The Only True Happiness This Way Lies

I am a closet Buddhist. I long for the freedom that detachment from material possessions would give me, yet I covet my belongings. I adore each and every book I own and know that should I lose them all in a fire or something, I would be devastated. But why? They are only books. I have read them. I have gotten out of them what I will get, and they are not irreplaceable, except for the couple books of poetry signed by poets who read at college. It's a difficult thing, probably the most troublesom concept in Buddhism for one who has grown up in the material-oriented western world.

Having had a mildly awful cold the last several days which has left me drained the way severe colds seem incapable of, I decided that today, I was escaping my house-bound state no matter what. I had the pretense of an errand to run, so there. I went to the bank and then on to the bookstore.

Bookstores are solace, yet every trip leaves me wondering about my work as a writer. I glance at the titles of books that are "new in paperback." These are some of the silliest titles I've ever heard, and they're all "a novel." You know what I mean. Barney's Last Stand, a novel. Murder Mystery, a novel. Sisters of Saints, a novel. Of course, those are all made up, but you see the trend. It was not The Grapes of Wrath, a novel. Nor was it Carrie, a novel. Or Dracula, a novel. The only time you need to tell me what the book is is when it's a book of short stories or something. I can generally tell when the book I'm holding is a novel or some other fictional creature. How dumb do they think people really are? I contemplate my own titles in this context. Seven Breaths, a novel. Once, a novel. Pale, a novel. It doesn't sound right to me. Although I notice this less in the sci-fi/fantasy section, which is likely where my books would end up. Still, I don't like it.

Another thing I don't like is the fact that Anne Rice's books are in the literature section. They do not belong there. They belong in horror. Vampires count as horror. These days, her writing itself is a horror. Curiosity led me to pick up her book about Jesus and scan the first few pages. The style is immature at best, not the work of someone who's been writing as long as she has. If you read a particular author long enough, you see subtle changes in style as the writer learns his craft (and a writer is always learning his craft). Rice appears to have regressed. As to the content of the Jesus story, I can't comment. The writing was enough to make me less than curious about that part.

I discovered that Rushdie has a new book out. This brings me joy. The world of fiction is a better place with his writing in it. Also read through the first few pages of a book called Across the Nightengale Floor. A neat book, it seems. Can't remember the writer's first name. Starts with an L. Hearn I think the last name is. Anyway, that's on my list to get as soon as I whittle down my stack, which is a task I'm not doing well with.

My own writing has been spotty. I've concentrated a lot on Once. It's getting close to a conclusion, but I have a feeling that I'm being deceived there. I've started the last episode of the series I was working on but haven't had the inclination to work on it. I'll try to remedy that this week. The odd little love story I was working on paused inexplicably in the middle of a smutty scene. Because I realized, in the middle of this scene, that the story is almost over. This scene will give rise to the thing that will make Jack run away from the relationship. He cannot be comfortable with it nor can he completely forget the lover who's no longer there, even though he doesn't remember any more than the lover's name. I'm surprised by this story. Over all, I really like it. One day, I'll finish it.

Speaking of finishing. The Lulu book project is in a state of doneness I hadn't expected to reach until June or later. Now to finish the actual editing ... getting excited about this.

It is now 1:38 AM. I have to be at work in less than seven hours, which means I should spend some of the next five and a half to six hours sleeping. Or I could read that annoying little love story over to see how I wanna go about finishing it off ...