I’ve got all this money to spend and they just keep giving me more! I’m just one person, dammit!

I’m a freelance artist and writer, which means that, most of the time, my dreams about money usually involve a lot less “boy, I really wanna buy that gold-plated Lamborghini” and a lot more “boy, I really wanna buy groceries without putting them on the credit card”.  And yet, every time I am about to release a new project for the potential consumption of the masses, there is a weasely part of me that elbows practicality aside and hisses, “Forget the gold plated Lamborghini!  Go for the platinum!  With champagne-filled tires!  And a glove compartment Jacuzzi!!”

And don’t tell me they don’t make such things.  They just haven’t made one yet.

“I don’t think you understand just how rich you are.  In fact, I better put on a monocle.”

Because no matter how pressing my practical money issues might be at any given time, I cannot seem to be content with merely satisfying them.  There is some part of me that, no matter how happy I am with my current life, insists that real happiness is still out there, unfound, an undiscovered country unlocked only with the magical key of heaps and heaps of cashola.  Popular culture might try to tell us that money isn’t the key to happiness– it’s all about family and friends and somehow sticking it to the selfish rich bastards who sleep alone on their cold, cruel piles of banknotes every night– and we all pretend to believe it.  But how many of us, if offered a million bucks, would really say “nah.  I’m good.  Money doesn’t bring happiness.  You know what brings happiness?  Friends.  Wanna be my friend?  Awesome.  Let’s go bowling.  Bliss out.”  No.  I’m betting that when the wallet rubber meets the million-dollar-road, most of you (like me) would be jamming the pedal to the metal and heading off to the platinum-plated Lamborghini dealership.  (How’s that for milking a driving metaphor?)

The road to riches has frustrating off-ramps.

But still.  Is it all true?  Really?

Last night I watched a stand-up comedy routine starring a well-known comic.  I don’t suppose he fits into the category of super-wealthy elite, but the guy’s had his own television show.  He packs out venues with paying fans.  He’s succeeded in a career where most people go ape-crazy with failure (and drugs, let’s not forget the crazy, crazy drugs).  And you know what he talked about?  He talked about how crappy life is.  He blithely discussed his fears about death, despite how banal and pointless day-to-day existence is.  And the audience laughed.  Why?  Because deep, deep down, beneath the part of us that’s hoping for a precious-metal-plated supercar, there’s another part of us that knows that money isn’t really the point.

We humans are just one big complex Big Mac of layers, most of which don’t really get along, and some of which we choose to ignore at all costs.  It’s no fun thinking that heaps of moolah won’t actually bring happiness, because really, if that’s true, what are we cranking away at life for?  Just to pay the bills and afford premium cable and keep driving the same old crapbox that doesn’t impress anyone?  Nobody but nobody wants to accept that.  But when we see a guy whose reached the top of the mountain (or at least gotten a good view of it) who still says life pretty much blows and the best we can hope for each day is not to die (yeah, he really said that, and we all laughed), it touches that truth deep inside us, the one that knows money is just a license to change the superficial circumstances of our lives, and the superficial circumstances don’t really mean anything.

“If only money could buy a mustache for my soul.”

A few weeks ago I tried to have a sleepover with my kids (Greer, six, and Zane, eight at the time).  We camped out in the living room, me on the floor with blankets and pillows, them on the couch and chair.  We talked about all sorts of stuff until very late, then I told them that if they didn’t go to sleep a monster would come and wreck up all their toys or something.  Greer fell immediately to sleep.  Zane shuffled around.  I could hear him, shifting his feet on the couch, sliding them around under the covers.  I looked up at him.  He was simply sliding his feet back and forth, up and down, shifting them every ten seconds or so.  Finally I asked him what in the world he was doing.  Whispering, he told me that his feet kept getting hot.  Therefore, logically, every few seconds he would move them to a cooler section of blanket.  Of course, unfortunately, it was his feet themselves that were generating the heat, thus very quickly, the new section of blanket lost its cool and Zane had to move again, always seeking that elusive coolness.

And I, of course, told him to stop shuffling around and simply uncover his feet.

He did, smart boy that he is, and within a minute or two he was asleep.

And amazingly, it wasn’t until this morning that I realized Zane’s hot feet were an analogy for my attitude about money.  You probably recognized it immediately, so bully for you smartie-pants, but for my own sake, I am going to spell it out.

Life is often uncomfortable.  Metaphorically, my feet keep getting hot.  And because I am raised in a commercial world where everything runs on money, it makes sense to think that money can provide the ultimate cure for my hot feet.  Thus, I try to make as much as I can so that I can change my circumstances.  I tell myself that buying stuff and impressing people will make me permanently content.  And it works!  For a little while.  Pretty quickly, after changing my circumstances, those feelings of creeping discontent come back.  Because like Zane’s hot little feet, my discontentment is self-generating.  It is not dependent on circumstances.  Changing the circumstances just distracts me for awhile.

So what’s the point, then?  For Zane, the key was to get his feet out from under the blanket.  He liked being under the blanket.  He thinks that’s what people do when they go to bed.  It took a bit of a leap for him to realize he could buck tradition, break the rules, and toss those comformist covers off his feet.  What’s the equivalent for me and my attitude about moolah?  How do I metaphorically stick my feet out from under the covers?

As unsexy as it sounds, maybe it’s just a day-to-day discipline of choosing to be happy where I am at.  It isn’t hard.  I am pretty happy.  What do I have to complain about?  Sure, I am still buying groceries with the credit card sometimes, and sure I am still driving around a hand-me-down Ford P.O.S., but I have a lovely wife who I still tend to think is the pinnacle of womanhood, I have a pair of kids that adore me and who I adore, I get to exercise my talents every day and get paid for it.  I am healthy, only slightly balding, and generally perfectly delighted with simple, cheap pleasures (last night I giggled like a school girl over a plate of Tater Tots).  How, really, could a platinum Lamborghini improve that?

That’s a rhetorical question.  Don’t answer it.

I do tend to have high expectations.  I tend to think I can accomplish anything.  A lot of times I am right.  Sometimes I am wrong.  But still, I stubbornly believe that it’s better to keep trying than just to get bitter and fatalistic.

Although bitter and fatalistic looks pretty tempting sometimes.

Thing is, I don’t really regret making that post.  I did alter it a bit, taking out the specific ultimatums, but the essential idea is just basic economics.  I thought the readers deserved to know the situation.  I don’t want anyone to buy my works just to pay for more JP stories.  I want them to buy my works because they will enjoy them.  But it is an inevitable result that the sales of one will lead to more of the other.

There are no guarantees in that statement, but there are no threats either.

For their part, the haters may be right.  It may be that my latest book will never sell in the numbers I have hoped for.  As such, they have (with a strange, mean glee) proclaimed that I have thus departed from the JP story forever.  I took all my toys and went home.  Nyah.

But I didn’t.  Nothing has changed, dear reader.  I may still write more JP stories, even though the sales of my published works haven’t made me independently wealthy.  After all, I didn’t write the first three for anything other than the love of the story.  Soon enough, my kids are going to be demanding to know what happens next in the James Potter world.  Soon enough, I myself will may start missing that world enough to get back into it.

That’s not a guarantee, though.  I am caught on the fence, you see.  As the above blog post makes clear, any fanfic writer who is serious about getting fer-real published has to totally abandon his/her fanfic, to the extent of scouring it from the internet.  I don’t want to do that.  I love the JP stories, even if there never is another one.  And yet I do want to be a success with my original books.  As usual, I want it all.  And as usual, that’s probably impossible.

In short, maintaining the JP stories is important to me– I am proud of them.  I won’t abandon them.  And by doing so, I am apparently killing my chances of success as a writer, since JP readers mostly just want more JP stories, and the publishing industry will dismiss me as long as I am a writer of JP stories.  It’s the classic Catch 22.

My last post was an attempt to explain this predicament in a way that might help my readers understand the situation.

The bottom line, methinks, (as far as most of you are concerned) is this:  the news about the death of the James Potter Series has been greatly exaggerated.  I am disappointed that Ruins of Camelot was not an enormous success out of the gates, but all that this means is that I cannot start a new JP book immediately.  The Day Job calls, and I must dutifully comply.  Fortunately, the Day Job is not so bad.  But it is time consuming.  I may get to more JP, but it won’t be for awhile.  At least not until my kids’ pestering for what happens next becomes unbearable.

For now, onward and upward.  I am working on a new iPhone game and I am really excited about it.  It looks great so far (if I do say do myself, and why should I stop now?) and I have hopes that it will sell at least as well as Dream:scape did.  And who am I kidding?  I actually hope it blows D:S out of the water and becomes a major hit.

See?  I can’t help it.  High expectations are what drive me.  So sue me.  (:

And if I may be so bold, it’s all pretty good stuff.

So.  The problem is simply this: as happy as I am to make more free James Potter stories, (and as eager as my readers are to encourage them) those stories cost me a lot to produce.  They take a tremendous amount of time and effort to write, and it occurs to me that it might be considered foolish (if not completely daft) to continue writing free JP stories when I could be writing original stories that I can actually sell.  After all, as much as I love writing purely for the sake of the story, story doesn’t pay ye olde bills.

Although I do have a few other financial ventures in the works...

Thus, I formulated a plan.  I would alternate writing one original (sellable) novel for every free James Potter story.  Ideally, the one would fund the production of the other.  Seems fair, yes?  After all, I have avoided just asking for donations outright (I hate the very idea, actually).  I have even, for the sake of the purity of the story, avoided putting ads on the websites, despite the revenue they would surely generate.  In short, I never wished to abuse the loyalty and faithfulness of the readers by turning the stories into a crass money-making venture.

But I have no problem selling my original stories to them.  After all, they are hard work, and the reader gets something for their 2.99– they get a new story, and the chance to support the free stories they have already enjoyed.  Seems like a win-win, yes?

The problem is that my readers have gotten rather used to free.  They aren’t particularly eager to throw money at any new stories.  This might be because the new tales don’t have the word “Potter” in the title.  It might also be because a lot of my readers are young and simply don’t have credit cards or income.  But it might also be because they just don’t want to pay for what they will eventually (hopefully) get for free.

Thus, when my newest original book, “Ruins of Camelot”, came out, I knew the sales wouldn’t be huge.  I hoped for just enough income from the book to push it up the amazon charts, earn some new readers via that exposure, and make enough cashola to justify the months it would take to write the next James Potter story.

Suffice it to say, that hasn’t happened.

Wait a minute, I thought this was that new Dean Koontz cookbook...

In fact, thus far (if you don’t mind me putting it bluntly) the sales of “Ruins of Camelot” have not been enough to pay the web hosting fee for www.jamespotterseries.com.  As of this writing, RoC has sold 51 total copies, most of them to my immediate family and friends.

This, as you may imagine, puts me in a tough position.  My readers want more James Potter stories– and I want to write them– but I simply cannot, at this point, justify the time and expense of it.

But I have come up with what seems to me to be an elegant and simple fix.  The solution, I think, is to make my problem your problem as well.  We both want the same things, yes?  Perfect.  Here it is:

I will write more James Potter bookwhen the sales of “Ruins of Camelot” and any other writing ventures allows me the financial freedom to do so.  EDIT: I want to be sure to mention that I am not intending to blackmail you, the readers, into buying RoC simply to ensure more JP stories.  I want you to buy RoC because it is a GOOD STORY.  It is of the same quality and depth (perhaps more so) as the JP books.  By getting your copy, you not only get a great new story, you support me as an author.  That support frees me up to write more stories, some free fan fiction, some more sellable books.  Either way, I hope you understand that I am mostly just pointing out a practical reality: book sales equal more books, including more James Potter sequels.

Truly, I do apologize if that sounds crass.  If it angers you, please feel free to bid me and my stories adieu with no harm done.  If, on the other hand, you appreciate the effort involved in the creation of these books and understand the need to balance my passion for the story with my need to take care of my people, then I thank you grandly for your consideration and support.

For those who don’t have the means to buy “Ruins of Camelot” or any of my other published works, there are equally valuable ways that you can show your support.  My favorite is this: go to your public library and request “Ruins of Camelot”.  it’s free to you, gets the book onto the shelves, and encourages new readers, all of which helps me immensely.  Another way is simply to spread the word about the stories.  If you read “Ruins of Camelot” and enjoy it, tell people about it.  There is almost nothing in the universe as powerful as word-of-mouth recommendations.  Finally, if you did read the book, you can leave reviews for it on goodreads.com and wherever you purchased it from.  Reviews are a hugely powerful way to encourage new readers.

Bribery works too.

Thanks a million for reading this, and for offering all of your encouragement and support.  If you are one of the fifty or so marvelous people who have already bought “Ruins of Camelot”, you have my undying gratitude.  Words can be very encouraging, but there is nothing as inspiring to a writer as when a reader chooses to invest their hard-earned coin in their story.  If you plan to suggest RoC to your library, or tell your friends about, thanks very much as well.  This is how independent publishing will succeed– with the help if each individual reader.

With your support and encouragement, the James Potter story will go on.  I will keep you all updated on the progress to our goal.  Whenever you are curious, simply ask and I will give a report (within reason– let’s keep it on a weekly basis or so, agreed?)  And whenever you see anyone asking when or if there will be another JP book, post a link to this blog post.  Spread the word and encourage your fellow readers to do the same.

Thanks much, and as always: onward and upward.

Oh, and just in case you are still wondering, here’s the best goulash recipe I know.

Fortunately, despite the sort of stories I tend to write, I don’t believe in jinxes.

Unless this is your idea of a Jinx, then I'm all for it.

Tomorrow, December first, I will be releasing my latest book for the potential consumption of the reading masses.  “Ruins of Camelot” has been a long time coming, which is sort of ironic* since it was one of the quickest books to write.  I love this story.  For that reason I tried –fruitlessly, as if it needed to be said– to get it fer-real published.  No dice.  Thus, as I indulgently explained in my previous post, I determined to throw caution (and perhaps good sense and my few remaining shreds of pride) to the wind and publish it myself.

Tomorrow, I will have my first glance at whether or not that gambit paid off.

At the risk of sounding like a bit of a megalomaniac, I have an idea that “Ruins of Camelot” might be worth keeping an eye on, even if you don’t like strong-female-lead, not-quite-high fantasy for the young-adult-crossover market (although really, why wouldn’t you, you old stick-in-the-mud?).  Here’s why:

Self publishing might be on the verge of becoming a legit force in the book market.  There have now been a few (a very few) bestsellers that were self published.  The paper ceiling (ha-ha *cough*) has been torn through, paving the way for potential success for anyone who has a good tale to tell and the marketing savvy to promote it.  For the first time in the history of books, the traditional publishing model can be bypassed on the road to mainstream success.

But it won’t be easy, and the problem is very simple.

and it isn't which how-to-be-a-publishing-success book to buy.

If you happen to be a wannabe writer like me, you know that literary agents and publishers set up obstacle courses to purposely complicate manuscript submission.  They insist on seemingly arbitrary rules and arcane style preferences.  They demand perfectly formatted manuscripts, written only in Times New Roman, double-spaced, on virgin recycled paper.  They look for subtle hints that you don’t know the business and are therefore a talentless hack– things like book titles in ALL CAPS (a good sign), or query letters of more than one page (a bad sign), or whether you did enough research to know the names, species, and reading preferences of their pets and were sure to greet them all individually in the first paragraph (exceptionally good because it is impossible).

And as much as we hate this, there is a good reason for it: everyone thinks they can write.

I mean that literally.  Everyone thinks they have a “book in them” (often the story of their life, which might be a distinctly American brand of self aggrandizement).  Every moderately successful actor thinks they can turn bestselling autobiographer.  Every radio talk show host catches the popular delusion that they harbor latent talent as a novelist.  Everyone has a story to tell, and they believe that the only thing keeping that story off the bestseller charts is the writing of it.

Unfortunately, a lot of them do write it, and therein lies the problem.  There is a tremendous– a truly monumental, earth-shaking, awe-inspiringly enormous– amount of completely hopeless dreck out there.

Literary agents and publishing houses handle this fact by the aforementioned obstacle course of rules, pitfalls and hurdles, thus weeding out the less-than-wholly-dedicated.  By making the door into the publishing world very, very small and hard to squeeze through, they keep the flood of dreck manageable and hopefully only allow through that which is nominally worth reading.

the system isn't perfect.

Now, however, self publishing has created a whole new door– an enormous door that absolutely anyone can fit through, along with their one-thousand-page novel about time traveling puppies (“it’s like Air Buddies meets Back to the Future!”) and their collection of nihilistic free-verse anti-poetry (“Sign Language in Oven Mitts”).  This avenue doesn’t generally bother with such mundane things as editing, promotion, or packaging (much less grammar or spell-checking).  Thus, the mountain of dreck gets dumped directly into the consumer market, warts and all.

This is the problem that any good independent author has to struggle with.  And this, I submit, is why “Ruins of Camelot” might be worth watching.  All modesty aside, RoC has a great cover.  It has a professional-looking website.  The animated trailer is engaging and has an original score by a fantastic composer (Isaias Garcia, thank you very much).  All told, RoC has gotten the sort of star treatment that would normally be reserved for a potential bestseller from a large publishing house.  Furthermore, I have a dedicated FB page with over 5000 fans, and I have been shamelessly promoting the story to them for months, offering contests, excerpts and giveaways.  They seem eager to get the book when it comes out.

In short, everything seems perfectly aligned for “Ruins of Camelot” to break through the mountain of self published dreck and emerge as a viable contender for anything published by the traditional method.

So will it?

It may not.  No matter how shiny it is, RoC may stay buried like a Rolex watch under a pile of manure.  Success will depend on one thing, and one thing only:

OK, maybe two things.

Initial sales.

When a book sells well in the first week or so, it climbs the bestseller charts.  When it climbs the charts, it becomes more visible.  The more visible it is, the more people will find it and consider buying it.  This worked for my previous book, “The Riverhouse”, so I know it is possible.  It just can’t be relied upon.

So there it is.  This, if you are interested to know, is what I am fretting about today.  “Ruins of Camelot” could be a bestseller.  It could achieve the initial sales numbers needed to propel it up the charts and earn the consideration of the average reader who wouldn’t know my name if I kicked them in the shins wearing a clown suit (which I may resort to as a marketing plan if things don’t work out).

OR, RoC could just as easily be a complete dud.  It could languish with limp sales because everyone is busy Christmas shopping for their great Aunt Martha, or is waiting to buy it on sale after Christmas (not gonna happen), or just plan on reading a free version that pops up on a file sharing site somewhere (I will come to your house with a baseball bat.  Not really.  But maybe yes.)  In that case, RoC will be forgotten just like that Rolex watch buried in the dung heap.  I will continue to crawl along under a crippling pall of self doubt, and most likely somewhere, somehow, a puppy will die.

More importantly, for those of you who like my James Potter books and want to see the fourth book, “James Potter and the Morrigan Web” completed soon, I can only say that if RoC sells well, JPMW will come along a lot faster, mostly because I won’t have to spend all my time making inane animations to sell car insurance and checking accounts to hapless television viewers.  To put it bluntly, sales of RoC mean more free JP stories.

money goes in, books come out (and a little nuclear waste).

But enough of that.

The point is this: if independent authoring (I do so dislike the term “self published”) is going to ever be a truly viable option for anyone who hopes to sell more than a half-dozen copies to their immediate family, “Ruins of Camelot” might be a good canary-in-the-coal-mine.  Everything is lined up for it to succeed.  It has the promotion, the packaging, the potential audience.  If it does, then maybe this truly is a viable option for the dedicated indie writer.  If it doesn’t…

Well, maybe the book just stinks.  It’s possible, yes?

(sigh!)

So what went wrong? I made the mistake of trying to get “for real” published. That’s right, I called it a mistake.

It isn’t really all that shocking. Anyone who has ever put pen to paper in pursuit of becoming a writer suffers from the same love-hate relationship with the traditional publishing world. We desperately want the affirmation of people in the industry. There is (I am told) no greater satisfaction for a writer than to have the gigantic professional literary machine scoop you up and get behind your work.

On the other hand, we suspect that a lot of literary agencies are much less interested in great books than they are in sure things. We are offended by the amount of copycat dreck that gets published every year from known authors while our invariably far superior stories are rejected with form letters.

This love-hate mentality was crystallized recently when a world famous author gave the following two bits of advice: 1) take your stories straight to publishing house editors, since most agents wouldn’t recognize a truly good book if it came with a written certification from Charles Dickens’ zombie*; and 2) respect your book enough to never, EVER self-publish it.

In short, traditional publishing is the only legitimate choice, but literary agents will likely never give you a chance. (The advice about simply approaching editors directly is instructive but not particularly helpful. It’s a bit like telling a struggling pole vaulter to “simply jump higher”).

And yet I tried to follow the advice.  I spent the better part of the last year trying to get “Ruins of Camelot” into the hands of editors, decent literary agents, and Oprah Winfrey.  OK, not really on that last one, although it probably would have been an equally worthwhile endeavor.  I got nowhere.  I did get several agencies curious enough about the story to request a manuscript, but that’s pretty much where it all ended.

Now, I am a pragmatist, so I have to assume this means one of two things: either my story is stinky, or the publishing world just isn’t willing to take the risk on me.  I don’t think it’s the former (although I struggle with the same plague of self-doubt that most writers do, and if they don’t they probably should, or are Dean Koontz).  I have had the good fortune of having an awful lot of readers.  My previous self-published book, “The Riverhouse”, hit number two on amazon (and if you are sick of hearing about that, too bad).  My short story, “The Long Way Home” was bought and published by Orson Scott Card, who had unusually high praise for it.  And my beta readers, whose opinions I trust very much, say that “Ruins of Camelot” is possibly the best thing I have written so far.

So I am going to go out on a limb and say that the story doesn’t stink.

But what do I do?  Since the “legit” literary world isn’t willing to take the risk on me, and self-publishing is for wannabe amateurs with delusions of grandeur, is there any option?  Do I just stick my story in the bottom drawer forever and move onto the next thing?

I think not.

Deciding that, I began to wonder if seeking to get “for real” published was, as mentioned above, actually a huge mistake.

To wit: I’ve read enough about the world of fiction to know that most published authors don’t really make any money at it.  I, however, have.  ”The Riverhouse” didn’t make me rich, but it made more moolah than I ever expected.  Why?  Because I have some things going for me that most unknown authors don’t:  1) I have a built-in readership, thanks to the JP series.  2) I have the artistic talent to promote and package my own books so that they don’t look like the work of a wannabe amateur with delusions of grandeur (although I probably am).

And so I began to wonder– what, really, would I gain by working through a traditional publisher?  Is it not entirely possible that I might actually earn less money if I had to share it around?  Is it not possible that they might promote my story much more poorly and less enthusiastically than I would on my own?  Is it not even possible that the literary machine might assign some horrible cover to my story, far worse than I would have made myself?

Yes.  Those things are very possible.

So now here I am, realizing that not only do I not really need the traditional publishing world; they might actually prove a hindrance.  This is a unique and revolutionary new perspective.

Perhaps it’s all just sour grapes.  Perhaps I am just talking myself out of wanting what I can’t have anyway.  Perhaps, despite my bravado, I would leap at the opportunity if some big publishing house called me with an offer.

But that doesn’t make any of this untrue.

So I am stepping off the cliff again.  This time without looking back, and willingly.  It isn’t a last resort.  After all, at this very moment RoC is still in the hands of two agencies.  I have written them both stating my change in plans, and telling them, basically, that if they want to make an offer, they’d best do it quick and make it good.  Because I am truly beginning to think that I can do this better myself.  I can make a better cover, a better promotional website, and a better pitch to my existing reader base.  I think it is possible that I can take “Ruins of Camelot” farther than the legit publishing world could.  I have the commitment, the ambition, and the resources.  I have high hopes that I can get my story on the bestseller lists.  Again.

So what do you all think?  Is this endeavor fearless or foolhardy?  Am I being brash or brave?  Because at this point I honestly don’t know.  I am hoping for the best.  In the end, of course, it’s up to you, the readers.  What I am hoping is that you will buy, buy, buy.  I am hoping you will tell all your friends.  Not just because the story is worth reading, but because there’s something interesting about the idea of bypassing the traditional system, something that might be worth supporting.

So… is it?

*paraphrased. I think he actually mentioned zombie James Joyce.

First, if you don’t already live there, move to St. Louis, Missouri.  It’s best if you do it in the fall, for reasons that will become evident at a later step.  Get a job that requires you to be to work around 9 AM.  If this is not possible, arrange to have an appointment at that time, perhaps with a librarian or an accountant, someone who prizes punctuality but can’t really complain if you are late.  It’s best to do this on a Monday.

Now.  Start by heading along Highway 64/40.  It doesn’t matter which direction, although the morning light will be a bit better if you are coming from the East.  Get off at the Skinker road exit.  While you are at the stoplight, marvel at the ginormous Amoco sign standing over what is unmistakably now a BP gas station.  Try to imagine the mixed feelings this would breed between those two entities– the sign and the gas station below– if they were somehow alive.  Would it be like two long-time enemies (perhaps an FBI agent and a mafia boss) forced by the Witness Protection Program to live as neighbors on some quiet suburban cul-de-sac?  Or would they have long-since forgotten their differences and perhaps play checkers at night when the streets were quiet and no one was watching?

When the light turns green, turn right.  Notice Forest Park on your right.  There will be lots of runners and bicyclists there.  It’s always fun to watch other people exerting themselves when you are relaxing on your way to coffee.  Wave at one of them.

Turn left onto Northwood.  Notice the interesting old brick apartments that line the left side, as well as the old-growth trees that front them.  Now slow down as you approach the grade school on your right.  There are often some attractive moms hanging out there at this time of morning, chatting in the wake of dropping off their kids.  Smile at them if they make eye contact.  This is a close neighborhood and most of the people are pretty friendly, despite the snarky liberal bumper stickers on most of the cars that line the road.

Northwood ends at a large park.  I don’t know the name of it.  Do pause to notice the brilliance of the autumn colors, and the way the trees are spaced out enough that each tree is lit with its own halo of morning sunlight.  Now look left.  Kaldi’s coffeehouse will be there on the corner.

You will likely have to park somewhere along the adjoining boulevard.  You won’t mind this because of how absurdly quaint the boulevard is, lined by the park on one side and a row of old shops and restaurants on the left.  You will see that this is a classical boulevard, with a grassy berm bisecting the lanes.  Find a spot seventy or eighty yards away from Kaldi’s and enjoy the mundane challenge of parallel parking between what will likely be an ancient four-by-four AMC Eagle with fake wood panels and a Volvo Cross Country with a labrador grinning at you from the back.

Walk back to Kaldi’s.  Peek in at the fancy Italian restaurant along the way.  You might see the owner inside sweeping the floor and some of the cooks standing around out front smoking their morning cigarettes.

The coffeehouse, as you will see, is sort of oldish.  While the Kaldi’s brand has done fairly well throughout the area (there are three or four hip new Kaldi’s joints scattered here and there) this is the original location, and still has that sort of grungy, college-y feeling, with its hand-made wrought-iron railings around the outdoor seating and the community dog water bowl and the corner entrance plastered with advertisements for naked bike rides and local drama performances.  This location, you sense, is more hippie than hip.  Go on inside.

Notice the smell.  Notice the huge silvery carafes along the right wall, beneath the hand-lettered chalk board, next to the too-small table with the creamers and sweeteners and lids and stirrers, set somewhat awkwardly close to the entrance to the crowded seating area.

It is likely that there will be a little bit of a line.  That’s OK.  Even though you are already rather late for your appointment, you will somehow manage not to be in a hurry.  That, in fact, is why you have the appointment– to give you a place not to be yet; a place to be playing hookie from.  Waiting in line gives you an excuse to stand around in the lovely, crowded little serving area, with the huge jars of whole coffee beans lining the window on your left (and catching the sunlight blindingly) and the little tables behind you crammed with people reading Tolstoy and the Bible and Advanced Statistics and working on their iPads and chatting happily about a million things.

If you happen to be male, notice the women working behind the counter.  They seem to enjoy the hustle of the morning rush, and all of them are interestingly quirky, almost accidentally attractive.  If you happen to be female, feel free to check out the thirty-something bicyclist guy standing by the counter, chatting up the female employee who looks like she might have come from some interesting Eastern-block country.  The bicycle guy is dressed appropriately for his hobby, trying hard not to look like he doesn’t want everyone to notice his tanned, rock-hard calves beneath the black biker shorts.

Look over the confections inside the glass case next to the cash register.  Consider a sugar bun then decide, at the last minute, that you probably don’t need it.  You’re here for the coffee, after all.

Once you reach the register, resist the temptation to order anything with the words “soy” or “skinny” or “macchiato” in the name.  Ask for a large coffee.  Hand over three dollars and put the change in the tip jar.

Cup in hand, take two steps to the right and read the chalkboards over the carafes.  Amuse yourself with the way coffee descriptions have evolved.  Notice the use of phrases like “toffee undertones” and “smoky caramel” and “receding citrus aromatics”.  DO NOT POUR YOUR COFFEE YET.

This is important.

Approach the too-small table to the right of the coffee carafes.  Squeeze in next to the mom with her two toddlers, waiting for the double shot Americano, and locate the tall glass bottle with the pump stopper.  This is natural liquid sugar; it will blend much better into your coffee, thus avoiding the too-sweet last few sips of most large coffees.  Pump one and a half squirts into the bottom of your cup.  Add some half and half to this.  Swirl the cup in your hand.  Now you are ready to add your coffee.

Read all the coffee descriptions again, then choose the Cafe Kaldi.  Gently swirl the cup beneath the carafe as the coffee pours in, mixing all the ingredients thoroughly.  Lift the cup and take a deep breath of the result.  Satisfied, put a plastic lid on it and turn carefully, wending your way back through the amiable throng of morning people, all waiting their turn at the magic caffeine fountains.

Step back outside.  Enjoy the contrast between the crispness of the autumn air and the hot cup in your hand.  Check the time on your phone, knowing you are already late for your next destination, but that the world will still continue to turn nonetheless, and that you are not a slave to it.  Return to your car, taking the longest way along the boulevard as possible.

Notice the park again, with its freight of orange, red and yellow leaves.  See the shadows of the trees laid out on the lawns like rented tuxedos.  Listen to the kids playing in the yard next to the nearby grade school.  And finally, with a sigh, get on with your day.

And, oh yes.  Take a sip of the coffee.

“Mr. President, you proudly accept the badge of being a ‘warrior for the working class‘.  Is it appropriate for the president of all Americans to fight for one class against another?”

Since I highly doubt this will get asked or answered officially, what do you all think?

Scratch that.  I just want to be understood.  It’s the writer part of me, probably.

So I went for a bike ride the other day, and I was thinking about a conversation I had been involved with.  A likeable, seemingly reasonable person was telling me how conservatives have always been out to harm the poor and prop up the rich.  Ever since the New Deal, this person insisted, conservatives have worked on behalf of the white male religious power structure (i.e. the hated “rich”) and actively thwarted efforts by liberals to help the poor.

Of course, this person was forgetting (or more likely, ignoring) the fact that he was, in fact, talking about me.  I am a conservative (not to mention white, male, and nominally religious).  I know what is in my head and heart rather better than he does.  And yet he felt blithely comfortable telling me what my beliefs—and even my intentions—are.   This is surprisingly common, and is most often done, ironically, by the sort of people who pride themselves in being the most non-judgmental.

But back to the bike ride I enjoyed the other day.  It is a very good trail.  It goes like this:  there is a dirt path through the woods near the Missouri River.  At one point, the trail meets a new trail, which is seductively paved in immaculate black pavement, smooth as silk.  You angle onto this and bike through low canyons of wooded hills, carpeted with tall grass and intersected with streams.  You cross a wooden bridge and realize that the trail is actually angling upwards.  It is such a gentle slope, however, that you barely notice it, at least at first.  Soon enough, as you cross a few more quaint wooden bridges, the feel the slope increasing gradually, deceptively.  Eventually, a few miles in, you find yourself shifting lower and lower down your gears, fighting gravity as you push up, up steeper slopes.  Finally, the incline becomes great enough that you are nearly standing on the pedals, inching forward, sweat running down your face, hoping that this, finally, will be the top of the hill.

The first time I rode the path, I gave up at this point.  I walked the bike the rest of the way, breathing hard.  It was the last hill.  The top opened onto the edge of the woods, revealing a wide open, sunny space.  There was a much needed bench, where I rested and cooled off and drank from my water bottle.

This time, however,  I pushed it the whole way.  It was very difficult—I am not the most in-shape person in the world—but after a summer of riding, I was able to do it.  I made it to the top of the hill, felt that prosaic bliss of rolling over the last hump and onto flat path.  I looped around a bit, rested, and then turned my bike back to the slope again, this time from the top.

Now this is the fun part.  This is why the hill is worth climbing, strenuous as it is.  The ride down is totally amazing.

Since the steepest part is at the top, you begin to build up speed immediately.  All the sweat dries from your brow.  The shadows of the trees whicker over you as you go faster, faster, almost giddily fast.  One is tempted to squeeze the brakes, but if you ever ride this path, I challenge you not to.  The path has no hard turns, just gentle swoops.  You can manage them.  I did.  The wooden bridges that you labored slowly over on the way up whoosh by like clouds on the way down.  And you just keep… on… going.

It took me almost exactly eight minutes to roll all the way down.  I timed it.  I never once had to pedal the whole way.  I rolled almost right to the end of the paved trail, cooled off, exhilarated, and wanting to do it all over again.  If my thighs could handle it, which they probably couldn’t.

And this idea occurred to me.  It’s a sort of story.  Follow along.

Let’s say, when I finally rolled to the bottom of the hill, where the paved trail met the dirt trail, there were some people there.  They were watching, a young woman and a child.  Let’s say the woman is in somewhat shabby clothes and the child is a boy, about three years old.  I stop near them to say hello and the woman tells me, somewhat sheepishly, that her son loved the idea of riding the hill, but she cannot afford a bicycle for him.  Furthermore, he has an illness that makes him too weak to navigate a bike all the way up the hill.

Being just the sort of spontaneous person I am, I offer to put her son in my bike stroller (it’s in the trunk of the car) and take him to the top.  I may regret it—my legs are a little weak from my own ride up, but I have a soft spot for kids.  He can’t weigh more than twenty-five pounds.

I do it.  The boy yells “wheee!” most of the way down.  I reach the bottom exhausted, but pleased with myself.  The boy returns to his mother and everyone is happy.

A few days later, I return to the trail.  This time, I find three or four people standing around.  One is very sickly, another is old and frail, still another is young and thin.  They look at my bike with wistful eyes.  I stop to ask what they are doing.  They variously explain that they had heard what a wonderful experience it is to coast down the hill, thus they had come to do it themselves.  Unfortunately, they are either too old to undertake such a strenuous ride up, or too sick to endure the effort, or too poor to afford a bike.

Feeling somewhat guilty, I consider how I might help.  No fear, they explain, and produce some new pegs for my rear bike wheel.  In a flash, they are installed on my bike and the old man jumps on.  I take him to the top of the hill.  It is much harder than it was with the kid.  We barely make it, and by the time we get there, I am exhausted.  The old man enjoys the ride, however, which makes it worth it.  He is thrilled with the long, swooping journey back, and I find myself smiling by the time he climbs off at the end.

The sick person climbs on next.  I try to get her to the top, but I am too tired.  We make it to the final, steep ascent and I just have to stop.  She seems somewhat annoyed but doesn’t say anything.  After a short rest, we coast back down.  She thanks me.

The teen is next.  I offer to let him just ride the bike himself—I am too tired to make the attempt again.  He agrees and pedals off.  Less than fifteen minutes later, he comes coasting back looking somewhat disgruntled.  He hops off and hands the bike over to me without a word.  I ask him if he enjoyed the ride and he shrugs.  It was too much work, he explains, so he stopped after the second bridge and rolled back.  He fails to see what the big deal is about the ride.  I try to explain that he had barely made it to the really good part, and that the fun is in the exhilarating ride after all the hard work, but he shrugs and walks away, not listening.

A week later, I get to the trail to find a dozen people.  Two or three of them are sick and old, but most of them look perfectly healthy.  I consider riding right past them without stopping, but I can’t quite do it.  They all expect rides to the top so that they, too, can experience the thrill of the coasting journey back.  I am a people-pleaser, so I begin with the oldest ones.  Fortunately I have built up some endurance over the last several rides.  I make it to the top with the first few and ride them back.  They thank me, but perfunctorily.  The next person is a young woman.  She seems perfectly healthy, but she doesn’t want to ride the bike herself.  She just wants to experience the return trip.  I look at her incredulously, but she is already climbing onto the pegs.  I begin the ride.  It is much harder this time (admittedly, my attitude does not help) but I do reach the top.  The girl does not seem to enjoy the ride back, though.  She complains that she is bored and demands that I do some jumps or wheelies.  At the end, she climbs off the pegs without a word.

I am too weary to ride anymore.  A few of the others attempt to use the bike themselves while I rest.  Some make it to the top and enjoy the ride back.  A few others only get halfway.  The last rider comes walking back down the path with no bike at all.  I ask where it is and he shrugs, pointing.  He got tired of peddling and just abandoned it at the first bridge.

Wearily, I retrieve it and go home.

Yet another week goes by.  This time, when I come back to the hill trail, there are nearly thirty people. Most of them are perfectly healthy looking.  One of them is morbidly obese.   I try to ride straight past without stopping, but a Voice of Authority calls out, stopping me.  A stern looking man from the federal government shows me a badge: Internal Recreational Service.  He explains that the IRS legally requires me to share my bike with those less fortunate than me.  One third of my rides, he insists, have to be either carrying someone else, or letting them use my bike.

Suddenly, I am no longer charitably helping needy people.  Now I am being forced to give my efforts over to anyone that the government deems worthy.  And it seems that the government is simply too big and busy to be discriminating.  While there are a few sick people and children in the group, there are a lot of suspiciously healthy-looking people standing around, eyeing me and my bike with jealousy and outright animosity.  They begin to jostle to be first.  I am disappointed to see that the truly needy cases are forced to the back as the seemingly healthy struggle to be first in line.

And thus my new task begins.  At first, it’s marginally better, because I can take a few rides on my own.  But every third ride (and the IRS insists there must always be a third ride—no giving up and going home after those first two) becomes a nightmare.  The riders complain the whole way.  They are not only ungrateful, they are surly, demanding, pounding me on the back to go faster, insisting I provide snacks on the way, complaining that the ride down is nowhere near as great as they had heard it was going to be.  Worse, they begin telling me how awful I am, how selfish I am to not carry people with me every time I go up the hill.  They ridicule me for not doing my fair share.  They go into great detail telling me how the bicycle riding population has always worked to keep the non-bicycle riders from enjoying the top of the hill.

Soon enough, a throng of observers gather around the bottom of the hill.  Some of them have bikes of their own, but they aren’t interested in riding to the top of the hill themselves, much less carrying anyone with them.  And yet, amazingly, they join in the chorus of ridicule, insisting that people like me have actively sought to keep the top of the hill out of reach of the poor, non-bicycle-owning public.  They convince themselves that I, and others like me, built the hill specifically to keep the rest at the bottom, to lord over them.

I try to explain.  I tell them I had nothing to do with the hill.  I try to remind them that it is only by my own hard work that I ever saw the top of the hill at all, and that they, too, can experience it if they only make the effort.  A few—a very few—listen and understand.  They get their own bicycles and train themselves to get to the top.  Soon enough, however, they too are accosted by the IRS.  They become targets of ridicule by the crowd, even as they ferry riders up and down the hill.

Finally, the IRS listens to the will of the people.  People like me, it seems, simply are not carrying our fair share.  Now, I must carry riders two at a time, every other ride up the hill.

I could do it, maybe.  I have built up some monstrous thighs throughout this whole ordeal.  But I won’t.  The view from the top, and the ride down, just aren’t worth it anymore.  I throw down my bicycle and go home.

The crowd grabs at my bike, wrestles it upright, and begins shouting for someone to come and ride them to the top.  They try to stand on the pegs with no rider and fall over, skinning their elbows and knees on the pavement.  They sue me, with the help of the IRS, and win.

The next week, the federal government sends a fleet of bulldozers and backhoes to the bicycle hill.  They level the whole thing, flatten it out entirely, and pave it four lanes wide.  They remove the bridges and curves, and provide government-issue bicycles for anyone who wants to ride the new trail.

Of course, no one does.  The crowds go back home and the trail to nowhere sits empty.

And thus, equality is finally achieved.

That’s the end of the story, of course.  I thought all this as I finally reached the bottom, and I wished, rather hopelessly, I am sure, that my more liberal-minded friends could understand: people like me are not against anyone else.  Quite the contrary, we wish everyone could see the top of the metaphorical hill, and enjoy the thrill of the ride down.  We are even happy to assist in that goal.  The difference between us conservatives and our liberal friends is not that we are selfish and evil, and they are altruistic and charitable.  The difference is our understanding of human nature.  To wit:

One:  No one can truly enjoy the thrill of the ride down the hill without first investing in the arduous effort of the journey up.  It is not selfishness that causes us to insist people invest in their own journey, but respect and compassion.  After all, no one truly appreciates something they don’t work for.  Furthermore, dependence not only robs one of the joy of the payoff, but destroys self-respect.  We don’t just want people to enjoy the thrill of the ride down, but to understand why that thrill has meaning.  If it doesn’t cool the sweat on your own brow, then you can’t understand the pleasure of the ride.

Two:  There are, in fact, lazy people in the world.  Takers, abusers, and manipulators exist.  They will take advantage of the blindly mandated charity of the government, because the government is simply too big to weed them out.  Thus, the truly needy get crowded out and those who need nothing more than a swift kick in the pants are allowed to grow weak, dependent, and ultimately selfish.

Finally, three:  Government mandated charity is not charity at all because it is no longer voluntary.  It is not provided by the government, and yet the government gets the credit.  Those who do actually pay for it are inevitably ridiculed for not doing more.  Government mandated social assistance inevitably replaces and destroys individual charity, which is far more effective and compassionate.  By acting as a commanding authority between the classes, it makes enemies of the givers and ingrates of the receivers

In short, the basic difference between conservatives and liberals seems to be that conservatives assume everyone on the bottom is capable of reaching the top of the hill.  If they truly need assistance, assistance will be given.  Liberals, it seems, assume everyone on the top of the hill got there by selfish means, at the expense of those on the bottom.  Those on the bottom, they seem to think, simply cannot reach the top, thus it is selfish and wrong of anyone to reach the top at all.

So, this is how it all looks to me, in my world.  My perspective could be all wrong, though.  I would love to hear from my liberal friends.  How is this analogy incorrect?  How am I potentially missing the truth that, despite what I, as one single conservative, think and feel, the true conservative agenda is to quash and demean those less fortunate?  Tell me how carrying those who are capable of moving on their own is, in fact, better for them and not utterly destructive to their humanity?

I want to hear it.  I want to know where I am wrong.

But do, I beg, please stop insisting that people like me simply hate the poor.  I respect the poor and believe they are capable.  I am more than willing to help the poor, and do so in many ways.  If I was not taxed as much as I am, I would do even more.  I am better at helping the poor in my community than the government is.  More importantly, I believe that simply telling the poor that they are incapable of achieving on their own is not compassion.  It is condescension.

The biggest problem in our culture today, I think, is that they have come to believe it.

So please tell me:  how am I wrong?  How is my analogy imperfect or incorrect?  Perhaps more importantly, tell me why I shouldn’t simply toss down my bike and say to hell with it?  I’m listening.

But I still find myself in need of a place to vent my blathers about life, people, and the general state of worldly affairs.  For the moment, this is still that place.  So bear with me.  I’ll keep this short (hah!!)

A few days ago, I overheard a discussion about politics.  The specifics don’t matter.  One phrase of this conversation caught in my brain and has been pecking at me ever since: “what have the Republicans ever done for the working man?”

This could have been said by my grandfather.  He was a lifelong Democrat, and I recall having discussions with him that sounded a lot like this.  I never knew quite how to respond to such a question; there was just something about it that felt all wrong at the core.  I just couldn’t figure out what it was.  When I heard the question (rhetorical, of course) posed vehemently the other day, I finally figured out what it was.  The problem with the very question is so huge, so all-encompassing, that even now I’m not quite sure how to encapsulate it.

(pause)

“What have the Republicans ever done for the working man?”

Since when has the working man needed anyone to “do” for him?  Isn’t the whole point of being a hard working man (or woman, of course) to be able to “do” for yourself?  To stand on your own two feet and take pride in your independence, your ability to make your own way?  It seems to me that the true Working Man would be ashamed at the very idea that he needed a political party to *do* anything for him.  The real Working Man doesn’t want to be done for.  He can do for himself.  All he wants is for the government to get out of his way.

When did it become a point of pride to admit that one is unable to provide for him/herself, therefore requiring the support of a matronly government?  No one takes *pride* in needing to be cared for.  It is impossible to be a self-respecting American individual while simultaneously proclaiming your need for the government to “do” for you.

Another way to pose the question might be this: What has the Democratic party done to the working man?

Who taught the working man that he cannot make it on his own, that he must rely on government to survive in the world?  Who promotes the mentality that poverty is forever, since Capitalism is unfairly skewed towards the rich, who just want to crush you under their boot?  Who preaches the idea that there is no point in trying if you are a minority, since the white male power structure hates anyone unlike them?  What political ideology invented the concept of permanent victim-hood and used it to iron out all sense of self respect and independence from its adherents?  Seriously, what has the Democratic party done to the American working man?

No Working Man wants to be fed.  He wants to make for himself.  No Working Man finds pride in dependance.  He yearns simply to have the roadblocks of the government taken out of his way so he can fend for himself.  And yes, this goes for the Working Woman as well.

I don’t mean to say that compassion for the poor is bad.  I don’t mean to imply that all Democrats are “useful idiots”, unwittingly contributing to the cuckolding of the American spirit.  My grandfather truly was a Working Man.  He was never talking about himself when he asked what the government was doing for the people.  If anyone had suggested that he, himself, needed the government’s assistance, he would have been mortified.  Why?  Because he took pride in providing by the sweat of his own brow.  He would have been horrified at the idea of accepting food stamps or any other government support (despite the fact that, as a young man, he likely did know what government cheese tasted like).  No, when he asked what the government was doing for the working man, he meant someone else.  Not him.  He was fine, but there were others less well off.

I think that’s what the majority of voting Democrats probably think: “It isn’t for me.  I can make it on my own.  I’m fine.  But there are others who need it.  What about them?”

I don’t think the average Democrat is bad, or stupid, or a parasite on society.  I think they are extremely compassionate.  They just want everyone to be taken care of.  It seems so ineffective and clumsy for us to tackle the problems of the poor on our own– to take care of the sick, the homeless, the hungry in our own communities, one by one, teensy step by teensy step.  I understand that.  It feels so much better to establish a monolithic governmental entity that will do it for us on the broad scale. Yes?

The problem, though, is that the government is simply no good at taking care of people.  That isn’t its job.  Taking care of people is every individual’s job, not in spite of how clumsy and piecemeal it is when we do it on our own, but because of it.  One on one, we can sift the sincerely needy from the potentially lazy.  As individuals, we can use our social skills, our understanding of our communities, our gut instinct to help the truly impoverished.  We can determine when someone needs a free meal and when someone needs a loving kick in the pants.  The government can’t do that; its footprint is just too big.  The government can’t do anything but throw open the doors of general assistance.

It’s the difference between feeding the hungry by hand and parking the food truck on the street with the doors open.  One is a personal act of compassion, distributed with love and deliberation to those who truly need it.  The other is a thoughtless waste, intended for the good of the impoverished, but most likely wasted on opportunists and looters.

The Working Man used to know this.  He used to know that it was far better to do on your own when you could, and be cared for by those who know and love you when you couldn’t.  But this mentality started to die when people began looking more and more to the government to care for the poor, and less and less to doing it themselves.  A needy person is reluctant to abuse the charity of a neighbor, but anyone is willing to absorb free money from a faceless government.  Being needy has since transformed from an unfortunate setback to a stubborn entitlement.  People have lived so long as victims that they have forgotten the pride of being self sufficient.

Am I wrong?  As always, I am willing to be wrong.  All of this is filtered through my understanding of human nature, and through my own sense of pride in being independent.  When my place of employment closed down last summer, I considered applying for unemployment benefits.  I even fiddled with some of the paperwork.  I quickly got disgusted with the entire idea, and determined to make it on my own instead.  I decided to get into mobile gaming.  I spent five months making a game, released it to iTunes with financial fumes left in my bank account, and ended up making enough money to last the rest of the year.  I am (I admit) DAMN proud of myself.  I would not have been proud of myself if I had instead decided to collect unemployment benefits and spend all my time applying for non-existent jobs in my industry.  Surely this colors my perception.  Surely this is the core of why I find the idea of government dependence ugly.

So where am I wrong?  I really want to know.  You, Dear Reader (if indeed you are out there) have the floor.  Enlighten me.

In the meantime, I’ll try to stop blathering and get back to fiction.  Promise.