Mirror Mirror A Legal Thriller Archives

This has not been the week that I thought it would be. First, I thought that my new puppy, Summer Moon, would stop harassing her much older brother, Rhythm, after I followed Caesar Milan’s sage guidelines for introducing a new puppy to an older dog. Wrong. Summer has yet to learn that (1) Rhythm is Head Dog and (2) she’s a Golden Retriever Puppy, not a baby Dragon, (3) and Caesar is supposedly RIGHT in all things DOG. And just to prove her contempt for TRAINING, she swiped a burrito off the kitchen counter tonight and ate half of it before being discovered. Sigh!

Second, I was unwittingly drawn into a conflict with the company that services my lap pool. About two weeks ago, it began to bubble like a cauldron. Getting into the spirit of Halloween, I thought. But since a pool is not a cauldron, I called the pool service to ask them to come take a look. That request degenerated into a demand that I (1) tell them what is wrong with the pool and (2) (well, since I didn’t know what was wrong) take pictures of the bubbles. I told them I would be thrilled to pay them $75 to come diagnose it since (1) they are supposed to know what’s wrong, and (2) I was working on a brief for the California Supreme Court and I didn’t have time to take pictures of bubbles. Eventually, the pool tech appeared, mumbled something about the auto-flow, and promised to have yet another tech who actually fixes things come to make the repair. But a week went by, and no fixer pool tech ever appeared. I thought of calling the office, but after my last conversation with the receptionist, I figured I’d just wait for the saner pool tech to reappear and summon the fixer pool tech.

But when the saner pool tech did reappear, I learned that psycho-receptionist was working to have him fired. Apparently, that’s why she never sent the fixer pool tech. She wanted to be able to say that the sane one had dropped the ball. Which he did not do. In the end, I had to call the owner of the company and tell him I wouldn’t be using his pool service anymore. The saner tech had done a good job, but the psycho in the office was not a force I wanted to go on reckoning with. I didn’t want my pool caught in whatever vendetta she had against the saner pool tech. The owner promised free repair and pool service for a month, but I didn’t want to deal with any more unprofessional behavior from his front office. I said, thanks, but no thanks, and hired a new pool service.

I felt a little sorry for the owner. He has just bought the business, and every customer is important to him. But apparently he didn’t realize that he took over a front office that doesn’t share his goals.

The lesson for me is that any business is built one customer at a time. That’s why I’m grateful for every new reader who finds one of my legal thrillers and decides to give it a try.

In Amanda Palmer’s book, The Art of Asking (a book I highly recommend to all, but especially to anyone who is creative) Ms. Palmer explains how she came to realize that the creation of art always involves asking and that asking is difficult because the outcome of asking is always uncertain. The answer may be yes, but the answer may also be no.

Ms. Palmer, who has earned success as an alternative rock, punk singer, began her entertainment career as a human statue called the “The Eight Foot Bride.” After leaving college, Ms. Palmer quickly abandoned her career as a server in an ice cream store when she discovered that she could make more money as a street performer. She put on a wedding dress, painted her face white, and stood on crates in Harvard Square, holding a bouquet of day-old flowers which she rescued from florists shops. When passers-by left money in the hat at her feet, she would “come to life,” lean down and offer them a flower from her bouquet. Some people immediately would accept the statute’s offer, but others would walk away quickly, refusing the “bride’s” silent request to take the flower. A third group would hesitate, undecided whether or not to accept the offering. In The Art of Asking, Ms. Palmer describes how the other bystanders would chant “Take the Flower, Take the Flower” to the Undecided.

I was getting ready to publish my new novel, Mirror, Mirror, when I finished The Art of Asking. I realized that I was looking forward to putting the book out in the world for readers to experience and enjoy, but I was also reluctant to turn it loose, too. That feeling seemed odd to me because I had been working feverishly every night after work to write the novel and to polish it for publication. So why did I suddenly have stage fright?

I realized that asking readers to experience a new novel is difficult. The answer from readers might be yes, or the answer might be no. Indie authors are bombarded with “courses” to “teach” them how to launch a book, a process that is supposed to persuade many readers to say “yes” all at once to a new novel. But I slipped Mirror, Mirror quietly into the ranks of ebooks on Amazon without any “guarantee” of any yeses. I realized when I hit the publish button, that like the “Eight Foot Bride,” I was holding out my “flower” and hoping many people with say “yes” to it. That is the art of asking.

To hear Amanda Palmer’s TED talk about The Art of Asking, go here youtube.com/watch

To see the Eight Foot Bride, go here youtube.com/watch

To read Mirror, Mirror, A Legal Thriller go here amazon.com/…book/dp/B0757GSP35/ref=sr_1_5

Posts

The Legal Thriller Business

The Art of Asking