Rafael Nadal's Biceps Fall Into The Great Interest Category

Since last I wrote, I have found out the amount of my belated German royalty check (less than I'd hoped for,   le German sigh), and that the library festival I was invited to, I'm still invited to (details to come, when I have some).

No word yet on The Very Last Attempt I Will Ever Ever Make On The Shade Of The Moon Ever. No word on why there's no word. Not even a hint of a word on why there's no word. But I'm choosing not to worry.

However, my mind always needs something to obsess over. I want to make it clear, though, that there's a real difference between obsession and great interest. For example, I have great interest in the New York Yankees (who happen to have the best record in baseball, at least for this moment, but if they lose today, they probably won't anymore). I have great interest in figure skating (of which this is the off season). I have great interest bordering on obsession with my weight loss (if I were obsessed, I wouldn't have bought that bag of miniature KitKat bars, but if I didn't have a great interest, I would have bought the full size bars and maybe some Butterfingers also).

What currently obsesses me are summer reading lists. Not any old summer reading lists. Summer reading lists that require poor innocent school children to read my books. Mostly Life As We Knew It but that's fine by me. I'm not fussy about which book of mine poor innocent school children are required to read.

Thanks to our friend Mr. Google (smooches to you, Mr. Google), I can find lots of summer reading lists that list Life As We Knew It. I spend many happy hours perusing and reperusing and rereperusing those lists, just in case I miss one. I've gotten pretty knowledgeable about it. I don't bother looking if the list has me as Pfeffer, Susan Beth, or mentions another book right after mine. That's just a listing kind of a list. I like the required kind of listing a whole lot more.

The best kind of obsessions spread out, and so has this one. I've noticed better Barnes & Noble and Amazon rankings for LAWKI, so now I have to check them out hourly. Okay, every 45 minutes. And then I have to print the best of the best ranking pages.

Notice how I dated it, so I'll know forever when 708 happened.

I've been obsessed with royalties since I sold my first book. I knew what royalties were, because my father had written a number of books that earned royalties, although I don't remember him being obsessed over them, although he certainly was obsessed over other things, like ending the war in Vietnam, but I definitely got my obsessive nature from him. I just chose to obsess over royalties, putting ending the war in Vietnam in the great interest category.

Obsessing over royalties, as I do, I scurried over to Amazon's Author Central and examined the current and past history of LAWKI sort of (I don't think their numbers include institutional sales, and I know they don't include e-books). First I saw how LAWKI had sold in the past 4 weeks.

Then I looked to see if summer reading lists had been my friend over the past two years as well. And they had. This chart isn't of my heartbeat (thank goodness), but the sales patterns of LAWKI from July 2010 through June 2012. See how high it gets in June and July, and how tragically low it gets in January and February. Guess which months are my favorite (you guessed wrong- February is because of my birthday being there, although I don't have much good to say about January).

So that's how I'm spending my time these days. As obsessions go, it's fairly harmless.

But this afternoon, I'll indulge myself in watching the Yankee game and eating KitKat miniatures.

Some days are simply meant for great interests!