{"id":716,"date":"2011-03-22T19:13:05","date_gmt":"2011-03-23T02:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/?p=716"},"modified":"2012-08-31T13:22:26","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T20:22:26","slug":"misty-mountains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/2011\/03\/22\/misty-mountains\/","title":{"rendered":"Misty Mountains"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>I was going to start this blog entry saying that how to get published consumes my thoughts\u00a0most of the day and, at times, most of the night, too. Everywhere I turn people say “this is how” and they present their list of what to do which any idiot can figure out. The how is something else entirely. And then I remember what I wrote about some time ago – getting published is easy. What really consumes my thoughts is how to create demand for my work. Ah, that’s a different animal entirely.<\/p>\n

This morning I read on a writer’s forum someone asking for advice about blogging, and one of the replies struck a chord with me. Keep a camera with you – photos and such make for easy and interesting blogging.\u00a0Just a short while earlier I’d pointed out the mist covered mountains not far away to my son, and I started thinking about all the difficulties I’m going through trying to figure out what I need to figure out.<\/p>\n

So after leaving my son off at school, I swung by the house, picked up my camera, and drove out a few miles towards the Superstitions. Where the road turned sharply and inexplicably to the south, I pulled over, took a deep breath, and paused for a moment, and noticed just how different the scents and sounds were here even though I was just a few miles from home. In the distance were the mountains – the whole reason for me being out there, and I began thinking about Tolkien and Zeppelin and Dire Straits, wishing I had a little magic in my corner.<\/p>\n

When I began writing it was like riding a bike in first gear. My legs were pumping like mad and even though I wasn’t moving forward very fast at all, I was happy, nonetheless, excitedly holding myself upright.\u00a0As I became more experienced I was able to change into second and then third gears and was racing, I mean really flying, towards what I thought was the finish line. Well, it was the finish line, and to reach it all I had to do was traverse a bottomless, fog-shrouded canyon. “Keep your eyes on the horizon and you’ll get there,” was my only encouragement. Not very helpful in the fog where I can’t see a damned thing.<\/p>\n

I do know when I’m headed down, though. It’s easy, especially when the wheel goes off the edge of the rock and I skin my knees to the bone. “Don’t give up!” comes that same far-off voice, but I fear by the time I reach the goal I’ll be as good as dead, worn out and extremely bitter because I already know there’s a bridge here, somewhere, or at least a trail. As I haul my bruised and battered ass up and down the razor-sharp crags, I just hope I’ll be able to hold onto the promise I made myself of helping others by at least showing the way NOT to take.<\/p>\n

I know – it’s a test of character. That’s the excuse offered, at least. Just like the drill\u00a0sergeant\u00a0who yells at the recruit to keep going regardless…but then I think wait a minute – why is the drill sergeant doing that? Because someday that kind of encouragement may save that soldier’s life. If becoming an author had those kinds of stakes I would more easily understand. If every book I read were “the best book ever” I’d also understand. Such is not the case.<\/p>\n

Some will scoff and say “but there is no finish line.” I beg to differ. A finish line does not necessarily equate with stopping and doing no more. Instead, it represents the end of a single round of an ongoing competition.<\/p>\n

Exhausted, but onwards ho…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was going to start this blog entry saying that how to get published consumes my thoughts\u00a0most of the day and, at times, most of the night, too. Everywhere I turn people say “this is how” and they present their … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writinghelp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":738,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions\/738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardpnixon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}