Takin' Care of Business
Wednesday, October 4, 2006 at 07:41AM You get up every morning
~ lyrics from Bachman Turner Overdrive's "Takin' Care of Business"
From your 'larm clock's warning
Take the 8:15 into the city
There's a whistle up above
And people pushin', people shovin'
And the girls who try to look pretty
And if your train's on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
If you ever get annoyed
Look at me I'm self-employed
I love to work at nothing all day
And I'll be
Taking care of business (every day)
Taking care of business (every way)
I've been taking care of business (it's all mine)
Taking care of business and working overtime
Those lyrics are about the life of a musician, but they could just as well be about that of a writer. Or any artist for that matter.
Oftentimes I daydream of not having to wake up to that 'larm clock's warning. Then I go back to my day job.
Well, today I am takin' care of some book- and writing-related business, catching up on a few things that are going on or coming up, as I strive toward that goal of one day being self-employed.
- Mark your calendar. On Friday, October 13, I'll be joining seven of my friends from the Chicago Writers Association for a reading and book-signing event at the Book Cellar, 4736-38 North Lincoln Avenue, in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood. I'm penciled in to bat lead-off promptly at 7 PM and plan to read excerpts from both my published novel, Lost in the Ivy, as well as from my current novel-in-progress. Jen Wilding created this great promo flier (it's a .pdf, so you'll need Adobe Reader to open it) for the event. If you're a book lover, there's pretty much something for everyone: fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Come by, get a glass of wine (yes, the Book Cellar sells vino!), and enjoy the readings of some local writing talent. It's got to be better than sitting at home all night watching a "Friday the 13th" movie marathon.
- Win a copy of Lost in the Ivy. MysteryAuthors.com is featuring Lost in the Ivy all this month. You can enter a contest to win a signed copy. There's no cost. All you have to do is send them an email. For full contest rules, check out their Web site.
- Library Project Update. Thanks to all those who've been assisting me with my Library Project. A little over a month ago I launched this project to get Lost in the Ivy in libraries. At the time, I wrote: "The best way to get your book read is to get it in the library. It's that simple. The Library Project is a simple idea aimed at achieving a simple, but worthwhile, goal: getting my book read and making it available to be read." Well, that simple goal is making modest headway. Two local libraries have ordered my book as a direct result of my Library Project. It's now in the stacks at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library (my friend Marybeth even checked it out!) and on order for acquisition at the Evanston Public Library. The other places you can find it: Joliet Public Library; Chicagoland Underground Library;North Suburban Library District (Loves Park and Roscoe libraries); Cherry Valley Public Library District; Schaumburg Township District Library; Deerfield Public Library; and Wilmette Public Library. You can search the online catalogue of any of these libraries and you'll find my book. In some cases, there's even a picture of it. Check it out, literally.
Randy Richardson
An update to the Library Project Update: Two more libraries either have Lost in the Ivy in their collection or on order. My book is now in the Skokie Public Library and on order at the Oak Park Public Library. That makes it four libraries that have either added or are working to add my book to their collection since I started this project. In total, ten libraries now have Lost in the Ivy on their shelves and two have it on order for acquistion. Now my hometown, Evanston, has it on order and the two surrounding suburban libraries, Wilmette and Skokie, have it available right now to be checked out. So I can take my son to any of the neighborhood libraries and point out to him my book. How cool is that?
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