I sent off "Takeover" to Crossroad Press.

I'm telling myself to keep my expectations low. The publisher is going to try to finagle a "New Release" BookBub for "Takeover," and then follow it with a regular BookBub for "Deadfall Ridge."

But I know the odds are against me. (20% chance on "Takeover" and a 3% chance on "Deadfall Ridge.") I have no idea if having been a previous BookBub release increases those odds.

BookBub seems to be the one thing that really works. I'm still selling "Deadfall Ridge" better than any of my other books.

But I think keeping my expectations low is prudent.

One thing's for sure. If the BookBubs happen, I'll immediately set about writing a third Hart Davis adventure.

Follow the momentum.

Despite all my procrastination, things are proceeding.

I buckled down and did the full edit that "Takeover" needed. I've gotten back the edits from Lara Milton and as usual she did a great job. She smooths out the language, makes it that much more readable. I have the fantastic cover from Mike Corley, so all that I need to do before submitting is come up with a popping synopsis.

Synopsis's is so damn hard. I've done one, but it feels weak and I haven't figured out how to improve it. I think I'll try again, starting off with a simple explanation of the book, the way I'd describe it to a stranger. Then see if I can't tighten up that description.

Anyway, "Takeover" should be out soon. It's my most ambitious book, and as such, I can see all the places where I fell short. But it's falling short of a high goal, so it's probably better than I think. It will be interesting to see how the politics in the book play out.

I didn't write this book for the politics, but for the characters and the situation. But the politics were inherent in the situation.

As I've said before, it'll probably piss off both sides of the political divide. Heh.

Meanwhile, I want to rewrite "Eden's Return" and send it off to Lara in the next month. I already have the cover from Mike. So that book should be ready when the next slot opens up.

"Castle La Magie" needs one more rewrite, and it will be ready too. So, in some ways, the next year is covered.

This is by far the longest I've gone not writing fresh material. But I have a bunch of stories that still need to be edited, so that's all right.

My cynicism is finally catching up to my age.

I think I've always been a little too willing to give the Powers That Be the benefit of the doubt. It never really occurred to me that some billionaires might not care about the country as a whole, that seniors might not care about their grandchildren's future, that an entire political party would be so concerned about their own interests that they'd throw the Constitution under the bus.

Way back my junior college political science course, I wrote a paper about the gas shortage, giving the gas companies an out. I assumed that beyond normal 'covering their ass' responses that politicians would vote their convictions.

I've never liked conspiracies theories, on the assumption that large groups just don't have their act together enough to pull them off. But I've learned that it doesn't take "collusion" so much as a shared willingness to fuck people over.

It has been a long learning process at the store. I've learned that not everyone cares about doing the right thing. That "ethics" is a concept that some people don't understand. That people will lie over a few bucks, and throw their reputation away for the most minor of advantages.

I figured that big corporations knew what they were doing, that they understood long-term consequences to their decisions. Instead, I've literally seen a majority of the companies I've purchased from over the last 35 years go bankrupt--to do the stupidest things imaginable, and to regularly put short term profit over long-term health.

I don't want to give up hope. But damn, it's getting harder.

Adventures in rehab.

Linda and I dropping some stuff off at the rehab place for brother-in-law Dave.

We're walking down the hall and a little old lady waves her hand at us from her bed and says, "Help!"

So we got get aide and continue on down the hall. We come out, and the lady is in a wheelchair near the door. "Hello!" she says brightly. "Will you take me somewhere?" She is looking out on the steep slope of the driveway as if yearning to escape.

"Ah, I don't think..."

"Sure!" says Linda, taking hold of the wheelchair and starting off.

"Ouch" the old lady says. "My foot wasn't ready."

"That's uh, why maybe why we shouldn't, uh..." I start.

"Yeah, drunk driver," the lady says and directs us down the hallway. We reach the nurses station and Linda looks at her inquiringly.

"These people won't do anything," the lady says. "Let's go back."

We get back where we started and I mutter, "I think we've been Shanghaied."

"Can you take me...?" the lady says, cheerfully.

Linda says gently, "We have to go see my brother. I don't work here."

"Oh...you don't?" the lady says. (She knows.)

We try leaving, and Linda stops and starts putting numbers into the key panel. She keeps putting in three numbers. Another little old lady--and I do mean little, I joked about jumping over her--says, "It's four numbers dear. I can't reach it. They don't want us to escape."

We drive home, and I settle into my office chair and take a deep breath.
 

Stick-to-it-iveness

There was an interview on Shelf Awareness from a bookstore owner in Florida talking about how long they've been in business that caught my attention:

"Part of the answer is a kind of stick-to-it-iveness that we've had, to deal with the ups and downs..."

Well, that's sort of it, isn't it?

For me, it was also the willingness to accept less money and the sneaking suspicion that I wouldn't be able to work for anyone else. Linda stuck with me through it all, working shit jobs to supplement our income until she finally had a store of her own.

But yeah. You just keep doing it, adjusting to the constant change, trying things until they work. Being steady and reliable is a big part of small business success--and certainly, not expecting overnight success.

It took a good 20 years before I think we were sustainable. I could make the case that if I hadn't made so many mistakes in the beginning that it could have been done in 10 years. How many people are willing to put up with the stress and hard hours and lack of money for ten years?

If I have one message for anyone planning to open a business it is--watch out for burn-out. Watch out for the advice that you should keep adding services, keep growing, keep working more hours, keep on doing everything that everyone says you should do

Simplify your workplace as much as possible, despite everyone telling you the opposite.

Then just put your head down and keep working. Do the basic job well, and let the other stuff go.

Every damn twinge.

Every time I get a twinge in my chest I'm aware of my mortality.

Linda was gone for the whole day, yesterday. It was a sample of what life would be without her. It wasn't pretty. Didn't accomplish a damn thing. (Well, I did mow and fertilize the lawn, trim some hedges, and do some weeding. Exciting life I have.)

It reminded me of the decade I spent mostly alone when I was depressed. But there was a weird compensation, somehow. I had an enormous appetite for media: movies, TV, music, and books. Especially books. I'm not sure I could do the same today.

The difference is--I'm not frightened I'm not going to have enough money for the next rent check. Yea!

I just don't have the desire to write. The longer this goes on, the less desire I have. Am I done?

Chances are I'll spend more time on this blog if I'm not writing fiction.

Is there anything wrong with just relaxing? I have inherited enough of Libby's puritan ethic to feel like I'm failing if I'm not doing something challenging. More than anything else, that was what writing novels represented for me. Every time I started a book is was a chance to get it right. Looking back, it doesn't seem like I varied all that much in quality, though it got easier to do.

I suspect that some idea will overtake me that I simply have to write.

Imposing my own narrative on my life.

I forget sometimes how much I like writing this blog. The candor of it, revealing without fear my thoughts, the honesty of how I feel. It feels good. This is the way it is, this is what's happening. You don't have to read it, or care. I'm just putting down my thoughts, to myself as much as to anyone else. Because by writing them down, I spark other thoughts, and I figure out how I'm feeling and thinking better than the amorphous consciousness that I carry throughout my waking hours. Form is imposed, a narrative.

I don't kid myself that the narrative is necessarily the complete truth--but for me, having a narrative is important.

I was thinking about this the other day as I drove into Bend. I tend to think of everything in narrative, everything a story. I wonder if artists see everything from the perspective of pictures, or musicians hear music. I don't know if this is unusual, or if everyone does it.

I decided during my depression 40 years ago to impose my own narrative. It had to feel real, it couldn't be completely made up, but I could chose what parts of my own life I wished to narrate and which parts I chose to ignore or compartmentalize.

I feel when I used psychedelics--the probable cause of my breakdown--that I was seeing real truth, but I didn't much like it. I've heard that when they do tests on depressives that they see the world more objectively than those who are healthy. My take on this is that you have to chose to be healthy, to see the world in a more positive light than your darkest thoughts.

There's a new study out that people who read are in a meditative state and that's it's healthy. I've always wondered about how my depression manifested itself. I mean, I was crippled by it as anyone who has ever suffered from it, and yet--I always had a weird faith I'd come out of it.

(I spent too many years thinking I'd somehow "revert" to my previous self. In the end, I had to rebuild my personality from the ground up.)

I had amazing dreams when I was depressed. I don't remember nightmares, I remember dreams of better days. And I read--oh, man did I read. I was stuck with myself in single room apartments, unwilling or unable to face the public, and so I read and read and read.

And toward the end of the depression, I started writing.

I think it was even more powerful than reading. I started living in an alternative and more positive world. A narrative, if you will, that I knew wasn't real but which felt real.

And so the habit of seeing everything as a narrative took hold. I don't know if my narrative of my business career is completely accurate, but it works for me. It makes me feel good about myself and I think the lessons I've learned are incorporated and preserved.

So this blog is a continuation of that. It's the narrative I present to the world, and the narrative I try to live by.