I made the decision to not attend Midsummer Scream this weekend and yeah, I’m not happy about it. I love that show. I didn’t go last year, either. There are people coming I would love to see.
But things just aren’t gelling the way I’d hoped. My demonic possession book has proven to be a bigger challenge than I’d expected, I’ve got a looming deadline of 10/1, and I hate missing deadlines. I know a lot of writers are kind of nonchalant about deadlines, but I’m not one of them.
Anyway, the fact is that I need every spare hour now to finish this thing. If I go to Midsummer Scream, that’s at least three hours of driving time, a couple of hours at the show, and maybe even an hour just to park and get in (yeah, I know - a Halloween expert should be a VIP at a Halloween convention but welcome to reality), so that’s really a whole day gone. Also, Ricky wouldn’t be going (he’ll be in rehearsals for the new play he’s in), which means I’d be making the drive there and back alone, and probably coming home exhausted.
Note that last word, because it’s why I’ve been running behind on this book. Yeah, I’m perpetually really tired. It’s not because I’m getting older - I am incredibly lucky to still feel pretty good (just yesterday a lovely gentleman watched me juggling a tall stack of hardbacks and blurted out, “Wow, you’re strong!”) - but because of business at the Iliad Bookshop, where I’m employed full-time.
Just last night I said to one of my fellow booksellers there, “I think this weird ramping up of business this summer is here to stay.” He agreed.
Over the last few months, I’d guess our business has gone up nearly 20%. No, we don’t know why. It just has.
I know, I hear you all going, “Wow, that’s GREAT!” It is, but…it’s not so great if you’re one of the small number of workers trying to keep up with it all. We were already struggling at the beginning of the year; now we’re struggling even more.
Increased business doesn’t just mean it’s harder on the staff (although IT IS); it also means it’s harder on the customers. Our parking lot is full minutes after we open (sometimes before!), putting an extra burden on older or disabled customers. The number of donations coming in is overwhelming and we don’t have enough space or staff to process it all. If one person goes on vacation, that increases the workload even more.
Yes, we need to hire. And we just did…and THAT was absurdly hard. We advertised for a “permanent, full-time bookseller.” We got around 600 applications. I personally went through every one. We pulled out about twenty people to interview.
And during the interviews we got everything from “Oh, is it a problem that I can’t work on Wednesdays?” (we heard this from more than one - WTF is it with Wednesdays?) to…ummm…rather unspectacular results on a small literary test we give them. We got turned down. We got people who said “yes”…until they said, “Oh, sorry - no,” an hour later.
We finally found someone who I think is perfect, but of course can’t start for two weeks (she’s actually conscientious and so is giving her current employer - another bookstore - two weeks notice).
The point of all this is to say what I said above: I’m exhausted. Like, all the time. It’s taken me a while to realize I have to just say, “Fuck you, Exhaustion - I gotta write this book.” I’m up every morning early enough to spend a few hours working, because by the time I get home at night - which is almost 8 p.m. - I may not be lucid enough to get much done.
And I can’t afford distractions. It’s one thing to say, “No cons or movies or day trips!” It’s another to realize I just blew a valuable chunk of writing time on whatever scandal is currently raging across social media. I won’t give up certain time-eaters like mentoring writers or working behind the scenes on StokerCon, but I should step away from the social sites more. And we’re entering that time of year when my services as a Halloween expert are coming into demand. Tomorrow morning, for example, I’ll be leaving the house early to stop by a recording studio on my way in to work to record an episode of a popular podcast.
The good news is that I have settled into a solid groove with the book, and I love how it’s shaping up. I’m finding astonishing stories to include (c’mon, the 1844 exorcism by cookie - gotta love it!), I’m finding new things to admire in The Exorcist, I’m finding those crucial historical connections (aha! the first mention of vomiting during an exorcism!), I’m finding horrific tales of death-by-exorcism, and I’m even finding great illustrations, like this one, depicting a scene from the always-entertaining Book of Revelations of (yes, really) evil spirits being driven out of other evil spirits in the form of frogs:
I’m also already planning the next book. I’d hoped to avoid going right into another deadline, but my agent’s really excited by this one and wants to start shopping the proposal ASAP. Hey, there are worse problems to have…
Before you ask…no, I haven’t considered retirement because despite the difficulties I can’t imagine not being a bookseller. I love it - the books, the staff, the customers, the cats. Yeah, I probably love writing more…but as long as I can still manage to do both, I will.
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