Never Left The House

While much of the country was up and out the door before dawn yesterday to stand in long lines waiting to get inside crowded stores, pushing and shoving to get to Black Friday “bargains” that really are not bargains, we slept in late yesterday. We needed to make up for the two early mornings and long days Terry had spent cooking and making preparations for Thanksgiving dinner. Then, after a light breakfast, we kept busy at home and never left the house all day.

Terry needed to recharge her mental and physical batteries and stayed in her office/loom room, catching up on e-mail and cruising the internet for much of the day until she fixed dinner. While she was doing that, I handled my morning e-mail, then finished reading through and correcting several chapters of my new Big Lake book. Today I will print them out for Terry to edit and proofread.

I also spent some time talking to a frustrated author friend who was scheduled to have surgery Monday but got an e-mail from the surgeon telling her the procedure had been canceled and she was no longer his patient. She told me last week that in a pre-surgery consultation, she had mentioned that she was an author, and when he asked her who her publisher was, she told him she was self-published. Apparently, the doctor considers himself an author, too, since he has a short story in an anthology for which he was not paid. He proceeded to tell her that self-published authors are a joke and that they were wasting their time because their books never sold. In truth, this author is very successful, pulling in the mid to high six figures every year, and while she didn’t go into a lot of detail, he got more upset the longer they talked. She tried to find out why the surgery was canceled and he was no longer her doctor but got no response. If that is the reason, I doubt he’s any better a surgeon than he is an author.

I am always amused and somewhat frustrated by people who think self-published authors are not “real” authors. It reminds me of an uncle I had who was a decorated World War II veteran and told me that Vietnam was not a “real” war. Well, the enemy’s bullets were sure real, and so is the money self-published authors make. But never try to confuse someone with facts when their mind is already made up.

We only have a few days before we leave town for a week or so to go up to Alabama, and I am working hard to crank out words to get this book finished. Wish me luck.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. I never thought of booze as an energy drink, but whatever works for you.

Thought For The Day – Eventually, you reach an age where you realize that silence is more powerful than proving a point.