Twenty Years a Pirate
I just released "Nine Lives of Benjamin Finch" last week. (Available HERE!)
I'm gearing up for my first bookstore signing event on September 8th at Books A Million (BAM) in the Manhattan Town Centre shopping mall (2-4 PM Saturday, BE THERE!) in Manhattan, KS.
My author buddy, Lynn Main has been on the phone with me frequently the last two weeks to prepare for TopCon coming up on September 15th and 16th (9 AM- 6 PM both days, BE THERE TOO!). We're sharing a booth this time so it'll be a completely different adventure, including a big prize raffle, apparently?
I've been trying like hell to keep making progress on Book 3 with varying levels of success. (Progress is slow, but I'm digging what I've got so far.)
I got asked by a budding young writer to serve as her mentor/advisor for her senior project at the high school. This is a huge honor for me, and I'm super stoked about the opportunity. I'm also nervous as it's my first time doing this in an official capacity and have zero clue what I'm doing. Yay adventures!
In the midst of all of this, I've been watching the days slip rapidly by as tomorrow fast approaches...
My 20 Year High School Reunion.
Now, for those of you who somehow miraculously had the "These were the best days of my life!" experience in high school, I don't expect you to understand why this is a stress-inducing scenario. (Also, you kind of suck, but whatever.) The point being, that the closer this event has come, the more mildly catatonic or grumpy I've become. I've been called out on it twice this week by different people I've interacted with. For me, high school was a nightmarish hellscape. Don't get me wrong, I was weird and really liked the academic side of school. I had some great teachers and some solid educational experiences. What I did NOT have was a solid social outlet, especially after the few friends I did have graduated the year before me.
This may come as a bit of a surprise, but I was not the popular extrovert type in high school. (Gasps and shock, I know.) I was a music and theater guy in a "sports-are-everything" high school. (Go Raiders!) I didn't play football or basketball, and I was maybe a little too vocal for my own good in my disdain for how much preferential treatment was given to those activities. I was the son of the city's police chief, so I was never invited to the booze-fest parties (not that I feel like I missed much there). I was harassed by my classmates (read here as "bullied") on a daily basis with assumptions regarding my orientation. The few guys in my class who had started out friendly towards me quickly started avoiding me to stop the target from landing on their back next. (Guilt by association for something I didn't even understand at the time, I suppose.) The girls... I don't know, I guess I was too weird or awkward to be friends with them. Maybe they thought I was trying too hard by being one of the few guys in school to join the service organizations like SADD and KAYS. All of this led to depression and suicidal ideation, which, by the way, does nothing for wanting to try and be more sociable. I also got labeled as snobbish and standoffish at one point, which I think was really more of a cyclical symptom of the problem than the actual cause of it, but apparently that was an observable thing so that problem also belonged to me.
*deep sigh*
That was then and this is now, I guess. Now I have the hindsight to better understand some of the things that happened to me in school. I've run into several classmates who also moved back to the community and they seem like genuinely good people. If I'm honest, they probably were back then also; they were just too busy dealing with their own life issues and trying to survive the high school experience to take any interest in the struggles I was having (and vice versa).
Some people I'm genuinely excited to see again and hear what they've been up to for the last twenty years. One or two people I would still like to throat punch and shove into oncoming traffic, but probably won't because that would now be considered "premeditated." (If you don't hear from me soon, assume I'll be needing bail money.)
I'm making a conscious effort to get myself out of the "comparing scoresheets" mindset. I'm finding this effort really hard to do, especially now that the reunion is less than 24 hours away. I'm a 38-year-old, bald, overweight smoker with no significant other, no kids, and no house of my own. I don't have a lucrative job at the moment. My books aren't selling as well as I'd like for my writing to feel like a successful endeavor. Bragging rights end at "Yeah, I self-published two books," which, by god, should feel like something worth being proud of, but instead it feels like I'm deluding myself and making excuses for not having a "real job" (see also "imposter syndrome"). I haven't "been anywhere" since college. Most of my friendships are hanging on by a thread because I don't go anywhere or do anything without a stick of dynamite blowing me out of the front door. Likewise my family relationships feel perpetually strained because I feel like the "head in the clouds daydreaming fuck up that shirks responsibility" while everybody else is working for what they have. (I use quotes not because anybody has said this to me, but because that's how I feel most of the time.)
Christ... and now I'm crying. Good show, Jonesy. Good show.
So, long story short, I'm going to go to this thing. I'm going to do my best to just be myself and live in the moment. If I make new friends or rekindle old friendships that will be great. If things go sideways or I end up being the socially awkward weirdo again, I guess I'm not really out anything except money for the dinner and the time I could have spent playing WoW or watching a movie with my cat. With any luck, maybe I'll manage to sell some books. With amazing luck, maybe I'll manage to sell some books to somebody who has actual connections in the industry and this will be the big break I've been hoping for!
I guess we'll see what happens.
