Howdy.

Nothing about writing today; just an update on my motorcycle project. I started shaping the tank today…it doesn’t look like much yet, but once I get some bondo on this puppy, get it primed and painted, it’s going to look awesome!

Howdy.

Well, I had high hopes for 2012, and so far those hopes have come crashing down all around me.

Well, it’s January, which means it’s time for my yearly existential crisis.

This existential crisis means I recently applied for a job in a bike shop. Looks like I’m going to get it, too. I won’t whine about it, I promise, but I want you all to know that I am doing this under duress. Unlike millions of other unemployed Americans, I do not qualify for unemployment benefits. Go figure.

Okay, so my last post was self-indulgent and dramatic. I’m a writer. Give me a break.

I had every intention of sticking to my guns about this blog. Why bother? What was it doing for me? Had I really gotten any sales out of it? Had it worked as a marketing tool?

And therein lies my A-HA! moment.

Sit tight. This is going to be a rant.

As you may have noticed, I haven’t written on my blog in a while. I’m not going to make excuses: I just didn’t want to. You want to know why?

Because blogging doesn’t improve my life.

It doesn’t further my career.

It doesn’t sell books.

If you’re a writer, or artist, or entrepreneur, you’ve probably read countless articles about how important it is to have an online presence. Tweet, they say. Facebook, they say. Blog, blog, blog. Provide content. That’s what I did in 2011: I provided content.

Lots of it.

For free.

But I’m not  going to do that anymore. Think about if we asked engineers to post their new designs online. What if we asked dentists to perform a cavity fill for free every few days, just to stay in the public’s eye. How about if we told car mechanics to install mufflers two or three times a week for free? Would they do it? Hell fucking no.

And why?

Because they are smart enough to not work for free.

For some reason, artists haven’t gotten it through their heads that providing content for free cheapens that content. People will expect it for free, and I fear there’s no going back on that. Think about newspapers that have transitioned to websites, providing content for free, only to find that they now can’t put up a paywall without readerships freaking out.

It’s really great that Amanda Hocking made millions by pricing her books at $0.99. Hell, if I thought I could pull that off, I’d do it. But honestly, how long can we, as writers or artists, support ourselves if the art is continually cheapened—AND WE ARE THE MAIN CULPRITS?

Look, we’re not going to make millions. Most of us will be lucky to make enough off of writing and art to pay some of our bills. I know that very well, because I have been barely getting by for years as a writer. That does not mean we should give ourselves away. American society will have us believe that artists are expendable. They will tell you that liberal arts degree was a bad idea because, hey, there’s no jobs, what did you expect? Art class was always a blow class in high school anyway, so you should have just gotten an engineering degree, right?

Wrong, and fuck you for saying so.

We’re all born with certain talents. We all develop certain talents as we develop. Just because I was talented in writing and not math does not make me less of a person. It does not make my work any less valuable. I fear our society will only realize that centuries later, when the texts and the e-mails and the Tweets are all gone, and there’s no record of who or what we were as a society. Hard drives crash. Books have a pesky tendency to survive. Then what will be say? How will we be remembered?

This sounds bad, I know. There’s a reason why. This is my sign-off from the blog. I won’t be blogging after this, because I don’t find blogging to be valuable. I feel like it’s a contribution toward temporary media, toward the perpetuation of the cheapening of a craft that I happen to love. Others do not feel this way, and they will continue to blog, and to them, I say good for you. I’m glad you have found a passion.

But my writing is worth more than that, and I refuse to give it away. I refuse to participate in the destruction of a craft. I’m done.

The manuscript for “Men Waiting For Sleep” is currently in rewrites. I will release this as a novel. But then, sadly, I think I’m done.

When you call out into the world that you have something to say, and then you say it, and the world moves on and ignores you, perhaps this is a sign. I’ve written five novels. I’ve written countless short stories. I’ve even got screenplays and poems and essays and ramblings. What have I got to show for it?

A webpage.

A blog.

And a lot of bills.

I will focus on the things that improve my life. I’m confident writing will be one of those things, but I will not blog anymore. I will not cheapen my craft. Thanks for reading, if you’ve read at all. I sincerely doubt you have. This blog post is mostly for me…if you read it, well, sorry to have dragged you into this. Sometimes when people shout, it’s just not worth listening to anyway.