Transition

It’s – not quite spring.

You can tell it wants to be. I saw my first robin three weeks ago. The sun is strong and melty. The porters and stouts are slowly disappearing from the taps.

It won’t be long before buds will start to pop, coats will get stowed away, and our pale Minnesota skin will get its first splash of color.

Transition.

I wish I could say it was just the weather.

I’m very much a creature of habit – a fussy Virgo. I like my things just so. I like to know what I’m going to do each day. I want to know where I’m going to get my coffee. I don’t want the day to suddenly get one hour longer.

So why am I an IT consultant? Why do I have a job that can change on a dime, and take me to God only knows where?

Why am I choosing to move? Why am I cleaning out, digging through old memories, sorting away those I want to keep and wincing as I throw away those that no longer hold the meeting they once did?

And what am I doing with my writing? I’m so close to done – months away from being a bona fide published author – and yet my day job and the move pull me away and into chaos.

Transition.

And yet I’m thankful for all of it.

I’m blessed to work with good people, to have the means to move, and to have the time – however little it seems some days – to write.

Here’s to transition – and may it settle the fuck down.

Today's Literary News (AKA My Dystopian Thursday Morning)

The Tweets just kept coming today, one thunder crack after another signaling doom and gloom for the publishing industry. It was like peering through Twitter's looking glass and seeing into the Big 6's dystopian future.

First there was this:

From @GalleyCat

Adult mass paperback sales plunged 54 percent in September while eBook sales rose 100 percent: http://mbist.ro/srAdhg

I've been anticipating numbers like that, but it's still surprising to see them in print.


And then there was this spooky bit:

By 2016, e-book revenues from portable devices will reach nearly $10 billion and bookstores that don’t merge digital and traditional commerce may face extinction

Now I'm imagining the pages of old books blowing through empty strip mall parking lots.

And finally, there was this piece of holiday joy: How many Christmases until we see a whole new industry?

Which is neatly summarized by these two quotes:

John Makinson, the global CEO of Penguin, was quoted in a Reuters article saying that the post-Christmas period in publishing coming up is “tougher to predict” than “any time that I can remember”. Asked what he sees in the immediate future, Makinson replied “dark clouds.”

The pace of the digital switchover is quickening. That will reduce the cash available to invest in building a new ecosystem at the same time the urgency of coming up with new answers is rising. It’s enough to make a sober executive, even at a very large, successful, smart, and innovative company, admit to serious concern for the industry’s future 

But in good Hollywood fashion, we'll end with a ray of hope striking out from deep within the gloom:

IndieBound Reader is an ebook reading application [... that] allows book lovers to read ebooks purchased at their local, independent bookstores.

Thank goodness, right? I've been wondering how much longer it would be before the independents began to get their act together.

Oh, and an interesting closing note: The Bookcase in Wayzata (a real nice bookstore, BTW) is where Claudia and I went to see Leanna Renee Hieber, Friend of The Scribblerati.

Aren't you glad I shared?

CRUNCH!

So I got in a car accident today.  My first one in over 15 years.  I couldn’t possibly have been going over 5 MPH at the time so, obviously, it was a pretty minor thing in the grand scheme of life. And everyone’s ok, so happy ending and all that.

Even so, it was a bizzaro experience. 

I was at the Subway near my work, parked, and backing out of my stall.  Now, I spend a lot of time in and around the strip mall where this Subway is so I’m well aware that this place is like the Bermuda Triangle of Traffic. Strange Things always happen to me there and I know to take it easy. So, I’m backing out. I’m looking right. I’m looking left. Right. Left – and I got a funny feeling – so left again.

HONKCRUNCH!!

On the right, of course.

I’m not entirely sure what happened. Did I just miss him? Was he going too fast? I don’t know.  Anyway…

CRUNCH.

CRAP.

I pull back into the stall and get out of my car. The car that hit me/I hit/whatever pulls in front of Subway. The Kid gets out. I mean, he can’t be more than 20, if that. His eyes are like saucers.

I say to him, “Are you OK?”

He nods.

[Enter stage left: The Woman]

“I saw it!” The Woman yells.  The Kid and I both turn to look at her.  “I saw the whole thing.” The Woman points at me.  “He wasn’t even looking and he backed right into you. It’s his fault!”

To which I reply, “How the hell would you know that?”

“Cuz I was standing right there you Sonofabitch!  I’m 57 years old you Goddamn Asshole!  Don’t you tell me-”

And I proceeded to zone out The Woman, thinking: 1) This woman is crazy, and 2) DO NOT ENGAGE!

So I look at The Kid and say, “Do you have insurance?” The kid nods and we proceed to ignore The Woman and exchange insurance information the way any normal, reasonable, responsible, 21st century aware person would: by taking pictures of our insurance cards with our cell phones.

But let me tell you, we were an island of calm in a sea of crazy.  The Woman did not stop talking.  It was filthy.  Crazy. Unhinged.  I mean, The Woman was probably the age of me and The Kid combined and she’s carrying on about what a [REDACTED] I am while The Kid and I are doing our best to ignore her.

------------

So what (as my dad would say) ‘in the Sam Hell’ does any of this have to do with writing?

Looking back on it, I can see that the whole experience was a fascinating study in character.

When I put my characters in various situations, I naturally find myself thinking about how they would react to that situation. I base those reactions on their who they are, past experience, environment, etc. Typically, and maybe this is just because I'm still a noob, I tend to make those reactions rational.

A + B = C. 

Right?

Apparently not.

What is it that causes a person to react to a relatively benign situation in such a bizarre way? Maybe it's still A + B = C.  I mean, maybe there is a perfectly valid reason, a particular experience in a person's life that causes them to react in a manner that doesn't make sense to the rest of us.

Then again, maybe not. Maybe it’s just random chaos injecting itself into the situation.

A + B = G, where G = Good Lord what is this all about and how did it just happen?

Maybe, as a writer, I should try to get out of my head every once in a while and let chaos inject itself into my writing. Clearly, I need to be careful with that sort of thing. I mean, I can't let a meteor fall out of the sky and kill one of my main characters, but at the same time, unexpected events can be the breath of life, whether that's in my novel, or in our everyday drama.

And there's one other thing about unexpected events that I should tell you.  They make good blog posts.