Winner Announced, Longmire, Quality vs. Quantity #writestuff #caffeinateme

A very happy hump day to you all! The glow of the sunrise has just faded from the tree line, and it is looking to be another absolutely stunning fall day here. This is the best weather for cooking- warming the house and filling it with cozy, enticing aromas. Not sure what's on the menu today, but a nice pot of soup sounds like the ticket. Maybe a hearty stew would be nice. What do you think?

Thank you to everyone who participated in my Keeping House blog tour and giveaway. Will at Pride Promotions emailed me the name and contact information of the winner yesterday, and I want to say congratulations to Milica, and your prize has been sent.

As promised, Jae has sent me the first round of edits for Telling the Truth, which is book #2 of the Truth or Dare series. This one is the story of Terry Blake, and the Hyatt twins. This story is a ménage, with a bit of a twist, what with the twins and all. I'd call it twincest, but well… Amazon doesn't like that. It will be interesting to see if Amazon will allow me to put it back up there. Yesterday I started my final Jack of Spades book for the year, Dead Money. By started I mean I set up the docs and wrote the first draft of the blurb, at Havan's urging. Today I'd like to get the first chapter done.

Are you a mystery fan? The SO and I have been watching what used to be an AMC show called Longmire about a Wyoming Sheriff. Well, now it’s a Netflix Original show, and I have to say they did a pretty decent job of continuing the show. The only thing is, each season is only ten episodes, so we watched the whole fourth season in about a week.  And they hardly resolved a thing. Now we have to wait an entire year… A YEAR! To find out what happened to Henry Standing Bear and Walt. Talk about cliffhangers.

Yesterday I shared some Wendig with you.

Well, today I found more Wendig in my email. This time it was about prolific authors. There's a school of thought in the publishing world that less is better and you cannot produce a quantity of work and still have that work be of superior quality. Yet in 23 years of writing Shakespeare wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets and still had time to be a businessman and an actor. This article by Stephen King enumerates other prolific authors including Agatha Christie and John D. MacDonald.

I cannot debate quality or quantity, or what comprises either one. Is four books a year too many? Six? Eight? A dozen? As for quality- well, that's as amorphous a topic as you could choose isn't it?

Quality.

By what scale or tape do we measure that? Certainly you can't measure it by popularity. I mean… seriously. Some of the novels that sell millions of copies are lacking in quality. I've read New York Times best sellers that are riddled with typos, plot wholes and unbelievable devices. And I've selected random books from the shelves of the library that left me just spellbound.

It seems the problem with art is that everyone feels they have the right to critique it.

And go beyond that and tell you how to do it.

Or how not to do it.

Is it not art if you paint five canvasses a year?

Is it not art if you throw six pots a month?

Why do people think they get to decide these things?

I have no idea. But I'll tell you, in this I am with Wendig and King.

Write as much as you like.

Tell your stories, your way and find your audience.

When you find them, they'll be glad that you sit at your desk and work hard every day to produce more for them. They'll wait for each new title, they'll cheer each release. And they'll most likely demand more.

Do it. Go. Write. Feed the artist in you, and let those who would count every word and eye each release with pursed lips and lowered brows worry about themselves.

Whoo. Sorry got a little ranty there. *dashes off to YouTube* There… some Petty will take care of that! 

Y'all have a great day.