Greedy Little Me

This is going to be a strange post.  It has come to my attention that people do not know how to shop for me.  Sooo, even though this is bananas, I'm going to write a list of shopping dos and don'ts for me.  

Now I'm going to give you a list of things I like and a list of things I don't like.  Don't mix them up!

Yarn

Pens

Empty Books

Suckable Candies

Pickles

Olives

Socks

Molds

Second List:

Lavender Soap

Cookies

Perfume

Earrings

Books

Gift Certificates

Concert tickets

Spa Vouchers

There!  All done!  I hope you enjoyed the sideways humor of this post.    

The Little Bookstore that Couldn't

A little over a year ago, I started doing shifts as a resident writer at the Askew Creek Book Shop.  It was a tiny bookshop in a market that sold independent novels and used books.  That's a picture of what my shelf looked like at one time.

So, as some of you have seen on my FaceBook page, it failed and it's closing its doors.

I feel quite a lot of grief that it failed and I hope there is another opportunity waiting around the corner.  I had so many plans.  I was going to set up a TV that played trailers for six of my books on a loop.  I was going to print my daughter's children's book and sell it there around Christmas.  

To help me say goodbye, I thought I'd write my top three memories from working at the bookshop.  

The time Carol and Angela taught me how to sell.  Neither Carol nor Angela work at the bookshop.  They work at surrounding shops.  I'm good at selling things normally, but selling my own books in person is a bit hard because people really want a few degrees of separation between them and their author.  That's especially the case when people read escapist fiction.  But Carol and Angela let me practice pitching my books to them and both bought a book when I was finished.  It was a sweet day!

The time Eliza told me that participating in a community writing exercise was beneath me.  I have always hated creative writing workshops.  I'm not interested in short story writing projects.  I want to write novels that have vast opportunities for plot twists and loops.  Short stories don't have to be predictable and I enjoy reading them from time to time, but I have no interest in writing them myself.  Eliza is a really crabby old writer, which makes her venom on my behalf as sweet as sugar.  I loved hearing her dismissive voice letting me off the hook.

The last one was something that didn't happen much at the market.  Most of the customers were seniors.  I still sold them my books, but one time I had a couple of women in their 20s come in.  As soon as they walked in, I said, "You two look like my demographic."  I sold one of them a copy of Kiss of Tragedy and she was so nervous about buying it from the author and getting a signed copy that she dropped her money three times.  In that tiny market, in that small corner, I looked like a real author to her.  I'm not sure if I've had many of those kinds of experiences in the flesh.  I received over 700 comments for Kiss of Tragedy online where people have gone into raptures about how great it is.  But this was in person.  It was an especially wonderful moment.

And now I'll only be there for two more shifts before it's over.  All my books will be pulled from the shelves on May 19th.  I really do hope there's another opportunity around the corner.  I'd like another opportunity.