door -- or even before if your blinds are up -- you are subject to the scrutiny of the public eye. Why should the internet be any different?
Think of every website you visit as just another shop at your local stripmall, or storefront next to the corner deli. If you see a storefront selling something questionable or unsavory to your tastes, don't go in. If you choose to go through the door, the proprieters will make assumptions about you, try to collect your information, and try to sell you something before you leave.
And in the non-virtual world, you'll probably end up on countless security video tapes, so make sure you dress nice and don't pick your nose.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Tomorrow, the World!
When I started writing this blog, I had no expectations. I figured, at best, there would be a handful of family members and friends who would kindly humor me by reading a few posts from time to time.
"Oh, look," you might say upon seeing my note on Facebook alerting you to a new post being published. "Mark just put out a new little blog on his little rambly thingy. It's called 'A Sock In My Shorts?' I don't like the sound of that. It sounds dirty. I think I'll wait for the next time he writes a syrupy sweet one about his family."
Truth be told, I'm not much of a blog reader. I'm not much of a reader at all, actually. My reading happens in fits and spurts, and I get tremendous satisfaction if I reach the end of a Reader's Digest three-pager about a spelunker who had to chew through his own rappelling gear in order to save a kitten from a mountain lion before my legs fall asleep from the pressure of the toilet seat pushing up into them.
Strange to think I was an English major in college. And a lit major for the first two years! I guarantee in those first two years at SUNY Plattsburgh I read maybe -- maybe -- five books from cover to cover. While I never cheated or plagiarized anyone else's work, there were plenty of times I turned in six-page, ten-page and even twenty-page papers after staying up until 2:00am in the all-night study lounge at the student center, yanking quotes from chapters I hadn't read to support a thesis I hoped was correct.
One time, I wrote a paper on the first half of "War and Peace." Problem was, I had read only half of the first half of "War and Peace."
Have you ever read it? It's 1,200 freakin' pages long! I can barely make it to the end of an Emily Dickinson poem and they're expecting me to read this never-ending borefest? Ten pages into it and I was hoping all the characters would pull an Anna Karenina and throw themselves in front of a moving train...
Anyway, I plucked a thesis out of my butt and wrote the paper. Then I started skimming through the book for supporting quotes. As I skimmed, I realized my thesis was wrong by 180 degrees. I literally was able to leave my paper mostly intact, drop in the quotes I had found, and where I said something wasn't true I simply changed it to say it was true and vice versa. That was the only "A" I ever received from Dr. Burde.
So, having suffered a lifelong aversion to reading, I'm always surprised to see so many people embracing the activity so rabidly. As someone who fancies himself a writer, I appreciate it, but I'm still surprised when anyone reads anything I have written. In January when I published my first post to this blog, I was amused at how quickly certain people picked up on it.
Now, when I look at the tracking of hits coming with each new post -- particularly those that have catchier titles and are muchly more betterly wrote -- I'm amazed to see visits to the blog by people living in places in which I know for dead certain I cannot possibly know anyone. Look at the map of the United States below. Every flag represents someone from a city who visited this blog.
If I rack my brain over each location, I'm sure I could come up with the usual suspects from Facebook for about ninety percent of them. A few of them are probably just me checking in while I'm traveling for business. Houston and Charlottesville definitely are. But that doesn't explain the map below.
I'm pretty sure I've never traveled to Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Italy, England or Russia. And I don't have any penpals in Moscow or Dubai of whom I'm aware. I can understand how someone in New South Wales might stumble across my review of "Dinner for Schmucks" from some intermediary website or search engine, but please tell me why the hell someone in Dhaka surfed their way to "Toilet on the Edge." Twice!
While I'm trying to keep this international notoriety from going to my head, I have set what I think is a perfectly reasonable goal for "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man." Before 2010 draws to a close, I want to be able to track hits from every continent. So far I have North America (no thanks to any support from Canada or Mexico), Eurasia, and Australia. All I need to get is South America and Africa. I doubt I'll have much luck with Antarctica. Something tells me they don't have a very strong WiFi signal down there.
But if you think there's a chance of a penguin with bluetooth checking in one day, I'll keep it on the list. Maybe my next post should be all about krill recipes and the dangers of leopard seals.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
"Oh, look," you might say upon seeing my note on Facebook alerting you to a new post being published. "Mark just put out a new little blog on his little rambly thingy. It's called 'A Sock In My Shorts?' I don't like the sound of that. It sounds dirty. I think I'll wait for the next time he writes a syrupy sweet one about his family."
Truth be told, I'm not much of a blog reader. I'm not much of a reader at all, actually. My reading happens in fits and spurts, and I get tremendous satisfaction if I reach the end of a Reader's Digest three-pager about a spelunker who had to chew through his own rappelling gear in order to save a kitten from a mountain lion before my legs fall asleep from the pressure of the toilet seat pushing up into them.
Strange to think I was an English major in college. And a lit major for the first two years! I guarantee in those first two years at SUNY Plattsburgh I read maybe -- maybe -- five books from cover to cover. While I never cheated or plagiarized anyone else's work, there were plenty of times I turned in six-page, ten-page and even twenty-page papers after staying up until 2:00am in the all-night study lounge at the student center, yanking quotes from chapters I hadn't read to support a thesis I hoped was correct.
One time, I wrote a paper on the first half of "War and Peace." Problem was, I had read only half of the first half of "War and Peace."
Have you ever read it? It's 1,200 freakin' pages long! I can barely make it to the end of an Emily Dickinson poem and they're expecting me to read this never-ending borefest? Ten pages into it and I was hoping all the characters would pull an Anna Karenina and throw themselves in front of a moving train...
Anyway, I plucked a thesis out of my butt and wrote the paper. Then I started skimming through the book for supporting quotes. As I skimmed, I realized my thesis was wrong by 180 degrees. I literally was able to leave my paper mostly intact, drop in the quotes I had found, and where I said something wasn't true I simply changed it to say it was true and vice versa. That was the only "A" I ever received from Dr. Burde.
So, having suffered a lifelong aversion to reading, I'm always surprised to see so many people embracing the activity so rabidly. As someone who fancies himself a writer, I appreciate it, but I'm still surprised when anyone reads anything I have written. In January when I published my first post to this blog, I was amused at how quickly certain people picked up on it.
Now, when I look at the tracking of hits coming with each new post -- particularly those that have catchier titles and are muchly more betterly wrote -- I'm amazed to see visits to the blog by people living in places in which I know for dead certain I cannot possibly know anyone. Look at the map of the United States below. Every flag represents someone from a city who visited this blog.
If I rack my brain over each location, I'm sure I could come up with the usual suspects from Facebook for about ninety percent of them. A few of them are probably just me checking in while I'm traveling for business. Houston and Charlottesville definitely are. But that doesn't explain the map below.
I'm pretty sure I've never traveled to Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, Italy, England or Russia. And I don't have any penpals in Moscow or Dubai of whom I'm aware. I can understand how someone in New South Wales might stumble across my review of "Dinner for Schmucks" from some intermediary website or search engine, but please tell me why the hell someone in Dhaka surfed their way to "Toilet on the Edge." Twice!
While I'm trying to keep this international notoriety from going to my head, I have set what I think is a perfectly reasonable goal for "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man." Before 2010 draws to a close, I want to be able to track hits from every continent. So far I have North America (no thanks to any support from Canada or Mexico), Eurasia, and Australia. All I need to get is South America and Africa. I doubt I'll have much luck with Antarctica. Something tells me they don't have a very strong WiFi signal down there.
But if you think there's a chance of a penguin with bluetooth checking in one day, I'll keep it on the list. Maybe my next post should be all about krill recipes and the dangers of leopard seals.
© 2010 Mark Feggeler
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