Today's Gift

Last Sunday, I announced a new gift book for cat lovers—The Gift of Nine Lives. (I neglected to say that it’s also for those who like tongue-in-cheek, somewhat sly, stories.) I admit to hoping for good sells. Back in 1992, when Crown published A Cat’s Life: Dulcy’s Story, it sold 14,000 copies in four months.

Crown said I sold most of those copies by setting up over thirty readings and signings in small and large bookstores in the metro area of the Twin Cities, in Seattle when I visited my cousins there, and in the Kansas City metro when I visited my brother and his family for Christmas. I also contacted radio and television stations and newspapers in all three areas and they responded enthusiastically.

But now, all is different: most small bookstores are gone; most newspapers don’t do book reviews anymore; most chat shows on television feature only celebrities. Moreover, I no longer drive so I couldn’t get to bookstores and television and radio stations if I had an invitation to do so! Finally, there’s a great difference between the energy level of a 56-year-old Dee Ready and an 82-year old crotchety crone!

The biggest thing of course is that, after trying for twenty-five years to find an agent to represent my writing, I finally accepted the truth that agents weren’t looking for my kind of writing. It was then—this past March—that I began to self-publish.

That, of course, implies self-marketing—the use of social media to get the word out. The ability to do that, my friends, eludes me.

So right now I’m feeling as if the world is passing me by. As if I’m on a deserted road that’s familiar to me but seems untraveled by others; I discover, to my dismay, that other writers have taken a detour onto a road named “Twenty-First Century Marketing”—a road that diverged and, as the poet Robert Frost said, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I took the road less traveled by, and that’s made all the difference.”

Right now the difference is that in one week “The Gift of Nine Lives” has sold only 11 copies. Eleven.

By this time in 1992, several hundred copies had sold. So I find myself somewhat dispirited. A little down in the dumps about the fact that I may be too old for this writing game; this marketing game; this selling game.

I’ve always tried to live by the mantra my mother gave me when I was a child. When things were hard, she’d say to me, “Dolores, you find what you look for. If you look for good, you will find it. And if you look for bad, you will surely find that too.”

That mantra has seen me through many difficult chapters of my life. It has helped me be positive when the twists and turns of life seemed intent on wearing me down.

But in this past week, I found myself stymied by my dream of communicating with others the stories I long to share. I’ve felt betrayed by my own unrealistic expectations.

Then it happened. Today I was reading a novel and suddenly came to a passage in which the main character quoted from the Second Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians.

Here’s the quote: “In everything, give thanks.”

Yes, in everything—the dark days, the painful days, the fearful days, the enlightened days, the sweet days, the emboldened days. This day. And tomorrow. No matter what happens—or doesn’t. No matter what is said—or isn’t. No matter how my body, mind, spirit feels—or doesn’t. No matter what: In everything, give thanks.

That’s what Mom was trying to tell me.

And so I give thanks today for those 11 books that have sold.

And I will give thanks tomorrow for whatever it brings.

And always, I give thanks for all of you who visit me each week. Thank you.

Peace.