Sudden Downfall

I had a bad experience last night, I was walking back from the shop (pub) up the lane behind my house as I have done 1,000’s of times in the last 10 yrs, but the street lamp was bust. I was a foot behind the missus as she was talking to me, when I kicked (accidentally) something that was immoveable, and fell like a sack of spuds through an open manhole. Talk about a sudden downfall!

As I lay face-down in the grit, I saw Neem look around for me, before she realised I was five feet below her. All the extremities bar one suffered minor scrapes, but the only real damage was to the Kindle, which is a write-off.

Luckily, our lane is not full of dog crap like British ones.

I miss my Kindle already, but the screen is shattered and touching it doesn’t produce any results. I have ordered a new one from America and it should be here in a fortnight, but it’s like giving up drinking or smoking!

Last year, my book sales rose 140% with a dozen extra titles (some of which sold nothing), so I am hoping for the same increase this year, but without the no-sales titles. The problem is though, how do you know what will sell until you try to sell it, as all you artistic types will know.

‘That’s easy!’ I hear marketers shout, ‘Research!’

Yes, all very well to say that, but you can only do what is within you, and what is in, will out!

Sometimes, it’s like a hurdle… you have to get over that one, succeed or not, in order to get onto the next one where again, you may succeed or not, but there is no way around it. I hear many writers saying that thy have two or three books ‘on the go’, but I suspect that they have to finish the first ones first before thy can get to where they want  to be.

It’s like looking over a high wall or looking from one mountain top to the next. It’s not far as the crow flies, but that is not the point – it can be a very long way off.

Despite having published ‘Dead Centre 2’ about three weeks ago, I am becoming an irritable pain in the arse to all around me, and what is worse I know it, and what is even worse, I can’t help it. Perhaps it’s like PMT or the menopause… It hurts me to be a nuisance, but I know that the only cure is to start writing again.

Unfortunately, talking to you like this, dear reader, is not enough. Perhaps because the feedback is so long delayed, if I get any. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daily monologues, but it is not the same as writing and publishing a new book.

Very far from it….

As I left the house to write this, my wife told me ‘not to fall over again’.
I know she means well, but really, I didn’t mean my sudden downfall last night either!

Oh, by the way, I have had 18,000+ pageviews on Google+ in the last three days! Great, eh? But no more sales than usual. As Pink Floyd said:

‘And it makes me wonder… Why?!’

or as the late, great Kenneth Williams wrote at the end of his diary:

‘What’s the bloody point?!’

All the best,

Owen

Podcast: Sudden Downfall