Random thoughts to end the week

My blog posting this week is a random jumble of thoughts. Apologies in advance if it doesn’t make any sense.

Publishing is a tough business right now. Publishers are buying fewer and fewer new authors, and too many published authors are getting swept up under the carpet.

I read on another blog about another E-Publisher going under. That, along with Triskelon’s demise is going to leave a lot of authors scrambling to reclaim the rights to their books.

We know first hand at Drunk Writers that having an agent is no guarantee of a sale, even a good agent, and that getting published is hard, and staying published is even harder.

I’m painting a pretty rosy picture here, aren’t I.

But there are really positive things happening. If the success of the JR Ward series tells me anything its that there are no rules except the happily ending rule, and that only has to apply to the central couple of the book.

Now is a great time to throw everything out the window and write something different and dramatic without even a thought to market. Which is really freeing.

How do we Drunk Writers remain optimistic? Well, Molly sells more books, so she’s got a reason to be optimistic these days, so let’s take her out of the equation.

First and foremost, we write the next book. We sit in our local pub and talk storytelling till anyone not a writer would be snoozing in their beer. We meet with our critique group and get honest, straightforward evaluations of our writing that help us get better.

And we take the criticism and use it to get better. If I didn’t think each book was in some way better than the last, I think I’d have to give up writing altogether.

I learn something new every time I talk with my fellow drunk writers, every time I go to a critique group meeting, every time I write a new book.

And not to sound all Pollyanna, but that’s what keeps me going. I love the challenge of creating a 400 page novel out of literally nothing and knowing it might not be pig swill.

That’s where my random thoughts took me this week. What keeps everyone else going, other than wine, beer and cider?