My next book, “The Second Chance Dog: A Love Story,” will be published Nov. 5, but it is available for pre-ordering now. I will do the first reading from this book on May 31st at the Hubbard Hall Writer’s Workshop readings at Hubbard Hall, Cambridge, N.Y. some tickets still available for that.
I’d like to make a special offer in advance of publication for “The Second Chance Dog.” It is a very special book for me, an account of how I came to be with Maria, our first years together, and of Frieda’s great role in that story. It is also the story of how I finally trained and came to terms Frieda, a Rottweiler-Shepherd mix who had been abandoned in the Adirondack and lived in the wild for several years before the was finally caught by a determined SPCA worker. I called Frieda “the dog who kept men away,” and for one year, it was her mission in life to to keep me away from Maria. If you wish to buy the book, I’d love it if you purchased it through Battenkill Books, where I work happily as Recommender-In-Chief.
This book is important to me for many reasons, but more than anything else, because it is the story of an older man who had given up on love – we are not believed to need love in our lives – and who found it in the most unlikely place in the most unlikely way. It is many things, but the message in part is to never give up on love. In our culture, the elderly are mostly seen in creepy ads for medical products or pills, or not at all. It is also the story about the meaning of dogs in one’s life, and the extraordinary training challenge Frieda brought to my life.
If you purchase the book at Battenkill Books, my local bookstore, I will sign and personalize it for you (Maria also, if you wish) this offer is exclusive to Battenkill Books. You can call the store at 518 677-2515 or e-mail them – [email protected] – or visit their website. They take Paypal and ship anywhere in the world.
The book is also available at Amazon, Bn.com or through Ibooks on Itunes, indiebound, or at your local independent bookstore. It will be available in both e-book and paper form. I will be reading from on Podcasts, as soon as I get that going. Publication is still seven months away, but that will go by in a flash. Thanks for your interest in this book.
Minnie is, I think, miscast as a barn cat, she is the Ferdinand of Barn Cats. Her new routine is to snuggle up with a chicken and soak up the afternoon sun. The hen hops up onto the chair and just squeezes in until Minnie is scrunched over to one side. They sit like this for an hour. Mother was a true barn cat, living mostly on rats and mice and moles. Flo is a barn cat, she is fed in the barn but she is tough and roams the farm at night. Minnie needs a human lap to live on. Or a good rocking chair with a cushion and a chicken.
For many people – and for many people like me – the world has turned and turned in the past few years, a tsunami of change for what the Occupy Wall Street people – remember them? – called the 90 per cent. I just read that people working on Wall Street got $30 billion in bonuses and I suddenly remembered why people started to love Communism.
Last week, writing about Philip Roth’s 80th birthday, the New Yorker said “it has never been easier to be a writer, it has never been harder to be a professional writer.” I was startled to read that – they could have inserted musicians, factory workers, librarians, artists, teachers, journalists and a thousand other job descriptions in there. Yet I know it is true. A close friend, a writer who has written a dozen books, has had to sell his house and go live with his aging parents, he just can’t afford to live in his own home any longer. I know academics in their 50’s living three or four professors to an apartment because Universities aren’t offering well-paid tenure positions any longer. I told another friend yesterday that I was starting a podcast.
“Oh,” my friend said of the Podcast, “is there any money in that?” I doubt it, I said, there isn’t much money in anything any more outside of Wall Street. Yes, he said, so you just keep diversifying. We laughed. I am deep into diversifying – the blog, Facebook, Pintagram, Instagram, e-books, contributions, videos, shares and likes, notifications and online chats. I have never had more response to my work – 1000 messages a day, worked harder for free or earned less money. Last week, I was asked to speak at a convention in New York City. What did it pay?, I asked. Oh, nothing, said the event planner. We get good people for free. I wondered if she works for free.
The average cost of a book is now $9. This new reality is a shock to me, a blow to my pride, an embarrassment and a challenge. I never had any trouble making a living and now, it seems almost everyone is struggling to make a living. It is interesting. I am working harder than ever, just like everyone else, and earning less, just like everyone else. We laugh about it, but sometimes we cry about it. Writers were once removed from the real world, had little idea how it works. We are in the world now.
Yet these challenges have sparked a lot of creativity – the blog, my photography, videos, my upcoming Podcasts. I might never have done these things without the push of the Great Recession, and I love doing them. I think they will all work for me. I believe in my work, in it’s relevance and importance.
I love being a professional writer also, it is all I ever wanted, all I want, and I will keep at it to the end. Good writing is important, people need it and will be willing to pay for it again. And I will figure it out. I don’t have aging parents to live with, but I’ll get myself a double-wide with a propane tank before I’ll give up writing. In hard times, I hear a lot of pity and struggle stories. It is easy to feel sorry for yourself, I do sometimes around 4 a.m. I work hard, sometimes feel like a swimmer caught in a wave. People have all sorts of good reasons why they fall behind, can’t get ahead, are too busy scrambling to live their lives. Sometimes I fear succumbing to self-pity, it is a worse trap than nostalgia, it can suck you right in.
A woman I have known a long time told me recently she was unhappy with me, I just didn’t understand the damage her husband’s death had done to her. I told her I didn’t want to be her therapist, and I couldn’t possibly understand the damage her husband’s death had done to her. It wasn’t my responsibility. I do not feel sorry for her, she has a good life, a loving family, work she does well, a home she loves. Am I cold?, I wonder. Perhaps. Everyone has it worse than me, no one has a lock on suffering. We are all there or will soon be here. We have all lost something dear, it is the nature of life. Pity, like fear, is not useful. It does no good, serves no purpose, accomplishes nothing. I think the Internet has made grief and pity acceptable in the open, it is no longer hidden or kept to oneself. In recent years, I have learned to keep my losses and pity to myself. It is private for me, except for family and close friends. Like everyone else, I have had problems in my life. None of them are excuses for failing to live my life, they are not things everyone needs to know about. Challenges defines us, it is essential to a meaningful life.
Life is so complex, so interesting. I told Maria this morning that just a few years ago, before the great change, I had plenty of money and professional writers still had their world intact. I was never so miserable and troubled in my whole life. I wouldn’t trade my life now for any of it.
The world turns and turns. We live in a cycle of rebirth, loss, death, salvation and renewal. Trouble is not a reason for me to pity myself or lament my life. I hope I will always empathize with suffering, and I hope I do not pity anyone, especially myself. It is a reason to be authentic and open. I will keep on diversifying, I told my friend, keep on writing, keep on searching and changing. And I so look forward to the day when I look back on all of it and say, good for me, I did it.
