Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Obsessed With Books


Tonight is our THIRD attempt at the writers’ group Christmas/Edgar nomination party, so fingers crossed. I am about to bake my THIRD Darwin Cake which better be the last one because I can actually do it without the recipe now which is pretty scary! It’s funny -- I used to be so domestic, but these days I consider myself a goddess for successfully getting  dinner on the table. It reminds me of that old Louisa May Alcott quote – “She is too fond of books and it has addled her brain.”

Truly, there are so many ways that bookselling has changed me. My house used to be clean all the time even with little kids strewing toys all over the place. I baked my own bread, made homemade granola, and sent lunches off to school with bean sprouts on the sandwiches which of course were made from the homemade whole wheat bread. Even when I spent crazy hours working as Director of Sales and Marketing for the nursing home I did better than this, at least on the weekends, or when asked to bring something to an event. Chocolate raspberry cheesecake, homemade chicken soup, orange chicken with black olives …Oh well. That was then and this is now and nobody’s starving over here.  
But there are other ways that bookselling has impacted my life that may not be dismissed so easily. For example, I read less and  keep crazy hours. I used to read more and keep crazy hours, only in reverse. In those days I’d sit up half the night lost in a novel while these days I read in snatches, fall asleep by nine most nights,  and get up every morning between four and five a.m. I also used to volunteer for causes – the Farmer’s Market at the Episcopal church; the Christmas basket program at same; was president of the local adoption group; served as the Ohio contact for international adoptions;  worked the phones at Help Line, a call-in crisis center; ran storytelling groups; even had two foster children, both of whom were pregnant when we got them. Now? Now I show up one day a year at the community center for Christmas and volunteer as a board member and book fair committee member for NOBs, though I’m not sure NOBS counts, as it’s part of my obsession.

When I first began as a bookseller I was also writing professionally. In fact, most of the books I wrote I wrote while I was selling books. In those days I identified myself as a writer who sold books part-time. Now I’m an obsessed  bookseller who thinks about maybe writing again, but thus far has yet to add one sentence to the novel begun a year or two ago, despite the pile of writers’ magazines Eric supplied for Christmas. I have a hunch this will be discussed tonight and I will feel a.) guilty and b.) motivated to change it. But then I will get back to real life and one of two things will happen. If sales are good I’ll be flying high trying to make them even better. If they’re not I will be a fanatical crazy woman who will have to pried away from the computer until things turn around.

So how did this happen to me? I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s a combination of things. All my life I have loved books best, so that’s pretty much a given, but as I gradually changed from being a commodity seller to a seller of older and antiquarian books and paper my interest deepened and I began to view bookselling as a serious time-honored profession in which I needed to prove myself as a serious player. Of course this also explains my craziness with scanning, book sites which seek to diminish one’s independence, bad bookseller behavior, bad listings which provide no information, and an obvious lack of pride and scholarship evidenced by the sad majority of the bookselling community as a whole. The fact that I work from a home office, even to supply the antiques mall, also adds to the whole sturm und drang because I never get away from it. Even when we go to Michigan for the occasional weekend I drag it along in my head like an extra piece of overweight luggage.

So what to do? Now there you have me. I have no idea. All I can do is hope the Muse will soon come calling again. Maybe I could leave her a piece of Darwin Cake … You think?

2 comments:

Hilda said...

You sound normal to me. (Is that a commentary about myself now?) Hope you have a wonderful time tonight.

tess said...

Maybe it's comment on why you read this -- we're kindred spirits!
Thanks -- I'm looking forward to it!