Sunday suds.

The other day a young girl came in and asked for a job.  I seem to be getting a number of females asking for jobs, which is encouraging.  But there are no jobs to be had.  I like the three guys I have working for me, I like the flexibility of their hours, it's all working.

So this time, I told her the truth, without thinking:   "You have to kill someone to get a job here."

So here's the thing:  You could be the Stephen King of employees, the J.K. Rowling of employees, and I'd never know it.  Because I don't need any employees, I can't see where I'll need any employees in the near future, I like the employees I have.  Nor can I judge you based on the limited exposure of you walking in the door and handing me a resume, or even if I went so far as to interview you.

So I have to see publishing like that.  The barriers are immense, the filters strong, the level of spectacularness to get over the every-other-person-in-the-world-wanting-to-be-a writer-ness--is very intimidating.

I can't take it personal.

***********

In line with that, I was thinking last night about how easy it would be just to put these stories online.

Done and done.

I came up with a pretty good reason why going online makes sense for me, and it's a very, very weird reason.

I'm just too damn prolific for traditional publishing.  I think I write faster than most people read.

Of course, I could be accused of what Capote said about Kerouac:  "That's that's not writing -- that's typing."

Still, there are times when rewriting makes sense and times when it really doesn't.  I mean, of course I do rewriting, but I've found that if what I write requires restructuring, I'm probably better off dropping it altogether and moving on to the next thing.

Of course, all of this is rationalizing because I really don't like being rejected.

But I also don't like the slowpokedness that traditional writing imposes.  I'm probably much faster than I actually have written because of it.  And, to be frank, I've often changed or tailored my writing to meet what I think I need to do, instead of going with my own instincts about what I want to do.  Online would solve that too, and I'd just have to take the punishment for my hubris if I'm all wet.

Nor do I think just throwing stuff online would probably be effective.  Much like this blog, which I've never done a single thing to promote, never tried to network, hell I don't even tag my entries. I just throw my thoughts online.

Sure, I have a local following that comes and goes, and the numbers of page hits is high enough to keep me going, but I suppose I thought that if I wrote every day that more people would eventually find me.  Instead, it has stayed pretty steady and pretty local, add in what are probably accidental hits.

So if I just throw my stories online, the same thing will probably happen.

What I'm going to do is make Freedy Filkins an online book, probably immediately upon finishing it, which should be sometime in the next 10 days.  Explore the process, see how it works, and then decide what to do from there.

I've very much enjoyed writing Freedy.  I'd like to do more writing like that.

My current thinking is to develop my The Reluctant Wizard world, writing more than one book in that series, develop the history, geography, society, religion, philosophy and so on of that world, and try when it's really ready to get it published traditionally.

Every other hare-brained idea, like Freedy Filkins (and I'm probably full of them) I can put online.  (Well, hell, I already have.)

Sounds like a plan.