Dear God, it's been months since I've set words down on this thing. Oh I've been writing, to be sure. I think I've just been increasingly skeptical that anyone wants to hear it.
My novel is published on Kindle and has sold a couple of copies already. I've also got a free version out on fictionpress. I've off-and-on been working on a self-help book. Unfortunately my problem with that is that each day I feel different about what the world needs help with.
Right now, it seems inescapable that the economy is the worst of our woes. Funny considering that a year or two ago we all thought that nothing could possibly be worse than the war in Iraq. And before that we thought...what? That the most important concern was whether or not Ross and Rachael would end up together on Friends?
I think that's the problem, and why we're having such a hard time now. None of us were prepared for this. Few of us even knew we would ever need to be. America was invincible. Terrorists didn't take us down, and that meant nothing ever really could. And then...we began falling apart like a house of cards from the inside.
Bush and Cheney wanted us to believe that men in turbans with M-16s were the only arrow that could possibly pierce America's armor. In the meantime, we were already entering the worst housing crisis in decades, Wall Street and our banks were spending frivulously and enjoying a downward spiral that anyone with eyes in their head should have seen would end in disaster. Yeah, that party was great until the keg ran out of beer.
Obama is now in the White House. A step in the right direction, I think. I voted for the man because I've always believed that America could only truly better itself if it embraced new ideas and fresh ideology instead of hunkering down with tradition and fundementalist religion. Like an old box of corn flakes, modern American Christianity expired decades ago. Now the only people it typically benefits are those that want to ignore their responsibility to change their own world instead of let a bearded man from space do it for them, and those who want an excuse to hate their fellow man. Why are we still catering and cow-towing to a religion that finds it perfectly acceptable to passionately hate gays?
Back on topic, we ate and ate and ate until we were too fat to get off the couch. Now we're feeling a massive coronary coming on, but we're too damn big to get up and make it to the phone to call 911. America, plain and simple, is just a little too stupid to know how to save itself.
That doesn't mean we won't be saved. I think we're going to be "scared straight" by this, if only for a while. Obama does have the right idea of pushing for a cleaner, greener infrastructure. Unfortunately, he's going about it in a way that's a bit ass backwards. He's looking ahead ten years and spending money that will help us then, but what good is building a life raft that will be ready in ten years if people are already drowning?
I could be in one of two places in ten years. Contentidly working in sales and making enough money to support myself, perhaps even enough to save towards my dreams. Or...I could be homeless living in a box on Ponce De Leon. But at least I'll be watching a new generation of eco-friendly cars drive by my cardboard box!
Sad thing is, our push to "greenify" our economy may be just a bit too late. With the current state of technology, green costs money, and money is kind of a hard thing to come by now. So where is this multi-billion dollar stimulus coming from, you ask? Contrary to what the Republicans would have you believe, it's actually coming from other countries. We're borrowing from mom's purse. In this case, China's purse in particular. At our current rate of debt, our great red neighbor basically owns us, with half the other countries in the world shaing stock. Amercia is becoming everyone else's deadbeat brother that promises to pay you back but never really will.
And here comes the Catch 22. Where does China's money come from? Guess who! Yeah...trade with us. And since our industry is going under....
So basically the world is printing money with absolutely no basis in concrete assets. And our government is spending that money on roads and colleges and state parks. Good to provide a few John Does with a job, but bad for the rest of us because we can't afford to go to school and learn how to install a solar panel.
So what's really going to save us? Notice I say what, not who. Change is the only thing that can save us. Reinvention. We have to be ok with the possibility that everything we thought we could have may just have been a pipe dream. A pipe dream that was actually distracting us from the truly important things in life.
You wanted a million dollar car? You may have to learn that putting a roof over your family's head is a bit more important.
You wanted to be a rock star? You may have to readjust your viewpoint and realize that building houses for your neighbors in need is a much more admirable goal.
People need to realize that you don't have to aim for the sky. Sometimes there are better rewards right there at eye level, staring you in the face. Community, compassion and simple human need has to replace greed, entitlement and gluttony. If it doesn't...we won't be saved. This might just be it.
Rome fell. The greatest civilization in the world. We're ignorant to think that America can't too.
We're also ignorant to think that a beer and a big-screen tv playing American Idol is a better way to spend our time than an evening at the local homeless shelter dishing out soup to the needy.
Get your priorities straight America! And you just might be allright.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Couldn't make this up if I tried
I payed off my car yesterday after over four years of regular payments. I spent nearly all of the money in my bank account knocking that sucker out, and I was damn proud of myself.
Tonight I get in my car to go see a concert with Karenann. I make it to the entrance of the subdivision and...the engine dies.
Because I just payed the sucker off, I now have no money to fix it.
The irony astounds
Tonight I get in my car to go see a concert with Karenann. I make it to the entrance of the subdivision and...the engine dies.
Because I just payed the sucker off, I now have no money to fix it.
The irony astounds
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Passing of a Legend
I want to take some time to pay tribute to a friend, a member of my family, and a source of inspiration.
Fluffer the bunny entered that great bunny field in the sky today. He was fourteen years old.
Fourteen. That age is almost biblical in proportion when it comes to rabbits. And like Moses and Noah in the old testament, Fluffer was a lively old codger till the end of his days.
I remember sleeping on a couch in Darlene's living room with Fluffer nearby, making the most peculiar and yet adorable sound I had ever heard. Fluffer snored. I had never before in my life heard an animal snore, yet here he was with his nose pressed against the wall of his cage making a sound that seemed straight out of a cartoon.
He moved around a lot in those days, hopping about his cage and about the floor when Darlene let him out. All of the other animals seemed to hold a kind of respect...even reverence of him. I know Winter, my two year old cat, was fascinated by him. She watched him frequently, and a time or two we caught her with her arm through the cage, lightly touching Fluffer like an awed fan would reach out to touch Elvis.
And like Elvis or Noah, Fluffer has forever left his mark on us. He was the man of the house. The cutest of us, but also the most determined. His small stature did not diminish the obvious and immesurable size of his spirit. I never once saw that bunny look unhappy. Tired, maybe, but not unhappy. He held life by the horns for fourteen years. I can only hope I can one day, when I'm eighty or ninety, look age and Father Time in the eye and say, "Just one more year."
Wherever you are, my friend, I hope you're happy, and eating all the alfalfa and bunny treats you could ever want. You had as great a friend as any bunny could ever want in Darlene, and I can tell you the rest of us, fuzzy, four-legged, and otherwise, loved you more than we can say...or bark.
Rest well, bunny boy.
Fluffer the bunny entered that great bunny field in the sky today. He was fourteen years old.
Fourteen. That age is almost biblical in proportion when it comes to rabbits. And like Moses and Noah in the old testament, Fluffer was a lively old codger till the end of his days.
I remember sleeping on a couch in Darlene's living room with Fluffer nearby, making the most peculiar and yet adorable sound I had ever heard. Fluffer snored. I had never before in my life heard an animal snore, yet here he was with his nose pressed against the wall of his cage making a sound that seemed straight out of a cartoon.
He moved around a lot in those days, hopping about his cage and about the floor when Darlene let him out. All of the other animals seemed to hold a kind of respect...even reverence of him. I know Winter, my two year old cat, was fascinated by him. She watched him frequently, and a time or two we caught her with her arm through the cage, lightly touching Fluffer like an awed fan would reach out to touch Elvis.
And like Elvis or Noah, Fluffer has forever left his mark on us. He was the man of the house. The cutest of us, but also the most determined. His small stature did not diminish the obvious and immesurable size of his spirit. I never once saw that bunny look unhappy. Tired, maybe, but not unhappy. He held life by the horns for fourteen years. I can only hope I can one day, when I'm eighty or ninety, look age and Father Time in the eye and say, "Just one more year."
Wherever you are, my friend, I hope you're happy, and eating all the alfalfa and bunny treats you could ever want. You had as great a friend as any bunny could ever want in Darlene, and I can tell you the rest of us, fuzzy, four-legged, and otherwise, loved you more than we can say...or bark.
Rest well, bunny boy.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
What my heart knows
I get the feeling sometimes, when I'm alone and looking up at the night sky and the clouds hover around the crescent moon, that something is looking back. That when I call, something hears me. That when I walk, something feels the treads of my shoes. That when I ask...something wants to give, and sometimes does.
There's something, I don't know what exactly, that lives in the small spaces, within the cracks of reality and the narrow seams of perception. That something is a part of me, and a part of you, and a part of everything and everyone that ever was or ever could be.
I call that presence God, though in my mind God is not an old man with a thundering voice commanding us to obey or face damnation. God is the breeze through my hair. God is the sand between my toes. God is the laughter of a child. God is the voice that tells me to live, to create, and to hope.
I have faith in this feeling. I will never doubt that I am not alone, nor ever could be. And I have faith that whatever this force is, it binds us together in ways we can only begin to imagine. That gives me hope. That gives me a reason to believe that humanity is destined for greater things, and that every act of heroism, whether great or small, that one of us commits...this force is ever stronger.
One day we will all see it, and know it for what it is. One day we will see each other, and recognize the thread wound between us all. One day...the voice I hear that pulls me forward, that whisper on the wind...one day that voice will sing, and we will sing with it.
There's something, I don't know what exactly, that lives in the small spaces, within the cracks of reality and the narrow seams of perception. That something is a part of me, and a part of you, and a part of everything and everyone that ever was or ever could be.
I call that presence God, though in my mind God is not an old man with a thundering voice commanding us to obey or face damnation. God is the breeze through my hair. God is the sand between my toes. God is the laughter of a child. God is the voice that tells me to live, to create, and to hope.
I have faith in this feeling. I will never doubt that I am not alone, nor ever could be. And I have faith that whatever this force is, it binds us together in ways we can only begin to imagine. That gives me hope. That gives me a reason to believe that humanity is destined for greater things, and that every act of heroism, whether great or small, that one of us commits...this force is ever stronger.
One day we will all see it, and know it for what it is. One day we will see each other, and recognize the thread wound between us all. One day...the voice I hear that pulls me forward, that whisper on the wind...one day that voice will sing, and we will sing with it.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Life has its ups and downs...and downs...and downs...
Reprinted from my MySpace blog
Yesterday I posted a status update on here about "being in more trouble than I've probably ever been in my entire life". I got a lot of questions about that from my friends, so I thought I'd take a minute to fill you all in on the latest set of events in the strange and lately discouraging saga of Rob.
That status update was me displaying my often-used skill at presenenting a plain fact in a very melodramatic way. No, I'm not in trouble with the law (yet...see below), no I haven't killed a man, and no I don't have an STD. What I do have is a very bad case of "being shit on all at once by fate". See, there's that melodrama again.
Here's a list of the series of unfortunate events that lead me to post that update:
1. For the past year, my bosses have been warning me of the fragility of my current job. In fact, the entire company I work with has been flirting with oblivion for over a year. Well, that flirtation is about to become a serious relationship.
Our business partners in California have recently downsized by firing over half of their employees. That left them with pretty much just us and their tech department. Since then they've devoted all of their efforts into one last push (selling home products to Overstock.com) in hopes that it will take off and save all of our asses. Unfortunately, they have not been pushing very hard. I've been working my butt off, but the tech department seems to care very little about the fate of the company. In fact, I think they're just killing time until the whole ship sinks.
This is fine for them, and fine for one of my bosses, Jim. Jim is already very financially stable, with a big house and a life partner (yes she's female, but they refuse to get married) who makes more money than he does. Jim has very little to lose. I get the sense that the guys in California don't either.
My other boss is my father, Steve. Steve has been putting every ounce of himself into this for five years. He and my mother are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. When the company sinks, they will likely lose their house. They have nothing. No inheritance. No rich relatives. And no back-up plan.
Naturally this also puts me up shit creek without a paddle. I can get another job...eventually. But it won't be easy. Not with the economy the way it is now and the incredible over-saturation in the employment pool of potential employees with every skill known to man. When I'm back on the job market, I'll be a pebble in a basket full of emeralds. My sales experience will amount to little or nothing.
And the other day I was told by my father to expect the job to only last about two more months.
2. Event number two is directly related to event number one. The nature of my job means that I'm self employed. As some of you may not know, self employment taxes are a lot more than regular taxes. My tax returns stated that the government took almost half of my income last year. So my $30,000 job really only amounted to $15,000. Might have been better off being the manager of a Burger King.
However, this didn't hurt me last year because in 2006 I overpaid. That overpayment was put forward towards 2007, and I ended up paying very little in taxes last year.
But now the past has not only caught up, it has attempted to run over me with a dump truck.
There was an error in my tax returns this year, and that overpayment wasn't reflected. So...in addition to the $6,000 federal and $1,000 state taxes I have to pay this year, the IRS claimed that I also owed an additional $5,000 from the amount I underpayed last year. Remember, this was just because their records didn't reflect that my cheap 2007 was because of an overpayment the year before.
I managed to get it straightened out by ammending my returns. I think. I have to wait to see if the ammendments were approved. But what this now means is that I'm going to have to pay a whole lot of tax all at once.
I've already paid the first quarter of my taxes for '08. Unfortunately, since the returns were wrong, they have to refund me that amount. Then, when I get the refund, I have to pay for the first quarter again...in the correct amount this time IN ADDITION to the money for the second quarter.
That means I'll be paying thousands of dollars in taxes all at once. This at a time when I can barely afford to buy socks.
So...I'm not going to be able to pay it. Which means I'll be on the IRS's naughty list. The longer I go without paying, the more trouble I'll be in and the more I'll have to pay when I finally can afford to.
Only problem is...when the hell am I going to be able to afford to? I'll be out of a job in two months, remember?
3. And now we get to event number three. The icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
A few days ago I was driving back from a friend's apartment in Atlanta. I was puttering along on I-85 going about 65 or 70. I was possessed by thoughts of what the hell I was going to do about my recent financial meltdown.
And then...all of a sudden...I was no longer going 70. Then I was no longer going 60. Then I was no longer going 50. Then 40....
Uh oh
I coasted over four lanes of traffic, all the while pushing on the gas to no effect, and managed to slow to a stop on a conveniently placed off-ramp (at least I caught a break there). My engine was not responding to the gas peddle. There was no acceleration at all.
I sighed in defeat, feeling like somewhere up above, Loki or some other deity of mischief and misfortune was laughing at me. I turned the car off and sat there for a few moments, readying myself to call AAA to come tow my car to the nearest auto repair. I didn't feel too upset. I think at that point I was resigned to the fact that life had decided it was one of those times to take away instead of to give.
But then I decided to thwart fate and crank my car back up. It cranked...but still no acceleration. Refusing to take no for an answer, I turned the car back off and then cranked it again.
This time, miracle of miracles, it worked. I drove home on the edge of my seat waiting for it to die again, but I made it home safetly.
However, such things do not happen without reason. The "check engine" light is still on. Something's pretty seriously wrong. Tommorow I should be taking my car in to get it looked at, but really...I can't afford to get anything done to it. If the car is crippled, I just have to let it be crippled. If it's un-drivable until it's fixed...then I just won't have a car.
So there you go, kids. About to lose my job. I'm in more debt than I'll likely get out of for a very long time. Now I've lost my car. And it seems my luck was obviously lost months ago.
Am I upset? Hmm. Not really, I don't think. I feel a little trampled on, but for some reason I'm not upset. I'll work things out. Things will have to change. Everything may have to change. But somehow...I'll climb back out of this.
I'm trying to hire myself out as a writer. I'm still pushing my novel. There's still a miniscule chance my current job could pick back up. Things will get better, somehow, at some point. I just gotta keep truckin. :)
Got bless my stupid naive optimism.
Yesterday I posted a status update on here about "being in more trouble than I've probably ever been in my entire life". I got a lot of questions about that from my friends, so I thought I'd take a minute to fill you all in on the latest set of events in the strange and lately discouraging saga of Rob.
That status update was me displaying my often-used skill at presenenting a plain fact in a very melodramatic way. No, I'm not in trouble with the law (yet...see below), no I haven't killed a man, and no I don't have an STD. What I do have is a very bad case of "being shit on all at once by fate". See, there's that melodrama again.
Here's a list of the series of unfortunate events that lead me to post that update:
1. For the past year, my bosses have been warning me of the fragility of my current job. In fact, the entire company I work with has been flirting with oblivion for over a year. Well, that flirtation is about to become a serious relationship.
Our business partners in California have recently downsized by firing over half of their employees. That left them with pretty much just us and their tech department. Since then they've devoted all of their efforts into one last push (selling home products to Overstock.com) in hopes that it will take off and save all of our asses. Unfortunately, they have not been pushing very hard. I've been working my butt off, but the tech department seems to care very little about the fate of the company. In fact, I think they're just killing time until the whole ship sinks.
This is fine for them, and fine for one of my bosses, Jim. Jim is already very financially stable, with a big house and a life partner (yes she's female, but they refuse to get married) who makes more money than he does. Jim has very little to lose. I get the sense that the guys in California don't either.
My other boss is my father, Steve. Steve has been putting every ounce of himself into this for five years. He and my mother are hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. When the company sinks, they will likely lose their house. They have nothing. No inheritance. No rich relatives. And no back-up plan.
Naturally this also puts me up shit creek without a paddle. I can get another job...eventually. But it won't be easy. Not with the economy the way it is now and the incredible over-saturation in the employment pool of potential employees with every skill known to man. When I'm back on the job market, I'll be a pebble in a basket full of emeralds. My sales experience will amount to little or nothing.
And the other day I was told by my father to expect the job to only last about two more months.
2. Event number two is directly related to event number one. The nature of my job means that I'm self employed. As some of you may not know, self employment taxes are a lot more than regular taxes. My tax returns stated that the government took almost half of my income last year. So my $30,000 job really only amounted to $15,000. Might have been better off being the manager of a Burger King.
However, this didn't hurt me last year because in 2006 I overpaid. That overpayment was put forward towards 2007, and I ended up paying very little in taxes last year.
But now the past has not only caught up, it has attempted to run over me with a dump truck.
There was an error in my tax returns this year, and that overpayment wasn't reflected. So...in addition to the $6,000 federal and $1,000 state taxes I have to pay this year, the IRS claimed that I also owed an additional $5,000 from the amount I underpayed last year. Remember, this was just because their records didn't reflect that my cheap 2007 was because of an overpayment the year before.
I managed to get it straightened out by ammending my returns. I think. I have to wait to see if the ammendments were approved. But what this now means is that I'm going to have to pay a whole lot of tax all at once.
I've already paid the first quarter of my taxes for '08. Unfortunately, since the returns were wrong, they have to refund me that amount. Then, when I get the refund, I have to pay for the first quarter again...in the correct amount this time IN ADDITION to the money for the second quarter.
That means I'll be paying thousands of dollars in taxes all at once. This at a time when I can barely afford to buy socks.
So...I'm not going to be able to pay it. Which means I'll be on the IRS's naughty list. The longer I go without paying, the more trouble I'll be in and the more I'll have to pay when I finally can afford to.
Only problem is...when the hell am I going to be able to afford to? I'll be out of a job in two months, remember?
3. And now we get to event number three. The icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camel's back.
A few days ago I was driving back from a friend's apartment in Atlanta. I was puttering along on I-85 going about 65 or 70. I was possessed by thoughts of what the hell I was going to do about my recent financial meltdown.
And then...all of a sudden...I was no longer going 70. Then I was no longer going 60. Then I was no longer going 50. Then 40....
Uh oh
I coasted over four lanes of traffic, all the while pushing on the gas to no effect, and managed to slow to a stop on a conveniently placed off-ramp (at least I caught a break there). My engine was not responding to the gas peddle. There was no acceleration at all.
I sighed in defeat, feeling like somewhere up above, Loki or some other deity of mischief and misfortune was laughing at me. I turned the car off and sat there for a few moments, readying myself to call AAA to come tow my car to the nearest auto repair. I didn't feel too upset. I think at that point I was resigned to the fact that life had decided it was one of those times to take away instead of to give.
But then I decided to thwart fate and crank my car back up. It cranked...but still no acceleration. Refusing to take no for an answer, I turned the car back off and then cranked it again.
This time, miracle of miracles, it worked. I drove home on the edge of my seat waiting for it to die again, but I made it home safetly.
However, such things do not happen without reason. The "check engine" light is still on. Something's pretty seriously wrong. Tommorow I should be taking my car in to get it looked at, but really...I can't afford to get anything done to it. If the car is crippled, I just have to let it be crippled. If it's un-drivable until it's fixed...then I just won't have a car.
So there you go, kids. About to lose my job. I'm in more debt than I'll likely get out of for a very long time. Now I've lost my car. And it seems my luck was obviously lost months ago.
Am I upset? Hmm. Not really, I don't think. I feel a little trampled on, but for some reason I'm not upset. I'll work things out. Things will have to change. Everything may have to change. But somehow...I'll climb back out of this.
I'm trying to hire myself out as a writer. I'm still pushing my novel. There's still a miniscule chance my current job could pick back up. Things will get better, somehow, at some point. I just gotta keep truckin. :)
Got bless my stupid naive optimism.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Freeballin It
So I'm sitting. Sitting and blogging. Sitting, satting, sat. *sigh*
I'm in one of those moods where I want to write but my mind is such a mess that it'll be hard to settle on any concrete topic. Maybe.
So what's going on with me? Hmm.
Torn between friends again. Surprise! No, I don't feel like going into details. Too much anger floating around. Unnecessary, unhealthy anger. I don't deal well with that. Anger is a monkey I beat off of my back years ago, and I sometimes have trouble understanding why others hold onto it so strongly for so long. Anger is not a security blanket. Anger is a sickness.
I'm poor. Creeping up on cardboard box poor. Drowning in debt like the rest of America. My job is teetering on the brink of oblivion. I told my friend Kim that the company I work for was climbing a string. The string could break at any second, plunging us all into darkness (and bankruptcy), but...if they manage to successfully climb that string...there's a pot of gold waiting at the top. So, basically I'm holding on by my fingertips to a job that's either going to screw me over or make me rich within the next year. Yeah, I'm playing russian roulette with my bank account. Every month I pull the trigger and hope for that click.
And then there's my financial trump card, which I've been trying to play for three years now. My novel, The Pull. For those of you that don't know, The Pull is the first book in a five volume series I've been working on since I was fourteen. It's about a guy named Nick who wakes up in the woods one day with no memory. All he has to go on is a pull...a sensation that there's somewhere he's supposed to be. So he follows the pull, makes new friends, gets stalked by a demon, runs afoul of the criminal underworld, and gets labled a super-hero by the media. Yada yada yada. It's like Harry Potter minus the wands and with a lot more angst. Bullshit, it's nothing like Harry Potter. Or anything else for that matter, hence my problem with getting it published.
Publishers and agents alike seem to be terrified of this thing. It's a multi-volume epic, just like the money makers like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, but the young adult market (the kids and parents who have been fueling the industry for the past five to ten years) won't embrace it because it isn't PG-13. And the housewives (the ones who fueled the market pre-Harry Potter) won't want it either because there's too much violence.
So...I've got a long list of publishers who love it...but don't know what the hell to do with it. Ace, one of the major imprints of Penguin, tossed it around for quite a while. They had board meetings, apparently they had arguments, and then they passed. They passed because the higher-ups didn't want to take a chance with it. It could have made them a titanic amount of money...but it wasn't a guaranteed sell like the Eragons and the Lemony Snicketts and the Twilights that are raking in the dough now. It aint Faulkner, but it aint JK Rowling, nor is it a memoir about the time some guy was so coked up he tried to bite off his own hand...so the publishers won't touch it, and the agents don't want to invest their time in it.
So here I am, with years and years of work and a story I have the utmost faith could blow the socks off of people...and I have to sit on it because no one wants to take a chance. Ah, how my faith in the formulaic and cowardly entertainment industry swells.
Gah, enough bitching and mental masturbation. Time for the real thing. Kidding. I have work to do.
I'm in one of those moods where I want to write but my mind is such a mess that it'll be hard to settle on any concrete topic. Maybe.
So what's going on with me? Hmm.
Torn between friends again. Surprise! No, I don't feel like going into details. Too much anger floating around. Unnecessary, unhealthy anger. I don't deal well with that. Anger is a monkey I beat off of my back years ago, and I sometimes have trouble understanding why others hold onto it so strongly for so long. Anger is not a security blanket. Anger is a sickness.
I'm poor. Creeping up on cardboard box poor. Drowning in debt like the rest of America. My job is teetering on the brink of oblivion. I told my friend Kim that the company I work for was climbing a string. The string could break at any second, plunging us all into darkness (and bankruptcy), but...if they manage to successfully climb that string...there's a pot of gold waiting at the top. So, basically I'm holding on by my fingertips to a job that's either going to screw me over or make me rich within the next year. Yeah, I'm playing russian roulette with my bank account. Every month I pull the trigger and hope for that click.
And then there's my financial trump card, which I've been trying to play for three years now. My novel, The Pull. For those of you that don't know, The Pull is the first book in a five volume series I've been working on since I was fourteen. It's about a guy named Nick who wakes up in the woods one day with no memory. All he has to go on is a pull...a sensation that there's somewhere he's supposed to be. So he follows the pull, makes new friends, gets stalked by a demon, runs afoul of the criminal underworld, and gets labled a super-hero by the media. Yada yada yada. It's like Harry Potter minus the wands and with a lot more angst. Bullshit, it's nothing like Harry Potter. Or anything else for that matter, hence my problem with getting it published.
Publishers and agents alike seem to be terrified of this thing. It's a multi-volume epic, just like the money makers like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, but the young adult market (the kids and parents who have been fueling the industry for the past five to ten years) won't embrace it because it isn't PG-13. And the housewives (the ones who fueled the market pre-Harry Potter) won't want it either because there's too much violence.
So...I've got a long list of publishers who love it...but don't know what the hell to do with it. Ace, one of the major imprints of Penguin, tossed it around for quite a while. They had board meetings, apparently they had arguments, and then they passed. They passed because the higher-ups didn't want to take a chance with it. It could have made them a titanic amount of money...but it wasn't a guaranteed sell like the Eragons and the Lemony Snicketts and the Twilights that are raking in the dough now. It aint Faulkner, but it aint JK Rowling, nor is it a memoir about the time some guy was so coked up he tried to bite off his own hand...so the publishers won't touch it, and the agents don't want to invest their time in it.
So here I am, with years and years of work and a story I have the utmost faith could blow the socks off of people...and I have to sit on it because no one wants to take a chance. Ah, how my faith in the formulaic and cowardly entertainment industry swells.
Gah, enough bitching and mental masturbation. Time for the real thing. Kidding. I have work to do.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Obligation
Pop Quiz, hot shot:
You're on your way out the door one day to attend a play with a friend. Before you go, you discover that your roommate is in intense pain and is about to go to the hospital with her boyfriend because she thinks she has appendicitis.
Your choices are these:
1) Go to the play. You've already blown off your friend twice over the past two days, and feel bad about doing so. You realize that if you blow them off again, it's going to cause a wound in the friendship
2) Go to the hospital with your roommate and her boyfriend. Sure, she already has help, but you'd feel terrible being "the guy that abandoned her in her time of need"
What do you do, kid? What do you do?
It seems that one of the rules of friendship is that you're bound to disappoint each other sooner or later. There's always going to be some event you can't go to that they really wanted you to be there for, or some occasion where two friends want you to be with them at the same time and you have to choose which one to please and which one to disappoint.
It's a fact of life that you can't please everyone. I've learned that the hard way time and again over the past several years of my life. I'm a guy that wants a lot of friends and a lot of good, healthy relationships. But...the more friends you take on, the more of a chance you have of not being able to please all, or even most of them. Hell, even if you only had two friends there would be times when you would have to choose between them.
Sucks, doesn't it? If I could have been at that play and in the hospital at the same time, I would have been. But I couldn't, so I had to choose. Did I make the right choice? Who knows. There's no use dwelling on "could haves" and "should haves". But...I did end up making one friend happy and not supporting the other.
I make the same kind of choices every day. Many times a day, in fact. Do I answer my phone when I'm supposed to be working? Do I tell one friend to hold on while another one calls? Do I make plans with someone for the weekend, knowing that two or three other people will likely want to hang out with me on that day as well?
I make those choices. I never feel good about them, but I make them. I probably have friends who wonder why I don't talk to them as often as I like or see them as often as they ask me to. The reason for that is simple. My life is very much like a party that I'm hosting. I invited everyone, and therefore I have an obligation to divide my time between each of my guests. If I just hang out with one person, everyone else will leave. Sure I'll have a best friend, but it will be my only friend.
So...I have an obligation to each of my friends. I don't always fulfill that obligation as well as I wish I had. In fact, I seldom do. But I try. To some I'm elusive. To some I appear as a loner. To some I may seem too busy. But what I really am is blessed. Blessed by the ability to be a part of so many people's lives, yet cursed with the inability to get as close to any one of them as I wish I could be.
The nature of who I am and what I want will likely always leave me stretched like this. Pulled in fourteen directions at once. The truth is that I like it. I love to be surrounded by creative minds and yearning hearts and strong, colorful people of all stripes and backgrounds.
But...I do wish I had more hours in the day, and more of an ability to fulfill my obligation to each of the people I care about.
You're on your way out the door one day to attend a play with a friend. Before you go, you discover that your roommate is in intense pain and is about to go to the hospital with her boyfriend because she thinks she has appendicitis.
Your choices are these:
1) Go to the play. You've already blown off your friend twice over the past two days, and feel bad about doing so. You realize that if you blow them off again, it's going to cause a wound in the friendship
2) Go to the hospital with your roommate and her boyfriend. Sure, she already has help, but you'd feel terrible being "the guy that abandoned her in her time of need"
What do you do, kid? What do you do?
It seems that one of the rules of friendship is that you're bound to disappoint each other sooner or later. There's always going to be some event you can't go to that they really wanted you to be there for, or some occasion where two friends want you to be with them at the same time and you have to choose which one to please and which one to disappoint.
It's a fact of life that you can't please everyone. I've learned that the hard way time and again over the past several years of my life. I'm a guy that wants a lot of friends and a lot of good, healthy relationships. But...the more friends you take on, the more of a chance you have of not being able to please all, or even most of them. Hell, even if you only had two friends there would be times when you would have to choose between them.
Sucks, doesn't it? If I could have been at that play and in the hospital at the same time, I would have been. But I couldn't, so I had to choose. Did I make the right choice? Who knows. There's no use dwelling on "could haves" and "should haves". But...I did end up making one friend happy and not supporting the other.
I make the same kind of choices every day. Many times a day, in fact. Do I answer my phone when I'm supposed to be working? Do I tell one friend to hold on while another one calls? Do I make plans with someone for the weekend, knowing that two or three other people will likely want to hang out with me on that day as well?
I make those choices. I never feel good about them, but I make them. I probably have friends who wonder why I don't talk to them as often as I like or see them as often as they ask me to. The reason for that is simple. My life is very much like a party that I'm hosting. I invited everyone, and therefore I have an obligation to divide my time between each of my guests. If I just hang out with one person, everyone else will leave. Sure I'll have a best friend, but it will be my only friend.
So...I have an obligation to each of my friends. I don't always fulfill that obligation as well as I wish I had. In fact, I seldom do. But I try. To some I'm elusive. To some I appear as a loner. To some I may seem too busy. But what I really am is blessed. Blessed by the ability to be a part of so many people's lives, yet cursed with the inability to get as close to any one of them as I wish I could be.
The nature of who I am and what I want will likely always leave me stretched like this. Pulled in fourteen directions at once. The truth is that I like it. I love to be surrounded by creative minds and yearning hearts and strong, colorful people of all stripes and backgrounds.
But...I do wish I had more hours in the day, and more of an ability to fulfill my obligation to each of the people I care about.
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