This is flash fiction because I made up a new word, so, for the time being, it’s fiction. This story is about a fictional word; therefore, I’ll allow it to be part of Flash Fiction February.

American politicians spend too much time raising money. They don’t have time to make good policy or to care how it affects us. That’s an example of a conundrum.

As a writer and a podcaster who has the goal of making an income, that is also a conundrum. Why? I have to spend time finding ways to provide the income I need to keep on creating, even though the creating isn’t producing income. Then I have to do the work of self-promotion. Then, while the attempts at promotion are happening, there is no time to actually do the creating. This is a conundrum. Therefore, the life of a writer is defined by this new derivation I have of the word conundrum.

The life of a writer is Conundrumnal.

I have to keep writing, but I have to make some income. Therefore, I have to spend time promoting and shopping stuff around, but that takes time away from the actual fun part of writing and creating. That’s a conundrumnal life. That’s what that is.

What happens next is cheesy stuff. I hate advertising and all of that self-promotion stuff so much that I write cheesy, ironic kitschy self-promotion copy as an exercise of frustration, and the dumb people think it’s serious. This sort of thing narrows my audience down significantly because people who don’t have that sense of humor won’t know what the heck is going on.

Honestly, though, when content is marketing and it's done really well, that’s the best. Anyone remember Jr. Bob Dobbs and the Church of the Subgenious? That was hilarious. Another group that used their content as marketing was the NeoTech Society. It was some fun, brilliant writing, and a bold, confident, and successful mail order business. They found a way to get paid for their writing.

I can say for sure that the podcasting is helping me to stay motivated and keep the ideas coming. Several of those stories I wrote have seeds for new stories; that’s how that works.

I have to find a way for this Conundrumnal situation to work in my favor. I’ll have to find a way to make all the writing work for me, whether it’s cheesy copy, a story I need to write, or some kind of combination of all of it.

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