Like me

A friend asked me over drinks (shunning the ubiquitous and predictable dry January) if I had any resolutions this year. Without hesitation I blurted ‘to get published’. She met this declaration with a puzzled expression, thinking I said ‘to get rubbish’. Thinking of it now, I must concede tending the rubbish is a noble and underrated deed that typically falls upon me. Chez Carmalt I’m the bin fairy, the self-designated rubbish and recycling taker-outer and general task-master ever since my lovely other half, well-intentioned as he is, came home with a roll Sainsbury’s Basics bin liners (which I later and most appropriately, binned). Now I’m all for saving money, but there are things worth splurging on. Here’s a hint: bin liners are one of them. Those, and coated paracetamol tablets I can actually swallow and not get lodged in my esophogus like a shard of chalk.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, resolutions. So having eschewed the traditional mantras to get fit and/or eliminate gluten, dairy, wheat, sugar, carbs, meat, caffeine, alcohol and air a la Gwynnie and subsist on a diet of ginger tea and pumpkin seeds, all zen-like and pure, I can dedicate all my energies (and how she has any is anyone’s guess) to this one simple (ha!) task of getting published, in any form that my be. (Yes, this and of course  being a mum and all around domestic heroine. You know what I mean.)

Along these lines I need to get my voice out there, i.e. read. How might this get me published? Well, glad you asked as frankly, I’m still trying to connect the dots. But it would seem that behind every bright, new, best-selling novelist there lies a blog, a website, a voice which some enterprising agent chanced upon when Googling ‘bright, new as-yet-unpublished-and-blogging authors that will make me money’.  I’m doing the Twitter thing, the Facebook thing and every other social media outlet available (albeit rather noncommittally) and have come to two incontrovertible conclusions.

1) It takes quite a bit of effort to be so self-obsessed. Those who say Kim Kardashian does not work are underestimating the graft and dedication which goes into being that vain.

2)Nobody cares. (except you, Mum.) Why would anybody read my inconsequential missives when I whole-heartily admit to rarely reading others’ (typically) inconsequential missives? Unless it headlines on MailOnline (ergo usually involving someone’s rear), I’m pretty clueless. I’m mainly referring to Twitter here, which to be totally honest, I don’t really get. (There. I said it.) I’ve been told by a friend and digital marketing guru that I’m using it all wrong, which judging from my dearth of followers is quite obvious. But really it would seem we’re too busy seeking our own attention to give it to anything or anybody else. Figure that conundrum? So if you agree with me, please ‘Like’ my page!