Have you ever had to break new ground? Think sodbusting. Think early American west expansionism. Think grasses taller than a man's head. Think thick roots a foot and a half strong and growing with a tangled vengance into the earth. Think a man and a woman and possibly some children with crude hand shovels. Think backbreaking labor to turn a small patch of ground from prairie to soil. All to plant a few potatoes, some corn, some beans...all to survive the coming, coming, coming soon, too soon winter. Think daily watering and endless weeding. Think watching birds pluck the fruit. Think locusts devouring your children's sustenance. Think defending your crops. Think harvest in the fall and the gratitude, the relief, and hope.
Think publishing. Think starting with a typewriter, a copier, a stapler. Think crude computers. Think media ignorance. Think reviewer incompetence. Think markets far, far away, and (really) in a different galaxy, speaking a different language entirely. Think aliens holding your book in clawed mandibles trying to discern the medium, to say nothing of the content. Think constant repeated efforts at communicating on multiple levels, different dimensions really. Think confusion, frustration, anger. Think hope, think surprise, think joy when a connection, even the tiniest, is made.
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