Well, I did it. It took me all day and I waited until the last possible moment, but I finally stopped avoiding the novel and opened chapter one. For a few seconds I panicked because the other chapters were labeled by number, but for some unknown reason Chapter 1 had its own unique name. It’s amazing I ever found it given what I’d slugged it. Fortunately, or otherwise, I unearthed it fifteen minutes before my older daughter’s daily five o-clock check-in which gave me just enough time to read the whole thing before the phone rang. Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? No. I guess you could say it’s the battlefield and I’m Switzerland.
Of course today I have no choice but to dive in and keep on treading water. It looks like there are five chapters finished, though one is slugged Chapter Five and another Chapter Five1 which means that I must have done some radical rewriting at some point. We’ll see. I remember having a blast working on it, so I’m hoping a spark will ignite somewhere along the line so I can at least finish the first draft. I have a long history of abandoning stories – a loooooooooooooong history. In fact, I mentioned the novel on Facebook this morning and an old friend who is also a writer asked me which novel I meant! My reputation clearly precedes me. The only reason I ever finished the books I published was the fact that I was under contract.Anyway, that’s on the agenda today, but so is pulling together my final sales figures and expenses so we can file our federal income tax return. Fortunately, this is not the trauma of the dreaded Ohio sales tax because there’s no computer involved and we have an accountant who turns what I give her into an official document. I love accountants – wouldn’t want to marry one – but they do make life easier.
We were supposed to go to an auction tomorrow, but I think we’re not now because they never posted any pictures at ALL, much less of the books. It’s too far to take a chance on finding nothing but mildewed, broken down, used up, very bad books. But it’s certainly not a good thing because we went nowhere last weekend and consequently didn’t buy any books at all. Even ebay failed me this week. I saw one good one I’d sold twice in the $60 range, the last time about a year ago, but when I checked its current price it had somehow plummeted to $12! Amazing. But then the other day I also listed a book and everyone was tightly clustered in the $55-65 bracket except for one seller who came in at $22! I ignored him completely, but I do so wish dealers could somehow reach a consensus that books are not pork bellies. But of course that’s not going to happen.
The problem is that it’s not even just online books I need. My mall stash isn’t looking all that great either and now some very obvious space opened up over there due to yesterday’s sale of that giant dictionary I showed you some time ago after we came back from Dayton in November. The same person who bought it also bought a big Bible, so there’s yet another gaping gap to fill. You know you’ve got a problem when a collective twenty inches of open space is enough to poise you on the edge of panic. It’s astounding to me that we continue to have an ongoing acquisition problem when for years we dealt with a surfeit of books! But there you have it.
Oh, one interesting thing did happen though. Last week I sent out a program idea to the Summit County Library system in hopes of giving a talk on collecting books in the digital age and yesterday landed myself a gig. ! wish it could be before the antiquarian show, but no such luck, as libraries seem to require a long lead-time. I had my choice of multiple days throughout the summer, so I called and locked in a date for mid-July. I don’t view this as a business promotion at all – at least not for me individually – it’s more of a volunteer effort for NOBS and a chance to remind people that e-readers do not negate the pleasure of the physical book. I think as “book people” we can’t afford to sit back in silence on this issue if we wish to see books (and our businesses) thrive. I haven’t done any programming for a long time, though I used to do a storytelling workshop and give talks about my books, so I’m not worried about it. In fact, I hope some more pop up.
So there you have the sum total of what's happening here in my small corner of Medina today. Only now I see that I have created a brand NEW problem for myself. I have not mentioned a single thing that can be photographed. But here’s a photo of random books waiting to be listed. Okay, that's probably reaching, but if you think about it it does makes a modicum of sense. Random books for a post about random stuff!
5 comments:
It made me smile to read that you used the term "slug" to denote what the chapters were called.
Took me back to my days in the newsroom.
Once a journalist, always a journalist.
That's funny -- I was thinking the same thing after I wrote it. Wow --it's been a long time since I heard anybody say THAT out loud. Yes, once a journalist always -- which is why I marked several pages of the novel for fact checking!
I like the chapter 5 and 5-1...I had a long history of unfinished books until I stopped writing them. Plus I had the unfortunate problem of hating and censoring every word I wrote. I could not even keep a journal...I would s tart and tear it up. Perhaps afraid of what I might write. So the fact that I have written a good number of blogs and they are still on the page is remarkable. Thanks for the nudge. Now here is your nudge...get writing on that novel! As Ray Bradbury said, Vomit into your typewriter and do not edit yourself. Just keep going.
Oh, that is ME to a tee! I have abandoned every journal ever started, can't stand to read the galleys when they come from the publisher -- the whole nine yards. We both gotta stop this! :-)
I agree Tess. You keep up your blog AND the novel and I will do the best I can to blog. For now! Enjoy the cold weather.
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