alicebentley

Because I want to see if things work like I think they do when I post a link here.

Shelf Life, edited by Greg Ketter

Two weeks from now I will be flying off to Minneapolis, leaving my home of 11 years here on the dim green quiet island and returning to my favorite occupation: bookselling. I can't wait (and yet I must wait). My head is filled with all the questions I can only answer there, and the plans that Greg and I may or may not choose to implement. We're not even talking about it much now - we know that we will be able to have much more productive and interactive discussions about everything once we are face to face again. Skype really doesn't fill that need, and there's no deadline to meet or crashing need for action.

But two weeks is also long enough that I'm not being very productive getting ready for everything. I really ought to be far along on the whole "what to bring, what to sell, what to trash" process, but each pile I ramble through brings another handful of marvelous distractions.

Like, I used to do a vast amount of yarnwork (both knitting and crochet) and I can see a strong potential for letting that back into my life. But I'm unlikely to choose to use my stash of acrylic yarn when I've a stash of non-itchy wool also waiting. (I've already regifted the itchy wool.) I'm not going to just throw it all away, but it feels strange to give it away when it's not all in perfect wound balls. And I'm not wiling to spend half an afternoon carefully winding yarn I'm not planning to use.

That's just one example, I have a dozen more. Clothes that are perfectly fine but I never wear them (so why keep them). Books and papers that I enjoyed at the time, but don't need to have for all eternity, and certainly don't want to see added to the recycling pile. At least if they are things related to science fiction, and have some sort of value, I could ship them to the store and put them up for sale. But what about the vast collection of convention program books? The 1981 Encyclopaedia Brittanica? The amazing collection of gardening books - all for growing in the Pacific NorthWest?

Then there are the projects I've left hanging.
I have the outline and much of the text of a short writeup on the economics of being a convention bookseller. It's a topic that I can be quite animated about in person. But wedging it into words has sucked all the life out of it. There's probably only a couple of hours needed to finish it up and post it. And I mention it here because today is a very likely time to complete this, especially after I post this note and publicly commit myself to doing so.

I have the making for a costume. I haven't done costume construction since Marty got old enough to no longer be interested (somewhere around 10). But I love the idea of this one, and Emerald City would be the perfect place. My head knows that I have only today and next Tuesday off from work, and that there's little energy left after working to do stuff in the evening. And yet my gut thinks there's still plenty of time. You are wrong, gut!

The thing to do right now is to stop ramblingwriting, take a shower, get dressed, make breakfast and then see if I can avoid cruising the net (my most common timesink).

Oh, and post this missive.

I know the days are getting longer, because while it is now 5:00 pm in the evening and dark enough that lights must go on inside, it is still light enough to see outdoors. So that's a big change from the last month. But I will be even happier when the sun stays up longer.

That is, I'm going to be selling books at an upcoming convention again!

Ursula Vernon is the Guest of Honor at Foolscap, which will be held at the Redmond Merriott Town Center in (you guessed it!) Redmond WA on Jan 30th - Feb 1st, 2015.

SofaWolf, the publisher of her amazing graphic novel Digger, has other commitments and can't make the long journey from Minnesota. So I'm stepping up to make sure the folks at Foolscap get a chance to see this wonderful work, even if they aren't willing to sit in front of a screen and hit "Next".

SofaWolf is providing the books, I'm providing the enthusiasm, and Foolscap is providing the venue for us all to enjoy. If you're planning to come, please stop by and keep me company. And if you weren't planning to come, perhaps plans will change!?!

And just lying in the bed staring at the ceiling isn't very helpful.

So I tiptoed out to scrawl down some of the many things going through my brian, in hopes that they will all settle down.

Working at the Country Store has really underscored for me how much I love working retail. (I really enjoy it.) It also makes me itch to do more bookkeeping-type stuff, and wonder whether I should look into taking some classes to get a better grounding at that. The shop is not interested in having me do any of that sort of work, but watching what they're doing, and the choices they're making (some of which I disagree with) leads to thinking about the options I had at the bookstore, and what choices I might make if I was to try something like that again.

Then there's the whole "where do you see yourself in 10 years" thing. Maybe it really IS time to think about a move - either back to the midwest where all our family and most of our friends are, or down toward California where at least Mike might find some exciting work. I do like this house, but there are very many nice houses on this planet, and even with having been here for over ten years we haven't truly put down roots. We've made some new friends since coming out, but we see them even less often than the family back East.

In the short term I want to push myself into writing up more about the topics that interest me: costs in publishing, methods of artistic distribution, old snippets of encounters from the bookstore. I haven't managed to actually write any of those yet, but perhaps a tangible reminder like this will help.

Time to try sleeping again.

I've learned it's hard to make myself write things, and even harder to post them. But I enjoy reading everyone else's posts so much I'm once again making the try at it.

For much of the last year I've been trying to do many things, and failing at most of them. My head knows how it's supposed to go, and my heart remembers pulling off projects with delighted regularity, but today's reality is I just don't do it.

So this last couple of months have been me acknowledging the things I've said I would do and haven't, and letting the other folks involved know that they need to get someone else in. I'm really grateful to you all for having faith in me, and the grace and generosity you've shown when I fell short of that faith.

For now, I'm hunkering down. My daily energy is being directed at doing the best job I can at The Country Store and Farm. I'm allowing my time off work to be claimed by extra sleeping, reading a book, and light housecleaning. I've already passed on my responsibilities to all but one outside project, and now I'm going to stop mentally telling myself that I'll go to that drawing class, start back in on martial arts, put time into that stained glass project, or pursue any of the dozen new business schemes that bounce around in my head. Better to have no aspirations, and then accomplish some things anyway, than to constantly be surrounded by the things I am failing to do.

That's the plan anyway. Time will tell what works. Thanks for listening.

When your dream devolves into two people arguing about the distribution chain for a particular book, it is clearly time to wake up.

Today's contribution to actually writing down (up?) some of the random things in my life.

It's something I've never managed. I took a year of German in school, and achieved my goal of sufficient vocabulary to read Einstein's Theory of Relativity. But never managed even partial conversational ability.

I love the Japanese language, and have poked at learning it for more than 30 years. I have a *wonderful* set of books and guides, and took classes from some great teachers. Pretty much none of it stays in my head for more than a week or so.

A couple of years ago my son became interested in Norway. (Norway?) I can only guess that it's related to knowing that his maternal grandparents came form there, but who knows. He's interested in learning Norsk, but not in traveling to Seattle every week to do so. So now I'm thinking maybe I'd like to learn Norsk, and we could both go, and it would give me someone to practice with.

I am, however, well aware of the challenge:
http://www.itchyfeetcomic.com/2013/09/view-from-top.html?m=1

I wouldn't have thought this would be a problem. I always have a bazillion projects I'd like to do, ideas I get really passionate about. And I have a history of following through on tasks, whether it's helping out at conventions or doing housework.

But the last week of post-holiday, still-unemployed has been one of my most unproductive times ever. All right, massive loads of paper have been sorted, stored or disposed of, but the instigating piece of paper was not found, and there is still an equal massive load to store or trash. It really brought home to me that I have NOT in fact been doing a good job on the housework. Just having things not be dirty in not sufficient.

This very moment I should be posting mercilessly on eBay, as I have towering stacks of cool things that I wish was in someone else's care, and an oncoming train of a bill that needs to be paid next month. But I delay, and read FaceBook, and make some lunch, and putter about. I'm not like this when I'm at a job, or when I was doing the bookstore, and I'm not sure what has changed. The methods I can think of to change back aren't really an option. Get someone else to come in and work with me would do - but this isn't Chicago where I can think of five good options without effort. This is Vashon Island, home of no one else we really hang out much with.

So here's a post to share my quandary, and hopefully nudge me into getting things done.

That's become a pretty serious question to me.
I know that my personal method is quite chaotic, and that I'm likely missing many titles that I just have to hope I encounter later.

I read quite a number of author's blogs, and so I often know months in advance when a new book of theirs is coming out. But that's still a tiny portion of the authors I might like to read.

I listen to my friend's post about what they're reading, and what they're looking forward to, and that helps a lot especially with the new authors.

I'm sad to say I haven't found the Amazon recommendations worthwhile at all. Besides the slightly annoying tendency for half the group to be books I already own (more than a few bought through Amazon, so you'd think they should know better), it's almost rare for one of the others to be something attractive. And all too often it looks like a title is only in there because they paid to be. I don't know if that's actually what happens or not, whatever the algorithm is it sin't finding good matches for what I might buy.

So let me ask the vast readership here: what sources do you use to choose your new reading material?