{"id":18741,"date":"2014-09-16T09:43:30","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T16:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=18741"},"modified":"2014-09-16T09:43:30","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T16:43:30","slug":"adventures-in-pre-hermitting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/16\/adventures-in-pre-hermitting\/","title":{"rendered":"Adventures in pre-hermitting"},"content":{"rendered":"

First thing: Thank you for all the good words and scary stories after Friday’s out-of-the-blue tree fall. MamaLiberty’s tale<\/a> of random mystery destruction definitely takes the prize, though Karen’s lightning-from-nowhere story also reminds me of Mother Nature’s notorious temper<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One reader, C, even made an extra little contribution to the roof fund. Its timing was lovely (“Take that, damned tree!”), and the fact that it came from somebody I know has very little to spare made it even more appreciated.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I’m now looking at November 1 as the most likely date to commence a serious year of hermitude.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I was aiming for an earlier time, but a volunteer project came up that I absolutely couldn’t say no to. Ain’t that the way it goes? And this really was a couldn’t<\/i> say no situation. I had a standing offer to help out with something, and after a year or more of repeating the offer, it was finally, suddenly, and direly needed.<\/p>\n

The bigger trick, I think, is saying no to the less dire daily tugs and pulls. One way to do that is simply to withdraw from the situations and people who need all those daily yesses.<\/p>\n

Email is the puzzler. It’s both a lifeline and a burden, both a joy and a responsibility. Hey, email is where my friends<\/i> live!<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Ryochiji, who I’m appreciating more and more, has an observation on the old “is the glass half-empty or half-full” canard. He notes, so rightly, that that’s not the real question<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say you arrive at your table at a nice restaurant, you sit down, and you notice that there is a liquid in your wineglass. Whether the glass is half empty or half full is the wrong question to contemplate. What you\u2019ll be asking is \u201cWhy is there stuff in my glass that I didn\u2019t ask for?\u201d And if you call over the waiter and they offer to top off the glass, you might respond, with rightful indignation: \u201cNo, just give me a clean empty glass.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He then gets Zennish before moving on to personal observations about emptiness and fullness in his own recent life. Very worth reading. Very familiar dilemma to a lot of us.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

One thing I’ll be looking at this winter is work and how earning a living<\/i> (that strange phrase) interfaces with actual<\/i> living. Again, not a new subject but one that needs a revisit now and then.<\/p>\n

Though I am not a millionaire tech nerd, the words of Minecraft maven Markus Persson<\/a>, whose company just got bought out by Microsoft, resonate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not an entrepreneur. I\u2019m not a CEO. I\u2019m a nerdy computer programmer who likes to have opinions on Twitter.<\/p>\n

As soon as this deal is finalized, I will leave Mojang and go back to doing Ludum Dares and small web experiments. If I ever accidentally make something that seems to gain traction, I\u2019ll probably abandon it immediately.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good for him; he’s now in a position to follow that quirky path.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

I’m a writer. I’m just<\/i> a writer. I think and I dream and I write. Once upon a time, that was what writers did<\/i>, and it’s certainly what most of us writer-types are designed<\/i> to do.<\/p>\n

But these days, even minor writers like me are expected do everything from incessant self-promotion to studying techniques for boosting sales on Amazon. Which is weird. We also become just a little bit public property. Which is possibly even weirder, though it’s always gone with the territory.<\/p>\n

For the rare writer, all that marketing and strategizing pays off and they glory in the public attention. But for most of us, the result is simply that we labor on our writing, then labor on promotion — and end up less well-off and less content than if we’d simply skipped the writing part and instead found some gadget to market. <\/p>\n

And if we were selling a gadget, the gadget could be the focus, not us. So theoretically a gadget peddler could be a hermit more easily than a modern-day writer.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong; I’m uniquely privileged to be able to make a living with the words in my head and even more privileged to have you guys around. I know that. Not doubting it for a moment. (Also don’t be alarmed; I have zero<\/i> intention to quit blogging. This place is also<\/i> “where my friends live” and is a pleasantly peaceful gig, as writing goes.)<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the whole business of writing as a profession is quite strange. And like Persson, when I think of what I do for a living, I nearly always find myself not wanting to be “successful”<\/i> because being “successful” means doing more of the things that aren’t a good fit for my temperament and my desires.<\/p>\n

But then there’s always that pesky business of putting kibble in the dog bowls, gas in the vehicle, and a roof over everybody’s head. And you know<\/i> better than anybody how vital writing — and you<\/a> — are for that!<\/p>\n

As I contemplate getting the rights back to a couple of my books, figuring out all that Amazonian and print-on-demand stuff, and actually drumming up sales for once moribund items … well, ack. Even though a couple of good people have already offered major help with the technical part of things. Ack.<\/p>\n

And for now, ack is all I have to say on the matter. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First thing: Thank you for all the good words and scary stories after Friday’s out-of-the-blue tree fall. MamaLiberty’s tale of random mystery destruction definitely takes the prize, though Karen’s lightning-from-nowhere story also reminds me of Mother Nature’s notorious temper. One reader, C, even made an extra little contribution to the roof fund. Its timing was lovely (“Take that, damned tree!”), and the fact that it came from somebody I know has very little to spare made it even more appreciated. —– I’m now looking at November 1 as the most likely date to commence a serious year of hermitude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-movies","category-mind-and-spirit","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}