Today's actually a fairly big day for me. I've finally done something I've wanted to do for a long time. I've put something I wrote up for sale.

I keep wanting to describe it here as vanity, but it's more than that. It's my writing. It's for sale. It's my writing for sale. Anyone who's an artist can describe this feeling. Few outside those who sell what they create can. There's something incredibly empowering in the idea of making a living on the fruit's of one's creative endeavors. It's powerful. This is in no way "making a living" on it, but if even one person pays money to read it, then I've accomplished a goal. I've written something I wanted to write, and had someone give me money for it.
I'll have sold my creative writing.

One dollar, in that context, seems pretty lousy. Professional rates for authors when I was growing up was three cents a word. At three-thousand, four-hundred-seventy-three words, three cents a word is over a hundred
dollars. Most people will not pay a hundred dollars for five pages of written text. Even I wouldn't pay that much. I would love it people did, but they don't.

The price-point's actually probably about right. It's little enough to seem like a pittance to most people, and enough to actually be worth my time. I only see eighty cents out of that buck, but that's more than zero which is
what I'd get if I just put it online on my website. I do intend to keep writing and giving stuff away, because I enjoy writing, but I do want to at least focus some amount of my time towards writing for payment. I'd like to see some kind of positive return on my investment, and I think I'm good enough to get it, if I can just get my name out there.

Jessie actually quipped while I was writing Lateral Promotion that I'd never make it as a porn-writer because I take too much pride in my work. I can't crank it out fast enough and I spend too much time worrying about plot and character and setting and not enough time worry about which tab fits into whose slot. I'm hoping I can prove her wrong, but it'd be nice to sell more than just smut.

That's where Child of Man fits into the picture.

I've been working on this novel for the better part of two years now. I won't say it's become all-engrossing because I am writing things other than that—Lateral Promotion, for example—but it is sucking away large amounts of my brain power trying to keep the thing moving. I'm already at thirty-two thousand words and counting. I know, I know. NaNoWriMo people crank out more than that in way less time, but few of them try to sell the products of their effort. This is something I think I can actually market if I put some effort into it.

Now I just have to see if anybody bites the hook.

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This week, actually, has been quite good overall. Tanya came out for a visit, and it's always good to see her. I picked up some fresh cosmetics for Jessie that should do what her concealer wand wasn't handling. I got word that the repairs on the house have finally started. The previous owner of the house has contacted me and confirmed that he's going to finish siding the garage. There've been a few big dips, but right now they seem pretty
inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

It's always nice to feel like things are getting better.