Don, I love this quote!
" The public is the
only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all."
The only problem with
this is has been getting the public's attention long enough to give us an
opinion. It has become a long process of trial and error. Over and over again
we are constantly bombarded with how important marketing and advertising is –
and then we are undated with marketing and advertising to the extent that as
consumers, we no longer care. Another interesting tidbit of information, useful or not, is that Millennials are most likely to leave an opinion than the other generations.
Getting noticed has been one of the
problems facing Wormhole Electric Publishing. And yes, sadly to say, the name Electric
Wormhole is already taken. I investigated long and hard but was unable to find
out actually who owned that name.
I've also been
investigating the different reading habits of adults and have come to the
conclusion that Wormhole writers and editors are not normal. It has been
reported that generally, women read approximately 12 fiction books a year; men read
maybe six books a year – mostly nonfiction. These are sad changes from the
reports that I used to base Wormhole off of.
One of the more compelling factoids that I found is that people that would be most likely to buy Wormhole's books do not use social media on a regular basis... So the question becomes how to catch their attention.
Another interesting fact
is that even though more women read books than men, most of the published
authors are male. This is not to say that there aren't any good female authors,
it is just to say that there is a gender issue in the publishing industry.
So all of this
information has put me in quite a quandary: do I start moving Wormhole to be
more open to women readers? The majority of our writers over the last year and
a half have been women... But we are writing in a men's field – science fiction
and action adventure.
Because our names sound
female, does this mean that our work is not being bought? I have to say that
from an editor's point of view, if I were to take the names of the authors off
of their stories, I don't think that readers would be able to say what was
written by a man and what was written by a woman. We have exceptions – Zack's work and
Colby's work are definitely male. And Laura's work is definitely female... But
for the rest of our writers, I think it would be hard to tell. Tammy's work is
definitely Twilight Zone with a science fiction twist; O'Ryan's work is macabre.
I think both of these authors could hold their own against any male writer.
Enough of my soapbox.
Sorry to hear of the demise
of the "bug" in the Yucatecan. I guess I never thought of Ferraris on
the peninsula... What an interesting assumption I made. But I have to admit,
that I never thought much about Ferraris to begin with. I always assumed that
they had to be a very rich person's car because they spent most of their time
in the shop getting fixed.
I understand your
hesitation about children exploring with "unfettered spontaneity".
This has been one of the problems with the millennial child – and it is showing
up in the classroom. This tendency to believe that children will unerringly "do
the right thing at the right time" has led many parents into becoming
helicopter parents and to have their children board with them into their 30s.
The socialization
consequences have been devastated. People are cocooning, have no idea how to get
along with people outside of their own group. Many are shy, in need of constant
reassurance, or have little understanding about how they affect the world
around them. The one exception to this has been the veterans that have graced
my classroom. These good folks come with intention, purpose, and the will to
succeed. They have had discipline and they are willing to apply it to themselves
in order to accomplish their goal.
Believe it or not I have
had several impromptu comedians in my classes over the last couple of years. Needless
to say, those were great classes to teach – just inside the line of being
controlled. So I had to giggle with Mark Twain's quote about how long it takes
to prepare a good impromptu speech. Our speech teachers, however, would
disagree.
In a couple of weeks I
am going to be teaching story writing. I have been reading The Art of Storytelling: from Parents to Professional by Hannah
Harvey through the Great Courses series. Prof. Harvey discusses why
storytelling is so important – it makes life coherent, it gives us a sense of
who we are, and it helps us create a picture of our future.
Every good story should
contain our longings, our hopes, and our fears. She was able to make clear the
difference between fact and truth. Fact: what happened. Truth: what it meant.
One of the points that she makes is that the protagonist needs to have triumphs
and "stumblings" in order to show their humanness. I think the most
important point that Harvey points out is that even though storytellers are
unique in their background, their upbringing, and personality, they are
universal in their representation of culture and the human experience. I'm
looking forward to finishing the series.
Well, time to get ready
for a workshop that I teach next Friday, and also to finish off the
edits for the next Transport we will be publishing in a couple of weeks. With
all of the research that I have been doing and who is reading what, I'm
beginning to wonder if I need to change the focus of my Tracker Series. Even
though I enjoy the research writing that I have been doing, I'm finding myself
drifting more and more to the fiction side of writing. I also have a story about
two older sisters who bought a multidimensional bed-and-breakfast... That one
has not been quite as pushy as the Tracker series because I haven't really
given a whole lot of thought as to what other situations these two women could
get into. That's not to say that the thought isn't at the edge of my thinking,
it's to say that I'm not paying attention.
Have a great week
everyone. Don, travel and stay safe. If I remember correctly, last year you got
sunburned – hope you are taking precautions this year.
Carolyn
All images downloaded from Google Images or created by LVarvel
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