Don Bruns Blog

Borders Bookstores are closing.  The boxstore that was started by the Borders family back in the seventies is closing 200 stores...one about half a mile from our house in Sarasota.  I signed there two weeks ago. 

The manager told me she was profitable and they had assured her she was not on the chopping block.  In this high-tech fast paced, electronic, wireless, instant information world that we live in, Borders didn't keep up.  They didn't develop the Nook or Kindle.  They were slow to get out of the CD business and the DVD sales as companies like Netflix absorbed that share of the market.  They failed to adapt to the fact that readership of books is down by five percent in the last year, and the bookstore business is moving to accessories, games and gift items.  It's a tough time for the industry.  Publishers, retailers, writers, we're all questioning where it will go and how long it will take to get there.  Every day brings a new surprise.  All I'm sure of is...there will always be story tellers and there will always be an audience for those stories.

I'm going to Mardi Gras. I've just finished the book that is due out this December, turned it in and now I have an idea for a new series that takes place in the gritty city of New Orleans.

Certainly there are other series set in this fanciful, dirty, romantic city, but not as many as you would think.  And I haven't found anyone who is taking the approach I intend to take.  I've visited the wonderful city and enjoyed it's decadent hospitality, but never with the intention of writing about it.
 
Now, I have to approach my interest in a new way.  I have to capture everything I can.  Photos, notes, interviews, images, characters and personalities all have to resonate.  In five short days I want to absorb as much of the culture as I possibly can.  I'll make friends with a bartender, a cop, a cab driver or someone who works the nightlife.  I need to explore as many aspects as possible of this remarkable civilization. 
 
I don't believe that any other city in this country behaves the way New Orleans does.  And the fact that the cities' population has shrunk 27% since hurricane Katrina just plays into the mystic of this earthy town.  While tourism drives the economy, there is an underbelly that squirms.  I want to know both sides, the up and the down.
 
Reading a blog site about New Orleans, the blogger referred to a trip back in 2009.  Getting mugged one evening, getting mugged a second time, and telling the third mugger that there was nothing left to mug.  I can only hope I don't have to report on that aspect of thise shrinking metropolis.
 
Mardi Gras, the party city, the jazz and the Dixieland music...Bourbon Street, Voodoo and witchcraft, it all has a magical feel.  Couple that with the crime, the corruption, the greed that drives any major city and I feel certain there's a series just waiting to come alive.  Wish me luck!

It's almost embarrassing to admit this out loud, but I believe in the Secret.  The Secret was that book that came out several years ago...then I think they made some sort of movie, and it's simply reaffirming that if you want something bad enough, it will be yours.  If you wish for a parking spot right in front...you'll get it.

If you want to own item or attract a person, you can achieve that goal. If you want a better job, if you want to sell someone on a project you're working on, if you want to sell a book...it will happen.  If you want it enough it can be yours.
 
The intensity of the desire has a lot to do with achieving your goal.  I wanted a certain car one time and I attached a photo of that car to my refrigerator, my bathroom mirror and to the dash of the car I was driving.  I really wanted that car.  The photos motivated me to work a little harder, make a little more, and three months later I bought the car. I remember having a laser focus.  I had to have that automobile.
 
I believe that energy attracts, or repels.  The positive side of this is that if you put out enough magnetic energy, you will attract almost anything you want.  But each person has to experiment with their own energy.  I know people who can never make the commitment, no matter how much they think they want something.  People who will never be able to give off the energy to make things happen.  And then there are those people who actually are named for the energy they give off.  "That guy is a chick magnet."  "She's a money magnet."  It's not by luck that they came by those names.
 
I challenge you to focus your energy.  Become a magnet for something that's important in your life. See if it works for you.  I have started businesses, sold books, bought property, surrounded myself with energetic, positive friends and business acquaintances, all by focusing on what was important to me.  
 
I'm not a self help guru.  I just think that we all need to concentrate a little more on getting the most out of life.