A Familiar Ring

Well, here are with the holiday season upon us again. I have to confess with as busy as I've been with preparing for the upcoming holiday, as well as the sixteenth birthday of my firstborn, I haven't had much time to write lately. Until a few hours ago, I'd even forgotten I needed a topic for my weekly blog. As I contemplated this, I came to a somewhat sobering realization.

I've been writing this blog for more than a year now. If you've read it since the beginning, you know it was the encouragement of friend and fellow author Patrick Hester that motivated me to do so. That alone isn't the sobering thought. The more sobering thought is that a year has passed and I nearly wrote the same topic today that I wrote this time last year.

At this time last year, I was wishing for one thing. I wanted a literary agent to extend an offer of representation or a publisher to agree to publish my latest novel. I didn't get what I wanted last year, and it appears I won't get it this year.  I have only a few queries outstanding, and this is the time of year when most literary operations slow down.

Thinking about this makes me realize, I'm about to enter my sixth year in the professional writing industry, and I've yet to break mainstream's glass ceiling. The industry has also changed a great deal from the time I started.When I first started out, the e-book was still an innovation of the future. Now there are fewer brick and mortar bookstores as more authors go strictly digital. Case in point, my friend and fellow author Erica Stanciu just had her first novel Electrify Me released last week, and it's digital only. As a purist, I'm a bit sad to see books going the way of the VHS and beta tapes, but I understand. I understand and I digress.

Let me make one thing clear. While I'm sad not to have mainstream publication, I'm grateful for the success I've found on my favorite online site. Still, as the years pass, it feels a bit like my dream slips further away. So, I have to make a choice. I can either allow my dream to evolve with the changing of technology, or I can lament about what I think will never be.

Whatever choice I make, one thing is still true. I want the same thing for Christmas this year that I wanted last year. Hence, the familiar ring, which seems appropriate for this time of year.