Anonymous

What's the Motive?

I know the cartoonist intended this to portray sadness and frustration for writers.

I have experienced what most authors have, speaking to a small group at a book store about a new book I have published, and end up with an even smaller number of those people buying the book.

I am luckier than most writers, in that I began writing and publishing books after retiring from my day job. It has meant that I get to write what I want, what excites me, seems worth writing about, without much concern for the sales volume.

Do I care how many books get sold? I am a normal human who loves being acknowledged. Nothing measures that quite like having people part with a few bucks to read it.

I have talked with much more “successful” authors than I am, about this. A few of them have been brave enough to make their living from writing and publishing books. That turns out to be as challenging as trying to become a major league baseball player. One friend, who writes wonderful novels set in rough, rural Vermont, tells me about doing a book signing in which his wife, the bookstore owner, and one other person, made up the audience. He laughed when he told me about it.

I used to think of best selling authors as living glamorous lives. Then a friend became a NYT best selling author and described her life, flying from city to city, doing three interviews each day on radio, followed by a book signing at which there might be fewer than twenty people.

So the second half of my adult life has been writing what my passion dictates, sending out a daily piece to a list of some seven hundred people (happy to add you to the list), doing five novels and a memoir over the past twenty-five years.

Thank to the Church Pension Fund, I don’t have to sell many books. And don’t.

Maybe people would rather meet me than read my writing. Not that so many people seem so anxious to meet me. But can you imagine a happier issue than being able to follow your bliss as you near the Big Bliss for which we’re all headed?

Might be letting yourself spend long hours at the piano. Or learning to cook meals you’ve long wished to. Running that old age marathon. Or long distance swim. How about creating a food bank, or making shelter, for people who have fallen below the safety net? It’s hard to imagine what will trigger your bliss.

But when you discover what will, nothing can rob you of the pleasure of knowing you have found the way you count.

I wish you such a second half to your life.