Have you ever been inside a casino, pumping nickels, quarters, or dollar bills into a slot machine, initially enthusiastic and focused, but as payouts elude you, you begin to audio wander? Growing sour, you listen intently to what everybody else is doing. The tinkle of your own coins tumbling into the belly of some mechanized sorter all but disappear against the effervescent barrage of electronic, multi-note jingles and customer’s winning cackles. Jackpots seem to be hitting for everyone but you. You focus less on what you’re doing and more on nearby jubilation and the gush of change filling buckets with cash. A celebratory mood fills the air while your own guts churn with envy. That’s how I felt Monday night after an evening at my Left Coast Writers group.
James Scott, a.k.a. Kemble Scott, was our guest speaker. He is one lucky writer, or so one might think. Not just once, but twice he was at just the right place at just the right time. In 2007 he’d completed his first novel, SoMa, when an acquaintance suggested he market the book using short, homemade video clips. Her start-up company could help him get the clips on the Internet. He would be the company’s first author customer. Her company was YouTube! Then, in 2009, Kemble Scott published his second novel, The Sower. BTW, James Scott is his non-fiction, real-life name, and Kemble Scott is his fiction name. He’s a columnist for The Bay Citizen and The New York Times as James Scott. But anyway, The Sower, its fortuitous launch started the e-publishing company Scribd.com. Today, according to Wikipedia, Scribd has over 50 million users, and its website gets almost two million inquiries daily.
James knows a good story when he hears it, and he tells them even better. After he concluded his presentation and joined us during the social portion of the evening, I was sure to shake his hand and rub his arm for good luck. Whatever he has, I want.
But wait a minute. Is luck what he has? Is he a success simply because he broke the odds…twice? Sure, he hit it big, but not because of random luck. He was ready when opportunity knocked, and that’s what I want to be. James, the storyteller, left out the boring details of honing craft along the way, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t and don’t exist. I keep writing because it’s good practice. Not a lot’s happening, but I’m working on it. That’s all I need to worry about. If I let myself believe that publishing success comes as the result of fluke or good fortune then what’s the use in trying? It either will or it won’t show up, so I might as well kick back and wait, right? Wrong.
I need to keep writing for two reasons. One is because I enjoy pulling together a sentence that comes as close to what I’m thinking as is possible, and two, because I get a thrill whenever somebody tells me that they liked what I wrote. I don’t need to start tripping off of what’s going on around me, regardless of how dazzling it may appear. I’ll play my hand, and others can play theirs.
As always, have a great week, and I’ll do the same. I’ll post again next Friday.
You go, grrll!