He got it in 'im, and it got to come out.

- John Lee Hooker

I’ve done lots of stuff and worn lots of hats in my life, but honestly, I should have been creating from the start.

My first creative efforts that I recall were attempts at drawing comic book heroes. Later, I tried making my own comic books. I got to where I could draw pretty well, for somebody who was self-taught. But over the course of my formative years, I was convinced that writing prose was what serious creatives do.

Writing was a serious challenge—bigger than drawing was. I didn’t quite meet that challenge at the beginning. But I stuck with it until I could. Even through my years of soldiering, I dabbled in it. After re-entering civilian life, while bouncing from one dead-end job to another, I put in a more serious effort to make the childhood dream of getting published a reality.

I followed the advice of people who had never been published, and those whose advice was out-of-date. Accordingly, I came nowhere near getting published…but I kept working on my craft.

Meanwhile, I drew less and less frequently, and eventually stopped altogether.

I was still trying to break into tradpub, and had no network, so was completely oblivious when E-Books came along. I was mature enough as a writer by then that it would have been the perfect time for me to break out—before the E-Book sphere was gatekept. But I was still trying to win the tradpub lottery anyway, brainwashed that no serious writer would ever try to get published any other way.

I finally overcame my brainwashing and self-published as an indie author…and did absolutely everything business and marketing-related wrong. But despite all my mistakes and ignorant decisions, I’ve written some Amazon bestsellers—three of them hitting Number One in multiple categories. There’s still a lot of codes I haven’t cracked—like how to get tons of reviews (and how to keep Amazon from nuking my five-star reviews). But I am fairly satisfied with the quality of my work.

And I’m blindly groping back toward my first love…kind of. I’ve got some graphic novels scripted and just need to get art for them. Finding a dependable artist has been a frustrating dark comedy so far. Frustrating enough that I might wind up re-learning how to draw, myself.

Back to following unhelpful advice: I got on social media because I was told back in 2010 that that is the way to find an audience for your books.

Uh, no. I am now convinced that the odds are better for finding Bigfoot and Jimmy Hoffa than for building an audience on social media. Or Goodreads. Or a blog. So anyway, I’m giving Substack a try.

I will probably post sample chapters and sneak peeks here. I may discuss my endeavors and the book biz. I’ve heard about Notes and may see how that is. I’m gonna post for free at first. Not sure how paywalls and other stuff here work. Hopefully I’ll pick it up quickly.

I’m definitely not looking for drama, but I think it would be cool to have intelligent conversations with other folks of similar interests, whether fellow creative types or normal people with normal jobs who happen to read. If I get decent engagement here, I’ll be more motivated to post content more frequently. I don’t think anybody enjoys speaking to an empty room—I know for sure I don’t.

I blog at www.virtualpulp.net. We review books there, interview authors…and right now we’re hosting a short story contest. You are more than welcome to drop by and speak your mind in the comments.

Oh yeah: the blues is one of my favorite music genres—hence the title of this post. It kinda’ fits. I’ve got it (creative energy) in me, and it’s got to come out somewhere. I’m gonna try getting it out of me here.

The meme…well, I might be posting a lot of those. And photos of stuff I like to look at, just because.