Okay, maybe not the thing to be following my Australia Day post but it’s how I feel at the moment.

It was simple in the old days – you slave over your precious piece of textual brilliance and send it in to a literary agent and then hopefully a publisher. The chances were you’d be rejected by the agent and if one of the few, rejected by the publisher, and that was that. I remember the rise of the vanity publishers, what an awful name to go with a service that was, let’s face it, a little shoddy and sleazy. However, those who used the service and if they were happy, then who am I to say otherwise? To be honest I was tempted.

And yet, I waited. I didn’t try an agent or publisher either. I was going to use my own smarts and sell my own books and put stuff on the internet (hardly any writers were using the internet in that way). Problem 1 – I had no idea how to build a website or how the internet worked. Solution 1a – do a graphic design class with Solution 1b – my son who was a teen at the time. So, a year later I had a qualification under my belt, stories to share, and a website designed by me, built by my son (who was also my teacher on how to update and upgrade it (there was a lot of sighing from him on those days but the bribes were worth it)).

Problem 2 – time. Solution 2 – still don’t know how to create a time dilation field though I’ve watched numerous scifi shows and read some articles (and yes I realise the ‘time’ factor of researching)

Problem 3 – too slow. Solution 3 – just give the finger and it’ll make me feel better. By too slow I mean that over the years, as I was trying to get myself famous, I missed many, many opportunities to the point the whole independent author revolution caught up with me, passed and surpassed me and now it’s an ‘everyone is a writer/publisher’ in this modern world. But it’s not all bad – quantum computers are coming. Maybe I’ll be fast enough to catch that ride. (ignoring Problem 2 and 3, oh, and 1 – better start reading up on quantum stuff)

So here I am, giving the finger (no, I’m not a guy portraying myself as a gal – I’m just a gal using a pic of a guy), realising by using my real name and making changes to my social media accounts, books and websites isn’t going to make much of a dent. I don’t really have anything to lose!

So, don’t despair if you are in a similar situation and work through those ‘meh’ days and add some attitude.

Signing off,

Meh (I mean ‘Mel’) nice to meet ya.

PS. in reinventing myself I’m back to square one – do I do it all myself or just join the club and use Smashwords, Amazon etc. etc.? Oh, the mazes we wander.

Image by © Can Stock Photo / sabphoto