. . . interviewed over at David Nygren’s place.
It’s an awesome interview and a good lesson in unintended consequences of doing something you love, and that love communicating itself to others to create its own brand.
So today I’m listening to Babs and this line keeps jumping out at me: “Art isn’t easy, even when you’re hot. Advancing art is easy; financing it is not…Every time I start to feel defensive, I remember vinyl is expensive.”
In case no one missed me, I’ll tell you what I’m doing:
1. Damned Day Job. You know, I’m awfully glad to have one right now, so I’ll refrain from bitching. See aforementioned financing art to understand why I feel obliged to tell you that.
2. Had a very short deadline drop in my lap for a project I feel privileged to be part of, so there is much e-mailing and such going on around my office in order to get this yumminess out into the marketplace.
3. Stay is finished sorta. A secondary character (a throwaway, but how come all my redshirts end up demanding their own stories?) garnered some attention from alpha readers who said, “Hey, what happened to him?” The original story with Vanessa and Eric is finished and in the hands of beta readers. Yet again I’ve decided to do something bizarre, which is to say, put two mirror-image stories back-to-back in the same spine.
4. Magdalene is 3/4 finished. I believe Cassie St. James is the woman I’ve most enjoyed writing. Ever.
This balancing the art with the marketing is getting on my nerves, quite frankly. I’m a writer and I love my imaginary friends; I settle in with them and I’m mentally…gone…for days.
Plus, I’m still convinced that an author’s brand is the writing, the stories themselves. How can you have a brand that’s the writing if you only have 1 product?
I like blogging, don’t get me wrong—when I have something to say. I also didn’t like feeling like a slave to my stats, who’s visiting, where they’re coming from, what they’re reading…
Some days, I just don’t have anything to say and you know, I think more people should just not say anything when they have nothing to say. Not every second of every day must be filled with words just because we fear silence.
Tax Deduction #2, male, 3 years old, doesn’t read, taught me a very valuable lesson yesterday when he saw this: 
in the bottom right-hand corner of a TV commercial with no other identifying branding and no voice-over identifying the company.
He knew what it was immediately. Pointed at it, blurted it out. Dude didn’t know what it was until the company identified itself.
Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from me.
Mojo Branding Lesson #1.
Sigh.
…but I forgot the phone number.
Be back when I don’t feel like Teh Crud.
