Insert Catchy Title Here

Yet again, I'm coming back to my old trusty friend after a freaking recoculously long break. Seriously, my last post here was in May? No wonder I'm so irritated. This used to be my therapy.

Sort of.

But now I don't even know where to begin. Maybe the start is a decent option. But if you've ever read my words on this blog then you already know how many times I've "apologized" for slacking off on writing here because I spend all day, every day, writing.

Well, I'm over it.

I'm done with following convention. The concept never sat comfortably with me before, and after trying to fit my square head into a round hole in the brick wall for the past 5 years, I'm done with the banging.

My forehead hurts.

Matt & I sat around the other night talking about my business, career, work life and how/why things are so stagnated. In the end he was right, it's time to break some fucking rules.

AKA: 

He said something that really hit home. To him, it didn’t appear that I was having as much fun with my work and writing life as I used to. That maybe I’m not doing what I “love” for a living.

At first I denied it saying, no babe, I love my job!

But I spent the whole day yesterday working on my business plan for Writesy Press, frustrated that I wasn’t doing as well as I wanted to be doing at this point in my career and it all just suddenly hit me.

I fucking hate doing the writing I’ve been doing for the past 3 years. It just isn’t me.

I mean, I want to sell my books of course but struggling for 3 days a month to come up with, essentially, 350 headlines/hashtags/clever ways to make people read my articles and then miraculously decide to spend their money on my books is a giant waste of my time.

Let me just say that I understand in today’s market there’s no way to sell without marketing. I also get that most writers would rather slit their monitor than try to sell to people.

I’m a shameless self-promoter. That’s my voice. I don’t tease you with clickbait only to under-deliver and have you click away before even thinking of buying my stuff. Though I’ve been pretending that’s me for a few years now.

Instead of

“Will Shaw get away and find love? *|URL|* #whothehellcares”

I’d much rather just rant about losing my passion for the past 3 years and say you can get my books here if you want to know what that passion is.

But for far too long now I somehow thought it was smarter to write to force advice and tips down the throats of other writers. And sure there are a lot of new writers who need help. But I finally realized yesterday that I can’t actually help any of them.

Every writer has to do it their own way. Every writer has to get over fear of releasing their words in their own time. I can’t help them find their voice either. Hell, I couldn’t hold onto my own for close to half a decade so why would they even listen to me anyway?

No matter how many times I pick up the pom-poms to try to encourage someone it just won’t matter, because I’m no cheerleader.

I tried and quit cheerleading in the same week when I was about 12 years old because I realized I just don’t have that much spirit. Cynical advice isn’t really a thing.

I’m over it. I’m over trying to encourage people to do the very thing I can’t seem to figure out how to do – sell their books with countless, useless words that fall on deaf ears. And I’m over trying to tell people the best practices for anything just so my blog gets a few extra notches in the search engines.

It feels fake, and fake makes me squirm.

If I’m going to advise anyone of anything it’s going to come out like this – in snarky little bits of random babble that eventually have some kind of meaning. Maybe. Even if it’s just to see how fucked up my life is so it will act as a warning to others.

But I can’t tell anyone what to do with their own words. That’s just tacky.

So I’m over it. And instead, I’m back over here.

And in case you wondered, here’s some other things I'm also over (that all the top marketing people would have a heart attack if they read):

- Giving a crap what platform my blog lives on. Blogger has been good to me since 2007, it's free and I understand how it works. I’m sure Wordpress is great for marketing but, see above rant for why I just don’t care about any of that.

- Caring if I'm optimized for SE-whatever. I'm not a marketing god so I just don't have time (or mental capacity) to care about any of that. If it hits Google well yippie-do. If it doesn’t then I guess nobody is going to read it outside my family anyway.

- Length and layout of my posts. Sometimes it'll be 4 words and an image. Sometimes 4,000 words and no sub-headers. If you can't handle it, don't read it. The thing is called Randomness and Lunacy for a reason.

- Posting consistently on some rigid schedule. Blech. This blog thing may have morphed over the years but they started out as online journals and I’m old so I like things the way they used to be. And I can’t guarantee that I’ll have some perfect post to share every Friday at 7:02 AM because someone once said that’s the best time for a blog to go out.

- Grammar. Yeah, I know I’m getting tossed out of the writer’s club for even admitting that one out loud but I write this blog like I talk – stream of consciousness – so sometimes my sentences will be fractured, or (much more likely) run-ons, and sometimes I’m ending a sentence in a pronoun. Anyone who cares about that can suck it.

- Being perfect. Ah yes, I saved the biggie for last but I’m sure you knew it was coming. I will curse like a sailor. I will write and blog crap just to write (case in point: you’re reading it right now). I’ll ignore family, friends, laundry, personal hygiene and eating just to get words out at times. I’ll be lost in my own head and character development at least 50% of the time you spend time with me. Okay, it’s probably closer to 98%. I will study you and your demeanor so I can use it in a book. I will be awkward all the time, way too intense and serious and say shit that makes the average person uncomfortable. You're welcome.

I won’t be everyone’s taste but I just don’t care because, like Matt reminded me of last night:

“Well-behaved woman seldom make history.” – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
and I’m still of the belief that I’m going to do just that.

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EDITOR's NOTE: As of November 2015, shit is gonna get real. I'll no longer focus on my pitifully visited blog for new writers, every freaking blogger has a blog for new writers and I'm tired of trying to muscle my way into a club where the snacks already ran out. Because, what's the point if there's no food, right? Instead, I'll be back here and focused on bringing you the most random of the inner workings of my head as well as sharing short fiction pieces in my newsletter. Sign up, read them, bookmark this site...or whatever other call to action I'm supposed to use in this situation.