I just sold a copy of my novel! From the racks out the front, for $5. No high pressure salesmanship or anything, the guy just walked in and handed me a fiver. I only just got them in, it was only out there for two hours. I swear, this is the nicest thing that's happened to me in a month. Fucking Lothian - I knew the thing was sellable. Wish I'd bought more now.
Anyway, to those who asked, the book is now available at Plup. Will be available for purchase over the internet tomorrow - will post the link when it's up.
Off to put another one out there.
I am thirty. Strangely, I feel no different.
I feel I should have lots of things to say about this, reflections on my twenties and hope for my thirties, but I overdid this topic in conversation over the last month or so, creating an impression of a crisis that really didn't exist. Also I feel tired, and a little drained. My party last night was lots of fun - thanks to those who came - and I could draw some sort of parallel, I suppose, about how I can see in it how my thirties could be alright; how a party that can feature both mulled wine
and somebody falling asleep unnoticed on the floor somehow represents a growing maturity without abandoning a sense of fun. But the link grows strained as I write it. I don't know.
I had a good twenties. I think they went for long enough, in reality. Contrary to common wisdom, they didn't seem any shorter than the period from 10-20, and whatever people say, decades
don't pass quickly. They went for a long time, and seen in totality, contained more than enough incident and adventure for the writer part of me to feel he experienced it reasonably properly. Of course I'm very vulnerable to nostalgia, and have great difficulty in accepting that the past can never be regained; I think it's one of the things that made me want to write, to be able to recapture feelings and moments from the past. But there weren't too many things I wanted from my twenties that I didn't get to experience.
As for my thirties - I do have a few ideas. But I want to keep them secret, at the moment. I don't know why, but it feels right for me to do so, as if to speak them would be to threaten them, somehow. I think mostly I just wanted to say, I am thirty.
