#sometimes i think i'll be a bookseller forever

[mulderscully]

sometimes being a reader in the bookworld (bookseller, librarian, publishing etc) is that it can be hard to not be someone who mostly reads one genre bc then you don't have time to be an expect at any genre!!!! like i read a lot of romance but not so much that i'm a ROMANCE READER bc i also read horror and mystery and fiction and essays and poetry so then i also can't be an expert in those genres bc i read a lot of romance too (or swap a lot of horror for romance when i'm in a different mood) but on the bright side i read so much more than an "average" person does bc reading is literally part of my job so i know wtf i'm doing at work lmfao

[betterbooktitles]

RIP Paul Auster. Here's a short piece about a time he came into my bookstore:

For a while, I've been hearing a lot of chatter about my first humor book How Not to Read: Harnessing the Power of a Literature-Free Life. No, I don't mean that I've been reading book reviews on Goodreads or the twisted rantings of my internet stalker. I've been hearing the hype (or underwhelmed sighs) about my book firsthand. I've been listening to customers from my semi-incognito perch behind the counter of an independent bookstore.

To all writers who want to know what people really think about their work, I can't recommend working as an incognito author-bookseller enough.

With a title like How Not to Read, I expected some vitriol from customers who misunderstood the concept. I thought 18 to 35-year-olds would especially love it but for a generation defined by its penchant for irony, we sure do know how to not take a joke. For the most part, people much younger than I am are the ones most offended. I hear little children with pained, screechy voices asking their mothers: "Why would someone write this?" to which the mothers reply "I don't know sweetie," as if informing the kids about death for the first time. Another favorite is hearing a sixteen-year-old say "who would do this?" over and over with the type of outrage reserved only for political candidates who claim Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. The answer is "I would" but I keep it to myself. I want to see how far it goes. I keep waiting for someone to impulsively tear the book to shreds. That's how mad some people sound.

But most people who read a lot, get it. They come into the store, they laugh at the cover, the very concept of a guide to helping people read less is funny! It tickles them. They flip through the book and laugh and laugh and laugh, then put the book down and promptly leave the store without buying it.

"Wait!" I yell, "What didn't sell you on this book?" (I'm careful not to reveal who I am at these moments).

"Well," the person responds, "I'm just not in the mood to laugh right now." Not in the mood… to laugh? I wouldn't want to see this person at a restaurant: the waiter comes to the table and says "How were your appetizers?" and this person responds: "you know, food just isn't my thing…" I thought everyone was in the mood to laugh, but this was one of my many misconceptions about readers before working in a bookstore.

I've been working in this store for about a year, during which time I've spent countless hours talking about my own book, trying my hardest not to tell every person who enters the store that I wrote it lest I lose my ability to observe the impartial reaction of customers. Tip to published writers, though: if you can hand your own book to a customer and say "this is my book and you should buy it," people usually do. Most of the time they buy the book because they're excited to tell people they've met you, and sometimes they buy the book because you made it very awkward for them to leave the store without doing so. Keep eye-contact. Don't show fear. Always be closing.

Deciding when and when not to be the incognito author has many humbling benefits. Though the big lesson it teaches you most first-time authors are already know: the number one review of your book won't be a petulant rant. Your number one review will be silence. People will walk in, they'll read ten pages of your book, and without so much as an indecisive "hmm" they will disregard your book forever. As Oscar Wilde said: “There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.” I'll take the petulant rant any day over nothing.

At the risk of this essay becoming like If on a winter’s night a traveler, the more I sell my book in secret, the more my real life mimics a Paul Auster-y meta-literary detective novel where I keep spying on people to figure out who will like the author (me) the most. It keeps getting weirder and weirder. People who have read the book now come in quoting a particular joke they didn’t like, then stand staring at me without laughing. I laugh uncomfortably to break the tension, but they refuse to crack a smile. Sometimes, I picture the future author version of me walking into the store while Current Dan is working as a bookseller. I see Future Me looking at the book nostalgically and saying “eh, this wasn’t my best!” then leaving me behind the counter alone to cope with what just happened.

The closest story I have to this Auster-esque fantasy is when the real-life Paul Auster came into the store the day of the book’s release. He leaned on the counter, aviators still on, and said: "How Not to Read, huh?" He was laughing! Laughing at the very idea of my book’s existence. Paul Auster gets it.

I took a sharp breath in. The owners of the store were so excited about my book that they gave me the entire front window for a day to promote the book. The same bright red cover in 8 by 8 rows and columns. I was suddenly embarrassed that I had published a book at all, and frightened that my literary hero might actually page through it in front of me. 

Then I remembered I had something to tell him.

“Paul!” I watched as he took off his sunglasses. I had his full attention. “I originally had a section in this book that parodied the New York Trilogy, and you yourself were in it," I said excitedly. Then, before I could stop myself, I saw the words pour out of my mouth while my brain screamed ‘DAN. Don’t!’ I let this out:

“The editor suggested we cut it because no one would get the reference."

I watched Paul grimace. He pushed himself off the counter and put his aviators back on. “And that's why you never listen to editors!" he announced before abruptly walking out the door.

If I have any advice for a writer, it is this: spend ten years as an editor for other people while you work on your own stuff. You’ll get used to looking at words on paper as malleable and in need of repair. Maybe after a decade of cold perusals through the work of a stranger, you'll be able to whittle down your own work into a readable form. After that, spend another decade selling your published books in person at an indie bookstore. Twenty years in, you won't take anything personally. You'll be so used to rejection and snide comments, you’ll be impervious to criticism.

My only other advice is if you meet your hero during any stage of your literary development, don’t tell him he was cut from your book because he isn’t famous enough.

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[enigmawriteswhump]

I genuinely think for me, it's having this guiltless place where you're wanted - whether that's your soul, a part of you, or your brain.

You fight because you're giving up really - but at the end, it's the easiest way to go. Life can be just so hard and having that "Neverland" (flying away mentally) option of being forced to relenquish life with all the lows it brings - you finally have something stable for the price of living in ignorant bliss. Where the helplessness of living is torn away, you can remember the good stuff, and you can keep the ever-looming threat of bad-times away forever. Because you won't know them when you're gone - when you're some being living under the hand of another but not fully there? Not being responsible for your own happiness? It's... A relief, a short-term blissful fantasy. And I think most of us want it, just a little, at times.

That's what inspires me about your work. Everytime I read Bookseller, I think, wow. You still show this appeal for living, but in a way that seems so truthful to what I feel sometimes. Wanting without living/ living without wanting.

Especially with Vampires being always there, to even look after you and want you for something so intrinsic that you can't replace? Ahh. That gets me. 💖

Anyway, I'll also jump back off my pedestal now!

I'm not sure why so many of my self-indulgent ideas involve some kind of processing facility for people. The auction house in Bookseller, obviously, but also the brainwashing department in corporate retreat, most of the plot of chemical imbalance, and a couple of the things I'm writing for Augusnippets...

Maybe it's the depersonalization and dehumanization of being processed in some kind of factory. Or the futility of trying to struggle and escape when there's an entire facility dedicated to stopping you from doing that. The helplessness of having people talk around you. For you, it's the day your mind is irrevocably altered, and for them it's just a Tuesday and they're trying to meet quota.

I'm just doomed to write this again and again and again in slightly different settings

[rphelperblog]

City of Ashes Book Quote Rp Meme

Book two of the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare- feel free to edit or change pronouns for rp purposes

“I don't want to be a man I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead."

“There's no need to clarify my finger snap. The implication was clear in the snap itself.” 

“With him, you don't really get to choose your insulting nickname.” 

"So you're just that friendly with everybody, is that it?” 

“I was alive when the Dead Sea was just a lake that was feeling a little poorly.” 

“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”

"I'm pure at heart. It repels the dirt.”

"Mostly extinct is NOT EXTINCT ENOUGH."

"Does he normally just lie on the floor like that without moving?” 

"You want to kiss me, don’t you?” 

"Never believe the bad guy is dead until you see a body," 

“I've heard the word 'fear'. I simply choose to believe it doesn't apply to me.” 

“Sometimes you don't have to search out danger, sometimes danger finds you” 

"There are no straight men in the trenches."

“If I made a joke about just dropping by, would you write me off as cliché?” 

“What I actually want to call you is a hell of a lot more unprintable than your name” 

"If they need a human sacrifice, you can always offer me. I'm not sure the rest of you qualify anyway.” 

“When you love someone, you don't have a choice. Love takes your choices away.”

“Some guys look at you like they only want sex. He looks at you like you've had sex - it was great and now you're just friends. Drives girls crazy. Know what I mean?" 

“I don't do what I'm told, but I might do what you want if you ask me nicely.” 

"I prefer to think that I'm a liar in a way that's uniquely my own.” 

Usually I'm remarkably good-natured. Try me on any day that doesn't end in y.” 

“I never date anyone my cat doesn’t like,”

“I love round tables. They suit me so much better than a square."

"I'm going to get you a dictionary for Christmas this year."

“Pain is only what you allow it to be” 

“No, I'm just a very naughty boy. I do all sorts of bad things. I kick kittens. I make rude gestures at nuns.” 

“You might want to lie down, I find that it helps when the crushing sense of horrible realization sets in.” 

“You live in my head all the time." 

“If you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change.” 

“I thought I'd lie on the floor and writhe in pain for a while, it relaxes me."

"It does? Oh - you're being sarcastic. That's a good sign probably.” 

He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make you happy?”

"I know. Everytime you almost die, I almost die myself.”  

"Oh I know his secret.He's terrified I'll tell everyone that he's always wanted to be a ballerina.” 

“Lawful good to lawful evil!"

“They confused beauty with innocence and harmlessness.” 

“You disappear so completely into your head sometimes, I wish I could follow you.” 

"I didn't betray you, idiot."

“Growing up happens when you start having things you look back on and wish you could change”

“Everything changes in my life, and the world stays the same.” 

“Everyone has choices to make; no one has the right to take those choices away from us. Not even out of love..” 

"You do seem obsessed with my look...Could it be that you're attracted to me?"

“He had become a monster. You just couldn't see it...because it wore the face of a friend.” 

"It's awfully butch for a bookseller.” 

“Hate is nothing when weighed against survival. “

“Suddenly you‘re interested in solving my problems?”

“Other crack teams get bat boomerangs and wall-climbing powers; we get Aquatruck.” 

“The nod means 'I am a badass, and I recognise that you too, are a badass.” 

“Then again, it was him. He'd pick a fight with a Mack truck if the urge took him.” 

"Honestly, if you don't start utilizing a bit of your natural feminine superiority, I just don't know what I'll do with you.” 

"You think I haven't seen the way you two look at each other? The way he says your name? You may not think I can feel, but that doesn't mean I can't see feelings in others.” 

“Nothing less than 7 inches.” 

“Fate is never fair. You are caught in a current much stronger than you are; struggle against it and you'll drown not just yourself but those who try to save you. Swim with it. and you'll survive” 

“Desire is not always lessened by disgust. Nor can it be bestowed, like a favor, to those most deserving of it. And as my words bind my magic, so you can know the truth. If she doesn’t desire his kiss, she won’t be free.”

"I make dollar bills magically appear in their cash register."

"Because I foresee many romantic picnics in our future. You, drinking a virgin pina colada. Me, drinking the blood of a virgin.” 

“I can't believe he didn't have the dignity and presence of mind just to get drunk and pass out in some gutter, I must say, I'm disappointed in the little fellow.” 

“Sure. And Madonna wants me as a backup dancer on her next world tour.” 

“If you're texting him to say 'I think u r kewl' I'm going to kill you” 

"You are mortal; you age; you die, if that is not hell, pray tell me, what is?” 

“I was even a little glad that if it wasn’t going to be me she wanted, it was going to be someone who really deserved her.” 

"It could be worse, men my age have been known to purchase expensive sports cars and sleep with supermodels.” 

"Like everyone else here. Except you, and the asshole. And the asshole's sister.” 

“I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am” 

"You mean father. I despise this modern habit of calling one's parents by their names."

'Its not often you get to see someone drool, especially with such total abandon. Mouth wide open and everything.” 

“Come to think of it, he‘ll probably make you pay the shipping charges yourself.” 

“The next thing I knew I was listening to five people shouting. What was that all about, anyway?” 

“It looks to me like you‘re using a wall to prop you up. that’s not my definition of ‘standing.’”

“Leaning comes right before standing.” 

“To draw something is to try to capture it FOREVER, if you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change” 

"It's always nice when someone volunteers to be the first up against the wall.” 

"I take it I'm just supposed to wait out here until vines start growing on me?"

“I hate that stuff. It tastes like feet.”

“How do you know what feet taste like?”

"Oh, you know. The usual. A lifetime's supply of Knicks tickets.

“But if you can't tell the truth to the people you care about the most, eventually you stop being able to tell the truth to yourself.” 

'Finishing my shower. And if you‘ve made me run through all the hot water, I‘ll be very annoyed.” 

“I do not understand how you humans can walk in shoes that are that tall.”