My Writing is Suffering

There was a time when I got up at 5:30 every morning, turned on my Smith Corona office electric typewriter, wrote for half and hour, then roused the family, got them out the door and wrote until three in the afternoon. Granted, about half the typing I did at that time was of the cross-out- and- try-again variety. But there have been days when I wrote 3,000 words. Not often, but some.

Eleven published books later, I can barely write a couple hundred words, and I seriously think they probably shouldn't have been written or even thought. Writing has changed drastically in the last twenty-five years. Publishing has changed. Reading has changed. I haven't been able to keep up.

I've been interested in electronic publishing since 1987. My first ebook came out in 1988 -- Once Again a Princess, if you care to check it out. It was a book I just sat down and let fly. At the time, I was recovering my sight from two eye surgeries. I had no thought in the world it would ever get past my computer. It broke all the rules I'd been working with to try to sell to Harlequin, Silhouette and Zebra. And it was way long. I imagine, whereas my other ebooks go into trade paperback, Princess will never see print because of its length.

It's hard, having written, to go back and write some more. It's a lonely thing to do, unappreciated and underpaid. But maybe I'll get back to it, get a great idea that will hound me into its revelation. But I'm getting too old for that.