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OCD or Organized, Not So Sure Anymore

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0128_shelf02.jpgHow Do You Arrange Your Books

My husband calls me anal retentive. I might be, I am not sure. Then my daughter called me OCD. So, I had to stop and find out what the hell they were talking about.

Apparently it is in the way I arrange my DVDs. I throw away the case and place them in packs with zippers. That in itself is not so much anal but I like to group them in genre and make sure that the disc is upright and not askew. Head up so to speak. My music cds are the same.

I noted to them that there are people out there much more anal retentive than I am. Like whom they asked. Like the people who love to organize their books in colors. Their library is in color of the spine. Yellows, reds, greens and so on. I don’t do that.

But what do I do? I organize my books by what I have already read. Several bookcases hold what I have read then I sort all by author. Not alphabetical though. See, I am not so OCD.

Yet, if given the chance I would alphabetize the cans in the kitchen cabinets. I would put the tallest bottle to the side and then in a row the shorter ones. I put the large spoons facing one side then the tea spoons opposite then, same with the forks.

OCD or organized? Not so sure anymore.

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Publisher Rejections Never Cease To Amaze

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FAMOUS SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS

  • Remembrance of things Past, by Marcel Proust
  • Ulysses, by James Joyce
  • The Adventures of Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter
  • A Time to Kill, by John Grisham
  • The Wealthy Barber, by David Chilton
  • The Bridges of Madison County
  • What Color is Your Parachute
  • In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters
  • The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
  • The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. (and his student E. B. White)
  • The Joy of Cooking
  • When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
  • Life’s Little Instruction Book
  • Robert’s Rules of Order

OTHER FAMOUS AUTHORS WHO SELF-PUBLISHED

  • Deepak Chopra
  • Gertrude Stein
  • Zane Grey
  • Upton Sinclair
  • Carl Sandburg
  • Ezra Pound
  • Mark Twain
  • Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • Stephen Crane
  • Bernard Shaw
  • Anais Nin
  • Thomas Paine
  • Virginia Wolff
  • e.e. Cummings
  • Edgar Allen Poe
  • Rudyard Kipling
  • Henry David Thoreau
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Walt Whitman
  • Alexandre Dumas
  • William E.B. DuBois
  • Beatrix Potter

REJECTED BY PUBLISHERS

  • Pearl S. Buck – The Good Earth – 14 times
  • Norman Mailer – The Naked and the Dead – 12 times
  • Patrick Dennis- Auntie Mame – 15 times
  • George Orwell – Animal Farm
  • Richard Bach – Jonathan Livingston Seagull – 20 times
  • Joseph Heller – Catch-22 – 22 times (!)
  • Mary Higgins Clark – first short story – 40 times
  • Alex Haley – before Roots – 200 rejections
  • Robert Persig – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – 121 times
  • John Grisham – A Time to Kill – 15 publishers and 30 agents (he ended up publishing it himself)
  • Chicken Soup for the Soul – 33 times
  • Dr. Seuss – 24 times
  • Louis L’Amour – 200 rejections
  • Jack London – 600 before his first story
  • John Creasy – 774 rejections before selling his first story. He went on to write 564 books, using fourteen names.
  • Jerzy Kosinski – 13 agents and 14 publishers rejected his best-selling novel when he submitted it under a different name, including Random House, which had originally published it.
  • Diary of Anne Frank
  • During his entire lifetime, Herman Melville’s timeless classic, Moby Dick, sold only 3,715 copies.

Attribution to: Dan Poynter

‘nough said!

A Personal Trainer to Watch Over Me

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Treadmill.jpgFor the privilege of watching some, fat ass, using the elliptical, the Personal Trainer, get paid oodles of money. Well deserved, I might add.

It must be boring as hell being there, watching some heifer, on the treadmill, sweating away. Just standing, there! Making sure, they are doing it. That, is the job of a personal trainer.

The person, who will make sure that we, the adults will do what we want to do, in the first place. Instead of just, we on our own, deciding as grown ups and committed, will actually do, what we set out to accomplish.

Astounding, that we need someone to push us, cajole us, entice us to perform. We, decide to do these exercises, but we need a Motivator. We need a Drill Instructor. We need a Pusher, to do it.

I can understand a Personal Trainer, for more involved practices, like weight lifting or Yoga. We do not want injuries, really. But, for running and cycling? What is that about?

We pay someone to watch us, struggle, huffing and puffing! Mazel Tov!