Recession @ MindSay

well, again I haven't written in awhile...
After I last wrote, we were getting ready to go see my mom in Jacksonville,NC where she is in a nursing home...That morning we got up to a flooded basement...so, we had to stay,, called insurance, and plumber...Both came out that day and next day...with the insurance check we got we made an extra house payment..God works in mysterious ways! now we are only one month behind...but they continue to not want to help us..just this week we were again denied for the loan mod...they told us as long as we were behind and in the hole each month we would never qualify!! What??makes no sense...we were told that was why people like us could qualify for it..job loss, behind on payments,etc...That's what Obama said!!  its so frustrating!! Our second mortgage co. gave us a loan mod in 2 days!!! and we were behind with them too!! what's up with that??  who do you contact to find out if your mortgage co is jerking you around??/ they have to report to someone do they not?? sigh----
Good news is I got a job yesterday...Its part time like I wanted, no nights and no weekends..and only about 3-4 hrs a day, but every bit helps..I'm on Emergency unemployment now and my understanding is that that runs out in Oct... so we are still fighting to save our house as it stands now... oh and our first mortgage told us we needed to pare our bills down since we are in the hole every month..ok, well, we went to a credit manager and He told us there was no where to cut back!! we are paying only what we have to right now-utilities,insurance,gas,food,stuff like that that you cant pare back.. other good news, my husband  and my daughter got some help to be able to go to Doctor and get meds now...Ours is no cost to go to Doctor and daughter has to pay $5 each visit.Husband is diabetic, so he got his meds for free and my daughter is on a couple of meds that are free now too..that is a big help there..and our past doctor bills were covered and paid also which was almost at $1000.00.....now just owe the dentist $500.00...dont know when that will get paid...as no extra money at all. And here in NC taxes went up!! are they trying to kill us??? Our property taxes we owe this year are almost $2000.00!!!!! and sales taxes went up too... and now Duke Energy is wanting to raise its cost??? great...people are struggling..what do they want?our blood??? Christmas this year will be bleak..I just basically want my family together.. still trying to figure that out..with property taxes due right in Jan. that kills us..Christmas isnt about getting anyway..its about Christ and his birth.. we love each other and have fun as a family..that's what matters..The Black Friday list has already come out...those that have $ to spend-have at it...we don't.... yesterday in the mail we get 3 different letters from the county ..we owe $5 per cat we now have ..taxes on our animals!! I thought we came to America to flee Taxes on everything !! and for Religious freedom!!  good grief... tax this, raise this, what next???
have I said enough??? No wonder I was depressed earlier this week...
I was going to leave for the beach today with 3 good friends. they were going to take care of me so I could go.yesterday evening we get a call from one of them, my really good friend(I call her my Sis!) and her Dad was in ICU.. She had to call 911 earlier as he fell twice...so weak.... he had been sick all week but thought he was getting better... he was so dehydrated that they had to use a force bag to get the fluids in him. he took 4 bags I think..anyway, the rest of us told her we were not leaving her behind to go on to the beach..She wanted us to go on..can you believe that??She is so unselfish..I told her to shut up!! we were staying to be with her and the beach would still be there whenever...She couldn't help it that her dad got so ill...they weren't even sure he'd pull through last night! and she wanted us to go on.. No way!!my husband and I went over to hospital after she called and stayed. we took her to get something to eat. she went to be with her mom last night. her mom is diabetic and confined to the house..She has to be carried several times a week to receive dialysis. And she needs constant care..my friend is an only child so everything falls on her. She is a wife, and mother to two teens herself and works.. talk about having a full plate.. she does..
anyway I talked to her about 9 this morning and her dad stablizied during the night. they want to move him into a room out of ICU and regulate his meds. he lost so much weight...Will find out more later this afternoon..

my daughter started College in late August and she has adjusted well. Its our local community college, but she is doing great!! She has already aced a couple of tests! next fall she will transfer to UNCC. She has a new "Boy friend" lol says she doesn't want to be involved with anyone right now and they are just friends. I like him he is very nice.
Son has new girlfriend this year at Appalachian. he loves his apartment and having his own room!
I'm glad they are both settling in well.
well gotta run for now..maybe I will post again before another month rolls by! or two!

As I approach the two-year anniversary of when my wife foolishly said, “I do” (figuratively, since who actually says that at a wedding?), I’ve been thinking about what we should do to celebrate, beyond dinner at our favorite restaurant (Melting Pot) and presenting her with her shiny new Nokia camera, nothing sounds more appealing than spending time frolicking with our new puppy.

 

That’s right, our all black three and a half month old Portuguese Water Dog (yes, that is the dog Obama has; no, that is not why we got him).  I don’t want to lock myself in a room and write, I don’t want to research agents and publishing houses to pitch, I want to go to a park or a lake or even just the backyard with the woman and the doggie I love. Comparing that sentiment to my honeymoon, when I typed away on a novel while the cruise ship rocked us back and forth, I’ve realized this blog, which started on January 9, all the way back in 2006, has become more of a chronicle of my maturity to adulthood than my attempts to get published.  And perhaps nothing is more evident of that than the massive gaps between posts, stagnant because I’m spending time working my full-time job, or working my recent new part-time job, or working on my house, or working to train the puppy, or the best of all, spending time with my lovely wife.  Our friends are having a baby in a few months.  Our pool is about to be opened and our new grill is begging to start charring.  I’m about to sit on a panel talking to college graduates about working life. When I started this blog, I was a kid.  Now, I’m…an adult. 

 

But that doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned my dreams of becoming a published author.  I’m still waiting for my wife and friend and screenwriter I admire greatly to review my most recent three novels, and while waiting I’ve written a few short stories to send to contests (something I promised myself and this audience I’d do months ago).  But I also recognize that in my absence from this blog, while doing all that growing up, our economy has changed drastically, and with it, so has the publishing industry.

 

One of my first posts was about the insanity of ever expecting to publish a book (especially a fiction novel) outside of self-publishing.  Multiple that message to the umpth degree now, where even the superstar writers of the world are seeing shrinking advances. 

 

But there is still hope.  There is still advice I can offer.  And I present it in the following five tips on how to publish a book in a wretched economy:

1. Make yourself a brand – you may not be a Stephen King or Jody Piccoutt yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t market like you are.  Create a blog (better than this one), submit articles to online publications, contact local radio stations to see if they’d be interested in the story of who you are and what you’re trying to do (or if you’re a non-fiction writer offer yourself as a guest to discuss your specialization), become the next MySpace phenomenon (but first find the next MySpace, since that site, as well as Facebook and Twitter, are so last month) 
2. Create a package – Just your book isn’t enough anymore; develop the book, as well as online videos, photos or drawings to accompany the text, corresponding articles for outside publications, potential sequels, a graphic novel companion piece, action figures, etc.; whatever is appropriate for your work.  And make it clear that you are willing and able to take on much of the marketing; working on a website, traveling like crazy to multiple book readings and signings, hitting up conferences, phoning into radio show after radio show after radio show (and just so you know: you may have to be the one pitching the radio shows and organization the book signings as well).
3. Polish your writing – Your novel is perfect, right?  No, it could always be better.  Since publishers are barely accepting new work right now, take this time to send your work to friends for their review. Join book clubs.  Edit again and again and again.  Make sure it is beyond perfect, which doesn’t actually exist, like someone giving 110 percent.  See, I’m rambling.  This should be edited.  Don’t ramble.  Edit.  A lot. 
4. Be patient – The economy will rebound, and people will find renewed love for writing, and with J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer motivating new groups of people to read, and with Dan Brown about to excite pro- and anti-religious groups all over again, the market is ripe for growth.  Do what my dog can’t do yet and “stay, stay, good boy.”  You’ll get that treat eventually.
5. Keep writing – The most obvious, corny, important advice I can give; keep writing.  Keep honing your craft.  Keep thinking about that new idea, the one that is so different from everything else out there, the one that the publishers can’t help but pay attention to.  It’s in you, and now, with no pressure weighing you down, is the perfect time to pull it out.

 

I tell you what, let’s make a deal.  If you keep writing, I will.  Okay?  Good.  Let’s get to it. 

 

 

Book.

It's good reading, but I'm strongly tempted to interpret what Florida says with a critical eye, especially in light of the recent economic collapse and the peculiar way in which "courtier intellectuals" promote ideas to powerful groups. (Picture Ayn Rand's lectures to the CEOs of old about greed and the concentration of wealth benefits society.) Of course, at least theoretically, I am part of Florida's "creative class" -- people that generate value through ideas and individual development, as opposed to repetitive physical tasks and conventional conformist values. If I'm reading something that is making me feel like, "Hey, I'm good, I'm creative, that's me," there's danger afoot.

But his argument that the future well-off will be "bohemians," "gays," and noncomformists is pretty irresistible. And when I heard Richard Florida speaking on NPR, I loved his honesty; he said something like, "We are spending too much money on the US military. It's a heirarchical, conformist culture that does not create value." Now that's heresy I can believe in. Never forget that the purpose of all military activity is finding out ways to more effectively dominate people through force -- i.e. killing. That's the definitive opposite of value-creation and progress.

Lying at the heart of the first chapter, however, is a Greenspanian "irrational exuberance" for the post-industrial economy that both Democrats and Republicans have been promoting since roughly 1980. While I might write a book that people want to read, I would not presume this kind of work to be more essential than, say, the harvesting of corn, the manufacturing of refridgerators, or the pounding of steel bolts for a highway overpass. It's definitely a more attractive way to make a living to write books; likely, as many people as can write books for a living will do so until there are too many. Basically, the post-industrial economy has never worked and never will work -- no country can import more than they export and hope to hold on to wealth. It's this economic model that has ravaged the United States' middle class; we've become a nation of financial consultants employing domestic servants. But so many people in the service industry can't pay their bills; it just doesn't work.

Further, it's hard to see how one could promote bohemians, gays, and noncomformists and their white, urban, coastal culture (read: liberal) and not make a qualitative judment in favor of them and against the staid, churchgoing, conformist "Red Staters" (read: conservative). Now, I'm more partisan than even Richard Florida on this point: misery for me would be working in some kind of repetitive-task, unthinking job in a place like Detroit or Appalachia. But I don't presume to say one is the wave of the future and the other is not. Both modes are equally needed; it's a matter of human nature even -- conservatives check the social progress liberals would bring about too quickly.

Imagine reading Richard Florida in 50 years. Rise of the Creative Class comes about in 2002, right after a mild lull in economic growth, and at the beginning of seven straight years of a housing and banking bubble (promoted by the Bush Administration, and the largest bubble since the 1920s). Economically speaking, the "creative class" which disdains manual labor and congratulates itself for employing maids, nannies, and landscapers (as well as Starbucks baristas) was resplendent. They sold the subprime mortgages to naive consumers and extended lines of credit not for the purpose of actually recouping the money, but to figure out ever-more-misleading ways of fleecing customers for a short-term profit through hidden fees and APR adjustments. They thought the money was real, they were doing good, and the love song would never end. Now we're left with 10+ percent unemployment and a minimum of two years of recession, and upwards of $10 trillion in socialized debt for a handful of peoples' "toxic assets."

Like so many critics, instead of objectively critiquing an occurrence, Richard Florida became just another part of the event he thought he was seeing from the outside. Or, as a former professor of mine put it:

This book is thus an example of the history [...] to which it contributes.

In other words, instead of an objective critique, Rise of the Creative Class helps create the conditions it supposedly analyzes.

     It seems that the recession has really hit our house now..we were doing ok with me and no work..just relying on my disability for now has sort-of just covered my housing expenses.
However, today my roommate was just dropped down to three days a week..
this means that if I don't get some work within the next two weeks..no matter what happens..I'll be homeless by the first of May..


Tonight, I think I shall drink

Virgin Mobile is now targeting frugal teenagers.

A funny web site called Screw You Recession encourages visitors to message money saving tips and interact with a funky custom built recession panic meter.



All joking aside, that's actually where I learned about Freecycle and that site looks amazing, a place where good karma is currency.