The Limits of Wednesday Wanderings

I can wander today.  Wander all I want.  But by Friday morning I need to come up with a theme.  Why?  Because I send out a newspaper column every Friday morning, to all the papers that may rum it.

It's amazing that is happening, It's not quite the direction I would have predicted that my writing would go into.  But it is there, and my name is getting known throughout the state (for better or worse, depending how people react to what I write).

So more and more of my limited writing time and what I focus on is being devoted to that column. The only trouble with that is that there is no remuneration in connection with it.  That in itself is okay - I have a platform that many would envy.  But as I move closer to the time when I could retire or substantially cut back from accounting, I need to figure out substitute courses of income.

I have an unusual knack for doing things that I enjoy and am good at, and doing them in such a way that garners no additional income.  I suppose there is a way to syndicate the newspaper column and make money off of it, but I have failed to grasp that, and remain insecure that any would want it if they have to pay for it.

I'm a very good actor, and have been in innumerable successful productions,but I have been completely incapable of converting that to anything that could earn even transportation costs.  I haven't tried, nor do I know how to try, to be an extra or minor actor in the burgeoning film industry that has come to Georgia.  The fear is that I'm good, but I'm not that good.


I have an almost meta-human talent to read aloud, and I can give a written speech or presentation like nobody's business.  I read  as a lector at church, and that's about it.  I have a feeling if I was in a different denomination, more evangelical, I could do quite well, somewhere between your successful local Baptist preacher and Joel Osteen. But my theology is not inclined that way.

I have seen opportunities to help record books on tape, that the audio versions of stuff do quite well, and I think I could be quite good at doing that.  But I have not followed up on it, partly due to time, and partly due to the nagging fear that, although I might be good, that I am not good enough.

My book and eshorts are doing okay, but I have noticed so far that they only do about as well as the amount of money that I am willing to put into promotion of them.  That's a very risky thing.  I probably should have tried harder to find a literary agent , but there again is that nagging fear - I'm not really good enough for an agent.


I'll continue to work on the edge, doing whatever I can to solve this problem, within the limits of time and my personality.

It's a puzzle, but one I hope I can solve.