Ideally, I’d allow a lot more time between the release of my latest book and the next. Give readers an opening to catch on to what I’m doing and then to catch up – or even a breather.
But I’m not, for several reasons.
- The first, quite simply, is that the backlog weighs on me and inhibits the next stage of writing. For me, it’s been like looking at a very long to-do list or piles stacked around a room, all mumbling for attention someday. I prefer to work with a clear desk and plenty of room to assemble to new endeavor. (I’ve never known how Chinese cooks can prepare a multicourse dinner using a single-burner hotplate and barely more space – I’m not the kind of worker, even in the kitchen.)
- On top of it, the practice of submitting pieces to small-press journals is time-consuming, tedious, and piecemeal at best. In many cases, the audience is smaller than what shows up at the Barn, so the desired recognition is unlikely to result. And there are all the files to maintain and update. I’m sensing there are better ways for me to build and maintain those connections at this point in my literary career. So, after more than a thousand appearances in those periodicals, I’ve taken a hiatus.
- So much of my writing – especially the fiction – has been drafted on the fly before being uprooted to a new location and fresh set of challenges and experiences before I could fully digest those already in process. At last, being settled in one place for the past decade and a half has allowed me the stability to revisit and revise those works and bring them to some sense of closure. (Something regular readers here at the Barn are no doubt perceiving in my zigzag postings.)
- And then, at my age, I have no way of knowing whether I’ll be around 20 years from now to dole out the backlog – or even whether the book publishing world will still be available. The ebook option is a big opening that could close up at any time, the way hitchhiking flourished and suddenly ceased. Think of Amazon and its recent actions, for starters.
- Besides, to be candid, each of my works is different – I don’t expect anyone to read everything I create. Rather, I hope a given reader will find something among them that will appeal, even while skipping over others.
As I watch my filing cabinets empty and the piles shrink, please understand the joy I’m feeling. Understand, too, how liberating I’m finding the opportunity to publish at Smashwords and Thistle/Flinch. And please delve into those offerings.
Jnana's Red Barn 