(55 years ago)

news&updates

Oct
14

it’s always too late

(Originally posted 3/30/2019, prior to the release of neXt. Nothing has changed.)

 

Why would any remotely-intelligent writer post a story title without actually having a story to back it up?
Because that remotely-intelligent writer might be on the cusp of releasing a new book and knows that soon a flock of potential reviewers will be descending on their website to see what is what. And nothing helps them see that the writer that they are considering reviewing is legit more than a few great story titles.
And make no mistake, “it’s always too late” is a great story tittle.
And make no another mistake, if you look back at my recent story titles, they have sucked ass.
And by flock of potential reviewers, in my case, I mean one or two. At the most.
And those one or two have a readership that is mostly shut-ins and cats.
Why would I insult the very few reviewers who were nice enough to visit my website to see what is what? Because if they actually stopped to read this then I’m screwed already.
You see, I was going to write a story about one of those humongous people who are so fat that they have to remove the roof of their house and get a crane to get them out of bed, paid for by Dunkin Donuts under the assumption that if they can somehow get that personosaurus into their shop they will have a reasonable chance of eventually seeing a nice return on that investment, which would be a great use of a great title, but the more I typed about it the crueler I seemed to become.
I can’t have any potential reviewers seeing what a horrible person I am before they get a chance to actually read the new book… and see what a horrible person I am.
So then I pivoted and started to write a story about a guy who sent a laundry list of issues to his company’s Human Resources department that dealt only with his laundry. This made it necessary to immediately choose between that guy somehow working in the laundry industry or being a crazy person.
You can see what a complete debacle that was.
I even considered making the guy so fat that they had to remove the roof of his house and get a crane to get him out of bed in order for him to deliver his laundry list of issues.
Even worse.
Finally, I thought I would swim against the stream and write a tale about the expected, the usual or the known. Everybody else is writing about the unexpected or the unusual or the unknown, why not shake things up a bit?
The I realized that they’re not. The publishing industry is churning out boatloads of the expected, the usual and the known.
The safe stuff. Stuff people will actually pay money to read because they’re terrified at the thought of having an original idea of their own.
And it turns out I can’t seem to write a tale about the expected, the usual or the known, however much I’d like to.
So I churn out this stuff (remotely-intelligent babblings of a disaffected dork) because after seven books, and another on its way soon, it’s too late to change.
It’s always too late.

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