Gloomy Milestones

Milestones are often looked on as important points in something's development, but the significance isn't always positive. I've recently had a couple of depressing milestones.

The first came on a visit to my public library where a rack of books had been set in the lobby with an, "adopt a book" sign. A nice way of letting folks know that those books would no longer be on the library shelves. There amongst the culled volumes was a title of mine. Okay, it hadn't been even close to being a best seller, and wasn't even set in Montana, but still... I gave a little sigh of resignation.

The next milestone arrived in letter form. "We regret to inform you...". Not a reject letter, but a publisher telling me they were not going to reprint a title that had been dribbling in small royalties for more than eight years.

It's often said that similar events run in threes. If so, I'm fairly gloomy about the next milestone.