The Sound of Grinding Stones

Well, I really don’t have anything to say, but when has that stopped me? I’ve decided I have to get some progress on a few areas of my life. The problem is, I have no idea how to do so.

Those of you who’ve kindly commented on my work in oils may have noticed that I know my way around a brush. And if you haven’t noticed that, I…uh…cough. Well.

Anyway, I know how to paint (I like to think). What I don’t know is anything at all about the next step. How to stage a showing in a gallery. How to get a dealer or someone to sell these things, provided there are depressed people out there with lots of money who enjoy alien environments. I don’t have a clue about these things. I did take art courses when in college, but one of the things they never covered was marketing one’s work.

In a way I’m kind of grateful for that, as it hasn’t fettered what I’ve done; in another way, I sort of feel as if I’m missing step two. You know:

1. Create paintings.
2. ?
3. Profit!

Another thing I want to do is find an agent or someone to sell my writings. You may not hardly believe it, the way I blather on endlessly about shoelaces or whatever shiny things strike my fancy, but I actually have a rather severe case of writer’s block. No, no, it’s all true. I’ve got a few short stories completed and novels in various stages, but for the past five years or more I haven’t managed more than a paragraph or two, which I usually end up abandoning the next morning.

I’m hoping that selling a couple of completed things will start the engines again. As it is, aside from this blog, all I can write these days are movie reviews which are twice as long-winded, double the pointlessness, and heavy with adolescent sarcasm. Ahem.

Well, a literary agent is something else I don’t have a clue about obtaining. Well, that’s why they invented Google, isn’t it? Internet, here I come!