So I wrote this novel. Even went so far as to get it published and the publisher did a fine job. Let me hang myself by doing my own editing. That's what I wanted so I've no complaints. A few people have read the micro-tome and have found it entertaining, maybe even a good read.
The original intent was to print up enough copies for my children, grandchildren and a few friends. Call it a dozen or so. Yup, that's all I wanted.
Then things changed. What the hell, I might even sell a few copies. Why not? The tale wasn't complete gibberish, even threw in a dollop of humor here and there. All in all, worth a few bucks and an evening's reading now and then. It wasn't literature though it occasionally crossed the border. Maybe enough copies would be ordered for me to break even. Maybe turn a profit. Be discovered by Hollywood and made into a thoughtful, well received indie production with Christopher Walken as Uncle Emil and Ethan Hawke as fourteen-year-old Archie. The casting would make little sense but that would only add to the unusual aura of the tale. I'd become a darling of the left-wing press and live the rest of my life being miserable and not knowing why.
That dream flew out the window when I saw what the books would be priced at; twenty bucks for a paperback, thirty-three for hardcover. Yeah, my novel wasn't all that bad, but worth seven bucks more than something by Jonathon Franzen? Damn, and I so wanted to meet Christopher Walken. The clouds cleared and I saw the truth. The publisher allows me to by copies at a significant discount. That's good. So the only way for my novel to be sold would be by me as the seller. Yeah, that meant many hours at the keyboard establishing a network of friends and/or doing readings with the idea of hawking a few copies. In my mind that equaled working for far less than I could be making flipping burgers at McDonalds. Top that off with a lifelong history of avoiding sales in any way, shape or form. If I have to convince you that you want or need something, then the truth is that you don't really want or need it. Right or wrong, that's the view from this side of my spectacles.
About then Uncle Emil stepped in with a little wise old man advice, "What in the Sam Hill were you thinking? Didn't you know that was going to happen from the first moment you put Archie on the train down in Minneapolis? Long story short, you buy a few copies, give them to your kids, grandkids and friends and walk away a happy man. You started with nothing, made it happen and got what you wanted. To ask for anything more is to be like the fisherman's wife in the fairy story. They didn't write those tales just to pass the time. To not get the moral is immoral. By-the-by, next time you write a story with me in it, could you make me an inch or two taller?"
So that's where I sit at the moment, there and at the kitchen counter with the sub-zero wind howling outside.
P.S. ebook copies are available for $2.99 at booklocker.com. Tell them Archie sent you.
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