I wish more people read books. I’ve said that many times in my life since the Internet has become near everything in people’s lives and books were placed on the back shelf, as it were, where they have become very dusty. Occasionally I’ll get a boost of gratitude when a young person tells me they love reading books (and I’ll then try to get them to accept my whole body of work on the spot for free), but that is seldom the case.
When we were young, books were a huge part of our world. We were allowed to watch limited television. (In early childhood, we did not even own a set, and then it was a tiny, black-and-white one with rabbit ears. We were able to watch the one hour of children’s programming after school, including “Jackanory”—that was a superb reading of a new story book each day.) Other than that, books were our world. Our parents would read books to us, buy us books, gift us books, gift others’ books—our house was full of books! We all grew up to be voracious readers and cheerleaders for others to do the same.
I’m always upset with people who do not read to their children. I’m currently encouraging/bribing my 10-year-old granddaughter to read to her little sister aged 7 months every day and to log the book she reads in a little summer diary I sent her. She gets $1 a book for her job and, thus far, she’s quite proud of her accomplishments. (The jury is still out as to whether I shall need a second mortgage to fund her project!) Her little sister will grow up loving the sound of big sister’s voice and, I’m hoping, importantly, she will become just as good a reader and writer.
I’ve been reading and writing for as long as I knew how and that will go on forever. It’s a comfort, a complete pleasure and an entertainment for the soul. I’ve always got a book or two on the go and have piles of them in my house. I’ve now published seven or eight books myself—I know, a lot—and I’ve got several more stories inside my head before I go. I tell people it’s my addiction. Not wrong.
You can therefore imagine my delight when I see an ad for an “Author Fair” in Carmel-by-the-Sea, how joyous! I immediately applied for a spot at the Fair and was gratified to receive the last of the 20 entries for the outdoor event in Carmel Plaza, downtown Carmel. What a wonderful opportunity to network with other authors, discover what they do to further their work, promote their work, sell their work … and even, perhaps, sell a few books of my own! I wish I had had more time to get out there and network with the other locals, but it was a very busy time out there on the Plaza, not necessarily selling all the time, because the competition for local books was steep, but chatting to people about reading, books, publishing and so on.
“Do you have any local stories?” I was asked by an out-of-towner, of which there were many. I explained that I had published local stories within my books, for instance the local Covid stories from “Tomorrow Is Not Promised” and the local animal stories from “The Animals Teach Us Everything.” “No,” she responded. “Stories like John Steinbeck.” Well, I wished I could write stories like John Steinbeck, I told her, but he did it so well himself, perhaps the rest of us shouldn’t even bother to try. I had a chuckle about that. She didn’t buy a book.
“How do you do this?” another enquired. “Writing books?” I responded. “Well, you just start.” “Oh,” she said and walked away. Another wanted a step-by-step account of what you actually do with a manuscript once you’ve finished it. Names, emails and all. I nearly snipped that I would not be sharing information that I had spent sweat, blood, tears and a considerable amount of time trying to improve upon, but then accepted that that would be churlish and advised her to chat to the Central Coast Writers Group—an absolute plethora of information—and check out self-publishing arms online, of which there are several out there.
I realized that I did not even have my first publication with me on this trip—it is out of print where it deserves to be and will likely stay, unless I have a few vacant weeks on my hands and decide to do an enormous cull and re-write. I do have a couple of dog-eared copies still in my possession, but they are not really for public consumption. My first attempt at putting my published newspaper stories into some kind of order was an oversized disaster and cost me more than I ever made. (My goal to not lose money was royally squashed that time, my first time out of the writer’s gate!) But the education I got from this painful experience taught me oodles about the process. I don’t think anyone should try and skip that step, because it just makes you ultimately better at your craft. Not to say I haven’t made some other howlers. (Not proofing a tome properly when I was in a big rush, springs to mind. There were actually—cringing—blank pages within the body of the book circulating the world for a few days!)
And it’s fun to share these tales among other writers because we have all had our taxing experiences and still lived to tell the story, as it were.
Looking around Carmel Plaza on a warm Saturday afternoon, enjoying the dog action, the curious visitors, the air thick with creative minds—I honestly felt privileged to be a part of this group and I hope we get to do it again sometime. I look back to the early days of trying to publish something and I was so incredibly naïve it now seems like a very long time ago, except that it was merely a short 14-15 years. Being an author is a lonely occupation—it is nice to share with other like-minded souls on occasion.
I’m now putting to bed a children’s book with another in the works following closely behind. I hope to get my first novel completed after that. Am I working on the layout already? Of course I am! Or “Should I live so long,” as my mother would say, because time waits for no one. We know that in the writing world, which is why we are always in a hurry to finish up that one brilliant piece on our desktop that no one else could finish for us, so we can move on to the next thing bugging our brains of a white night. I shall always live in the wonderful world of books—it is the best place to be.
