Passions, Cheese and Writing....

So, I just wrote this whole blog about my life and my writing and my job...and when I tried to publish, the server gave me an error message and now I have to start all over. I'm annoyed. I'm an impatient sort of Monkeypants. Also, I'm very tired and it's late and I really don't have a clue if I can mentally pull it together to recreate that blog.

Basically, the gist of it was that, scarily, I'm actually liking my job at this moment in time. I know, I know. The idea of me, Captain Monkeypants, saying that is...alarming. I think the scariest part of all is that it's temporary. I know that, in a week, my euphoria is going to be over and that I'm back to concocting ways to entice a squirrel to a) eat through the power lines or b) take down the internet. Either option would render us useless. Even if a squirrel is not involved, on a normal day, I confess that I do find myself imagining ways for our building to be out of commission long enough that we get to go home.

Still, for now...I'm liking my job. Today, I got invited to a meeting that involved the programmers and me and, interestingly, I was vital to the meeting. That has never happened before in this job. It happened in my last job but it was at a point where I could see that I'd finally hopped over a fence that I'd never have to navigate again. This job...who knows. One minute, my boss is asking for my assistance, the next thing he's treating me like a blond bimbo who can't possibly comprehend anything more technical than "microwave or toaster"?

But, I'm scared to say that today and yesterday were, um, fun for me at work. I am getting to test issues that have been found to be wrong with our software. Then I get to try and break them. Then, when I'm successful in breaking them, I get to tell the programmers what to do.

I'm good at telling people what to do.

I know it's only temporary, that once we release our software, I'm relegated back to the ranks of "what are we supposed to do with you?" Those days make me hate my job. They send me back to the days where I'm job searching. They send me back to the days when even working as a cheese shop manager at Jungle Jim's sounds appealing.

For the record, the last time this happened, I did apply for a Cheese Shop Manager position at Jungle Jim's. I'm annoyed that I didn't even get an acknowledgment for my application. While I might not have an official background, I still think I was a good applicant. While I might not have a passion for software, I'm sad to say I have a passion for cheese. I'm good with customers. I like people.

Also, twice now, for the record, I've been in Jungle Jim's and have been able to assist customers when the store employees could not. I'm not joking.

For the record, Creme Fraiche is found on the top shelf of the "French" cheese section. It is a mild sour cream and can be substituted for American whipping cream although it doesn't have quite as much bite. I highly recommend the real stuff.

Also, though Gorgonzola is a strong blue cheese, it is not Danish blue, as many assume. It is, in fact, Italian. Thus, it can be found in the "Italian" section of Jungle Jim's cheeses. I can recommend it as an excellent topping for salads or, even better, with mashed potatoes or stuffed mushrooms.

Anyway, I'm moving on, even though I'm slightly saddened that my future in Cheese Shop management is not to be. I know this sounds sarcastic. But, in truth, like a wise friend of mine says, [I'm] not sarcastic!, [I'm] British."

Seriously, even though my day job in software is sometimes good, as it was today, I do know this is not my passion. I can't pretend that I will ever compare the thrill I get to doing well at this job to the thrill I get when I'm writing.

When I'm writing or doing anything to do with my writing, I get wired. I find an excitement that can't be replicated by much else in my life. I'm doing scarily well with my Amazon Kindle sales of my novel, The Reluctant Demon. In a few days, my book will be for sale in a paperback format. If I do half as well as my potential sales targets promise, I'm going to be ok.

But it's not about the money. You must know that about me by now. It's more about trying to get my book out to people who I think will enjoy it. I don't care if I get any profit...I really, honestly, just want people to find it entertaining and not mind paying the $10 I'm charging.

(For the record, I'm going to charge $9.99. My original wish was to charge $7.99 but in the interest of not going into insane debt and still getting my book out there, I had to compromise. A fact, for which, I apologize).

No, I really just want people to read it, to laugh, to not mind that they had to buy the book to read it. That's it.

Ironically, in my attempts to find out the status of my proof copy of my novel, I clicked on Amazon.com. I discovered that tonight is "The Night" for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award entrants.

A year ago, I was one of them. I had a novel entered in Amazon's competition. I wanted to pretend I didn't care but I did. At 3 a.m, I remember awaking, panicked after a dream in which I realized I sucked as a writer. When I checked my emails, I discovered I had been awarded a semi-finalist position for my novel.

I was elated. I was excited. It was the furthest I'd ever come with a novel. I reveled in the knowledge that I didn't completely suck.

That lasted until I got my prize from Amazon.com: A review by Publisher's Weekly. My review was terrible. It summarized my book. It gave a good explanation of the events. Then it trashed me. It gave no explanation why, no constructive criticism to help me figure out why my reviewer hated it, only that my book was awful. It was, in short, destructive criticism.

Sadly, as much as I hate to admit it, it began a horrible period of writer's block for me. A period in which I doubted my skills, my abilities, my desire. I tried to write something...anything. There was nothing but this blog.

Then I did some research and discovered that for the purpose of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novelist Award reviews, Publisher's Weekly had hired reviewers for a pittance, just so they could get the 'job done'.

Someone's $50 profit was my mental breakdown into self-doubt about my writing. Thanks, Publisher's Weekly for being professional.

Still, then came the wonderful, amazing National Novel Writer's Month challenge (NaNaWriMo for short). In November, in the short space of a month (or three weeks if you're me and helping a friend with a master's thesis), I managed to write my novel, The Reluctant Demon. It was easy. It was light. It was fluffy.

It was fun.

I'd re-discovered my passion and my love for writing. The result is my most marketable novel to date. A novel which can be yours for the low-low price of $9.99 once I approve it. It's not about the money, it's about the fact that a would-be novelist found her path in life again.

And, no matter how much I enjoy my day job in software, for me, it's about the passion I feel in the evenings, when I get to write. Granted, I'd love to find a day job that solicited my passion too but...we can't have everything.

In the meantime, I'll settle for loving cheese but being passionate about writing. In between, I'm enjoying my current job.

It's all about the now...right?

Happy Thursday.

It's 2010!

I suppose this is my first official blog of 2010 although, to be honest, it really doesn't feel any different from 2009. Since, technically, it's really only three days into the year, that's not really a surprise.

It's been a busy three days. It's amazing how busy vacations turn out to be, even when they're relaxing. I managed to see two good friends, hang out with my family, celebrate New Year's with my sister and brother-in-law by unintentionally renting a movie with a talking penis, see "Sherlock Holmes" and, naturally, eat too much.

Some of that needs no explanation, other parts do. Take New Year's Eve, for example. My sister invited me over to hang out and watch movies she's rented. My sister, who I adore, has inherited my father's ability to view an entire shelf of well known movies and still manage to pick the ones that were never released in the theatre because, well, frankly...they're not good. Sometimes, the movies have been released but lasted perhaps a week or two at most in the theatre. I actually think this is quite a talent. I can tease my sister though because I know, unlike me, she actually has a life and doesn't spend way too much time reading Entertainment Weekly online or watching TV and seeing trailers for movies like, say...me.

Sometimes, though, this ability to pick bad movies is a bit unfortunate. For example, on New Year's Eve, she rented a movie called "Deadline" which starred Brittany Murphy and Thora Birch and made barely any sense at all. When the movie finished my sister, my brother-in-law and I actually had to collaborate to try to figure out what it was actually about. We never reakkt did come up with a conclusive answer.

Then we put in the second movie which was "Bruno."

Now, I'm not a Sasha Baron-Cohen fan. I think he was funny in "Talladega Nights" and he made a funny penguin in "Madagascar," but I was one of those people who thought "Borat" was stupid, didn't get it and wanted to smack him quite hard. So, I wasn't excited about "Bruno" to begin with. Five minutes into the movie our mouths were hanging open with a combination of horror and shock. Let's just say that Bruno, a German celebrity in his own mind, had a pigmy boyfriend and viewers were (un)fortunate enough to see how they pleasured one another. Somehow, we kept watching, hoping it'd get better. By the time Bruno had moved to L.A. and done a pilot of his celebrity interview show, complete with his penis doing a rather alarming dance and talking to the camera, we had enough. That was enough Bruno for us.

My sister was a little embarrassed. She believed that the Redbox movie rental machine would not have such things in it. Now we know better. Bruno was not our cup of tea. She said she wished she'd rented "The Hangover," instead. I wish she had too but, at the same time, being that she's my little sister, this does give me some rather delicious ammunition to tease her with for a while.

All in all, bad movies aside, I had a lot of fun spending New Year's Eve with my sister and brother-in-law and still made it home in time to ring in the New Year with my parents. We didn't do much to celebrate though we had some rather nasty cheap champagne that I thought seemed like a good idea but, like so many others, was better in theory than in practice. We also pulled Christmas Crackers which is one of our traditions- nothing like wearing a silly paper crown at midnight as the New Year is rung in.

I know, I know...it doesn't sound very glamourous. I'm sure there were clubs I could have gone to, places to have celebrated but, truth be told, it was a pretty perfect way to ring in the new year and I wouldn't have changed it for anything.

As for the rest of the weekend, much of it was filled with food. My mother fell and broke her shoulder bone last week and, being it was her right arm, she's a little handicapped at the moment. Thus, my father has taken the opportunity to demonstrate that he can cook. For several years now, my father has been an enthusiastic cook, provided he's in the mood. He does cook well, for the most part. He even enlisted me as his soux chef for one meal- roasted flounder in a lemon-lime white sauce with saffron rice and roasted red peppers. Sadly, it was not my favourite of my dad's meals. Sometimes, he tries a little too hard and in this case, it was a bit heavy on flavours that didn't mix. However, his roast beef that we had the next day more than made up for it. Now that is one fine meal.

In addition to my dad's cooking, I also got to spend time with my parent's at the movies. My parent's and I all had wanted to see "Sherlock Holmes" because it looked very funny from the previews and, for me, it had Robert Downey Jr. in it whom I have loved for many years. Unfortunately, after viewing the film, I have to confess, the previews were the best part of the movie. While Robert Downey Jr. was very good and Jude Law a pleasant sidekick as Dr. Watson, overall, the movie was just kind of...boring. There were too many fight scenes, too much action and not enough of the clever humour the previews had promised. I admit, I'm not a Guy Richie fan to begin with; I find his annoying quick-cut/fast-talking action scenes in his other movies like "RocknRolla" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" slightly tedious. I'd hoped with "Sherlock Holmes" he might have calmed down but, alas, there were quite a lot of explosions, quite a few fight scenes and not enough comedy between two fantastic literary characters. What humour there was was actually hard to detect as it was mumbled in that British way where if you don't strain to hear it, you miss it.

So, my first movie of 2010 was a bit disappointing especially as I'd wanted to see it quite badly. I'm not too worried though. I mean, my last movie of 2009, technically, was "Bruno" so anything would have been an improvement.

The entire year lies ahead. Part of me loves this new beginning, part of me is worried that things will change. I'm a creature of habit as I've demonstrated time and time again in my blog. I like things the way they are. However, there are things in life that need a change: Jobs, for example. I dislike my job and would like to find something that reminds me that it can be fun to earn a paycheck, even if I'm not necessarily changing the world.

I'm also planning on writing more, being more assertive in trying to get published and avoiding the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest like the plague. I was invited to enter. I knew I wouldn't yet I clicked on the site anyway. It was like Post Traumatic Writer's Disorder. Needless to say, the minute I saw the same awful clique hogging the forums and when I read the rules, I knew I couldn't do it. I actually want to get something published that people want to read. As far as I know, the ABNA past winners are more like folk heroes. I can't even find the first winner's book in a bookstore. I'm not saying it's not a valid contest but after my horrible experience last year that I blame for over six months of writer's block, I'm not going to do it again. I'd rather expend the energy editing and writing and enjoying myself, not obsessively reading forum posts to see if anybody has actually read my entry or if there's a problem with the contest...again.

No matter what happens, 2010 is a new year. Depending how we look at it, it's really just a date. However, it's also a representation, as every New Year is, of a place to begin anew and start over with the things in life we want to change. Yet, it's also a time to appreciate what we have. I may dislike my job, I may still be single and I may still be unpublished but perhaps, in the next 362 days, I can find a way to change that.

And, if not, I'll try again the next year.

Happy New Year and...happy Monday.

Sunny Days and Carrot Seeds

It's Friday. It's an unbelievably amazing spring day out there, already nearing seventy degrees. The sun is shining, the air smells heavenly...how can anyone possibly be in a bad mood?

I can't be. Not today. It's too nice out there. I slept really well. I have a cup of coffee. For now, all is right in the world, at least for the fifteen minutes I'm currently living. Baby steps, right?

I'm not going to vent anymore about my bad review. Just as always is the case, whenever I'm having a hard time with that, the people who care about me most came through, lending me their shoulders to cry on, the ears to yell into and their unwavering faith that someday, I'll show those idiots at Publishers Weekly that they were wrong. Also, they're all boycotting Amazon.com which is a rather sweet touch, I think. I know I'm considering doing all my shopping with Barnes and Noble and Borders. Same books, same prices...instant gratification because there is actually a store to browse...there's a lot to be said for that.

So, I'm going to start my weekend feeling upbeat. It's supposed to be fantastic weather all weekend which makes me happy because I can help work in my parent's garden. I'm also going to garage sales tomorrow with my sister. It's a city-wide garage sale day in my parent's hometown. My sister's a pro at those. I've never had much luck; I always feel a little weird perusing people's stuff. However, before I moved from L.A., my roommate and I had our own yard sale. It wasn't exactly a rip-roaring success but it did make me realize that people having yard/garage sales don't mind people pawing through their stuff...they just want them to buy things. So, I'm going to happily peruse. I'm hoping for some kitchen bargains. You never know. There are an awful lot of gifts out there that people don't know what to do with so I'm hoping to run into some hidden bargains. My sister and her husband are always finding things like garage door openers for $3 or kids clothes for fifty cents. It should be fun.

I went house hunting again last night. I think I found a place. It needs a little modernizing and personalizing and even some updating but, overall, it's a bargain and it has the loveliest yard. It's in a quiet neighbourhood that is walking distance from a big park. There are woods behind the house that I would be able to cut through to get to the park. I'm hoping to find out more about it but it was one of those finds that...just felt right.

So, again, I'm trying to emphasize the positive in my life and ignore the negative. I had my wallow. I had my vent. It's time to move on. I have a new idea for writing; I'm taking a temporary break from the novel on which I'm currently working. Until I can figure out what shape my ABNA book is really in since my feedback is so conflicting, I don't feel confident or even comfortable writing a new novel that features one of the same characters. He doesn't mind too much. He may even feature in the new idea I have which might be a lighter, sunnier effort than I usually write.

Regardless of what happens with that, the most important thing is that the ideas are still flowing through me, my characters still whisper in my ears. A bad review didn't stop any of that but, rather, had the opposite effect for which it was intended. It makes me WANT to write, to say "screw you!" to the the world of negativity from which reviews like mine arose.

My good friend and former roommate recently gave me a kids book called The Carrot Seed. It's about a little boy who plants a seed that everyone says will not grow. He watches it for a long time and nothing happens. Everyone tells him to give up. Then, one day, the carrot seed DOES grow because the little boy never gave up on it. She gave me the book to remind me that no matter how many people naysay my writing, one day, it WILL grow. I keep that book on my desk when I write. I read it the other night after I got my review. I love that book. I love my friend for giving me that book. It's a simple lesson but one that is important to remind ourselves during every step of life: Don't give up on something you believe in because, eventually, your faith and belief will pay off.

So, with that in my mind and the sunny weekend looming ahead, life feels good. I've now had a good half-an-hour of good, peaceful, sunny calm and I know that more is ahead. I hope it is for you too.

Happy Friday.

(Book) Parents DO Just Understand...

Sometimes, my blog sits before me like a blank canvas and I wonder whether I'll find something to write about. Eventually, I do. The one thing that's always been easy for me is words; I use a lot of them. This is probably why some of my novels are longer than the recommended length for submitting to an agent of publisher. I never have understood that, to be frankly honest. Yes, I know the time it takes to read a book should be taken into consideration but a true reader, one who enjoys a good book, doesn't look at the thickness of a hardback or paperback and say, "oh, no, too long!"

For me, as a reader, the thicker a book, the more potential it has. It's a bigger world for me to get lost in, an escape from reality that will suck me in and keep me there for longer. If you're like me, when you find a book you love, you never want it to end. You find yourself reading every word, savouring it like good food or fine wine, trying to talk yourself out of picking it up and reading it every time you have a few minutes because if you do, it means you'll be done more quickly. Then, when you get close to the end, you start to feel a strange sense of deflation and grief because you know the end is coming, whether you want it to or not.

Books like this are rare but they're out there. That's the way I felt when reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It's the way I felt when I read Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True or A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Neil Gaiman's American Gods was like that too. Stephen King and Peter Straub's Black House earned a 'book hug' for making me fall madly in love with Jack Sawyer and then breaking my heart a little at the end. I could go on and on. I love books and always have. That's probably why I want to write them.

I still do want to write them, even after the brutal review I wrote yesterday. I've had time to process it and even though I will forever dislike Publishers Weekly and I think Amazon.com should be put to task for allowing their contest to become such a psychological mindgame for their writers, like I said yesterday, I'm going to have to ignore it. If I don't, I'll second guess every word that I write from now on. I'll find myself going back to the other novels I've written and I'll worry that those, too, are worthy only of burning, the way the critic suggested of Sleep.

Truth be told, I know that when I get published, I will have to develop a thicker skin. I'm sure this won't be the last nasty review I receive. I think my only hope is that I am, at least, published and not a struggling writer who wants to hang onto ever piece of (constructive) criticism I receive. I hope that I at least have some positive reviews as well as negative to balance out the nastiness.

And my review was nasty. I think that was why I was so angry yesterday and why I'm still a little angry today. Whoever my reviewer was, I pity them. Clearly that person is so unhappy that he or she is thriving on the pitiful power that is given to them to take an author's prized work and offer their opinion. Whether or not they liked my genre, my writing or my story, they should at least take into consideration they were reviewing a work that was completed, that was the result of months of careful labour, a work that is so precious to an author, it is like a child.

I am not one of those gushing people who thinks all babies are beautiful. I've seen some ugly babies. Yet I've also seen that no matter how funny looking a kid is, their parents still love them a lot. If you're around that baby long enough, you realize it's not ugly at all, it's just not the same as all the other babies. Just because it doesn't look like something off a Gerber baby advertisement doesn't mean it's bad; it means that it's different.

I don't think my reviewer must like babies very much. If he or she did, they'd probably grasp the concept that behind every book that's in their hands, there's a writer who put it into the world. I wonder how many of the reviewers from Publishers Weekly who read our ABNA entries have actually written a book themselves. If they had, they probably would have a kindler, gentler approach to reading someone else's work. Though I have no kids, I imagine that when you're a parent, it makes you more aware of other people's children and makes you protective. I am an aunt and since becoming one, I've noticed that I am more aware of children around me. I find myself watching my language if I'm in public, I find myself worrying if I see them doing dangerous things. If I had my own kids, I think I'd be even worse.

And though I have no child of my own, my novels are my children. Creating them, shaping them, moulding them so they're ready to go into the world is hard work but when you feel like you've done as much as you can for them, you sit back, breathe a sigh and let them go. Then you hope they don't run into nasty people who kick them when they're just finding their way into the world. In this sense, I view my Publishers Weekly reviewer a little like a sociopath in society who steals from the poor; they put no thought into the fact that their victim is a human being and needs everything they have in their meager little living space, they can't be bothered to care and so they steal anyway.

My reviewer at PW have sent my 'child' home to me. It's come home as a shivering, quivering mess. It's so bruised and broken, I don't know what's wrong with it or if anything in it is worth keeping. I think once the injuries have healed, I'll be able to see what's happened. I don't think anything is ever so broken, it can't, at least, be fixed a little even if the damage is so bad, it'll never be stable without being rebuilt from the beginning. When the sting from all this has gone, I'm hoping to look at Sleep and help it become a better book. I'm a 'parent'. I owe that to my 'child'.

Though it may not have happened with Sleep, one day, I hope to write a book that people don't want to finish. I want to write a book that creeps under its readers' skins and becomes part of them. I want them to see my novel in a bookstore and want to buy another copy just because they're afraid something will happen to the one they currently own and cherish. I do that with books, I do that with CD's. I even do it with DVD's. Maybe I haven't written anything like that yet but I think I can and I hope I will.

Until then, I'll continue to create and form new books and hope, beyond hope, that in the future, the world is a little kinder to them.

Happy Wednesday.

The Brutal Nature of Reviews.

I'm not going to wax poetical about spring today. Truth be told, I'm not feeling very poetical. Mostly, I'm feeling slightly angry, horribly frustrated and rather sad.

The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest has reared its head again. As you probably remember, I made it through to the quarter-finals. I didn't make it to the semi-finals but I was ok with that. All quarter-finalists were promised a professional review of our entire manuscript by Publishers Weekly, regardless of whether we advanced in the contest or not. The 400 of us who didn't make it forward got our reviews last night, supposedly our 'consolation prize.'

I would like to say on record that if this is supposed to be a prize or a reward, I'd very much like to not make it to the quarter-finals next year, please.

When I say that, I can hear the imaginary voices of the thousands of other writers who didn't make it to the quarter-finals saying "INGRATE!" and "At least you got that far."

Except, to be frankly honest, I'm wondering how I got to the quarter-finals, based on my professional review.

I confess, I am a little sensitive to criticism and I know I need to thicken my skin to it. I still don't handle rejection as well as I like and the more specific it is, the harder I find it. No writer likes to have his or her work attacked, criticized and placed under a microscope. However, it is a part of writing. Criticism, when constructive, does make us better writers, even though it feels like a slap in the face when you first hear it.

So what, then, of non-constructive criticism? What, then, of criticism so brutal that it gives you no bright spot, nothing to cling to in order to say, 'at least they liked X in my book', whatever X might be?

That's my review from Publishers Weekly. They called my book "repetitive" and "plodding", my characters "one-note" and "dull". It was written as though it would be posted on Amazon.com for all to see. I really, really hope it never is. Thus, most of the review was a recap of my novel which meant they read it. Which meant they hated it. In the entire review, there was not a single positive word, not one.

Naturally, when I read it, I was devastated. As I mentioned in that last wallowing post I wrote a few months ago, aside from the pep squad of friends and family, I haven't had much affirmation from anyone that my writing is actually good, that I am good enough to become a published author. I shouldn't need that.

I do need that. I thought I had finally got some affirmation by advancing in the ABNA contest. Yet the readers who put me there read the first 20 or so pages of the work. Publishers Weekly read the whole thing. Aside from my lovely mother, I've let 3 people read the entire novel. Not one of them has given me any feedback, though I asked, which only leads me to believe that they didn't like it and can't bring themselves to tell me that. Yet, you know, I think I might even be ok with that as long as they could tell me why they didn't like it. It would give me something to fix instead of nothing.

With my Publishers Weekly review, I have nothing to work with aside from burning the entire thing and pretending it never existed. This poses a problem with the novel I'm currently working on because it features one of my "one-note" characters from my previous novel. Do I keep working on it? Is it worth writing?

I think the answer is yes. It's worth writing because I want to write it. Whether or not it turns into another "repetitive" and "plodding" novel, doesn't really matter. Not yet, anyway. Maybe this is a sign that I'm not supposed to be a writer. Maybe it's supposed to be a sign that I'm not. I think I'm going to do what I often unintentionally do with speed limit signs, I'm going to ignore it. If I don't, I'll sit here and doubt myself, doubt my writing and wonder if my writing will ever go anywhere.

Instead, I'm going to remember what I said last week, it's about the roadtrip, not the destination. I just hit a massive bump in my road, a dead-end in which I'm going to have to go around. I've done that on real roadtrips and sometimes that dead-end leads to a detour that adds a couple of hours onto the trip which is frustrating and makes you want to turn around and go home. Yet, on those detours, you do get to see things you wouldn't have seen otherwise, landmarks, nature, interesting-looking people.

I wallowed last night when I read my review. A lot. Then I talked to a couple of members of my 'pep squad' who, as always, came through for me. My parents are wonderful because they believe in me, no matter what. They pooh-poohed the review and said in their British accents that it was "rubbish" and that I shouldn't listen to it. My friend who was smart enough to realize I was having a meltdown on my Blackberry Instant Messenger when I told her my news called me and, in her normal frank and wonderful style, that any review that has absolutely no constructive criticism cannot be taken seriously. She reminded me that even when I'm ranting about, say, Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown, I do, at least, recognize that it's just my opinion and I usually do say positive things too. I might not like the Twilight series and think much to Ms. Meyer's writing but I do recognize that there is an audience out there for it and I give her kudos for writing something that reaches them so deeply.

When I do reviews for others, be it stories, books, screenplays or even web-sites, I always start with a positive. Even if I hate the thing I'm reviewing, nothing is ever so bad that good things can't be found in it. With Stephanie Meyer and Dan Brown, there are enough people out there to disagree with me that I don't feel quite so inclined to do that but I do try to make that the exception, not the rule.

I know our reviews were supposed to simulate the review we would get on our novel if it was published. However, my sensitive soul wants to know why Amazon.com and Publishers Weekly couldn't be...a little gentler, why they couldn't take into consideration that even if we've been writing for years, we're all mostly still newbies who are trying to get published and thus...be a little more helpful and a little less cruel.

I don't know if I'll be entering ABNA again next year. What positivity I felt by getting to the Top 500 is now threatened to be quashed by the fact that my book, apparently sucked. It's too uneven; even the Top 100 semi-finalists didn't get very nice reviews leading us all to wonder, exactly, how bad the other 400 reviews for of us who didn't advance would be.

Now I know. I was upset last night. This morning, I'm better. I'm angry that this is my 'prize' for doing so well in a contest. To me, it feels like I was made to feel comfortable, felt good about my writing and then BAM! someone comes and hits me with a two-by-four and say, 'by the way, you're NOT a good writer and your book blows.'

Thanks for that, Amazon. Thanks for that, Publishers Weekly. Right now, I hate you both. I'll get over that. The anger feels way better than the depression that threatened to loom last night. Shockingly, although if I think about it too much, the pangs of feeling sorry for myself begin, I'm feeling much better this morning. I even forgot about it long enough on my commute to work that I began to think about tonight's dinner.

I recently watched a movie called "Happy-Go-Lucky" about a lovely woman named Poppy who is always cheerful and always sees the bright side of life. I loved her. No matter what happened, she took it in stride, accepted it and moved on. Poppy came into my mind this morning on my commute. In the film, Poppy has to take driving lessons from a man who is her polar opposite, he hates life and is miserable. His way of making her remember to check her three mirrors is to constantly say 'En-Ra-ha", the names of fallen angels. I got stuck behind a student driver this morning and found myself chanting, "En-RA-HA!, EN-RA-HA!" It made me laugh, a lot and I realized when I was laughing that there are few shadows in life that can't be chased away by a good laugh. I want to be more like Poppy and so today, I will.

Shut up, Publishers Weekly. I'm sure you've said many bad things to a lot of good writers. I hope that you enjoy the view from your Ivory Tower because one day, I'm coming up there and I'm going to throw you out the window.

Ok, so the positivity probably should be a little less...violent, huh? I'll work on that.

Sorry, it's such a long blog today. Thanks for reading as I work through my psychological issues.

Happy Wednesday.

The Roadtrip of Writing...

Rather than dwell on my lack of advancement in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, I've decided to ignore it completely for now. I won't lie and say the disappointment has already vanished because that would be a lie. I won't say that every now and again, I don't have the urge to check the postings on the site to make sure I wasn't one of the winners. I'm not going to make up excuses or be bitter. I venture to guess that a large percentage of the semi-finalists have also had their share of rejections and disappointment and they are finally getting a chance to be read.

So, I'm deciding to embrace that which I do have in my life rather than what I don't have. For example, today is looking to be a beautiful day. The sun is finally shining, the trees along the roads that line my route to work have exploded into white cotton-ball-like blossoms with a few hardy pink magnolias thrown in. The tulips have budded, ready to show their blooms and the daffodils and forsythia each throw their indulgent yellow tones out into a world that has seemingly turned back to green overnight.

I woke up to the sound of Green Day on my alarm clock. For anyone who knows me, Green Day is my absolute favourite band in the entire world. I haven't gushed about how excited I am that less than a month from now, on May 15th, their new album "21st Century Breakdown" will be released. Consider me gushing now. Today, their first single from the album, "Know your Enemy", is going to be released on iTunes. As of half an hour ago, it wasn't there yet. I know because I already tried to download it. I'll be patient and get it tonight. I'm excited. Their last album, "American Idiot," is my all-time favourite rock album. It inspired me to write an entire novel. Even if their follow-up only has a couple of good songs (which I doubt), I wait with excited anticipation. Any day, like today, that starts with Green Day has to be good. It's a law. In my head.

I'm also grateful for Facebook. Through this site, I have had the chance to reconnect to friends that I haven't talked to in years but wondered where life has taken them. I'm in touch with some of my family in the UK. Through simple things as "Status Updates" and "Five Favourite Things", I can learn about them, see what they're up to. It's a powerful thing. Yesterday, when I was so deflated about the Amazon contest, my friends rallied in support, posting lovely positive praise about my writing and letting me know that this isn't the end, but the beginning. Sometimes you just need to hear things like that. Yesterday, I did.

My family is the same. They seem to believe in me, no matter how often I feel like I'm losing my way. My mother, especially. It's nice to feel appreciated. I know, as a writer, you're not supposed to use your mother as your 'Ideal Reader' (to poach a term from Stephen King). However, my mother is a reader. She's an extremely discriminating one. She is the one I can count on to tell me if a book I'm thinking about reading is worth the time. This is why occasionally I'll give her a stack of my unread books and tell her to let me know if they're worth my time. I'm lazy. She doesn't mind. It works out well. This is why I always let her read my stories and novels first. She is positive but she will tell me what's wrong with my story, whether the ending is too treacly, whether she doesn't like a character. It's a useful thing and it keeps me going.

I also found out I can now buy a house. That's a terrifying thing. I've been approved for a mortgage. Technically, the shopping can begin. I've never house-shopped before. I don't really know what to look for. I'm a bit afraid I'll find a place with a darling fireplace, a lovely garden and I'll forget that working plumbing, unexposed wires and solid walls are usually a must for a habitable environment these days. Still, it's an exciting prospect. It also means I'm really turning into a grown-up. That's a terrifying thought but it had to happen sometime.

So, though I'm still feeling the lapping of disappointment whenever I sit back and forget to block it out, it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of my writing. My characters are still in my head, waiting for their stories to be told. I still feel the tug of excitement as I realize my current novel is going in a completely different direction to what I originally planned. Though I did ask Gaz, my main character, if he'd have any objection to being turned into a vampire and/or being written for young adults. That's the target market these days, it seems, for fantasy.

Gaz said no. He wasn't very nice about it. Which, actually, given the fact that he's not particularly nice anyway, wasn't a surprise. I think I'll stick to keeping him who he is. Characters are far more interesting when you let them tell you who they are, when you don't try to make them into a cookie-cutter hero or a typical villain. I'll let him tell me his story though I might have to censor him a bit. He has a foul mouth that one. Throw in an East London accent and you have a very interesting man although he's made me promise I won't picture the Geico Gekko when he's talking. It's hard not to though. I love that lizard.

So, on this lovely spring morning, I'm accentuating the positive and ignoring the negative. It's getting easier already. Maybe it's the sunshine, maybe it's the fact that Green Day are back with fresh material, maybe it's the fact that I've realized, once again, having good family and friends in my life can make up for a lot of things I don't have. Whatever it is, I'm looking forward, not back. Like a smart friend said yesterday, roadtrips are often more fun than the actual destination. My writing is my journey, success is the destination. If I get there too quickly, I won't have time to wind down the windows, turn up the music and eat too much junk food. Road trips are the best things, especially when you have good company. I'm lucky in that regard; my friends and my family are always there, supporting me, entertaining me and reminding me to look out the windows and enjoy the view. Even when it's raining, it's still a good ride.

Happy Thursday.

Stepping off the Ladder

Since I've talked so much about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award already, it seems fitting to live blog about the fact that I just discovered I did not make the semi-finals.

I'm disappointed. That's the truth.

I'm trying to see the positive. I made it to the Top 500. I'm going to get a review from Publisher's Weekly to find out what was wrong with my novel that I didn't move on.

That's also a negative. It means I have to face the truth that I am not yet a Great Writer and that I did something wrong.

I did get further than ever before and so I'm going to try to push onward and not look at existing novels and my current project as unpublishable but, rather, as something that can be finely tuned so I can make it the best I can do. I'm also bound and determined not to be bitter about the entries that did make it. I already mentioned that next year, I hope Amazon makes a rule that finalists who make it to the top three not be allowed to enter the same work the following year. That's a space in the contest for someone who has never had the chance to get a little bit of hope, even if they just make it to the Top 500, like I did.

That's all I'll say about that. It's my one bit of creeping bitterness that someone who had a shot is getting the exact same chance again even though it obviously wasn't fruitful last time. I don't blame Amazon, I actually blame the author for not having the grace to step aside. Yet, I wonder, would I do it? It's hard to say. I'm not in the position so maybe it's easy to say...harder to do.

Otherwise, I'm going to try to be a noble loser. I'll stop whining and try to keep writing without thinking, "I'm not good enough." I got to stand on the ladder for a month, look up at the open skies of success and have the possibility and hope lay before me that perhaps this was finally it, I could finally stop beating my head against a wall and I could have my shot.

I'm stepping off the ladder. For now. I'll be back. Thank you, everyone, for your kind words of support, consolation and friendship. You make me feel like a champion even if I'm not holding the prize.

Thanks for reading.

Passing "The Toast Test"....

It's a sunny Wednesday today; still cold, but sunny. For some reason, I'm feeling nice and positive today. I think it's because I had fun writing last night. That's always good for an energy boost. I'm hoping it lasts through the workday. There's nothing better than having a day at work where I don't want to hurl something at my computer screen or, occasionally, at a coworker.

I have exactly one week before I'm supposed to find out if I'm eliminated from the Amazon contest or I move on. The forums have been reduced to bickering and petitions about buttons- there are 'do you think this comment adds to the discussion- yes or no' buttons on each posting- and apparently some people have been saying 'no' and causing trouble with their negativity. The clique is back in full swing because the reviews that we all got were posted and there's an awful lot of sour grapes and bitterness going around. I'm sure that some of the review were a little harsh and probably inaccurate but having been booted out in the first round last year, there comes a point when moving on is wise. I hate criticism, I hate reading bad stuff about my novels but...one thing I've learned....listening is wise, even when it stings. I know it's easier to say since I did make the quarterfinals but I'm considering it my "get 50 rejections, get 1 piece of hope free" bonus.

So, needless to say, I finding other ways to entertain myself on the internet. Believe it or not, I get a lot of work done in the day but I have learned that since my job is working with computer software, documentation and testing, I cannot do it solidly all day without taking quick breaks. My concentration wavers after a while and so a quick surf of Facebook or Entertainment Weekly online puts me to rights and working is easy again. Or easier, at least.

Yesterday, my surfing 'break' was spent trying to find a recipe for dinner. I'm not much of a cook, and my dabbles in the kitchen, while sometimes succesful, often result in disasters. Yet sometimes, I get the urge. I've learned that I should stick to what I know and what I feel comfortable with. My favourite thing to cook is vegetable dishes. This is probably why I like making soup; I love veggies and soups allow me to feel like a cook without too many scary incidents. Last night, I decided to venture out. I had a ton of fresh vegetables in my fridge. I'm very susceptible to produce departments and farmer's markets. I can go into a store or market with the intention of buying some bananas and a loaf of bread and emerge with a cart full of fruits and vegetables. This happened this weekend because I went to Jungle Jim's again.

I knew in my fridge, I had asparagus, green pepper, tomatoes and other assorted goodies. So I thought I'd try something pasta-related. I looked for a recipe but didn't find anything that appealed. I found a couple of ones that made me realize that if I used the chicken stock I had left over from making soup this weekend, I could make something interesting. So I did what any occasionally-terrible-cook shouldn't do...I made something up.

Surprisingly enough, I accidentally made something edible, healthy and...tasty. I'm on a healthy kick because I'm trying to lose my winter weight. I ended up simmering asparagus, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions and garlic in chicken broth and white wine, grilling a chicken breast and putting that in just before the vegetables soften and tossing it with pasta. When everything was simmering, I tasted it and it was a wee bit bland so I though, "hmmm...wonder what would happen if I added a little fat-free cream cheese." I am a genius!

Well, not a genius, just lucky because the cream cheese didn't ruin the recipe, it just added the right amount of creaminess and flavour that the recipe needed. I like to toss in stuff from my spice rack so I chucked in a little bit of dill and oregano. I ended up enjoying a rather large bowl of pasta in front of the television with "MI-5" and the lovely, if slightly traumatized, Adam Carter. In case you hadn't figured it out, I'm slightly in shock that I cooked without a) setting a tea-towel on fire as often happens b) didn't accidentally turn the colander into which I drained my pasta upside down and accidentally lose my spaghetti down the sink (as has happened more times than I'd like to share) and, c) I actually ate the food I made and didn't have the thought that ordering a pizza would have been tastier and easier. I usually test my culinary efforts against what I like to refer to "The Toast Test".

I love toast. I've mentioned that many times in my blog, I'm sure. It's the perfect food. I like to put things on my toast like Marmite, baked beans, spaghetti o's, scrambled eggs, cheese...you get the idea. So, when I cook something that could be considered more culinary than, say, heating up a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli and putting it on toast, it's exciting. Thus, I created the toast test. If my recipe/cooking makes me wish I'd made toast for dinner instead, it fails. When I make soup, sometimes I make toast to go with it. If one of my soup recipes only tastes nice because I get to eat toast with it, it fails The Toast Test. If I'd rather make plain old toast and eat it with marmite than eat another bite of my recipe, it fails.

Last night, I can safely safely say I didn't want toast for dinner. I wanted my pasta. Needless to say, I was so excited I wrote the recipe down so that I could try it again. This is not to say I'm bragging about my culinary skills because, well, trust me, I'm not. If you want a real cook, you should look at the blog for Rad Linc Crafts: now that's cooking. I dabble. I try not to set things on fire. I try to make something edible. These are not lofty goals. So, when I make something that is not only edible but tasty, I consider that a victory. Score one for Captain Monkeypants.

I followed up my cooking with some quality writing time. I started a new novel with an existing character from another novel. I'm writing about his childhood at the moment. When I went back and reread what I'd written last night, I had one of those amazing, unreplicatable bursts of elation that only writing can bring me when I realized that I could hear the adult voice of my character in his words as an eight-year-old and I hadn't even planned it. That's the moment when I realize that I'm not just 'creating' a character but, rather, the character has found me and from then onwards, even if our relationship isn't always harmonious, a novel will come of it. It's one of the best feelings in the world, trust me.

So, I start this Wednesday in a great mood, a feeling of content that even a day full of software testing of a very buggy program can't take away. I hope your day starts just as well.

Happy Wednesday.

Two weeks to go...

It's very nearly the end of the week already. It's been a fast week, it seems. I'm still trying to get a grip on this Ohio weather; one minute, it's 75 degrees out there, the next, it's 38 degrees and I'm shivering. It snowed on Sunday, actually; it was only a brief flurry but it was still bizarre to see it falling on the daffodils and hyacinths. It's such a contrast, the sunny warm flowers and the icy cold precipitation. Naturally, it's a contrast I love.

Aside from the weird weather, it's been an odd week. I've still been going onto the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award message boards just to see if there is any news or interesting posts. At the moment, the conversation is all a little blah. It's still an amazing feeling to be in the quarterfinals; I've been getting some awesome reviews on my excerpt. I have a few from friends and family but there's also some rather generous reviews from complete strangers. When I see that I have another review, my heart always skips a beat as I wonder if it'll be a good one. So far...it's all good. It's a little alarming and yet also feels amazing.

This round in the contest is suppose to be about the reviewers from Publishers' Weekly reading our entire manuscript. That alone gives me a teeny bit of confidence because while the beginning of my novel, the excerpt that is posted, is a good beginning, the action and story takes place right after that introduction. One reviewer said that they felt like I didn't show enough of how my main character was reacting to what was happening to him....the hard part about that is that while it's constructive criticism, that reviewer really needed to read the book to figure out why, exactly, I couldn't let the reader see things from his point of view. He's an interesting character, that's all I'd say and he's not actually what he seems. That becomes clear as the book goes on....I hope.

So, it's a pleasure to read those comments and the feedback people have been kind enough to leave. It's helping me as a writer because I'm getting perspective on how people are reading what I've posted, what they're seeing as opposed to what I see.

I've even done a little reviewing on my own of some of my competition. I'm trying to read excerpts that don't seem to be receiving a lot of attention. As it was before the last round of eliminations, the forums have become something of a popularity contest again. While most of the 'clique' that I blogged about before have cut back on their postings if they even post at all, there's a new inner circle, all pimping their works, trying to get reviews. Some of the excerpts have up to 40 reviews. Mine has nine. Considering, at this point, the reviews are supposed to be for feedback only and votes won't count until the final round, I think that's a respectable amount. I thought I'd be lucky to get one review, to be honest. I'm happy with my nine. I'm really hoping that the rules are true, that Publishers Weekly is judging the works on their own merit, not on who is the best salesperson because some of those folks out there...they can SELL!

(As I side note, as I've read and been told before, I know that at some point, all writers have to be salesmen for their own work. I know marketing is as important as getting published these days. However, at this stage, in the contest, I'm still suffering the delusion that it's still about the writing. If it is a delusion, it's a delusion that helps me get through the day.)

As I've said, some of the excerpts I've read, I've greatly enjoyed. There are some really talented writers in the competition and reading their works is a bit daunting. Stiff competition, it's definitely out there.

I confess, I've checked out a couple of the excerpts with a high-volume of reviews and, well, I didn't leave a review on either. There's a reason for this; a couple of weeks ago, there was a discussion about why you shouldn't leave a 'bitter' review. Several people who were eliminated in the last round were accused of leaving negative reviews because they were bitter. Eventually, this turned into a discussion of whether it was better to leave constructive criticism or none at all. I don't know what the verdict was but I know I slunk away from the forum with the distinct impression that no one was going to say anything really negative because they were likely to be flogged in the forums for it. So rather than leaving a negative review on the popular excerpts, I left nothing. It's not that the popular excerpts are bad per se...they're just...average. Yet they have so many glowing reviews that I started to feel like perhaps I just wasn't getting it and that maybe I was already biased because of their forum postings. Thus, it wasn't right to leave a review that was likely to paint me as 'bitter'.

And I'm not bitter. I'm ecstatic to be included in this round of quarterfinalists. I'm revelling in the 'anniversary' of my notification every Tuesday with a glass of wine or, if I have it, even inexpensive champange. It's my way of toasting my success and reminding myself how blessed and lucky I am to have made it this far. I lurk in the forums but I don't post; I just like to keep up, make sure I'm not missing anything. We have two weeks left before the next round of cuts. I won't lie and say that I don't care if I make it. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be writing posts on my experience in the contest.

I do care. I've made it this far; to keep going...that would be unbelievable. Yet, I'm working myself up, conditioning myself to know that the chances are stronger that I won't make it and, if I don't, I will not wallow. I will not dwell. I got further than ever before and once you get to stand on a ladder, getting back off, even when you're only standing on the bottom rung, seems a little more difficult than before when you've had a brief, shiny look at the sky above

So thanks to anyone reading this if you did review my excerpt...this is not a blog to say "Thanks but it means nothing," it's a blog to say it does mean something...to me. It means that people took the time to read my work, give me feedback and note that they believe in me as a writer. If that's all I get out of being in the quarterfinals...then that is something to which it's worth toasting with a glass of wine.

It's always nice to have an excuse to drink, anyway.

Happy Thursday!

Random Musings on a Friday

I've said it before and I'm saying it again: I'm glad it's Friday. As I said yesterday, the week has gone quickly but I'm so very ready for a weekend.

I still don't seem to be able to sleep. I'm not sure why. I wake up every night at approximately 2:38 a.m. and cannot get back to sleep. I think I might have read Stephen King's Insomnia one too many times because I thought about looking out the window to see if there were men creeping around with scissors outside. If you haven't read the book, you probably won't get that but it actually is a very good book, one of my favourite Stephen King novels, as a matter of fact.

It's been an odd week. I've been trying to wean myself away from the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award message boards. There's an issue that is infuriating me and I'm trying to distance myself from it. I won't go into details other than to say that I hope next year, I hope Amazon implements a rule that if you make the top three finalists in the entire competion, you should not be allowed to enter the same novel again, no matter how much it's been edited. That is all I will say on the subject since I am fortunate and blessed enough to have been selected as a quarterfinalist and, having read some of my competition, I know that I would be extremely lucky to move onto the next round. There are way too many good writers out there. It's a good thing as a reader but as a writer, it's a tad intimidating.

As for the rest of the week being odd, I've newly discovered one slight disadvantage in moving back to the midwest: Allergies. I never had hayfever as a child and in the years before I left Indiana for Los Angeles, I had the sniffles a lot during the summer and would occasionally sneeze a lot if I spent too much time outside or around flowers. It was nothing that some Claritin wouldn't fix. During my years in L.A., the same thing happened, sniffles, sneezes but nothing too severe. Now I'm back, I've discovered that as much as I love springtime, it's not loving me too much. My sinuses seem to disagree with tree pollen and the Claritin isn't doing as well as usual. I'm hoping it's temporary and that as Spring progresses, my allergies will subside. Probably wishful thinking but I'm not going to let it interfere with my enjoyment of the flowers and trees. Now that it's not likely to snow much, I have to find something to wax poetical about, don't I?

Then there's my new neighbour who lives above me. She's very nice. She also happens to be the CEO of our new company. I have to confess...it's a little intimidating. Now I have to think about what I'm doing because we have thin walls and ceilings. Not that I'm doing anything incriminating but I do have rather a tendency to talk to myself and my characters. Occasionally, I forget that my windows are open or that I'm standing on the balcony outside. I also occasionally do have a one-person-flailing-dance party in which I burn off excess energy by having a dance. That's fun. I usually end up losing my balance. Inevitably, it involves thuds.

I probably don't really need to worry about it. It's just one of those factors I have to take into consideration. When you have anonymous neighbours, it's easier to not worry. When you actually know a neighbour, it's a little different. I don't even see her that often, only when she's walking her dog.

Speaking of walking (and in the most random transition manner), I saw a girl walking today in flip-flops. Now, I love flip-flops. They're comfy...in the summer. It was 36 degrees outside this morning, my car said so. I couldn't help but wonder what on earth made her think flip-flops were a practical foot choice. If she were dressed to match, I suppose vanity would have played a part but she sort of looked like she had bundled up to stay warm which is why I'm baffled by her choice of footware. However, I digress....

...I seem to digress a lot, particularly on Fridays. Thus, I apologize for being somewhat random today. As always, I thank you for staying with me and reading my blog.

Have a great weekend.

Friday Musings....

It's a Friday morning and I'm very glad for that. It's been a good week but I'm ready for a weekend now. I could use a little sleeping in and relaxing. Weekends are good for that.

As far as an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest update goes, I'm not going to plug my excerpt again. You can find it if you follow my blog. I've still been checking out the forums because it's nice to keep in contact with the other writers. Now, as a rule, writers are a competitive bunch. Being rejected stinks. Yet now, because of an error on Amazon's part, the 'clique' and all of its cronies are now ruling the contest 'a farce'. They're slamming many of the entries that made the quarterfinals, naturally stating that theirs were better. Perhaps they were, in which case I'm sorry for those that didn't make it. But here's the thing: Those of us that did make it may feel like we deserved it. I've worked so hard to try and get somewhere with my writing and, finally, I have. It may not be a major accomplishment in the grand scheme of things but, for me, it is. It's a validation for me, it's a reward for the several years of fighting an uphill battle to get my name out there. So, again, while I'm sorry that those forum-posters are so bitter and truly feel like their works, collected, are far superior to many of those that made it through to the next round, have a little compassion, please.

I know it's easier to see things through rose-coloured glasses when you're on the winning side of the street but it really is the first time I've stood there; I know the bitterness that comes with rejection but, more than anything, I think it's doing little but making those naysayers look petty and sour-grapey.

I could go on but I won't. I'm staying away from the forums for a while until the wrath has died down again. Those people are mean. I'm not going to plug my work on those forums at the moment because I know whatever reviews I got would be jaded and shaded with a side of bitterness. Last year, I thought about reviewing some excerpts but I knew, as soon as I downloaded the first one, that it would be a bad idea. My own rejection from ABNA 2008 was still too fresh and I couldn't have written a fair review.

I'm going wine tasting with a friend this weekend. It's at Jungle Jim's, that lovely big grocery store that goes on for acres and has its very own 'Sherwood Forest' full of good British food. I usually go armed with at least one shopping list from my family, most likely two. Add that to my own purchases and I never leave the store without spending a small fortune. Yet, it's such a lovely, comforting feeling to go into my pantry and see all those British products there. It gives me a tiny piece of home when I look at it and, even more, when I eat it. Heinz beans on toast, Marmite on toast, packets of Walker's Smoky Bacon Crisps, Branston Pickle, Strongbow cider....the possibilities are endless.

For the rest of my weekend, I'm going to write. That new novel is burning its way into my mind and giving me happy butterflies when I think about it. That's always a good sign that it's meant to be; it means I have a character just waiting to have his say and tell me his story. I know most of it but it'll be interesting to hear his point of view.

The weather is supposed to be nice again this weekend. I'm hoping to see some daffodils start to bloom in people's gardens. I caught sight of a crocus or two last week and even a hyacinth. Yet the daffodils seem to be biding their time. Hopefully this weekend, since Spring will officially be here. I can't wait.

Happy Friday.

Shadows of Greatness

I'm very glad it's Thursday today. This is mostly because it's closer to Saturday and the thought of sleeping in is positively delicious in its temptation. I really haven't been sleeping well; my mind is either racing, my neighbours are being noisy or I just can't get comfortable. I go through periods like that. Of course, they give me some really odd dreams but they're often quite helpful in my writing. It'll most likely be followed up by a period of intense sleeping where it takes me less than 60 seconds to fall asleep and I don't stir until morning.

It rained last night. It was the kind of rain that comes on suddenly; one minute it's a sunny day and the next minute it is bucketing down. I left my window open and listened to it as I read in bed. I'm reading The Hound of the Baskervilles at the moment. I've never read a Sherlock Holmes novel before. I'm enjoying it. I love the foggy London settings that jump to the moors of England and back to London again. Holmes himself is quite interesting. He's so smart but he's a little arrogant. I'm already feeling bad for Dr. Watson who'd do anything for Holmes, admires him so much but is treated rather like a useful child by the literary hero. It had to have been hard to live in the shadow of greatness like that.

That seems to be a theme at the moment, or at least one that I'm noticing. Last week, on Grey's Anatomy, we discovered there was actually another neurosurgeon at Seattle Grace, one who's lived in the shadow of Derek Shepard (aka: Dr. McDreamy played by Patrick Dempsey). No one knew he was there, they even called him "Shadow Shepard". I felt so bad for this character, whose name was Jim but everyone thought it was John. He was probably a good doctor, not a legend like McDreamy but good enough to get himself hired at Seattle Grace and stay there for years. Yet he fell into the shadows because Derek Shepard waltzed in and became the hero. Now that Derek Shepard is going through his own dark period, Jim is finally able to step out from behind the shadows but it seems to be too late; he's really become a shadow.

I used to worry about that when I was younger. I always had friends who seemed to shine brighter than me, whether they got more attention from boys because they were prettier, whether they were just much smarter than me and knew how to get attention because of it, or because they were better writers. I used to worry about that a lot. My two high school best friends were both writers, one very crisp, clean and knowing precisely which words to choose to make a point, the other a poet/creative writer. At the time, I didn't know that I wanted to write. I just did it. Yet somehow, I always seemed to fall back into the shadows of those two. I could never figure out how to make myself stand out.

As I grew older, I realized that high school didn't mean that much, it was just a foundation for building who you'd become as an adult. I realized that those shadows had only been there in my imagination. I think the torture of being a high school student is that you don't have enough experience at being a person to know who you are yet. You can fool yourself, you can be on the verge of knowing but it takes a few more years before you've lived enough to really start becoming the person you're meant to be. I'm still close to both of those high school friends; they've become amazing people. I could choose to live in their shadows, even now. Yet what would be the point? We're seperate people; there's enough light for all of us.

That's what I like about being an adult. I think you do get a little wiser with age. You can look back with perspective. When you're living through high school, there isn't as much perspective. It's hard to see it because everything is so raw, everything is about you, even when it isn't. I used to think that everyone thought I was weird; I had no self-confidence. Now, many of those people I thought hated me are friends on Facebook and I've realized that they, too, probably had just as much as a struggle with their identity when we were at school. Nowadays, we pretty much know who we are and it's fun to learn about people all over again.

Nowadays, I think there are still shadows that fall on us; for me, they're ones I make myself. They're the ones that I let creep up because life isn't going the way I want it to, the way I expect. They always vanish eventually, sometimes for a long time, sometimes for short spells. Yet instead of hiding from them and being afraid of them, I have learned that sometimes those shadows are necessary; being in the light all the time is bad for us. I'd like to think that's why Holmes keeps Watson around, because he occasionally needs a little shelter and time to collect himself. It has to be hard being Sherlock Holmes sometimes. Yet I still can't help but feel a little sorry for Dr. Watson. I plan on reading more so I'm sure I'll find out.

Happy Thursday

ps. For those of you that have asked how they can review my book on the Amazon site (and for those of you that might want to), I did a little investigation. If you follow this link, you'll be led to my entry. At the top, you'll see some small text asking you to write a customer review. If you'd be so kind, I'd really appreciate it. I'm feeling a little lonely, not having any reviews next to my entry.

Springtime Signs of Renewal

It's a springlike morning again today. It was a wee bit chilly as I went out to my car but at least today, the condensation wasn't frozen as it was yesterday. It's been getting up into the 70's over the past couple of days. I went walking over lunch and it seems to be a fact that Spring has arrived early. While I'll miss my hot-chocolatey, snow-covered days, I like the fact that I can open my patio doors and let the breeze come in to freshen up my living room. The grass is almost completely green again. It's such a contrast to a few weeks ago.

And, of course, it helps that I'm in a fantastic mood. I'm actually flooded with a ideas for new stuff to write at the moment which is something that hasn't happened in a while. I have a new novel teasing me in the back of my mind. I'm trying to decide if I want to make it the story of one of the anti-heroes, Gaz, from my latest novel Sleep (concidentally, the one that's a quarterfinalist in the ABNA contest and, seriously, I would love your reviews if you have time). It's a story that would work great for this character; it actually is eerily fitting him but to write it would mean that I'd have to redefine our world a little for him; do I make it a world where the impossible is real or do I let him live in a normal world and create that world for a completely new character? It's a good question and I've asked him to help me figure it out and while sometimes he doesn't stop babbling in my head, it's never when I want him to talk. He's always a little contrary, that one. He's fiercely loyal to the people he cares about and hates everyone else. He cares about maybe 3 people in the world. If I hadn't already written about literary schitzophrenia, I'm sure that would sound a little batty. However, I can't help it. It just happens.

I always get a little giddy around the start of Spring; it's always been my most fruitful writing time. When I look back, I think, honestly, most of my novels have started in late winter/early spring and been finished in the autumn. I never thought about it before but usually I'm at the rereading/editing stage when Daylight Savings Time ends.

Which means, being that it's spring, it's right to look at starting something new. It is, after all, a time of renewal of life, hope and nature and, for those of us who do so, writing. This weekend, I plan on cleaning thorougly; the problem with the new, longer days and brighter sunshine is that dust and smudges are a little more visible and you realize that there's probably a reason people do actually spring clean.

I love the change in seasons; everything always seems so fresh even though sometimes the transition is so subtle. The grass has slowly greened up and is now starting to show it's spring colours; thes snowdrops are already blooming, the daffodils, hyancinths and crocuses have pushed up and are getting ready to introduce us to the new season. For my part, I feel as though the writer part of me that has been hibernating, been hiding from starting something new, is ready to start again. I think maybe I need those darker periods in my life to let my writing lie dormant for a while, to allow myself to recharge. If I could just learn to accept that there are ebbs and flows of writing without trying to push myself all the time, I think it would be easier. I think part of me is afraid that, like with exercise, if I stop, I won't start up again. But I don't think that's likely. Exercise is a necessary evil if I want to feel better about myself; writing is just necessary in order for me to be...me.

I'm looking forward to starting something new, to writing with the breeze blowing into my room, the smell of the springtime in the air. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Happy Wednesday.

So...I got this Email....

So. I have this Blackberry phone that I got last week after leaving my nice LG Chocolate phone on a Delta aeroplane. I'm an audio person. I like to have my phone make different noises when I get messages and phone calls. I have this little 'chirp' that it does when someone Instant Messages me. At 3:02 a.m. I heard that chirp. I'm a light sleeper, it woke me up.

I do have a point. Bear with me.

I had gone to bed fairly early. I haven't been sleeping well and I was tired. I had spent the evening watching House and 24 and resolutely tried not to be glued to my email and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award message boards. You see, yesterday was the date they were notifying the quarterfinalists. I had made a vow that I would be ok with the outcome because just the fact I had enough novels finished and edited that I could choose which one to submit was an accomplishment. I felt pretty good.

By the time I went to bed at 11 p.m. EST, ABNA administration had still not notified us. I decided that I'd wait until the morning. Then, at 3:02 a.m., I woke up to check because of my Blackberry chirping. It turned out that it was a spammer. At least I think it was; I didn't recognize the weird number attached to the request and anyone who knows me should know that at 3:02 a.m. I'm not really in the mood to chat on my Blackberry because, you know, I'm sleeping. It's quite a common thing to do at that time of night, believe it or not.

However, while I was groggily looking at my Blackberry, I decided to check my email. I had an email from ABNA. I skimmed it, thinking it was a rejection. Then after I'd closed it, it occurred to me that the word "happy' had been used. I was pretty certain that the ABNA administration wasn't sadistic enough to say they were happy to reject me so I read it again. Yes, ABNA administration is pleased to inform me I MADE THE TOP 500 quarterfinalists! Even if the 10,000 entry limit hadn't been reached, I had managed to get through on my pitch and then, when given to reviewers to read, they liked it. They even compared me to Neil Gaiman. If you read my blog regularly, you'll know I love Neil Gaiman's writing. He's my favourite writer aside from J.K. Rowling.

Needless to say, at the moment, I'm on cloud 9. I didn't expect this. My optimist glass is worn a little thin these days and I find myself relying on the pessimist glass instead. I think this means I get to throw that one away for a while and get a new half-full one. I actually submitted under a pseudonym as an experiment. I'm going by Sam Hoffmann, and my book is a fantasy entitled "Sleep". It's open to customer reviews so if you get a chance, pop on and read my excerpt. You can view it here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3CFS .

I don't think I have to tell you I'm in shock. I am. I'm also ridiculously happy. I am sad for those that didn't make the cut though; from what I read, there was some tremendous competition and I'm honestly flattered and honoured that my entry was selected. I'm sure there were some great entries that slipped through the cracks. I was one of those last year and I know that feeling of deflated disappointment. I refuse to be superior and say I'm better. I'm not. More than anything, I feel like I won a raffle; my number was picked and I won a prize. I think good writing is involved but one thing I've learned since I started seriously writing and trying to get published is that I'm one of millions of good writers who are struggling to get read.

I will say that it really is about perseverence. I've whined about giving up writing a few times in this blog but when it comes down to it, I don't think I can. It's such a rollercoaster of highs and lows. I never like rollercoasters until I'm on one. I usually panic, kick up a stink and make myself nervous the whole way through the line waiting to ride. Then, as soon as it starts moving, I realize I do like that adrenaline rush a lot; it makes me feel alive

For me, this is my very first success with fiction. Even if I don't go further, I got this far. I got a review of a book I wrote that made me feel like a real writer. I got compared to Neil Gaiman. To me, that's a success in itself. I won't lie and say I don't want to make the next round, I do. Badly. Yet if I don't, I have something to boost me when I'm down. I've said all along that when success does comes for me, I'll appreciate more because of my struggle to get it. It's true. At the moment, I can't figure out who to thank at the moment, God, my mum, my sister, my friends and the strangers who've read my blog and offered me words of support. So I'll thank all of them/you. It's that kind of day.

Happy Tuesday.

Three Days to ABNA Quarterfinals

It's Friday, a Friday the 13th to be exact. I didn't realize that it was Friday the 13th until I heard it on the radio. We had one of those last month. It turned out to be a rather lucky day because that was the day I found out that I wasn't going to lose my job as I had feared.

I'm hoping that today might be a lucky day too though I'll have to wait to see how the day unfolds. I know on Monday I'm going to try to focus greatly on not stressing about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. The semi-finalists are supposed to be notified on Monday. I don't want to care, I don't want to stress and yet a teeny-tiny part of me is hoping that I at least made the quarter-final rounds.

I hadn't been on the forums on the ABNA site for a while so I went on yesterday, just to see what was happening. One of the entrants in the contest is also an Amazon reviewer (known as Vine reviewers) and though she can't review any of the ABNA entries this year because of conflict of interest, she still has access to the reviewer forums. Yesterday, she was kind enough to post just a few of the comments that had been made by the Vine reviewers who are judging the ABNA entries. I thought it was nice of her. She made a point of saying it was only about 10% of the reviewer's opinions but the forum exploded in a mess of stress and panic anyway. Apparently, the Vine reviewers were fed up of first-person narratives and stories, women finding themselves after a midlife crisis and stories that were filled with profanity and bad language.

As is natural, the commentors on the forum began defending their own use of first-person narrative. They began to argue whether it was ok to use bad language in writing. They began to offer up examples of successful novels that defied what the Vine reviewers had said. I can't say I can't relate: The first thing I did when I read the Vine reviewer's comments was to mentally run through my novel and remind myself that I tend to write in third-person as a rule. I hadn't written a book about a women in a midlife crisis. I probably used a little profanity but only because that's how my character's talk. They're 20-30 something males who've had rather unhappy lives, they're going to say some bad words once in a while.

However, had I chosen to do any of those things in my novel that the Vine reviewers hadn't liked, I'm not sure that I would be one of those people stressing and getting defensive in the forums. Firstly, I tend to lurk and not post because of the constant thread hijacking, because I'm not fond of cliques because I find them a tad off-putting and intimidating and mostly because after my humbling experience last year, I am a little shy because there are some semi-professional writers in there who are way more experienced than me. Yet the main reason is as the initial generous poster said, it was only about 10% of the reviewers. For all we know, the other 90% of those Vine reviewers might have hated third person narratives, fantasy books, romances....any of the myriad of other things that weren't mentioned in the original post.

But I can't make fun of those people because I do understand them. We're getting close to the wire. It's like when you're waiting for an event to start, something you're so excited about that you've barely been able to wait. It's like you're waiting for something, anything to happen on that stage in front of you so that the waiting is over. A backstage worker comes out to adjust something and the whole house goes quiet for a second wondering if things are finally going to start. Warm-up music filters over the waiting audience and for a moment, you wonder if it means things have begun. Everything is something to get excited about because it's the only way to deal with the waiting. Yet it has been my experience that the event is always worth waiting for and when the lights finally do go down and the band or show begins to play, you'll know when it's happening and suddenly all that tension and excitement seems so worth it.

At least that's what I'm hoping on Monday evening. If not, well, I'll keep trying. One thing I've learned after my last brush with rejection is that I need to stop dwelling on those and write anyway. Whether short story, helping with a research paper on Machiavelli or a new idea for a novel, as long as I can find enjoyment from putting down words on paper, I think that means I've already won. When those words start flowing and I don't have to think, there's nothing like it in the world. Maybe it's not really about winning contests or getting published. Maybe the big event is the excitement of letting my passion for writing out, to weave the stories they find as they leave my brain and hit the paper. Whether it is or not, I like the idea anyway so that's what I'm going to believe, no matter what happens with the ABNA contest.

Happy Friday!

ABNA: Oh, the Drama!

So, being the middle of the week, I have nothing specific in my mind to blog about again. I suppose I should plan these things a little better but, at the same time, the randomness of just writing is actually quite fun. Thus, as long as you don't mind, I'll continue to muse about whatever strikes me.

Not too much is going on with me at the moment which is probably for the best. I did get one more rejection since the crippling one from last week but the generic language was actually a comfort when I compared it to the specific critique/criticism from the previous rejection. In a little under two weeks, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) will move onto the next stage and up to 9,500 of us will be rejected. I'm trying to be an optimist and hope that I did, at least, make it to the top 2,000 contestants. This year, the quarterfinalists aren't notified the way they were last year; Amazon won't notify anyone until the top 500 semi-finalists have been selected. If we made the first cut, we'll have access to our message box or something on Createspace, the print-on-demand company that co-sponsors the contest. I'd like to make that cut at least but having read a few of the excerpts, this year there are a lot of good writers in there and there's a lot of competiton.

However, even if I don't make it through, it's been an interesting experience this year just lurking and occasionally posting in the forums. Over the past week, it has been a little less civilized and a little more "America's Next Top Writer". For anyone who's never watched "America's Next Top Model" or the UK version, the show takes twelve somewhat plain girls and turns them into Tyra Banks' version of supermodels. In the beginning, the contestants get along, sweetly attempting to be friends and playing nice for the cameras. There is always one girl who doesn't want to play nice with others because she's "In it to win it!" As the show progresses and the number of models gets narrowed down after a weekly elimination, the true colours of the girls start coming out. I know it's all made far more dramatic for the camera but, trust me, you cannot put a bunch of competitive girls in a house and expect them to play nice forever. I've had roommates, good ones and bad ones. No matter how much you love them, you will fight.

The Amazon Breakthough Novel Award message boards (or forums, whichever term you prefer) have started to deteriorate into catfights. I must confess, it's actually quite interesting to lurk. After all, these are writers and the way they fight/verbally spar/insult each other is always rather clever. It makes for good reading.

I'm not sure I know exactly what happened on the boards but I've managed to figure out that someone posted about the cliques on the board. I must confess, I, too, have been board to tears with these cliques. I won't name names but there's a group of about 10-15 posters who know each other from last year. I admire their camraderie but it gets to be rather obnoxious. For example, I posted in a forum that was discussing the hard process of getting published and how it sometimes makes you doubt yourself. It was a good discussion. Then one of the 'clique' joined in and it became a series of about 30 posts where they were all going to get "Nekkid" with one another. I'm sure it was hilarious but it pretty much ended the discussion. I've seen it happen on countless other forums. I'm not jealous of the camraderie but part of me wishes they'd just stick to the countless discussion threads they've created that are inside jokes to the clique and stay off the serious discussion unless they have something of value to say.

The clique isn't unwelcoming but they are hard to interrupt. Once the group starts a series of 'sillyness' in the thread, the thread loses its luster and few people get to contribute. There are some brave souls who push through but I can't be bothered. Now I just scan the thread headings, see if there's anything of interest and leave.

Back to the drama of the forums. After this initial discussion of the clique, it started to get a little bitter. Sides were defined. The side that favoured the "cliques" and the side that was anti-clique. Needless to say, it got a little heated. It was almost a war. I haven't looked this morning but it was still going on last night. Writers can be rather sarcastic. They can be rather mean. Several regular posters have attempted to make peace, to start new discussions that are not snarky exchanges about secret identities and what-not. Unfortunately, these discussions are being replaced by flaming posts that are the equivalent of using rocket-launchers during hand-to-hand combat. I'm all for freedom of speech but I think maybe it would be good to have a moderator on the boards once in a while, not a just kindly poster whose peacemaking attempts are flattened by by a train of defensive attempts to state 'the truth'.

However, from an outsider's point of view, it's the literary equivelent of watching the Jerry Springer show only with far better grammer and less chairs being thrown. Though given some of the barbs I've read, these are the verbal equivelent of chairs being thrown.

I admire the creativity I'm seeing here. I can't help but wonder if it could possibly be channeled into something a little more useful like, say, a new novel but, at the same time, people are getting a little antsy about the upcoming eliminations and this is the manifestation of their stress. As a lurker, I'm not going to choose sides but I will say it's not black and white. I do find it fascinating that the proxy ringleader of the 'anti-clique' side is making such a huge deal about his identity. He/she goes by the name R.E.Cluse and is adamant that he wants anonymity. It's started a guessing game as to whether this R.E.Cluse is actually someone well known. Personally, I think he/she is just another hopeful like us, a decent writer but someone who is loving the attention and the chance to grandstand in the forums. He/she even posted an excert for everyone to read about someone who's having a bad experience in an online forum. It's decently written but it's a little too personal. As writers, it's extremely tempting to want to eviscerate our enemies, those who've wronged us in fiction. Creating thinly veiled characters based on these people is easy and it's therapeutic. However, after you do it, a few months later, you feel guilty or the piece has lost its meaning. The heat of the moment is good for writing but it shouldn't be something so personal that it can hurt someone. I prefer to use that kind of energy and passion to create something new, something unrelated to that which has riled me up. Angry writing can be the best writing of all but there's a fine line between literary therapy and slander.

I don't have a clue what will happen on March 16th. If I get the elusive email that says I've made it through, I'll be ecstatic. And, if not, I'm going to treat it as an experience. After all, I have written enough novels that I could actually choose which to submit. I suppose I was brave enough to put my work out there. These are things to be excited about.

Regardless of what type of email I do get, I will say thank you to all the other entrants for keeping me entertained on the forums. While some of you are a little scary, you're also providing entertainment which, as writers, you're supposed to do. You writing is getting out there, people are reading it though I think, perhaps, it might not be what you had in mind. Nevertheless, I say Fight on, people. Fight on!

Happy Wednesday