the year of living whorishly

i started my blog last april. I can't believe i've been whoring myself for a year now. this bowie quote pretty much sums up my feelings about whoring:

If you're going to work in a whorehouse, you'd better be the best whore in it." - Bowie (1991)

I don't really consider my blog as whoring, although it is to some degree. some days i'm more of a whore than other days. But before last april, the only thing i did to whore myself was a website. i didn't promote in any way. didn't go to conferences, rarely did book signings, rarely went to any kind of event that had anything to do with writing or writers. i'd actually tried self-promotion years ago, decided it was a huge waste of time and money, and quit. but last year i thought i'd give it another try. the blog. leave the cave more often. (i don't think that counts.) the book video. maybe a magazine ad. volunteering. local chapters. networking. GCC. message boards. lists. donations. book signings and conferences. thrillerfest and agreeing to be a judge. those 150 books. agreeing to speak at both thrillerfest and bouchercon even though sometimes speaking makes me pass out and crack my chin open. more on that later.

all this in hopes of raising my profile (or some such biz jargon.)

come september i should know if my whoring has paid off. my goal is to make the USA Today list. if that doesn't happen, i will quit the conferences and ads and book videos and all that stuff and go back in my cave, reclaim my life such as it is. although i will probably continue to blog. but not in a whorey way. whory. whorie.


countdown: 5 months






here are more nice whore quotes:

"We used to laugh at Grandpa when he'd head off and go fishing. But we wouldn't be laughing that evening when he'd come back with some whore he picked up in town."
Jack Handy

"I've gone from saint to whore and back to saint again, all in one lifetime."
Ingrid Bergman

"There is a time to stop reading, there is a time to STOP trying to WRITE, there is a time to kick the whole bloated sensation of ART out on its whore-ass."
Charles Bukowski


"Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure. Besides, you can't teach old fleas new dogs."
Federico Fellini

"There once was a whore in a cave,
Her friends continued to rave,
If her book doesn't sell,
She will say, "what the hell,"
And seclusion again she will crave."
Jeff Neale