The Death of (Enter media type here)

It seems everyone is all too complacent to beat the drum of a form of media dying. But I march to a different drummer.

I’ve come from newspapers, which people say are dying. Then I saw this:

http://www.comixology.com/articles/412/-Ten-Things-to-Know-About-the-Future-of-Comics

This article says monthly comics are dead, turning over to online and graphic novels.

This is something I said about newspapers and I’ll say it again for comic books: They didn’t stop making books when movies were invented. They didn’t stop making movies when TV was invented. They didn’t stop making TV shows when the Internet was invented. All of these things have existed simultaneously. You just have to be smarter about your project, and you have to work harder, and your expectations can’t be as high.

When articles say that not as many people are buying movie tickets anymore, they’re comparing billions of dollars in sales. They’re still doing OK. Just not as many people are getting rich. Or, they’re merely getting rich, and not filthy rich.

You have to be smarter. You have to work harder. And the chances of being wildly successful are slimmer. But people think that if you have to be smart and industrious in order to get a small benefit, that it’s just not worth it.

I have to thank those people. Leave the business now. I don’t need the competition.

Writing as a hobby loss

Upon reporting my taxes this year, my accountant said I might qualify for a “hobby loss.” This is, as far as I understand, when you don’t make enough money from your business that your expenses are greater than your pay.

Great, even the government thinks my writing is just a hobby.

Mind you, it was in relation to my freelance reporting that I’ve been doing, and not my creative writing, but it still shows the idea that until you’re rolling in it, writing is just an expensive hobby.

Intro

What I learned from reading and writing

While reading, I’ll sometimes pick up on a little insight that I hope will make me a better writer. A subtle nuance or something so exciting that I have to tell someone about it.
I also have a terrible memory. So these lessons might fade away. In fact, I have no way of knowing how many times I’ve forgotten what I’ve learned.
Therefore, I started this blog. As I read comic books, children’s books, literary fiction and horror, science fiction and fantasy, I’ll post my thoughts here. From time to time, I can look back, refresh my memory and refocus my writing.
And hopefully, you can find this helpful as well.
I don’t like to be negative. I will try to stay away from criticizing when a writer has done something I think is wrong, unless it’s something we can learn from. I certainly wouldn’t want someone to do that to me. Besides, it’s easier to tear down than build up.
I’ve been sending short stories, children’s books and comic books to publishers with little success. So, I’ll chronicle some of that for people who are going through the same thing. Maybe we can learn from each other.
I’ll try to post weekly, but we know how that works.
I’ve written municipal news for local newspapers for more than five years. I’m a regular contributor to TDMonthly.com, a toy industry magazine. My humor writing has appeared in Knockout, (Knockoutmag.com) and Awesdumb.com. I self-published a super hero spoof, Dave the Potatoe. One short story of mine was published in a 1996 New England Writer’s Network. I create fake news clips and other things at: http://www.youtube.com/user/verylittleknowledge
Enjoy!
~Chris Lundy