The Death of a Library

My local library (Hyde) has moved from a beautiful building (which should be listed, in my opinion) to the town hall.  I went to have a nosey on Monday and I was greatly disappointed.

Instead of a whole building, the library is now two small rooms.  Each genre now has a shelf or two, rather than a whole aisle.  Fiction consists of a few rows of small shelving, housing crime, romance and horror (that's it!).  The second room has three computers squashed up against the non-fiction which consists of history, true-crime and literature.

That's it.  Honestly, I've never been more disappointed.  If you want to borrow a certain book, you would have to ring up and reserve it, then they will have it shipped in from one of the larger libraries (which are miles away).  This defeats the whole object for me.  When I go to the library, it's because I don't quite know what I'm looking for.  I want to browse the shelves and choose books based on their content.  I might see the title of a book I think might be useful to me, but on flicking through it, it doesn't actually fit my needs.  That's why I like to browse the library.

Now, I have to search for a book online, see if I can get a preview or read reviews, then order it and wait 2-3 weeks for it to arrive at my local library.  I might even find that searching the internet for the information I need is a lot faster than waiting for a book.  This is okay for some people, but I enjoy browsing the library and gleaning the information I need from proper paper books.

To top it all off, the librarian was far from friendly.  I asked her if they might be getting any more crime books in (basically, I was trying to say 'is this it?' without being rude), and she shrugged her shoulders without looking up at me.

I'm hoping if I keep ordering more books and chipping away, they might stock more.  Or is this really the death of Hyde Library?

How do you rate your own success?

How do you rate your own success?  Do you compare yourself to others in your chosen field, or by how much money you bring in?

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how I rate my own success, or failure as it might be in some cases.  I suffer from depression, and 2014 was a dark year for me.  It meant that my writing slowed, almost to a stand-still which in turn made me feel worse.

After some jiggling about with my medication, I'm feeling brighter and more optimistic.  I felt like I needed to take stock of my achievements and make a plan going forward.

I love a plan.  I'm addicted to lists.  Just seeing those boxes being ticked off, one by one gives me the motivation to carry on and achieve more.  An added benefit of making a plan and taking stock, is that I saw how much I had achieved already.  Even while I was being suffocated by the black cloud of depression I had managed to achieve something.  I sold a few of my books, I took on more editing clients, and I even outlined a novel.  I was making myself feel worse because I was feeling guilty for not writing, where I was in fact, still moving forward and achieving.

I rate my own success by how much I have achieved in the short term.  Every year I write a list of goals, long-term and short-term and evaluate how I did in the previous year.  I always find out I've achieved more than I thought.

Right now I'm working on my next book.  The outline is coming together and my characters are chattering away constantly.  This is a good sign.

As for success; if I get this book drafted by October, I'll consider this a successful year.  If I make progress towards that goal today, I'll consider it a successful day.