Flying Off The Shelves

I went to Tai Chi today and had lunch in the Cafe at Cancer Wellness afterwards. As I sat there with a small plate of healthy food, the young intern named Lauren came over to visit with me. I met her the day she began her internship there. “My late daughter’s name was Lauren,” I told her. And her eyes radiated compassion.

Today we talked about a wide range of subjects. She is a wonderful listener, with beautiful eyes and a quietness about her that belies her youth. An only child, she knows she is loved. She has worked with disabled children at a place where they can ride horseback. I told her that I had been working on the Tai Chi move, Parting the Wild Horse’s Mane. In class, she told us that she had actually tamed wild horses. Looking at her, you would disbelieve that, for she is very feminine. But she has an inner strength that is also very tender.

“I ordered both your books on amazon,” she said while I was finishing my lunch. “Sometimes my friends come in and pick up one of them….”

“That’s great,” I told her, “because neither one is selling right now.” True enough. But this evening, to my delight and encouragement, I saw that Life With A Hole In It had risen to 28,000 on amazon.com. It is very, very easy for an independent writer to get discouraged about sales.

My third book is on the back burner. It is already written but will have to go through the purifying fires of editing. This is what is wearying to me. I write effortlessly; editing is another animal altogether. I have to decide what goes and what stays, which order the essays go in, etc. I have to have a solid block of time in which I can begin to shape the manuscript into a book. But the reward is great.

Every time someone orders a copy of Life With A Hole In It, I feel a deep sense of satisfaction. Why? Because I know the product; I lived it, wrote it and published it. I am not sure about A Guru in the Guest Room’s future. Sad to say, it seems to have hit the wall on some mysterious level. Swami Z has nothing to say about this. Some of you may have noticed that he is nowhere to be seen. Probably has something to do with showing me which book is the most important in the overall scheme of things. “Now don’t go all ballistic on me, Swami. Your day will come….”

One day my books will go flyin’ off the shelves (a fervent prayer)….

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