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Happy Thoughts

In an effort to cheer me up (because I read web sites as if the owner was writing to me and only me), James Lileks posted this gem today:

“I should note that I rarely buy books – I work at a newspaper, which is a cornucopia of free reading material. You cannot imagine the heaps of stuff shoveled from the book room every day. I always want to take young writers to the book room and show them the mountains of books – unread, to say nothing of unreviewed. This is what you’re up against. And this doesn’t included the sixty billion paperbacks printed every year, half of which are pulped and set to Japan to make toilet paper. That’s right: the end result of most American author’s labors ends up hanging on a roll in a karaoke bar in a Tokyo suburb.”

Oh, hey, thanks! That’s what I needed to inspire me! I should point out that his own books (save the Regrettable Food one) are out of print which stinks because it’s been a pain in the arse for me to track them down to buy them. And I have, at least two of them.

So combine the toilet paper thing with him confirming that store clerks judge me based on things I buy. Great. The day I swung into Shaws to ONLY purchase items for Junior to take to Kindergarten AND daycare for his birthday treats…oh fantastic. Two trays of mini cupcakes and a couple of boxes of donut holes? Would you like anything in a salt to go with that sugar and fat? I hope I didn’t throw a National Enquirer on the belt with those items, but I might have. “Yes, cashier-person, I do have quite the evening planned!”

I had a great idea for a book that I was going to have to self-publish (which is an entirely different beast these days, very little outlay for the author) because nobody in their right mind would want to publish it, but I decided I didn’t want to write that book. Too close to home. Too much potential to get all serious and stuff. I have to come up with something else – my goal is to write it and then do the self-publish thing because then I can say “Yes, I wrote a book” and it takes the pressure off for the second one. Right?

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