Random Insanity

My dad is a professional author, and the self-promotion aspect of that is the one thing about the job that he HATES, HATES, HATES, even though for him it really is a determinant of how much income he will make from his work.

Have you ever heard of him, you ask? Probably not. He's published several novels, a half-dozen volumes of poetry, and a book of short stories, but he frantically quashed his agent's scheme to get a single paragraph review of his first novel published in People magazine before it could come to pass. I knew then that he was not going to be following his buddy John Irving into the land of fantastic commercial success!

I have a terrible time pimping my own work. If I write comment fic, I view it as a bit of a gift to the recipient, and I kind of feel funny directing people off to their space to see my work, so I'd say about half of what I've written is known to only a select group of the author, and those people who came along to comment after I did.

I admire lolmac's ability for cheerful (and never OTT or in bad taste) self-recommendation, but that's just not my strength. I guess growing up in my father's school, I'm like an Olympian from the early part of the 20th century when faced with the possibility of having my face plastered on the Wheaties box. I'm gratified to see others there, but it just doesn't seem like my personal style. I'm glad when others let me know that their stuff is out there, I just don't seem to be able to turn that around and assume that others want to hear that from me.