Often, when I go to the grocery store, I get $40, $60, even $80 in cash back, depending on my anticipated cash outlay for the next week.

Within 24 to 48 hours, it’s usually entirely gone, handed over to one or both teen sons for some immediate need. When I reach for my cash, for a cup of coffee or a ferry fare, the wallet is empty.

Standing in line at the store today, it occurred to me that if I don’t have cash to give them, they get along just fine. So I tapped the “no” button for cash back, left with my cash reserves at zero, and will not be playing George Jetson with my wallet this week.

Via io9.com, faltering bookseller Borders is stocking fewer SF/Fantasy books from midlist authors.

For new entrants into the field, even a compelling debut may not be enough to get the follow-up reshelved, and proportionally less writers are getting enough exposure in magazines to build word-of-mouth for that successful debut. As [author Tobias] Buckell says, the cutbacks appear to come from on high, not in individual stores.

While Pat Cadigan and others have played with the notion of boycotting the slumping Borders chain, it’s hard to see how that’s going to get the second largest bookseller in the U.S. to order in larger quantities.

This impacts many well known, consistently selling authors, and even more so new authors with no previous track record of sales. On the site Wild River Review, fantasy author Greg Frost suggests:

My solution is no different than all the writers who’ve shouted from the battlements before me: Buy your books from independent bookstores; the ones that have survived the onslaught, the ones that we hope will arise to fill the gap.

If you’re in the U.S. and you don’t know where such stores are, go to www.indiebound.org and look them up. If you want to shop independent booksellers online, go to Powells or Elliot Bay Books. But if you love the tactility of the book, then buy locally from the small shops that are struggling to maintain your right to pick up an assortment of good books and flip through the pages.

The shrinking market bothers me on two fronts. First and foremost, I am a science fiction and fantasy fan. I like choice, I like variety, I enjoy good writing. I love the experience of finding a new, fabulous author and spending several evenings curled up lost that new world. Under the current publishing and bookselling system, that experience is going to become rarer and harder to find.

Second, I am an aspiring writer. I don’t have a lot of time to write, so it’s going to be some time before I even attempt to have something published. Will the system even be accessible to new authors at that point? In today’s age of splintering small presses, electronic media and self-hosting, what will the bookselling world look like in ten years?

Have you played Spore? It is a single-player online metaverse video game. It allows a player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a unicellular organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture.

It is very addictive, both creepy and cute, and you’ll be showing off your new children to family and friends before you know it.

Disclaimer: I’ve only messed with it once. I liked it, a lot, and thought that it might be pretty addictive. The husband plays with the free creature creator quite a bit, and shows me his new creations quite regularly.

Our household’s ballots are in the mail – all three of them.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
     ~John Quincy Adams

I continue to have a tough time finding inspiration for writing. This is really not good, considering that I have two weeks until NaNoWriMo begins. Here are some resources I’ve used in the past to help overcome writer’s block – hopefully they’ll be helpful to many of us in the weeks to come.

1. Write about writer’s block. Lisa R. Cohen suggests writing about it as a way to help get through it. Research and writing – about what’s at the forefront of your mind – can help get the creative process unstuck. Done!
2. Try freewriting. Merlin Mann suggests on 43Folders that you set the timer and just write. It can be gibberish, repetitive, inane, and spelling and grammar are completely irrelevant. Cover the page or the monitor if it helps. This helps convince the brain that it’s writing again – and it is!
3. Unplug from the Internet. Mann also suggests that you unplug from the internet. Close all your familiar applications. Write offline, in the absence of your usual distractions and sources. (This is a tough one for me, and therefore probably very useful!)
4. Make a list. The Fontayne Group suggests that you make more than one list. List inconsequential things, chronogical items, geographical points, a master list of lists. It can be related to your blog topic – or not. Just get your brain back into idea generation mode! You may have noticed that I’ve done this a bit lately.
5. Write personality profiles or character sketches. Pamela Michael suggests writing a profile or sketch about someone you know – or someone you don’t. Sit in a coffee shop and write a character sketch about an interesting person you see there, or research and write about a notable figure in your field. I just did this, too!
6. Change your writing environment. Amit Angarwal at Digital Inspiration suggests that you change your writing environment – whether trading a laptop for a notebook, moving from your desk to your back garden, or logging on from a coffee shop or library.
7. Break away from work so your ideas can percolate. Carolyn Campbell at the Writer’s Resource Center recommends constructive ways to break away from work. Pursing replenishing, personally pleasurable pursuits – especially other creative endeavors – can give your mind the opportunity to generate ideas and direction.
8. Write shitty first drafts. Anne Lamott, one of my favorite authors, counsels us to avoid perfectionism in her how-to-write masterpiece Bird by Bird. She suggests that we purposely write a bad first draft – no internal editors allowed – just to get words on paper.

Reviewing these ideas have been helpful to me — I can use every one of then over the next few weeks.