The Price of Instant Gratification

As I mentioned, I'm having surgery tomorrow, and as I've never had surgery before, I'm in full-blown freak-out mode over it.  It turns out that my brain's immediate instinct to gravitate directly toward "What's the worst that could possibly happen?" is a tendency that serves me well as a horror writer, but really, not so much in my personal life.

But anyway, when I've managed for a few moments here and there to shake my conviction that I'm going to die tragically from the anesthesia or from deep-vein thrombosis, I've been making plans for my recovery. The surgeon says it'll be a week or two before I can go back to work, so I've been trying to think of this as a nice little vacation. And since I don't really expect I'll stir much from my bed, what better time to catch up on my reading?

So I went on a nice little virtual shopping spree this weekend, picking up every Kindle edition I had in my Amazon wishlist:

"Full Dark, No Stars" by Stephen King
"Irregular Creatures" by Chuck Wendig
"The Newbie's Guide to Publishing (Everything A Writer Needs To Know)" by J.A. Konrath
"Smart Self-Publishing: Becoming an Indie Author" by Zoe Winters
"Among Others" by Jo Walton
"The Day After and Other Stories" by Wil Wheaton
"The Magicians: A Novel" by Lev Grossman
"Hold Me Closer, Necromancer" by Lish McBride

I nearly stopped myself almost before I really got started.  The first item on that list is priced at $14.99. Frankly, that seemed like kind of a lot of money for some ones and zeroes.

I tried to push past my hesitation. I was supposed to be indulging myself, and besides, I'd really, really been wanting to read this one — I love Steven King's short stories.

What finally struck me was a sudden epiphany — at this point, I'm entirely used to paying $11.00 for a movie ticket. For 90 minutes of entertainment, that honestly, may or may not be any good. But I do it smilingly and uncomplainingly, with nothing to show for it afterward.  Once I made that comparison, $14.99 for an e-book didn't seem that terrible after all.

In all, I spent around sixty-five bucks, which is not bad for eight books. I can't remember the last time I spent that much money on new books. I can see how "1-Click" purchasing plus instant wireless delivery could turn out to be a very dangerous combination.