Monday, May 14, 2007

Who said it would be easy?

Dodge and weave, duck and dive - isn't that what life is all about? Dodging the bullets and grasping the nettle. The trouble is all the nettles in the bed sting you - so which one do you choose to pick? I am sure some Zen monk somewhere has the answer, but who has the time to contemplate their naval these days?

So, that also leads me on nicely to the fact that I have not had time to follow my dream, because I have been too busy earning a crust - a poor excuse I know. It's the perennial problem of a writer - if I don't write, then I don't have to send the work out to an agent or a publisher and then I won't get hurt by all the rejection letters.

I know that there is probably a hard nose business decision being made out there - will it sell? is the market saturated? Who is this person - are they famous, have they been on Big Brother, are they a footballer? If the answer to any of the above is 'NO' then forget it - it won't sell, it won't make money, we are not interested.

I know all these things; I know about business, it's my job - but it doesn't make the pill any easier to swallow. I mean if it was me, if it was my business then I would be exactly the same, I am sure. After all, you don't go into business to loose money, do you? So you follow the sheep, you don't take a risk and you churn out even more garbage that you think the punters will want to buy.

And yet.. and yet, who is it that influences what they want to buy by filling the book shelves with it in the first place? Who sets the trends? Who cuts the Big Brother video tapes to make a good guy look like a stupid prat and get him voted off the show?

I wonder.... I wonder if I joined them, as a rebel, publish my own work and be dammed, would I become like them in the end? If fame and fortune followed, would I put on my woolly coat - baaa!

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