My Valentines Present

   Why are you getting this? Who is Dan Weatherington? Good questions.
   You are getting this because your email address is on my computer. Sometime, you either sent me an email or I sent you one. You may have tried to sell me something. You may be from Nigeria and are going to send me the rest of a multi-million dollar inheritance as soon as I send you a few hundred. You may be a friend. There’s any number of reasons your email address is on my computer.
   Who is Dan Weatherington? I am a writer.
   What is My Valentines Present? It’s something I’m giving myself.
    I have written fifteen novels. Actually, thirteen. Two are parts of the other thirteen that I feel can stand alone. Most of them are self published and that is where the gift to myself comes in.
    For a long time I played the agent-publisher game. It was frustrating and took too long. A year or two for a book was nothing. There were countless hoops to jump through.
    But, believe it or not. I miss it. There was a challenge to it. It was fun.
    Then, came disappointment. I was browsing through several self published books on Amazon.com and B Dalton.com and the free “look inside” features got to me. Some of these people who self publish don’t know the difference between “here” and “hear”. They don’t know which “know” means be aware of and which “no” means “not going to happen.” They don’t know that the period at the end of a piece of dialog belongs inside the quotation mark. I don’t care to be connected with such people.
    Besides, like I said, the old way was fun. Though I write on a computer, I still like the old Courier font. I still like pages with one inch margins. I still like the name of my work and the page number on top.
    I am currently working on two novels I absolutely love. Yes, I’m writing them on my computer but they are written in Courier font and the pages have one inch margins.
    And, query letters and synopsis will be sent to publishers and agents when the manuscripts are finished. Will I be rejected? Of course, I expect it. I have been doing this long enough to know that every manuscript I send out isn’t right for every agent or publisher.
   Will it take a year or two? Oh yes. Just maybe I will have to work a little harder, but at least I won’t be in a group that never learned the difference between hear and here.