Saturday morning. Another fresh pot of coffee and my MacBook Pro. A blank page.
Blogging is therapeutic. I require therapy. A writer should write every day. Sadly, more often than not, I have been consumed by email and PM correspondence, social media posts and feeding thousands of spiders. My reading is behind schedule. My writing is off course.
I mentioned Elowsky in my last blog and he took to Faffbook to query: "What happens in the hobby is ludicrous, outside of education and experience. So when are you going to bridge the chasms and write that opus?"
I am indeed working on a monograph of sorts, although I think Christian's "opus" is too kind. I've hinted at this elsewhere. It is a work in progress. I believe there is a need for a "The Complete Tarantula" or a Tarantula Keeper's Guide that actually lives up to that title. I can write it. I have the qualifications and the skill. But how many would read it?
I have no idea how many copies of my Tarantulas, published by the Animal Planet Pet Care Library in conjunction with pet book giant T.F.H, have sold. The manuscript was a contract piece. In other words, they paid me a flat fee for writing 27,000 words, which I was able to nudge up to 30,000. I receive no royalties. But I expect it does reasonably well as it is meant for the Petco and Petsmart market. They (T.F.H.) also paid me more money for a 50,000 word monograph on Geckos. I cashed the check several years ago. The book has never been published. The economy has affected the release of new books. Or is it just that books aren't selling?
The only copies of my book I sell are autographed by me. I buy them from the publisher at half the cover price with free shipping and then basically offer them at a bit over cost through my website. Sales are anything but brisk. Apparently 30,000 words on tarantula keeping by someone with 35 years of experience, and dare I say a flare for concise writing, isn't worth 10 or 15 bucks. I've seen knuckleheads on Faffbook say that they can just use Google. Yeah, to get misinformation and snippets of information, not knowledge. But I belabored that in the last blog so I'll move on.
There is nothing more important in my life than reading. I dropped out of undergraduate biology in 1982! I am completely self-taught. I didn't gain my knowledge from reading assclowns on social media. I read books by experts. I consumed them. I breathed them. I digested them. That goes for all my interests, not just arachnoculture/arachnology and herpetoculture/herpetology. I taught myself through reading, practice and experience. Trial and error. Success and failure. I spent most of my childhood and adult life reading nothing but non-fiction. Most of it focused on nature, wildlife, evolution, ecology, astronomy, etc. It wasn't until I was about 40 that I finally began to enjoy fiction as well. Today I mix in a thriller or a Palahniuk novel every now and again to cleanse the palate before I delve into another tome by Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins or re-read my favorite Sagan. And then there are my treasured spider and reptile books and scientific papers.
Is reading really being replaced by search engines and sites to post what you had for breakfast? And what about writing? Look at the state of that! People today seem allergic to proper grammar. Half the English speaking world doesn't know that the contraction of "you" and "are" is "YOU'RE", not "your". People are so busy that they can't even trouble themselves with the three letters in "you" and just write "u". We used to write letters. It was a great art. Then there was email, which I liked even better since I prefer to type and it was instantaneous with no stamp glue tasted. But now people don't even use that. They just hack out some nonsensical gibberish on Faffbook. They even think this form of communication is appropriate for business. My two great friends and tattoo artists who decorate my body, Mark and Andy, have telephones in their shops. They have websites and email addresses. But every day I see someone post on one of their Faffbook pages "hey dude, how much for a skull that looks like this?". Pick up the goddamn phone and call a business. Or at least write them an intelligent and respectful email. For my own business I constantly post to only contact me via email (I don't give out my phone). I tell people I do not conduct business through Facebook Messenger or the like. I want an intelligent email that is archived with my other correspondence. When I write a reply I wish for it to go through my email system and have my signature file attached. I don't want to wade through the sewage of Faffbook.
The English language is beautiful. Writing its words and reading the wisdom in the words of others is rewarding. Go to Amazon.com today and buy a new book. A Kindle edition counts. You like mass-market thrillers? I recommend Karin Slaughter. You like historical thrillers? My favorite! I recommend good old Thomas Gifford like the Assassini or Caleb Carr's The Alienist. It took me a long time to appreciate fiction but, like a great film, they are great escapes. But if you want to learn more about arachnids look for Foelix's Biology of Spiders or something. Or here's an even better deal: Go over to my dear mate Andrew Smith's lovetarantulas.com site and purchase an inexpensive download of Baerg's classic The Tarantula or any of the many other two or three dollar downloads Andrew offers! Andrew should be selling downloads of this book by the hundreds but, as I've whinged on about for so many words thus far, reading seems to be dying. This is the American classic on arachnology. It had no pretty pictures. It was published before I was born. It is just glorious black and white text with the odd photo. But for a couple quid or a few dollars, reading it will make you a better person. Trust me. Lovetarantulas also offers a reworking of a classic British arachnocultural book by Ronald Baxter. He was a pioneer in tarantula keeping and breeding. Spend a few bucks, feed your brain.
Read and Write. MJ
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