Yesterday afternoon, around 4:00pm, I gave the very first Schlock book away to a forklift operator named Jack.

Jack and I were having trouble getting the (insert epithet here) defective pallets to stay under their loads, and we realized that we were going to have to break them down. So I cut into the wrap, and the two of us re-stacked 3750 pounds of boxes into a double layer in the back of the 14″ U-Haul I’d rented. Since I wasn’t yet sure these really were MY books, I cut open one of the boxes and checked.

There should have been “level completed” them music when I opened that box. It was a powerful moment for me.

Anyway, Jack and I had been talking, and I explained to him that sure, I could have saved a few bucks having them deliver the books, but I had customers waiting, and I needed to sign them all, and oh, yeah, I’m the guy who wrote these. I handed him a book, and he checked the inside back cover. “Hey, there you are!” he said.

There I am indeed.

(Now that I’ve been into some of the boxes, I’d like to be able to give Jack the book he “nudged” with the forklift blade. It has a very, very subtle crimp in the cover — he had a gentle touch with that forklift, even with a ton of books in his prosthetic, metal arms.)

He cautioned me about the truck, saying “you’ll definitely feel it” in reference to hauling nearly two tons of printed matter over the Point of the Mountain. And as I drove off, I pondered. I ruminated. And I turned up the A/C, because I was a sweaty mess, and it was 95 degrees (35 C) outside.

It occurred to me that this very literal “sweat equity” is something I wouldn’t have gotten from this project had I not self-published. There is something noble, honest, and perhaps even sacred about manual labor like this. Sure, it’s not something I want to have to do every day in order to put bread on the table, but you have to be willing to do it. And as a result, the last 55 miles those books travelled before being handed off to the Post Office, they travelled alone with me in a rented truck. I’d like to think we bonded a little bit.

I also worried, especially when the tractor trailer full of I-beams was on my left, and the double-long tank-trailer full of gasoline was merging in on my right. The irony inherent in dying in a twisted fireball along with all 5000 copies of my first book would have been powerful stuff. I’m glad the Universal Agent In Charge Of Ironic Death (feel free to replace that string with $DEITY, $KARMA, or $MURPHY) saw fit to stay its hand. If I’m going to die ironically, I want it to be humorous irony on or around my 29th official birthday.

I signed a bunch of books this evening. I learned that when I have somebody “feeding” me (keeping me supplied with books to sign, and whisking away the ones I’m done with) I work about 50% faster. On my own I can do two boxes an hour, which comes out to 180 books every sixty minutes, or 3 books a minute. With help, I can do three boxes an hour, which is 270 books in 60 minutes, or 4.5 books per minute.

Both of those rates are sustainable, and include a ten- or fifteen-minute break each hour.

Anyway… as of right now 990 books are signed, and 16 books are “unfit for paying customers.” Three of these were damaged by the forklift, and most of the rest had binding glue bits stuck to the cover. One, however, was just downright defective, with the binding half-off and the cover only partially baked. That one I’m going to save as an example of what happens when the QC guy is asleep on the job.

So… tomorrow at least 990 orders will get shipped (yes, we’re starting with the single-book orders), and we’ll PROBABLY manage to ship everything that doesn’t require a sketch, which means all but about 250 of our 1600 packages.

The planned schedule: wake up around 8:00am, eat breakfast, have the chiropractor tweak me back into position, and then hit the Keep around 10:00 or 10:30am, at which point I’ll start autographing. I expect to be done with the signings by 3:00pm, at which point I’ll take a quick nap, and then bounce back and start sketching.

I’m looking forward to the sketching. Scribbling my extended initials has gotten a little dull.

My schedule this weekend is going to be rough. But before I tell you about it, I need to wish a happy birthday to zubkavich. I don’t know how old he is, but he’s had far, far more experience with deadlines in this business than I have. I’m sure that if he’s reading my whinings he’s saying something like “yeah? well, there was this one time…”

Happy birthday, Jim.

I’m listening and re-listening to “The Impression I Get,” by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. The theme of the song is that the singer has never been truly tested, and wonders whether he’d shine or not.

I’m not a coward, I’ve just never been tested
I’d like to think that if I was, I would pass
Look at the test, and then think “there but for the grace go I”
Might be a coward, I’m afraid of what I might find out.

Me, I’ve been tested, time and again. It’s come down to “do or die” and I’ve had to “rise above the rest.” And this weekend, thanks to shipping delays, it’s going to happen again, in a new way. If we’re going to get everything shipped on time, I need to sign 1884 books and sketch in 300 of them in something like 36 straight hours. Sure, sure… people keep telling us (me and Sandra) not to stress, and to do the books “when they get done”. I’ve got news for these folks: having books lying around unsigned will generate more than just stress. It will generate GUILT. We’ve got your money, and you don’t have your book yet. We really, really hate that.

I’ve timed myself. I can do a decent sketch inside of 3 minutes. 300 of those comes to 900 straight minutes, or a minimum of 15 hours of sketching. Hopefully there will be people around to provide moral support, because I can imagine myself going quietly, busily insane. But before anybody tries to tell me not to worry about it, know this… I have to TRY.

Part of me looks at this in abject terror. But there’s this other guy, the guy who has never missed an update in 5 years and 11 months, who thinks this is just some new flavor of “fun.” Sure, the folks shipping the books to me may have twisted our carefully-laid plans into a bona fide mongolian charlie foxtrot, but I just got a new suit. If Charlie wants to dance, I’m gonna lead.

Okay, I’ve got your attention.

sandratayler was telling me about trailers she’d been watching over on the apple.com site, and commented that M. Night Shyamalan was the only writer/director she knew of where his name was bigger than the movie title. I got to thinking about that, and realized that for twisty, cerebral thrillers, he’s not the only one. Alfred Hitchcock was billed the same way.

I’m not about to say that Shyamalan has the chops Hitchcock did, because I’m not familiar enough with a) the genre, b) Hitchcock’s vast opus, or c) Shyamalan’s work. But from a marketing standpoint, the folks selling us Shyamalan’s films want us to think of HIM before we contemplate the subject matter of his latest film. And that’s the same thing that happened with Hitchcock films later in his career. It STILL happens. “Vertigo” is not a “Cary Grant” film. It’s a HITCHCOCK film.

So… I’m pleased with myself for drawing this comparison. I don’t dare Google “Hitchcock Shyamalan” lest I find out that someone else has had this same insight and then completely invalidated it with actual research.

–Howard