As I was going through the posts on Facebook this morning, an activity that consumes the time for many of us these days, I came across a discussion that had little to do with the post that started it.  In the post, one of my friends mentioned that she had many "religious" friends who were progressive.  At that point, another friend, piped up and took umbrage at being labeled a "progressive", which he equated to being called a "socialist/communist".

Labels, a tool that we use in our daily lives as a supposed aid in understanding, in most cases--if not all--becomes just the opposite in my opinion.  As soon as we hang a label on someone, we hang all of the meanings that people have associated with that label, like the chains and chests burdening Marley's ghost.

Think of all the labels you know, Democrat, Republican, Socialist, Communist, Progressive, Gay, Artist, Worker, etc. ad infinitum.  What thoughts do each of those things bring to mind, what attributes are you attributing to the person by using the label?  Does the label fully describe the person you are hanging it on?

All of these words used to be adjectives with which we could describe something.  They were never meant to be end-all phrases to entirely define a person.  But, quite often, that is exactly what we do.   And, most often, the labels, with their associated meanings--quite often at odds with the associated meanings hung on them by another person--have nothing to do with the original meaning of the word.

This is not a new trend, unfortunately, and probably won't end soon, but I am dedicating myself to stop using them.  They do an injustice to the person being labeled, and they do an injustice to my own understanding of that person.

Well, I finally got my second book published on Amazon.  Apache Moon is the second in the series, Out of the Mist, following Ancient Memory.

The back cover reads:
Following an incredible transformation in Ancient Memory, the first book in the
Out of the Mist series, Chance Black must find and rescue Onawah Vaishali, another of the Ancients, an immortal race of beings who used to be worshipped as Gods.

Chance is aided by Aine McCarthy, a sorceress who used to protect Chance’s Ancient sister, Creirwy. They are accompanied by Koi, a clever and mysterious modern Apache warrior. Together, they must solve the mystery in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona.

Meanwhile, the surviving priestesses of Creirwy find themselves running from the Ancients with whom they used to be allied. They must find out what happened to their missing Goddess or fall.

The first draft of this book took me a mere two and a half weeks to write and then over six months to edit, rewrite, edit, and rewrite again.  It went from 48,000 words to nearly 76,000 words.  It was quite a journey, both with my characters--which I very much enjoyed--and with the learning experience of the whole thing.  The writing group that I belonged to, Callihoo (facebook page, Callihoo Publishing--this is a group of extremely talented writers, I highly recommend checking out some of their work), helped me a great deal in learning how to polish my skills as a writer (an ongoing process) as well as teaching me how to edit.

Now the adventure turns a different direction: marketing.  A successful author recently told me that being a success at the business of writing is 30% writing and 70% marketing.  Most writers I know quail at this prospect (most of us are a bit introverted and aren't excited about pounding the pavement and selling our product).  Don't get me wrong, I love talking to people, especially if I can indulge in deep conversations, the deeper the better.  But selling is a different matter, especially if the product is one of my own.  The reason isn't what most people think, either; the fear of rejection.  I know that not everybody is going to like what I do, and that doesn't effect me.  It is really that I don't like being a pushy, buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, kind of guy.  Oh, by the way, buy my book.  That just doesn't work for me.  Unfortunately, being a self published author, I'm all I've got.

Now, no pressure here, but I am looking forward to the day, when somebody has read my book, and we can get into a discussion about the characters, the plot, the world (which is ours, actually, with some tweaks).  That would make my day.