SPEAKING OF VALUES By Joseph Walker

Solitude on the signing table For years I had fantasized about this moment: my first book signing for my first novel. When it finally came, I was excited, uncertain and nervous all at once. Which inside page should I sign on? Should I just sign my name, or should I try to write something personal to each person? What if there were so many people there I couldn’t keep up with the demand? On the other hand, what if nobody came? What if I sit there for two hours and.. just.. sit there? I knew the latter was a distinct possibility. My novel is a light, fluffy Christmas story that the publisher won’t really start promoting until after Halloween, so nobody has heard anything about the book at this point. And to be honest, nobody has really heard of me, either. My name isn’t exactly a household word, if you know what I mean - unless you live in a household in which coffee is referred to as “Joe” and grandma putters around with her walker, in which case the words “Joe” and “walker” might occasionally be heard in close proximity. Otherwise.. not. My worst fears began to materialize when I arrived at the book store and was greeted by a perky young store employee who was assigned to host me. “So,” she said as she escorted me to the back of the store, “your book is called ‘Christmas on Mill St.,’ huh? What’s it about?” “Um, I said, stumbling as you might expect of one who is more comfortable with written words than he is with spoken dialogue, “it’s about.. you know.. Christmas. On.. you know.. Mill St..” “Oh, I see!” she said brightly, as if I had actually given her useful information. “Well, I’m excited to read it, although I don’t know when I’m going to be able to find time to do it, with a baby and everything. But I’m sure if I read it I’ll like it. Probably.” That’s sort of the way it went for the next hour. People stayed away from my little signing table in droves. Part of it may have been that it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Who would want to spend time in a book store on a day like that? It might also have been the fact that the store itself was pretty new - maybe people haven’t found it yet. And I had a spot on my shirt (blasted mustard!) that may have frightened away the fastidious. After about an hour of solitude on the signing table, I noticed a stirring toward the front of the store. A lovely woman breezed in smiling brightly, brimming with confidence, surrounded by what seemed to be an entourage of adoring sycophants. Right behind her was an older gentleman, also smiling, also trailing a troop of book-bearing disciples. I recognized them both - well-known writers who have written dozens of popular books. Store employees fussed and blustered to prepare a place for two more authors - REAL authors - at the signing table. BIG places. With lots of books. Which, it turned out, would eventually all be signed. Unlike mine. It’s always interesting, isn’t it, when our dreams and fantasies come face-to-face with reality? Sometimes reality is even better than fantasy - but sometimes it isn’t. The important thing, it seems to me, is to keep dreaming and working and shooting for the stars, but to be prepared to accept reality when it comes - however it comes - and to embrace it for what it is. The way I see it, even if reality falls short of those stars for which we’re shooting, we’re better off taking our shot and dragging our feet through the treetops rather than not taking that shot and dragging our feet on the ground. For me last Saturday that meant meeting two very kind and very interesting writers, and being able to watch their book signing from a front row seat - then getting the heck out of there when a New York Times best-selling author came to take my place at the table. Hey, I can live with a little “dragging my feet through the treetops” - that doesn’t mean I have to hang around and get beat up by the branches. (Joseph Walker’s Christmas novella, “A Christmas on Mill St.,” is available online through www.deseretbook.com or www.amazon.com.)