“We’re not a vendor. We're not your partner. We’re your gateway to this industry. If you think you run the show, you’re wrong. We’re the only game in town, kiddo. Everybody plays by our rules and so will you.”
And, for the first time in a long time, I am speechless not with delighted surprise or wonderment or laughter, but rather with cold, drowning shock.
I almost drop the phone.
* * *
Dictionary.com boasts thirty-three definitions of "ring." Some are nouns. Some are verbs. Two are idioms. If you a New Testament Christian, however, a ring is a noun and means only one thing: Now then and forever.
So you best be careful when you grant one.
In the lexicon of my faith there are English words that are commonly used in America (and elsewhere) that have slightly different meanings. “Offer” and “grant” leap immediately to mind, as do “pray” and “worship.” If I’m making a promise from the depths of my soul, I’m granting myself to another. If I’m bowing my head in prayer, I may as well be murmuring in conversation to Christ as I may be making love. But as a symbol, a ring, I think, is one of the most misused and misunderstood elements.
A NTC would rarely buy herself a fine ring. Street jewelry, sure, but rarely a quality piece of jewelry. A ring is a tangible symbol of a pledge or promise offered to you. Someone else has made a grant of themselves, in some way, by placing a ring in your palm. If you place it on your finger, you accept this grant for the duration never only intended but always specified at offering.
A traditional NTC wedding set is three rings which fit together or not, but which will always be worn. Though it is perhaps simpler in contemporary society to say these rings symbolize commitment, engagement and marriage, most correct would be to say that they are all rings offered and granted between two people who intend to spend the rest of their lives together. The first marks their time as lovers, private intimate partners without children, their focus on each other. The second ring marks a public acknowledgement of the relationship, a time of reaching out to friends and family and usually includes cohabitation and commitment ceremony beneath Christ’s own sky. The third ring celebrates the creation of a family, the adoption or birth of children.
And though wedding sets and love are often the first things people think of when rings are discussed, tonight my mind and heart keeps taking me to a different kind. A promise ring. A grant made and accepted. A simple silver ring with small block letters: MIND BODY SPIRIT. A ring whose twin has never left my finger outside of work in all these years. A promise that says: We will make the impossible possible.
* * *
“This friend of yours? The one with the *independent* CCG?” *scoff*
There is no friend but that’s not why with the scoffing. The scoffing is about the abject failure of every collectible card game launched by an independent company in the history of world since WoC invented the genre.
“They’ve chosen the hardest possible path and we’re not going to make it any easier for them.”
No duh.
“We’ll make sure their failure effects us as little as possible but refusing to list any product until we have stock in holding and proof of stock in their warehouse. We want their marketing plan, we want their exit plan, we want the insurance policy that pays for us to ship back stock when they go bankrupt.”
The sun is rising into my LA sky, burning away late morning clouds. On the East Coast, it is already noon and I feel like I’m playing catch up.
* * *
Cecil Adams over at www.straightdope.com answers questions, debunks myths and otherwise does witty, smarty stuff for people all over the world. He is research god of the universe and has a way of sharing information that is accessible and intelligent at once.
I had always thought it an urban myth that the Chinese word for “crisis” is made up of two characters signifying “opportunity” and “danger,” thus forming a kind of zen metaphor for life and business. And it is bunk, on the surface, seriously over simplified, but Cecil makes a bright and shiny argument for the connection between the three words that would entertain any linguist and intrigued this gamer grrl.
“We have to catch up!” one friend said to another.
“We’re *always* catching up!” snapped the response.
We’re always in crisis.
Well... yes. The Big Boys have been doing this – publishing books and games – since before our grandparents came to this country. They have massive revolving lines of credit and subsidiary sales that fuel small countries, let alone allow them to publish flops for four or five years without much more than a changing of the scapegoated guard.
As independent voices with independent presses – like Woolfe and Whitman – we should pray for a constant state of crisis. Because only in crisis are we driven to our best. Only in crisis do we find the chance for brilliant opportunities.
If it were easy... everyone would be doing it.
If it were easy... everyone would succeed.
I choose to do this, not because it is easy, but rather, specifically, because it is hard ;) I choose to do this because the struggle is sharp and painful and real and alive. I choose to do this for the same reason that women wake up in poverty and labor in factories and embrace their children.
If we waited until it were easy... if we waited until we were ready... no one important would ever be born and nothing worth doing would ever be done.
* * *
My cat has three legs and one eye, half a tail and one-point-five ears. I tried to PhotoShop him a second eye and a fourth leg and half-again more ear etc. I thought, “He’s a handsome beast. I could sell snaps of him at Dreamstime.” I tweaked and digital botoxed. I uploaded. He’s sold not a copy. And now he likes to bite me.
I learned my lesson.
“They’d have to have crazy store support.” The stranger, the corporate suit with the salaried position and the fat Christmas bonus, is still talking. I can tell he likes words like verbiage and lexicon and mind-share. I’d like to smack him up side the head with a piece of my mind-share. “Standing displays to be filled with their product right from our catalog. Banners. Posters. In-store experts. Decks in employee’s hands *months* before launch... and that’s just the beginning.”
“Just...?”
“I’d want to see care packages with gadgets and gizmos and crowd pleasers and tourney packs and a trophy. Incentive to learn the OS. Sex appeal, geek appeal, lock in the prime demo. This is the kind of finer details that independent companies have no idea how to lay down. Their idea of buzz is working the cons.”
My head is spinning. I wish you... I wish all of you... were with me.
* * *
Remember when I talked about my cup? My personal grail? Not half empty. Not half full. All full, all the time... just not all full of air. This is not a Polly Anna life approach. Because when a grail is all full up, all the time, you have to dance pretty dang well not to spill any of it.
And, baby, I am always dancing someone’s line. Sometimes man’s. Sometimes Christ’s. Almost never my own. But I’d rather be dancing than standing still.
Crisis averted = missed opportunity.
Don’t breath a sigh of relief that we have more time. Push harder now and then celebrate in the new quiet you earned at the end. Bring crisis. Bring it on, pour it down on me. Christ said, “How can you miss me when you hear my voice in your mind, in your heart, throughout your body like breath? My whisper is eternal and my body is only momentary, so why then would you desire my body rather than my word written or heard in your soul?”
How can I turn away from crisis? How can I rest and walk away? It is impossible for me to miss divinity.
“Later you said, ‘I cannot miss you when you're right here with me.’ I blink at you. I ache for you, miss you constantly. I miss you with every breath and every heartbeat and every impossible moment of time that I don't hear your voice. That, your voice, is my reality. Not your touch. Your voice. If you are speaking I can truly know you. I can taste the nuances of you, your emotional state of being. Your words are spoken with economy. You are not flashy. I have to stop myself, gregarious as I am, from talking over you because I come alive and awake when you speak with me. I overflow with joy, with living, when you express your inner thoughts, your interior process. We could be kissing, dancing, making love, and I would miss you if you were not speaking..."
Christ said, “You will hear me always for I will speak to you directly.”
I cannot miss this. This right now, right here. This moment. Seize the day? Seize the words we share. Claim the path. Know it better every day because it is hard to find the time.
Every day.
* * *
“Is there any way you would take on an independent line?” I finally ask. I cannot stop my voice from wavering. I’ve already pulled so many strings just to get this thirty minute conversation. This one question seems too much to ask. I don’t feel worthy. I am not in this league.
“No. The liability is too high.”
And I am about to hang up, to mutter thank you and good day and all the other things that spill from our slack mouths when our world has been crushed, dismantled and destroyed and we can’t let anyone know. And then:
“Except a brand like the Mardi Gras 3000 line. You know them? They have the elements. Built like a corporate property. But they have someone else handling them, maybe InCracker, because a brand that massive, that complex? You’d need a year of setup with us to really guarantee bank.”
And the niceties that spill from my lips are still all platitudes and my mind is still racing elsewhere and I still can’t let this stranger know how I am truly feeling... but Christ has whispered:
“He who makes a grant of himself to his fellow, in my light, in my name, and with faith, shall know that I walk now, then and forever, at his side to ensure the promise of that offering.”
Christ has, once again, broken my heart only to remake it. Crushed my world, only to rebuild it.
* * *
INTERNAL MEMO
The official launch of the Mardi Gras 3000 brand, collectible card game, novels, comics and role-playing game, has been moved to February 16, 2010.
Rejoice. Come walk the impassioned path with me.
Rally the troops.
EJ
