Despica-frigga-ble day!
It's Monday and I am in much pain. I blew out the back this weekend while emptying all the crap out of my basement. Funny thing is, I had lifted all the heavy crap upstairs with no problem, then I picked up a box that was damn near empty and felt this horrid tearing in the small of my back. I dropped the box and went to one kneee, swearing like a drunken sailor (and them loaded squids gots some mouth on 'em!) I treated my boy to a round of colorful invectives that made his eyes go all wide and round. I'm pretty sure I saw him mouthing some of them later as he consigned them to memory for repetition at the most inopportune moment for his parent's comfort.
Fund raiser for Scouts went well, but I was running like mad all weekend. (when not laying on the couch, with a heating pad on my back, whimpering like a beaten puppy!) Oh yea, I'm the big tough man! Didn't write a word, nor did I have a chance today at lunch. I was late getting in because of the back so I worked straight through today without a break.
Fun thing is: I still have to finish cleaning out the basement, back pain or no. It has to be done by Friday so the contractor can start. OY! Luckily, the wife was a doll and did as much of it as she could while I was out over the weekend. Just a few more things that need to go (don't know where to put 'em; but go they must!) and then we'll work on cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and the upstairs closets that are being renovated. Me and the wife working together, under a deadline, with me in pain?
Oh yea, one of us is going to the morgue!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I WILL get some writing done tonight (though sitting in a chair hurts like hell right now!) I'll do it after I get some more of the basement done.
Oh, BTW: I stopped in Waldenbooks on Friday night while the wife was shopping at some store or another in the mall. The SF/Fantasy section has been reduced down to two small shelves in the back of the store! Know how many different authors there were in that section (I was bored, so I counted . . .) THIRTEEN! Yup, that's it. Only thirteen names, all of which were big-time, famous, BSA's. There wasn't a mid-list or unknown writer to be found. Worse: one of those two shelves was completely devoted to Star Wars/Star Trek/D&D fiction. Do you have any idea how depressing that is to a wannabe Fantasy author like myself? Is this entire genre dying out? Man, I hope not! Gotta tell you though, it doesn't look good when all you see are re-works of the same damn novel by guys like Eddings and Brooks, or Jordan's ninety-third WOT novel. (I like the WOT books, but come on man! Is the story ever gonna end???)
Damn! Now I'm depressed and sore.
Later!
4 comments:
Walden Books should never be your barometer for the health of a genre. Of all the "chain" stores, that is definitely the most anemic of them. You see similar selection at grocery stores, just not the volume.
hope the back gets better soon.
I think what the store has depends on the manager. It also might be that in your area sci-fi isn't a big seller (though i could be dead wrong on both accounts and the blame can be put on HO). My store has 2 wall bays still dedicated to sci-fi (and with the current manager being a sci-fi/fantasy buff . . .) and another dedicated to the dragonlance, star wars/trek type series.
Maybe the genre just needs YOUR new bestseller to get it going again!
I hope your all right (especially Nienke!) I love this genre and would hate to see it fading. Fantasy has (to me)always been the one unfettered art form where you can truly dwell on the extremeties of the human condition and ethical issues without being tied too tightly by the constraints of "reality".
Maybe I just need to spend more time at Barnes & Noble, eh?
Later!
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