Respecting Authors

Want-to-be Author on YouTube
As you know, I am sort of addicted to YouTube. The other day, I saw a video by crossmack. I think he is a fairly popular YouTube vlogger. But the other day, he said he wanted to "publish a book". And he was looking for someone to go through his videos and write down his thoughts and put them in a book. I wonder if he is really looking for a ghost writer for his thoughts.

I do not subscribe to the guy, but he is sort of funny. Not funny in a good way, though. I saw another one of his videos where he said that text was 1% of communication, and if he really believes this, why want to publish a book. I am so confused.

What pisses me off, I guess, is that crossmack does not respect authorship. Respect people who write. I like listening to the videos on YouTube, but I would never want to produce a video. I have had to put some stuff together for work once, and it was a pain in the butt for two minutes of music and video. And you know, it sort of looked crappy as well. But writing; I love reading, and most readers want to write as well. Some do, I guess. I should not say most.

Lunch with an author or two
I have met a few authors. One was a one-time author, and I read her book. She did a great start of the book, but about one-third of the way through it, it was as if she lost some steam. Her words were not as crisp; her language not as descriptive. That would be me.

And I have met one famous author. He was so incredibly smart. Incredibly smart, and gracious. I had lunch with him, and it was such a treat (friend of a friend knew him before he was famous).

Come to think of it; I had lunch with both authors. I wonder if published authors "do lunch" a lot. If that is the case, perhaps I don't want to be a published author. I don't like eating with people I don't know well because I have to mind my manners and I eat far less than I normally want to eat with strangers. I guess with that, I could do lots of lunches, because I would always be hungry.

Want-to-be Author Leesa
Every couple of months, I wonder if I will start my first book. I have done a little bit of research, and most novels are at least 80,000 words. Let's say one of my entries is about 500 words (just a guess). I do about 200 posts per year, and if I carry the – whatever – it comes to about 100,000 words. Well, all of these are estimates, but if this is the case, it would take me about one year to write a book. Charles Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" in about 45 days (but lets face it, he is brilliant), and most authors seem to take two to four months to go from start to finish on a product. Holy crap, that's how fast I would like to write a novel. But you know, my attention-span is like 2 minutes, and I have read my tripe, and anything more than 2 minutes and I can't sustain it.

As I am writing this, I am listening to a vlogger, and he makes the same point I just made. Now that tells me that I am not very original. And who wants to buy a book that contains thoughts that any ol' vlogger can think of? Surely not me!

Book Bins
Sometimes I go to bookstores and look through the bargain book bins. And I don't do it to save money; that is an added bonus. I do it because I like to think about these authors. Their works did not, for the most part, find a wide audience, and I wonder what they are doing. How they are feeling. Is this book that is marked down to 99 cents (and I hate when it looks like 0.99¢ because technically, that is less than one penny) the result of years of work, tiring editing, blood-sweat-tears. Will these books be ground up, forgotten in the annals of time? Often, for that dollar or so, I will purchase the book, place it on my shelf, and in the deep hours of the night, read the book. Many times, the books should be in the bargain bins. The plot sucks, or the editing does not reflect said blood-sweat-tears. I don't want to be the author of such a book, and part of me knows that if I write something without forethought, that's the type of book I will write. That scares me.

Crap, I have revealed too much. Back to work, you guys. Nothing to see here.