Remembering the Library

I miss libraries.  When I was a kid, going to the library (going, in fact, to this library) was a treat.  It was a place that seemed magical.  The library moved buildings when I was five, but what I remember about this particular library is that it had giant beanbag animal pillow-chairs (the one I thought of as mine was a ladybug) and one time, some kid tried to steal Babe, one of my favourite dolls* - and, of course,  it was full of books - an almost unfathomable number of books.

In high school, Rhiannon and I went to the library fairly frequently.  We would head downtown to hang out, and, after visiting the dollar store and otherwise empty mall, we usually ended up there.  Later in high school Vicky (my other sister) and I would to go to the new library** on Wednesdays.  We would rent books, movies, manga, CDs, everything we could, really, on every subject imaginable.  We would stay there for hours and often leave with back-breaking piles of reading material.

And of course there was always the research.  Search engines these days are like magic.  You type in a question and voila! a thousand, a hundred thousand, millions of answers just appear to you.  It's really amazing and I have to say that I feel lucky, as a writer, to have been born into a time when research is not half so labour intensive as it once was, when we can focus more on the story part of our stories - but there's magic in using books too.  There's something spectacular, when out of all the books piled on the table, you stumble across the exact piece of information you were looking for, the interesting fact that will alter the outcome of your book, that thing that's been missing.  There's something wonderful about the hushed, almost rain-like sounds of people around you turning pages.

Even when I lived on my own and had nothing to distract me at home, even if I had no research to do, I would still occasionally go to the library to write.  There's something about libraries - maybe it's being surrounded by all those books.  So much inspiration and so many words, just floating around.

There was no library where I lived in B.C., and for some reason, perhaps because I feared disappointment, I never went to the one in Jasper.  The library where I am now is ok.  It's a decent sized building and the staff are friendly and helpful (a rarety, in my experience), but I don't spend a lot of time there.  I don't know why; it's just one of those things, I guess.

I would love to go back to weekly library visits and hours-long research sessions in the library.  I think sometimes we let life get in the way of the things that make it life.  Like libraries.  
 


*I was about three when this happened, and when the girl's mother informed me that she had a similar doll at home, all I could think was, "Whatever, Lady, just don't let it happen again."

**It's been nearly 20 years and I still think of it as the new library

Ugh.

So, I went to my library today. Well, first I went to the nearby Williams so that I could grab a muffin and gather my courage, then I went to the library. I was crazy nervous until I convinced myself that all I was doing was asking the library to accept a free book. Finally, I made it up to the desk to speak to someone and was told that the library generally only accepts books from recognised publishers. Apparently, there are a very few exceptions, but basically, the chances of my book getting in to my local library are pretty slim. I get that a lot of self-published books are absolute crap, but so are a lot of books that were published through traditional means. Anyway, I'm going to go back in a week or so with a copy of the book and basically tell the lady who's in charge of fiction selection that if they decide to include it in their collection, they can keep that copy and if not, they can do whatever they want with it. My huge concern here, though, is that if I bring her the book and she reads it and hates it or is really offended by it, she could stop it from getting in. I'm not saying she would do that, but I don't know for sure that she wouldn't; people are strange.

I know I shouldn't be letting this get to me, because I haven't actually been refused yet, but I feel like absolute crap. I honestly might throw up. I don't think it even occured to me that there was a chance the library wouldn't want to carry my book.

Interesting point, though: while I was wandering around, trying to work up the courage to approach the information desk and talk to this lady, I came upon a book called A Dangerous Profession, which was about writing. Just the title made me happy.

Le zzzzzz

I'm really tired right now, but I just wanted to post this quick before I run off to bed.

First, I wanted to mention something cool about Amazon. CreateSpace makes a point of telling their clients that their titles will not be available internationally, so today I started trying to figure out how to get my stuff to Canada. I figured I would have to sign up with another print-on-demand company, one that was based here. Luckily, before I got too involved with this process, I went to Amazon.ca on a whim and found my book there. It's also on Amazon's U.K. site, their German site, their French site and their Japanese site. This makes me super happy - almost happy enough to ignore the fact that Aigaion Girl is ranked lower than 1,000,000th on Amazon.com.

So, my plans for tomorrow include finishing my sell sheet (still not 100% sure what they're for) and buying paper to print a couple of sell sheets on and some pens. Then, on Monday, comes the scary part: going to my local library and trying to convince them that they need to hold a book release for me. I'm hoping to butter them up by giving them a free copy of the book and offering to sell and sign copies, etc. Tuesday is the other scary part; I'm going to go to the local Coles and see if I can convince them that they need to carry my book. I saw a guy there a few weeks ago that seemed to have gone a similar route for publishing. He was having a signing and they still have a few of his books in stock, so if I look professional enough, maybe I'll be able to convince them.

Anyway, those are my plans. I'm realizing now that this post isn't horribly coherent. I guess I should go to bed before trying to face the day... or something.