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Each Day Already is a Challenge #492960 added May 26, 2007 at 12:07am
Restrictions: None
Love is artistic? Of course!
Vincent van Gogh said, "The more I think it over, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people."
He had a point, don't you think?
I found a few other quotations tucked away in my files today. I really like quotations - from famous or not-so-famous people. They are snippets of wisdom.
How about...
"Take care that old age does not wrinkle your spirit even more than your face." Michel de Montaigne
Something to ponder...
Theologian Fredrick Buechner said, "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."
"Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance." John Petit-Senn
"Reflect upon your blessings, of which every man has plenty, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." Charles Dickens
Sure, sure. Our world is a rather crappy place. But there are pockets of joy out there. You just have to find them and scoop them up and take them home with you. Once there, though, you'd better share them! Didn't someone say that it's not really joy until it's shared???
Now...these statistics are not shared to make you feel that you might have set you sails for the wrong course (writing - especially writing and publishing a novel). No sirreeeeebob. These stats are just a reminder that the number one reason we should be writing is that we feel called to do so. And the number two reason should be to share words that we can no longer keep inside.
Anyway, here are some statistics. They're old - from 2004 - from Publisher's Weekly. I couldn't find any more recent ones.
 950,000 titles out of 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies
200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies
25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies
The average book in America sells about 500 copies
Only 10 books sold more than a million copies
Fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000
Nearly 200,000 new titles are published each year
The number of books published per year is probably much more than this number now, since there are so many more companies and methods of publishing.
Like I said, these stats are not shared to make anyone discouraged about writing. They are eye-opening, though, aren't they? And they should remind us that we write because we have a passion to do so and because there are words just screaming to get out.
Remember that Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest I mentioned a few days ago? http://www.winningwriters.com/contests/wergle/we_guidelines.php
I decided to write something for the contest. As you'll recall, you have to enter the poem at one of those vanity poetry sites and have it accepted before submitting to the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest. I did that, and sure enough my poem was accepted. (I knew it would be! ) So, I promptly sent it off to good ol' Wergle Flomp.
Here's what I wrote:
A Dead Poem Comes Back to Life
By Marilyn Mackenzie
A glob of goo splattered to the ground.
I picked it up and tossed it into the fish tank.
I sprinkled fish food over it.
I thought it might be a dead fish. It was not.
That glob of goo had to belong somewhere.
I picked it up and buried it in the backyard.
I used plant food and watered it.
I thought it might be a dead plant. It was not.
That glob of goo really had me confused.
I picked it up and put it in a tree in my yard.
I put twigs and feathers beside it.
I thought it might be a dead bird. It was not.
Turns out that glob of goo was really a dead poem.
I brought it to life again; changed its name,
Rearranged some words. Until it was as good as new again.
No longer just a glob of goo splattered here and there.
Now it is splattered instead
All over the Internet
For all to see.
And I am proud.
Purrrrty bad, huh?
Oh yeah. I posted two things today. One I put in my "Old Notebook Pages"  . The other is here:
Later gators. 
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