Sometimes We're Right About Something

The following is from my friend and member of The Writer’s Chatroom, Ed Easley, who is also a writer. Ed spent many years in the newspaper business before dropping out to write and edit fiction. Being somewhat of a dinosaur about marketing—he still thought he had to send press releases and books for review through snail mail …

Well, we at The Writer’s Chatroom had heard enough of his whining about lack of responses to all of his hard work, not to mention the expense. We’d talked to him repeatedly about a Web presence. He didn’t believe it was worth the effort at first. So, during an International chat one Friday I typed in, “Be right back”.

I bounced back into the chat from time to time for the next 10 to 15 minutes and then went back in to tell Ed he had been ambushed and now had his own blog. http://edeasley.blogspot.com I told him to give it about three weeks before he’d see any real responses. Who knew he had a lovely Webpage on his publisher’s site? I did—which is where I zapped that cute picture of him and his beard. Very few others did, it seems.

Anyhow, Ed started adding his publisher’s web addy and his new blog addy to every email he sent out—and every snail mail letter. Three weeks later, again at a chat, Ed reported that Audrey, Renee, and I had been right all along and he should have listened to us. We love hearing that we’re right about something once in awhile!

Web presence is something we preach religiously to all writers. I received the following from Ed today.

Please bear in mind that he writes humor (and has a girlfriend—just thought I’d throw that in):

August 16, 2006

Some time has passed. I’d poked my head into the site regularly, hoping comments to magically appear. They hadn’t. I figured I’d been right all along -- Web publishing was a worthless form of marketing.

I mean think about it; the Web is a really big place. Here I was, sitting in Washington state, expecting to have folks from all over the world magically find me over search engines. Right.

I’ve been to Reno. I’ve played the lottery. I live in Spokane, Wash., and still can’t drop a perfectly good house on my second ex-wife. Not even a used RV. The odds just plain suck. (Sorry to all you folks in Mississippi. Yep, all those trailers sitting on the Delta were mine. Target practice.)

So I whined to Linda. She showed me how to update the page. It turns out that lots of people wrote. They opened up the nuthouse gates, and well, I guess I run the lemonade stand.

You can read some of them at http://edeasley.blogspot.com/ . The best stuff has been the material about the two ex-cons who have been writing me. You meet all kinds of people in cyberspace. These guys just look at the pictures in my book. Pretty as I am, I had trouble getting a date for the prom.

They’d have taken me, if they’d been able to get work release. I’ll let you know when the wedding is, and where we are registered. I suspect it will be on a Sunday, that’s usually when they have visiting day up at Walla Walla’s state prison. (Yes, one of them is from Walla Walla -- just down the road from Spokane. He's the one due for parole in six months.)

I suspect there will be more interesting people who stop by my site. Linda gets all the nice folks. Folks you'd take home to Mom. All the weirdos write me. Go figure.

Y’all are welcome at my place. In fact, there’s a button you can push and write my publisher. How do you think he found me? You can find him to complain at http://www.cloonfadpress.com . I’ll keep you posted. I have a wedding to plan. --Ed

Lifestyle Changes and Writing

A few simple changes to your lifestyle and writing is the first thing to get swept from your schedule.

Take my recent hospitalization—seven days of being waited on hand and foot, with round the clock care and food to die for (literally)—and they objected to my switching the oxygen meter from my index finger to my toe so I could type on my laptop. Who can type without using their index finger? “They” also didn’t want me to keep the laptop in my room overnight for fear it might be stolen. Hmmm. No writing got done. A total waste of that wonderful wireless internet system they provided. (Of course, this was after the fifth day there because I don’t remember much about the first four days.)

A little over a week after my vacation at Riverside Medical Center, we closed on our new home and started moving. With three men in the house it was imperative we find the kitchen first. Then, and if you’ve ever raised boys you know, the next rooms to settle were the bathrooms. Find the deodorant! Find the shavers! Find the towels!

And THEN it was time to set up the desks and computers. Obviously, no writing got done. But then the “new” dial-up we’re now stuck with—at least in the short term—is so unpredictable I’m still not sure if what I send ever “goes” anywhere anyway. Can’t wait to attempt to send or receive large graphics files … My editors are going to love this!

Life isn’t so bad though. Hubby spent this past weekend building a new work/office center in our den. He started with maple doors removed from a house soon to be demolished on his new building site. We now have these fabulous new workstations that are not only so kitschy and clever they’ve transformed the space into total "chic”, but several issues which had been bothering me have been solved.

Wire management is in place—and hidden from view. My desk clutter—as soon as I find my desktop again—will be hidden from view from anywhere else in the house. We’ve removed all the old mis-matched office furniture and installed two thirteen-foot long bookshelves above the new space to hold my beloved books and other writerly "stuff".

“HE” has a separated space on the other side of the room—facing the other direction—where he can work to his heart’s content while I write.

Hmmm. But it seems the only writing I’ve gotten done so far is this blog entry …