Purpose of Writing

As an older writer, I have been down the river a time or two, believe you me. As all good writers, I have had a plethora of jobs that add to my experience. For example:

• Warehouseman for 6 years
• Failed insurance salesman for a half year
• Journey electrician for 9 years
• Television production for 14 years
• Telephone operator for 7 years
• Internet marketer for more than a dozen years

Well, actually, the last, the Internet marketing thing was as much of an excuse to write as anything.

When I hear someone say that they write for pleasure I automatically see them as really needing to get another hobby. Writing is not pleasurable for me. It takes me out of this world into another. When I eventually swim up for a gulp of air (When writing do you think that is air you’re breathing? Hmm?) I find that hours have passed me by. There could have been a nuclear war or a new baby added to the family and I would not have known it.

I prefer the REAL world. Thus, writing is a chore.

However, I’d rather be writing than unloading box cars. That’s too much of the real world for me. Writing is what I do!

In the meantime, unfortunately, my history has been one of the old “canary in the coal mine.” Fact is, whenever there has been a financial downturn in the national economy, I have always managed to be the low man on the totem pole and the first out the door.

With Google pulling their latest shenanigans, which, if you don’t know what they are, count yourself lucky, making money online with Internet marketing has become really hit or miss these days. Sure, the Internet is still making companies a lot of money, but now it is much more scattered out. Few are doing well enough with it these days to call it a living.

So, now I’m a writer, full time.

Writing full time is as much of a real job as a real job…and a entrepreneurial job at that. Building bird houses, as it turns out, may more lucrative, but a man has to do what he does, eventually.

Thus, I write. I write not only for fame, but fortune as well. I need to get PAID for what  I write. I don’t do it for fun. I don’t do it as a hobby.

It just so happens that I have a theme and brand, which I know intimately and believe in strongly. My theme centers on the little town of Cowchip Alabama. I’m betting that there enough good folks out there who are curious about this curious little town and what happens there that they will be emboldened to pay to hear the latest news.

Witness my latest addition called “Christmas In Cowchip.”

As a writer who never stops learning, and always honing, this is my best work to date.

In the early part of 2013 I will loose my first novel called the RYO Lodge. It’s a doozy, believe you me!

Following that I’ll take a new tack with a novel called, “The Choccolocco Valley.” It will also eventually be a series.

Then, I’ll write more Cowchip type short stories, which I’ll eventually release as a major book as well.

By this time, there will be so many characters in my arsenal that I’ll have enough to write about for the rest of my life, and that’s just hanging around Cowchip Alabama.

Do I expect quick success? No. Do I expect eventual success? Yes!

There is ample evidence that there are enough folks out there who enjoy quirky places and people that when the tipping point is reached, I’ll be selling enough books to actually make a living.

Will I ever run out of stuff to write about? Hardly! The only limiting factor is my output. Writing about Cowchip is so darned easy, because the characters do all of that stuff. I just report what I see. I’m a Cowchip reporter, I guess. There’s always something wacky, strange, and cool going on in Cowchip Alabama! Wow!

Norm