Royalties

"Some day I hope to write a book where the royalties will pay for the copies I give away." - Clarence Darrow

The difference between writing books and blogs is, for the most part, a matter of maturity.  With book-writing, the author puts his ideas down on paper, most likely going back over them at least once during the writing phase, and then he sets the prose aside for a time to let those ideas sit, mellow, and mature.  At a point in the future, then, the author picks the ideas back up, considers them with a fresh eye, and either keeps or modifies them appropriately. That, or he introduces them to Mr. Delete Key. 

With a blog, on the other hand, you write stuff and sling it out onto the web.  Usually it's the same day, though I've taken to writing some of my blog posts over the weekend.  Still, a few days isn't really enough time for the thoughts to mull around in the linguistic stew.

All this, of course, is my roundabout way of acknowledging that yesterday's post was pretty much garbage.  I ended up where I wanted to with what I think is a fairly salient point, but all the winding around I did was just weird. I'm tempted to go back and delete about half of it, but then I wouldn't have a standing reminder of the reality that sometimes what I write needs to be fed to Mr. Delete Key rather than published.

But on to the point suggested in the title. 

Yesterday, right at a year after I started the writing process, marked another milestone for me: I received my very first-ever royalty payment!  I bragged about it all day.  I mean, it's hard not to.  It wasn't quite a million dollars, granted.  Come to think of it, it wasn't even quite enough to cover a car payment.  As many in the business have said: new authors, don't quit your day jobs.

It was, though, plenty sufficient to pay for what will be a nice dinner out tonight with my co-creator, the lovely and talented Heide, also known as Mrs. TOSK.  That, and a comedy club after.  With, like, real drinks, even, not the "Oh, I'll just have water" act where you try to make everybody believe you really do prefer the taste of iced tap water to anything else. 

So to those who've bought a copy of my work--thank you.  It means more than I have the writing skills to express to me that people are reading my stories, and I do hope I haven't caused any Kindle-sized dents in anybody's walls.

-TOSK