Sept. 19, 2010
Dear readers and authors:
Most of my life I lived and worked in Detroit, Michigan as a Trial Lawyer. Now I live on the Gulf of Mexico in beautiful Naples on the west coast of Florida. I was a Democratic State Senator in Michigan until the voters decided they wanted someone else. No! I lie. The real reason I didn't get reelected was the guy who usually managed my election campaign was sick that year. Left to my own devices, I didn't spend enough time talking with my constituents. So they forgot about me. In that respect, a writer is a bit like a politician. You have to talk with your readers or they forget about you.
A principal difference between a politician and a writer is that a politician has a ton of money to spend on promotion and a writer has little or none. Unless, of course, you are a super successful writer and by that time you don't need any promotion. Here is how we writers can solve this problem. We gather together a band of volunteers (other writers) and run a campaign to extract funds from our readers with letters and Emails. "Dear readers, please send funds to my Paypal account!!! " That was the commercial and so on to more fun things.
As I said, I now live in Naples overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. This morning I set out on my usual swim into the Gulf to snorkel down to a coral reef. It's my exercise for the day. The reef lies in about 30 feet of water, about 300 yards off my condo and the water at this time of year is about 85 degrees. My sincere condolences to my friends in Michigan and places north. This morning the water was clear enough to see the bottom. A few small fish were swimming around, but an unusual large white object was draped across a sandy patch between some rocks. I inhaled and exhaled a few times and dived down. As I neared the white object it shimmered and shook off sand and rose off the bottom. Imagine my delight to see a large manta ray rise up to meet me. I've dived on this reef for years and I'm used to seeing sharks, barracuda, dolphins, tarpon and every fish that lives here. But I had never seen a manta ray up close. I knew they didn't usually attack swimmers so I wasn't worried. It was huge. It banked away from me with a curve of its wings and sailed away gracefully into the gloom surrounding us.
Peace, my friends.
Roger
Naples, FL
ERG Unit of Power
A great thriller for only $0.99
A thriller of a novel - Suspense - political - Elite strike force - Mercenary soldiers - fighting - love
Outraged by the terrorist attacks and frustrated by Congressional interference with his use of the military, the President, using private funds provided by his oil buddies, establishes his own elite strike force.
Feh - your constituents didn't vote for you because you don't appreciate good Michigan weather! Blue skies, bah! The water's clear enough around here (well maybe not in the Detroit river). (But seriously folks, I cannot abide too much sun and heat.)
ReplyDeleteAs for banding together and having a campaign - isn't "please send funds" the wrong phrase? Shouldn't we say more frightening things like "send money now or that other author's socialist tea-party book will destroy your way of life?" (Hmmmm, that might work. Might sell the other guy's books as well....)
Anyway, nice to hear your lovely times with the reef. (And so glad that you aren't describing close encounters with tar balls!) You plan on using those excursions in your books?
Camille
Camille,
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how long it would take for a Michigan retort. Good for you for upholding our State's blessings.
I love the idea of the threatening letters. You and I could do the good cop, bad cop routine on them.
Using the diving experience - absolutely. I was also a keen scuba diver, which was useful for writing part of ERG Unit of Power and I'll use it again and again. I was a pretty good boxer in my early years and I used that experience to write The Last Aborigine. Currently, I'm reading an excellent book by Steven James "The Pawn". As a reader I was delighted to come across a small, off the cuff, snippet about 'Pascal's Wager". To me, snippets like that are jewels in a story and come from the writer's experience. Thanks for the reply.
Roger