I'm a writer. An artist. A fanciful person. Must I be a technology geek too? When I graduated high school IBM was the only one in the world with a computer and it took up 1,000 square feet. Okay, I'm not that old but almost.
I am not good with all this kumpooter mumbo jumbo and I'm scared that my career as a novelist will suffer as a result. I'll be stuck penning each book individually like an old monk while others post to Amazon Kindle, Smashwords and all the other sites for those things called e readers (which I can't figure out how to work, BTW). Writing BTW is my way of making the effort to keep up and that's pretty much as good as it's gonna get. Texting, I can do. Formatting a novel to self publish, designing a book cover, even deciphering how to design the template for this blog is enough to make my brain constrict with overuse. My fear of being left behind is imminent. It isn't that I don't want to learn. I do. But when someone tries to explain truncated pixels and dpi's, I compose my grocery shopping list in my head and simply smile at them. If the explanation goes on past the list's completion, I think of ways to walk away without hurting their feelings, like fainting or clutching my stomach and running to the toilet. I can barely read a how-to article. I can't even have a phone conversation longer than 5 minutes. I blame my mother's genes and my horribly busy life for this lack of concentration. When you feel the need to clean the bathroom while you are on the toilet, (come on- you know you do this, replacing the toilet paper roll, wiping the counter as far as you can reach), stopping long enough to listen to a lengthy and boring explanation of how a microsoft program works doesn't hold my attention. It isn't until I am between the sheets at 10 pm, kids tucked in, dogs settled, house locked, that I take that quiet hour to focus on a book. And taking computer manuals to bed isn't my idea of entertainment, although it might get me to turn off the light five minutes after I start reading.
Now I discover they have support for writers, businesses that will do all this for you, for a cost. I plan to use some of these people in the not too distant future if I can justify the cost. I'd like to hand everything off and have a support person/technology genius do everything but write for me, but I'm not working at Macy's for $11 an hour to be techno lazy. Like most authors, every penny is precious and hundreds of dollars cannot be spent on writing when kids need braces, especially because writing is my silly hobby until I start making scads of money. Offering a big check to someone to do the dirty work for me isn't going to be possible until I hit the best seller lists, if that.
And so this is my rant because I'm frustrated that I haven't done much writing lately, as I learn how to market, upload, format and decipher kumpooter speak.
As always, more later.
Kim Hornsby
