It’s been a few weeks filled with despair. Last week my normally spot-on blog-sense failed me and I ended up Thursday night flailing in a well, drained of creative juices. Before that it rained for a week, seriously impacting my schedule for getting the cover crop of field peas into the vineyard area. That same rain – locally dubbed “Juneuary” – gave the weeds, which I had hoped the field peas would smother, just the boost they needed to spring forth and turn the tables on the hapless legumes. Now, when we look across what should be a vineyard, we see an unbroken sea of green; of which none is from the peas. Then, as if to top it all off, Solo, our rooster, dropped dead. This is supposedly fairly common for roosters what with all the “protecting” of the hens they are forced to do. But still.

Then the bad news arrived.

In June, Fresh Squeezed, the not-recently-mentioned novel I wrote with Bonnie Biafore, sold two – count ‘em – copies.

Sigh.

I realize that these were the just the sales to brick-and-mortar outlets like your local bookstore or library and that online sales have been much higher than that. (Yes, I can hear you thinking: “How hard could it be to have sales much higher than two?”)

But still.

Then I talked to my friend Dave in Michigan and made the mistake of opening up and sharing my tale of woe. Now Dave is everything you would want in a friend. He’s funny and cynical. He sails (which is how I met him). He is an efficient beachcomber. And he’s open and honest with his opinions – which is fine when they’re about other people, not so much when we’re talking about me.

But Dave has been a longtime supporter of the blog (and the book) so that when he speaks, I listen.

Looking back through the tears, I remember him telling me not to worry. Something about how all that needs to happen is for the book or the blog to go viral. Once that happens, I’d have it made in the shade. As it were.

Of course, that wasn’t enough, so I had to endure about another hour of all the tricks he’s heard about “successful” authors using to make themselves rich and famous. He went on and on about how most of these rich authors couldn’t write themselves out of a wet paper bag so that I shouldn’t really worry that Fresh Squeezed seemed like it “was cobbled together by an eighth-grade writing class given the cumbersome sentence structure and heavy-handed use of gratuitous sex to fill the narrative vacuum.”

Hence the tears.

Eventually he had to go do something fun, and, after I threw the phone against the wall, I stopped to think. Dave was right. It doesn’t take much, just one little hook and fame and fortune could rush through my door overnight. Look at Dan Brown. Look at Lee Child. If they can do it, so can I.

But this was not news to me. I knew that going viral was the only option for an independently published book to succeed. I knew that literary excellence was not a prerequisite for financial success – in fact it may be a hindrance. And I knew that to entice people to the book, I had to get them to read the blog. And to get them to read the blog – while they waited for the sequel – I had to have Fresh Squeezed available in all the many formats needed to serve my fan base.

All this was done and yet my writing remained as virus-free as an atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Clearly I wasn’t doing something right.

Which was where I started, lo these many years ago.

Word of mouth didn’t work. Well it did, but not as much as it needed to. Overpriced internet advertising didn’t work. Facebook didn’t work. Twitter didn’t work. The only success I had selling the book was one-on-one at craft fairs, farmers’ markets, and wine tastings. But the numbers weren’t there.

What I needed was a sure-fire, absolutely guaranteed way to take my message, my book, and my future lounging in the sand on Maui viral. But what way that might be? I hadn’t a clue.

“Meow…”

It was Stache, our Sylvester look-alike that we got from the pound last year. He’d come to console me in my hour of need. His loud purring and gentle rubbing against my ankle were clearly intended to ease my troubles and put me back in a happier state of mind. I’ve always thought it miraculous how our pets can immediately sense our emotional states and put forth an effort to make us feel better. For me though, this is something of a two-edged sword because as Stache rubbed and purred he sent up a cloud of fur and dander in the approximate shape of a thunderhead. I started sneezing.

I’m allergic to cats.

Don’t ask.

Sensing an even greater need, Stache jumped up on the desk and proceeded to shed even greater volumes into the airspace between the keyboard and monitor. This is his favorite spot. Actually, it’s also Bixley’s (the other four-legged allergen in residence) favorite spot too and each (or sometimes both) will happily cause me endless hours of misery by scratching away into the air I’m about to inhale.

But they are so cute when they do it. Tiny paws kneading the towel they lie on. Ears twitching as they doze. Cat dreams.

But this time was different. Stache, clearly agitated, kept “accidentally” stepping on the keyboard then turning and rubbing against the monitor. If he had had even more fur and a longer nose it would have been a complete “Timmy’s down the well” moment.

But it was something else.

Websites flashed across my screen as Stache danced across the keys. He’d pause every few moments to rub the monitor. This went on for about a minute and a half at which time he stopped, scratched at the screen, and then turned and stared at me.

“Meow…”

I moved him out of the way and saw that somehow he had “accidentally” brought up a list of cat videos on YouTube. I scrolled through the list. There were “Cute” cat videos and “Silly” cat videos; videos made of cats jumping, falling, and running into walls. There were endless adjectives describing what people thought of their cats doing things that made the people think that the cats were actually deserving of the description when actually the only appropriate attribute was “stupid.”

I hate cat videos.

“Meow…”

Stache looked at the screen and back to me.

“What,” I shook my head. “You want me to make a cat video?”

“Meow…” Stache started pawing at the screen. Beneath his furry foot was a number.

“14,976,322” followed by the word “views”.

“You have a point.”

I could swear he nodded.

And he did have a point. If you want a sure-fire viral phenomenon on the internet your best bet is a cat video. It seems there are endless legions of people waiting for the latest kitty viddy to appear and send them all atwitter – if you’ll pardon the pun – and then off to make sure everybody else on the planet knows about the video too. Pure viral. Stache glared at me as all of my hopes for having the blog, the book, and my very writing career stand on their own merits faded like a winter sunset.

I was reduced to this.

“So what kind of video are we supposed to make?”

Stache jumped off the desk and ran into the hall.

“Meow…”

I followed him out, down the stairs, and into the dining room where I found…

…a disaster.

Parts scattered everywhere.

Water flowing across the floor.

Electricity.

“Meow…”

“Yes, that would have been great to see,” I replied. “But it’s a little late to make a video now.”

“Meow…”

At this point Bixley was overcome by a paroxysm of cat-giggles and rolled onto his back with his legs convulsing in the air. Apparently, Stache had said something very funny. I switched off the breaker and grabbed a mop.

“Meow…”

Bixley snorted.

Then I got it.

“Ahhhhhh… You want to do it again!”

“Meow…”

After I finished cleaning up the flood I set everything back to rights and restored the electricity. The lights came up. Camera! Action!

I made a cat video. My shame is complete.

And you can watch it on YouTube by clicking right here.