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mallorys_cameraBen calls from Pennsylvania. He sounds miserable. "I miss you," he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"The only thing anyone talks about here is horses," he replies.
Ten days in, I'm not sure how successful this two and a half week experiment in solitude has been. I haven't been particularly productive. Having a very hard time writing because I'm feeling so disconnected from my characters. Also because frankly I probably write best when I'm writing on the periphery of other stuff clamoring for my attention. The stealthy buzz of stealing time to write – of getting up at four AM and hammering the keyboard, flying above it, because shortly I will be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to domestic life – it turns out to be good for the finished product.
Also, it's lonesome. A kind of generalized loneliness. I miss the background clamor.
Got a rather snippy note yesterday from Frank Gibson vis-à-vis the bookstore. He's concerned that I'm under-capitalized – Mike Marotta's phrase as I recall which means he's had a heart-to-heart with the Monterey mafia. Fuck him. I wrote a crisp business-like letter back, loaded with jargon like "subordinating financing" and "seasonal variation," that concluded, "While the business has shown a net profit over the past three years (absent vendor debt), it would be an unwise business decision on my part to allocate more than $120,000 of my own immediate resources to jump-starting it under new management." Read between the lines, asshole – I know that the only way you're able to show a paper profit is because you're stiffing your suppliers.
But possibly he's doing me a favor.
Ricky – whose insights into the way the world works I trust implicitly – thinks the bookstore is a Bad Idea: "You love to read books, but books don't make sense."
Plan B is the hot sauce store. Far cheaper to start up. Business model is proven in other tourism-fueled communities. Plus with the hot sauce store, there's a clear exit strategy – I sell it within five years to one of the hot sauce mini-empires down the coast (Light My Fire out of Los Angeles, Hot Licks out of San Diego) and retire to Edinboro where they have fireflies in the summer. There's no clear exit strategy with the bookstore.
There's even a small commercial space available on Cannery Row, right on the street, just a few doors down from the Aquarium.
Decisions, decisions.
Meanwhile, for the morning at least, it's back to My Plucky Heroine. In this episode, she flashes back to the crazy Courtney Love-esque sister who tried to force her to have an abortion and ended up just a few years later in a trailer just north of Castroville, weighing 350 pounds and playing with Barbies. (I was cruising some used bookstores the other day, trying to find copies of Dog Soldiers and High Fidelity to send to Max, and happened upon the first of Gruber's ghost-written legal procedurals. Bought it, read it. Awful. Regurgitated Joseph Wambaugh. See? Even brilliant writers start out bad.)
"Why?" I ask.
"The only thing anyone talks about here is horses," he replies.
Ten days in, I'm not sure how successful this two and a half week experiment in solitude has been. I haven't been particularly productive. Having a very hard time writing because I'm feeling so disconnected from my characters. Also because frankly I probably write best when I'm writing on the periphery of other stuff clamoring for my attention. The stealthy buzz of stealing time to write – of getting up at four AM and hammering the keyboard, flying above it, because shortly I will be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to domestic life – it turns out to be good for the finished product.
Also, it's lonesome. A kind of generalized loneliness. I miss the background clamor.
Got a rather snippy note yesterday from Frank Gibson vis-à-vis the bookstore. He's concerned that I'm under-capitalized – Mike Marotta's phrase as I recall which means he's had a heart-to-heart with the Monterey mafia. Fuck him. I wrote a crisp business-like letter back, loaded with jargon like "subordinating financing" and "seasonal variation," that concluded, "While the business has shown a net profit over the past three years (absent vendor debt), it would be an unwise business decision on my part to allocate more than $120,000 of my own immediate resources to jump-starting it under new management." Read between the lines, asshole – I know that the only way you're able to show a paper profit is because you're stiffing your suppliers.
But possibly he's doing me a favor.
Ricky – whose insights into the way the world works I trust implicitly – thinks the bookstore is a Bad Idea: "You love to read books, but books don't make sense."
Plan B is the hot sauce store. Far cheaper to start up. Business model is proven in other tourism-fueled communities. Plus with the hot sauce store, there's a clear exit strategy – I sell it within five years to one of the hot sauce mini-empires down the coast (Light My Fire out of Los Angeles, Hot Licks out of San Diego) and retire to Edinboro where they have fireflies in the summer. There's no clear exit strategy with the bookstore.
There's even a small commercial space available on Cannery Row, right on the street, just a few doors down from the Aquarium.
Decisions, decisions.
Meanwhile, for the morning at least, it's back to My Plucky Heroine. In this episode, she flashes back to the crazy Courtney Love-esque sister who tried to force her to have an abortion and ended up just a few years later in a trailer just north of Castroville, weighing 350 pounds and playing with Barbies. (I was cruising some used bookstores the other day, trying to find copies of Dog Soldiers and High Fidelity to send to Max, and happened upon the first of Gruber's ghost-written legal procedurals. Bought it, read it. Awful. Regurgitated Joseph Wambaugh. See? Even brilliant writers start out bad.)
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Date: 2003-06-25 02:27 pm (UTC)Well, I need a source of income. I've been out of work for a while, and obviously that is a bad thing. As far as I can tell, there are no jobs that are a good match for my skill set on the Monterey Bay peninsula, and I want to stay here until my oldest son finishes high school -- two years.
The absence of other options leaves me looking at doing something entrepreneurial. So that's the first reason.
The only real industry in Monterey is tourism -- so it only makes sense to do something entrereneurial that involves tourism. Skim off the cream, so to speak. And the one outstanding thing this bookstore has going for it is its location. It's right across the street from the Convention Center, and the Doubletree and Marriott Hotels. Lots o' tourists, the best class of tourists, tourists who are getting a tax write-off for this jaunt and so believe that they can spend other money with abandon. So that's reason Numah Two -- if the biz was repositioned away from its current model (general bookstore) to a more tourist-friendly model (think airport bookstore slash Disney-Monterey with maybe a big mounted John Steinbeck head on one wall) I really think I could double its gross in three months.
It is also true, I love books. Passionately.
But, I dunno. The hot sauce store is beginning to sound like a better option. Thirty percent growth in the industry over the past decade, and then there's the fact that Hispanic influence is growing rapidly. Plus, as I said above, a clear exit strategy. I'm working on that business plan now.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-25 04:36 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-26 08:00 am (UTC)A meal sounds like fun! (I've never met another Live Journaler face-to-face before.) Plus I'd be really grateful for the opportunity to review the hot sauce business plan with someone. My business experience is all at the corporate business development level -- not retail.
Tuesday and Wednesday of next week (7/1, 7/2) both look good.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 10:36 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-27 09:07 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-06-27 10:38 am (UTC)