Hump Day thoughts

Ahh, Hump Day. The day we all think about … the weekend, you perv! Some of us, of course, think about the weekend all week.

Just did my latest vanity search at Amazon.com. Can it be they are all out of copies of Shara? They’re not even listing any used copies. Sales numbers haven’t gone up, though, so it seems a bit odd. The book is no longer listed at 32 percent off, either. Not that it matters. Get those copies off the market to make room for the new version.

I also searched my name on eBay the other day and was quite disturbed to find a seller who claims to have 103 copies of the PublishAmerica version of Darkscapes for sale.This book has been out of print since I withdrew it last summer and I find it hard to believe the guy has 103 copies considering I know where most of the ones went that showed up on my royalty statements. I sent him an e-mail asking about it, but got an auto response with instructions for some alternate way of contacting him and I haven’t done that yet.

Back to Shara for a moment. I’m printing it off for another thorough reading before sending it to Scrybe. I’m also getting a little concerned over Garrett Peck. I haven’t heard from him in a couple of months. At all. Yeah, I’m wondering about the introduction he promised, but I’m also wondering about him in general. Is he okay? Anybody know? He hasn’t answered my last few e-mails. I guess I should see if he’s still an HWA member with a phone number listed in the HWA directory.

Do you hate photos of yourself? I hate mine. Horrorfind asked for one for the Web site. I didn’t have any recent ones, so I got our photographer to take one. I didn’t like it. So yesterday I sent HF the new one and the old one where I’m wearing the black duster and black hat. I keep meaning to call a small zoo down in Norman and ask if I can get some pictures of myself sitting with the two wolf hybrids they have. I know they do it every fall for the Norman High School football team.

Great books. I’ve been thinking lately about the “important” books I haven’t read. Or read properly. For instance, I’ve read novelizations of The Iliad and The Odyssey, but haven’t read them in poetic form, despite having copies of both on my shef for years now. I’ve read parts of The Aeneid but not the whole thing; same with Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy. I don’t think I’ve ever read any Plato, other than quotes in other people’s work. Same with Aristotle. This hit me because I began reading The Power of Myth, the interview transcript/book by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. Campbell — who was a genious and is one of the people I plan to hunt down for conversation in the afterlife — keeps referring to books I haven’t read but should. How can one man accumulate so much knowledge? Amazing.

Time to go to a meeting I don’t want to attend, with someone I’d rather not share oxygen with.