somewhat bored

I'm sitting here, waiting for Jason and Anthony to return. They've gone to Home Depot, bits for the ceiling fan, a piece of baseboard, stucco too. They arrived this AM at half ten, a few hours later than what Jason said last night, when they departed at nearly 9 PM. Not because they were so busy, but because they didn't arrive until 7.30 PM.

Not to whine, just to say that when Jason claimed they'd be here this morning at 8, Bob only said, "Really?" with a hefty dose of disdain in his voice.

Jason's maybe twenty-six, a surfer at heart, as well as jack of all trades when it comes to home construction. Kitchens are his specialty, mine a lovely example of his work. Ah youth!

So, I've written a plethora of words already today, most before they arrived, a chunk once they were here, painting and installing attic fans. The ceiling fan is this afternoon's task, why I'm home, not at the write-in. And because I'm done with the work and not feeling like plotting next month's project, I'm blogging.

And I do have a theme. Let's see if I can remember what it was... Oh yeah! Writers...

Deceased writers, like dead old people from yesterday's entry, as every day I look at the recent deaths on Wikipedia's front page. This month a lot of writers have died, from all over the globe.

Most recently was Phyllis Gotlieb, a Canadian science fiction author. Then there's Uma Aaltonen from Finland, Simon Vinkenoog from Holland, Norwegian Ebba Haslund, Vasily Aksyonov from Russia, Lasse Stromstedt from Sweden, Jorge Enrique Adoum from Ecuador, Bangladeshi Alauddin Al-Azad, Onni Palaste from Finland, Basque writer Baltasar Porcel, all these men and women only from this month.

Now, I have never read a single WORD by any of these people. Chances are I probably won't. Not because I'm lazy or biased against non-American writers, or because they're dead. Just that in my spare time, I'm blogging or crocheting or driving around making eye doctor appointments. I do love to read, but, confession time, I prefer writing.

(There, I've said it.)

That admitted, what I'm getting at, I think, is that for all we write, all we slave over, pour our souls into in great, heaving amounts, well, at the end of the day we'll be like the above names, only remembered by those who loved us, and if we're lucky to be published with some degree of success, a page on Wikipedia. The last writer had barely a stub on Wikipedia, so that link is to an article about that author, detailing his work.

Today on Nathan Bransford's blog is an interesting post about the e-book debate, whether that form of media should be discounted and sold, say, six months after the release of a hardcover book. I read the entire post, then the comments (the first eight), and right now, it's going right over my head. Partly, well, maybe mostly due to my non-publishing status, and partly due to the fickle nature of this beast.

Publishing is a business, writing an art, craft. If I have learned NOTHING else in the last two and a half years, it's that. Maybe I knew it, maybe I thought I knew it. Now, I really know.

I've taken a sabbatical from the publishing side, not the writing. I don't mean to make it into an either/or sort of situation, but it can be that way, or there can be coalescing harmony.

I'd LOVE to have the latter. Maybe one day I will. The above authors did, to some degree, or else they'd not have a Wikipedia page. But in discovering all these names, people like me who have laid their souls on paper or through a keyboard, there is this kinship I feel, and whether I've read their work or not is irrelevant. As if I would understand the passing of a great builder if I was, say, Jason, looking upon a finished house from hands so talented. Knowing the finesse applied, required, and I read these Wiki pages with interest, snippets of the lives led, now ended.

The chaps are back, getting ready to install the ceiling fan. I have learned MUCH from our experiences with remodeling from last fall and even today. Always learning, appreciating, wondering where this writing path will lead me. It might lead to more books published (and I suspect it will, if not only because with all I've written, another manuscript HAS to find a home eventually, one of these days) or maybe only one, with a body of work that sat appreciated only by those curious.

Either way, have a peek at these names, if you're at all intrigued. I'm going to watch my living room undergo an alteration, and enjoy this not overly hot summer's day...