Another Post On My Love Of Books

 I bought a $600 Volvo wagon just before winter storms dumped several inches of snow here in Bloomington, Indiana.

Considering I had spent $500 during the summer to buy a brand-new extra large Schwinn bicycle, I thought the 1999 Volvo was a good buy once I peeped out of my bedroom window the first morning after an overnight snow storm. 

"No riding my bike to work today. Thank God!" The Volvo company was founded in 1927. I looked it up - really, really, really grateful that day.

The wintery weather has abated. My $600 Volvo is still running - despite the arm workout I get every day when I drive it. The power steering is going out. But this post isn't about how grateful I was to have a car during winter. Of course I was. No... this post is about the freedom having a car gave me to drive around my new digs here in Indiana. 

And... more specifically, this post is about how my car allowed me to visit my favorite bookstore: Half-Price Books. 

Here's a little background... Most of my books are in storage in Texas. When I moved to Indiana, I arrived here with one duffel bag of clothes and a backpack with a few magazines, books, journals and pens.

Since I moved to Indiana approximately a week before Covid hit in 2020, I wasn't able to travel back to Texas during 2020. All my favorite books are missing me. And, I have missed them, too.

The first day I drove to Half-Price Books here in Bloomington, I felt like I had returned home. I don't remember how long I spent inside the store. I started from one end of the store and went from section to section scanning book spines, eyeing the displays of featured books and finished at the other end of the store with a stack of books in my arms. 

My biceps, tired from steering my Volvo with the failing power steering, were aching even more from carrying all the hardbacks and paperbacks in my treasure trove of the written word.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations - $3

The ScrewTape Letters - $1

An Incomplete Education  $1

Just a few titles I picked up that day. I spent less that $20 that day. Every book was either $1 or $3.

So now, I have a library in the making. I am reading... on a budget.

For that, I am thankful for my $600 Volvo. 

Now... I can possibly search the stacks at Half-Price Books and add to my exile library a few titles from 1927, the year Volvo was founded:

Elmer Gantry - Sinclair Lewis

The Story of Philosophy - Will Durant

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

Bridge of San Luis Rey - Thornton Wilder

Aspects of the Novel - E.M. Forster

At least I can carry all those books now that I workout every time I drive.

Vacation was fun while it lasted

Last day before it's time to go back to work. Little mini-vacations are awesome. They can help recharge the batteries. I look back at the last few days, and I could grumble about not getting as much writing as I had wanted.


I could grumble. It wouldn't change anything, though. I was still writing and doing the things I needed to do to improve my craft. OK. I had hoped to be done with three chapters of my Mall Demons Urban Fantasy Serial. I'm almost done with one more chapter, not three. So what.


Sometimes we must be happy with whatever it turns out to be. Otherwise, we could harm our efforts at the mental level. And at the mental level is where writing starts. So, mess that up, and you mess up the words.


The words is what it's all about.


Maybe the last few days for you haven't been as productive either. It happens. As long as it doesn't happen all the time, it's OK. Don't be your own worst enemy, your own worst critic.


Live and learn. 


I may not have written three chapters as I wanted, but I did write a prelude. I also decided to spin off a second book in the Mall Demons series as a prequel. I realized a few of my characters (Evangeline, Watcher and Sargas Vak) have interesting backstories that I could expand upon in other books.


With NaNoWriMo coming in a few weeks, I just might use the exercise to write that first draft of the prequel.


Other tasks I took care of during this vacation: I updated my LinkedIn and YouTube accounts. I'm excited about using YouTube to offer audio versions of my series. 


Tomorrow it's back to writing. Goal: 2,000 words.