Bookshelf Battle

Hey 3.5 readers.

Time for a State of the Bookshelf address.

First, check out the 3D cover of my upcoming book:

You know 3.5, I have to say it.  This book cover is a small victory for me.

Maybe one day I’ll share my trials and tribulations but suffice to say, I’ve been through some shit.  I’m ambitious.  I try hard.  I work hard.  Yet inevitably, for as long as I can remember, I always end up landing flat on my face.

Life has always been like Lucy holding that football.  There have been many times where I, in a Charlie Brown-like manner, would assume I was about to make it (i.e. kick that football) only to have life (or Lucy) take the football away leaving me (just like Charlie) flat on my ass.

I wonder if Charles Schultz ever realized how he captured a brilliant metaphor to explain how people can only try and fail so many times before they give up.  Maybe that’s why Charlie is so lovable.  He kept trying to kick that football even though defeat was certain.

I often wonder why I don’t give up, why I keep Charlie Brown-ing it.  But lately, I think I’m Langston Hughes-ing it:

Dreams – Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Yeah, there are many more practical things I could be doing than blogging and writing, especially when my many attempts at kicking life’s football have left me shouting, “Uggh!” before rolling over and over again through the air then landing on my butt.

Yet, what’s the alternative?  I’ve got to hold onto the dream because Langston is right.  Without dreams, life is a field of barren snow.

So I must keep giving Lucy the chance to pull that football away to avoid a snowy life, if that makes any sense.

All this is a very longwinded way of saying that I don’t feel like the football was pulled away from me in this respect.  I got off my butt, I did something, I set up a design contest, I talked to some designers and I got a pretty sweet cover.

I started out a pessimist.  I thought it wouldn’t work out.  But it did.  Lucy let my toe briefly tap the ball and that’s a step in the right direction.

3.5 readers, I hate to set an arbitrary date but I really need you all to become 3.5 million readers by 2020.  That’s more or less the last year where I could conceivably use my prospective book writing moolah to throw a wild, lavish party ala that party scene in the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton.

Yeah.  I know.  That’s a lot of pressure to put on myself.  I’m not sure people could get excited enough about books to support an NWA style party in the name of books.  (You have to see the party scene in that movie to know what I’m talking about).

But at any rate, that’s my gauge for success.  Malibu mansion to throw NWA style party in to celebrate my writing career by 2020.  If it happens in 2021, that’ll be too late.  The millions coming in 2022 or 2023 won’t matter.  Give me millions in 2025 and I’ll just smile and nod and then donate it to charity or some shit because by then I will have lost my ability to care.

Malibu NWA style party to celebrate my book career by 2020 or bust!  And you all 3.5 of you are invited.

Hey, by the way, before I go back to yeti captivity, you nerds have put me over 2000 followers.

Thanks for listening, 3.5.  The state of the bookshelf is strong.