On semicolons, worrying about worry, and Random News Crap

Dirty Grammar Bite
It's been a while since I've done one of these. I have two pressing issues wrestling for attention in my grammar brain, but in the interest of keeping this post shorter than prior attempts, we will pick...which one, which one...semicolons! Yay!

Okay. Here's the deal, folks. Stop using semicolons as commas or periods. They have been called "super commas." Take it from the experts, though. The Chicago Manual of Style (section 6.57) says:

The semicolon, stronger than a comma but weaker than a period, can assume either role, though its function is usually closer to that of a period. Its most common use is between two independent clauses [i.e., complete sentences] not joined by a conjunction.

Ex: 
Mildred intends to go to Europe; her plans, however, are still quite vague. [Semicolon is used after an adverb ("however"), between the two clauses.]
We were going to go out for dinner; my dad decided we should order take-out instead.

The two sentences that are joined by the semicolon are closely related.

Another possibility: use in a series. From CMOS 6.60 -- When items in a series involve internal punctuation, they should be separated by semicolons.

Ex: We were traveling to Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Washington, on our trip.

If you have further questions, I'm just that nerdy that you can email me and I'll see if I can figure it out. Long live Chicago! 

Now. In other news... If you have been following along, or if you know me at all in the "real" world (instead of Middle Earth, which is where I sometimes feel I live), you would know that I am a high-anxiety worrywart. I worry about everything. While I've touched on this before, it is worthy of reiterating as research indicates that worry and type A personalities are more prone to secondary cardiac effects as fallout from this worrying/anxietal behavior. Of course, this gives me something else to worry about. I could have a heart attack from worrying too much. And now I'm worried about having a heart attack. It's a vicious cycle, the head biting its own tail.

My book (Sleight, if I haven't shoved it down your throat enough yet) went to the formatter on March 10. Yeah, I fretted about every comma, every semicolon, and then sent it off. The first proof came back late on the 19th, and once I saw it on the Kindle (very exciting!), I found more stupid things to fix. Not the formatter's fault at all, just ridiculous repetitions I should've caught WAY before now. I'm embarrassed more than anything.

But it's now the 23rd, and I'm wait-wait-waiting for the final to come back. 52 Novels is great (the formatter) -- it's not him I'm kvetching about. It's me. For some reason, I cannot write anything else with this thing sitting out there, waiting to be returned. Once it's home, I can begin the tedious process of uploading to Amazon and Smashwords, as well as other places, so that I can get it out to the reading public (i.e., my mom). These things take time. I've had some gracious folks ask about the book, so I want to be able to say, Yeah, it'll be available on _______. So far, that hasn't been possible. It's the uncertainty, the vaporous game plan, that's starting to eat at me a little. I want to get it out to early readers for some early reviews. I know that Smashwords can take hours for an upload, and that Amazon can be equally as fickle, depending on traffic. The whole indie thing is cool, save the marketing efforts. That might be killing me a little. I spend so much time on Twitter and Facebook and stalking Kindle Boards and reading blogs that I haven't written a single thing in...never mind. You don't want to know.

Which brings up one other thing: I see that a lot of writers do guest posts on other people's blogs. How the hell do you come up with stuff to talk about? I mean, unless someone wants to hear about the intricacies of the comma splice and how to avoid it, or maybe 101 ways to avoid doing domestic-related chores, I don't have a lot to say. I don't really know what the hell I'm talking about (yet). This might change. I feel like I'm missing out, not doing guest posts. Again, what will I post about? I have a hard enough time not boring people to tears on this blog.

As if that weren't enough, there are always earthquakes to worry about. I live on the West Coast. Geologists are saying we're next in the Ring of Fire for the Big One. I really need to go buy a campstove and some beans. Today. Just in case.

Someone once told me that I should write all my worries on a piece of paper, and then torch it in the sink. I tried it, and ended up with second-degree burns on my hand when I almost caught the kitchen curtain on fire. Maybe I should've burned the sucker outside...  Anyway, the worries were still there. I didn't feel less attached to them. I just felt sore and sticky from the burn gel.

Folks are sweet. They tell me to relax, meditate, let go and let _______, take a bath, take a breather, take a walk, take myself out for Me Time, have tea, have chocolate, have a beer, have three beers. None of it works, but thanks for your advice. I'm still going to worry. I'm still going to fill my arteries with worry molecules that will coalesce into something resembling a blockage. And I will worry about how much it's going to hurt when the blockage catches up to me. Man, I hope I'm not driving...over a bridge...with my kids in the car...during a power outage--or an earthquake.

Time for Random News Crap:

~Friday on Twitter is #TGNO, i.e., Twitter Girls' Night Out, to celebrate the completion of Heather Hildenbrand's second novel draft, and...um...oh, yeah, to celebrate Sleight's publication. It better happen soon (the book coming home) or else #TGNO might be preempted. Check Angeline Kace's blog for the details. Party animal...

~I have a kick-ass review of Walter Mosley's latest release The Thrill Is Gone AS WELL AS an interview with the inimitable Hannah Moskowitz over at the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog. DON'T MISS OUT!

~AH1N1 is trending on Twitter because an outbreak has swelled in Merida, Venezuela.
~RIP Elizabeth Taylor. She had four kids--two sons, two daughters--I had no idea!
~Filming on The Hobbit started on Monday in New Zealand! Follow progress here: http://www.thehobbitblog.com/.
~Rebecca Black's parents are looking at a new investment in the near future: therapy.
~Apparently, the use of "asstastic" is bad. I thought it was good. Anything in front of "-tastic" that is bad makes the word bad, too (so "cracktastic" is bad. I thought it was good). Thanks, Keyboard Hussy, for that clarification. And I'm not even blond.

Next time on the Planet: the subjunctive (wha???), goal setting, and untangling social media. Unless something better comes along.

I gotta go shower. Eskimo the Cat says hi.

(As always, Tweep me: @JennSommersby // Facebook: Jennifer Sommersby and/or Jenn Sy)

On building characters, your good/bad traits, and dirty little secrets

Julia King posted an interesting and engaging conversation on her blog the other day in which she listed the things she loves, and the things she hates (not necessarily in that order). And it got me to thinking...yesterday was the birthday of my evil villain, Lucian Dmitri. On Tuesday, I was screwed up on which day of the week it was (happens OFTEN) and I Tweeted his birthday prematurely, but I'm sure that sort of thing would suit Lucian just fine. He'd love the attention, and he'd laugh at my stupidity for mentioning his birthday a day early. Then he'd look at me with those sinister eyes, offer to buy me dinner, and likely kill me before the night was over. But the way I'd die? It would probably be very, very satisfying. For him, not me.

In saying all that about Lucian--a person who doesn't exist--I realized how silly this string of conversation truly is. He's fictional. He ain't real. He's not going to buy me dinner or laugh at me, although I swear to God, my characters sometimes feel like they will lead me to my death, the rope tight around my chafed neck, with the constant worrying about personality traits, who they've tortured most recently, who's in their sights for future mayhem, the works. What color is their hair/eyes? Do they like broccoli? (That's the best way for me to construct a character different from me. I hate broccoli and will only eat it if force-fed. If you force-feed me broccoli, I will return your favor by promptly barfing it all over you. So, if you're bringing me that green tree-looking demon vegetable with the intent of rectifying my wicked, wicked ways, don't wear your Sunday best. 'Cuz I'll barf on you and ruin that pretty new overpriced shirt you've been saving for Sunday.) How do we go about building multifaceted, fascinating people without being cliche and overwrought?

Multiple reasons can be cited as to why my latest project was YA. Sure, there is the fact that my daughter is in that age group and I was completely floored by the success of a handful of YA writers (come on--we all love money, and the flood of YA in the market is ample evidence to support that I am not the only writer whose eyes were dazzled with dollar signs). There is the fact that my dear young friend Alysha finished her zombie novel two weeks before her fifteenth birthday, and I was inspired (terrified) by the approaching culmination of my third decade on the planet. But--most importantly--I wanted to write someone who was not me. I've started many projects with a main character, a woman, in her thirties, saddled with domestic responsibilities, thrown into impossible situations from which she is expected to emerge victorious. She's me. She's always me, or some incarnation of who I think is me. It's the write-what-you-know adage, and we all struggle with it at some point in our writing.

Thing is, I'm boring. I don't want to write about me because I live with me day in and day out. (So do four other people, and there should be a special holiday in their honor, sort of like Veteran's Day or All Saints Day.) So instead, I wrote about Gemma. She's 17, far from my current age. She plays the violin. She lives with a circus (though some could say that isn't far from my life). She is brave and smart and quiet and powerful. She is who I wished I were when I was 17.

And this brings up an interesting point of discussion: how do you build characters? Do you see traits in the people around you and then mesh them into a ball of a human, sort of like squishing tiny rocks and sequins into a wad of Play-Doh? Writing classes will drill that into your head--create believable characters--so even when we're writing about fairies and werewolves and shapeshifters (which I haven't done), we still incorporate elements of the people in our environment. Writers are notorious for being personality vampires, i.e., we watch people and steal their tics, their idiosyncracies, their secrets. No one wants to read about a boring housewife whose day is comprised of laundry, carpool, and cooking. But if we make her a housewife who practices witchcraft in the kitchen while her kiddies are at preschool, or a housewife with an anger management problem who, with her gas-guzzling, menacing, muffler-free Hummer, chases down squirrels and little old ladies in crosswalks, or a housewife who has a raging case of eczema that makes her scratch until she bleeds and a part-time job at a bank from which she is embezzling funds to support her drug/pole dancing/shoe habit, now we're talking. We've just taken her from flat and mundane to spicy and extraordinary.

You've heard it before: the best characters are ordinary people put in extraordinary circumstances. They are the heroes among us. They are Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins and Katniss Everdeen and Hamlet. (That is why Bella Swan fell flat. She's boring, and not at all heroic. Sorry. Truth hurts. Oh, stop telling me to be nice. You know you agree. All that whiny and simpering and lack of action makes my molars ache. I want to scream, "Grow a set, woman!" You can nod your head now. Her "mother" will never read my blog. And even if she did, she's laughing last, soaking in a tub of $1,000,000 bills. Wait--do they even make those? I get excited when I find a fiver in the bottom of the washing machine...)

Think about your bad traits or habits. To make you feel better, here are a few of mine:

~I cuss a lot.
~I hate exercise and thus, I avoid it like the plague.
~I judge too quickly, myself and others.
~I often assume the worst and thus have low self-esteem.
~I chew on my lips obsessively.
~I have a short fuse and a big mouth.

Think about your better attributes, now that you've torn yourself apart. Mine? Wow. This is tough.

~I am good with commas and most parts of grammar.
~I am painfully loyal.
~I'm really good at making macaroni & cheese from a box.
~I know how to clean the hell out of a house.
~I sometimes say funny things, often for my own amusement.
~I defend my friends and loved ones with vehemence.

After compiling a list of your own faults/strengths, think about what an interesting character you could build by mushing these things up into the form of a person. Try not to be obvious--it's easy to pull out the Psychiatric Physicians' Desk Reference and embed OCD or depression into a character. What if she has Tourette's, though, and she acts out at a PTA or business meeting or at the council of elders? Sure, Tourette's isn't funny, but it sort of is. It can also be wildly disruptive and destructive. My daughter has a growth condition. She's going to be 4'8" forever. We laugh about it because what else can we do? Cry because she's short? Because she has to use a stool to put dishes away or because she will have to have her pants tailored forever? My daughter is an interesting character because she has been handed the short straw (pun intended) and she's learning to weave it into gold. That alone makes her extraordinary.

One caveat: Not everyone is interested in building a character who's funny, especially given the context of a specific project. I realize that. Even so, in a work of gritty or taut or heartrending fiction, it's still important to give your characters dimension. My only complaint with the protagonist in The Hunger Games was that she felt too cold. Then again, that was part of her personality, and as such, it totally works. Not every heroine is going to be touchy-feely, and Katniss is reflective enough throughout the story to let the reader know that she processes things very deeply. That's why the character works so well against the impossible life-and-death backdrop of the Hunger Games.

What about the weird people you've known in your life? Inspiration can come from any one of these folks. And it can come from people you don't even know are weird, people who have dirty little secrets. EVERYONE has a secret. Over the last few years, I have been floored by the discovery that the fine people in my suburban neighborhood have an assload of unmentionables that never see the light of day, at least not until something happens and the nuclear family springs a radioactive leak. You think everyone around you is normal...but too much normal hints at an unspoken abnormal lurking in closets and between mattresses and on computers in darkened dens at 2 in the morning. It's freaky, and reassuring, all at the same time. What are your character's secrets? Are they big enough to bring him/her down if discovered?

Let your guard down. Create a character who resembles you in a number of ways, and then destroy him/her and rebuild that person into someone who will face the extraordinary with panache. Give them weird tics and habits and pet peeves. I should've done more of that with Gemma. Sure, she's interesting enough, but I'm writing a character right now for another WIP who's dealing with a husband in the midstages of sexual reassignment. Jules is feisty and driven, but she's also sad and scared. She's going to miss her husband when he goes from "Aaron" to "Eryn." How will she deal? How will she explain it to their young son? Will she start drinking again? Will she start chewing on plastic straws because smoking is passe and unhealthy? What hilarity will ensue from shoe-shopping with the family, when Mommy and Daddy are fighting over the last pair of black patent Manolo Blahniks with the peacock-feather toe?

Go. Build someone weird. Then share him/her/it with me and the rest of the world.

When you're done with that, go to the Best Damn Creative Writing Blog and check out my interview with the crazy-talented Hannah Moskowitz. Talk about extraordinary...

On cussing, eating Ivory soap, and the limits of the F Word in YA

So, in case you've missed it because you're not following me on Twitter (@JennSommersby) or on Facebook (Jenn Sy and/or Jennifer Sommersby), the review for a cracktastic book is up at Best Damn Creative Writing Blog:

http://bestdamncreativewritingblog.com/2011/03/03/review-run-by-blake-crouch/.

Okay, I'll stop now. I just get very excited about this stuff. Like a puppy who piddles on the carpet. But I did talk to Blake Crouch via email, and he's a damn fine human. You should read this book, unless you're squeamish, or have a problem with swearing. It is what it is, but you're sort of a wussy if you can't handle a few "F" bombs now and again. Come on--the story is filled with really bad people trying to brutally eliminate you. You'd cuss, too. I'd wager on it, if I had the first clue how gambling works. But I don't. In fact, in our house, when the lottery tickets are purchased, I'm not allowed to touch them. I might jinx 'em. (Did you know that in Canada, if you win a big fat lottery, you get to keep ALL the money? The Queen doesn't take her cut, not like Uncle Sam. You're jealous now, aren't you? I knew it. But I can't play the lottery because I jinx the tickets. Someone else has to touch them and hang them on the fridge. Ask my friend Lauren about the time we bought LottoMax tickets, and I wouldn't take the ticket from the clerk. Crazy white lady...)

SPEAKING of cuss words (do people really call them "cuss" words? Am I regressing into childhood vernacular?) ... I've got a problem. I mean, I think it's a problem. I sort of cuss like a sailor. I'm pretty good at turning on the filters, i.e., no swearing in front of small children (unless they're my own, and then that rule sort of gets thrown into the garbage disposal 'cuz they're my kids and they often do things that bring swear words to the front of my mouth before I even realize it). When I'm doing the photography stuff, I'm usually pretty aware of not swearing in front of strangers and their offspring. Popping off a resounding "Shit!" when I knocked the camera over last weekend was a slip-up, but it was well deserved. (Knocking over the camera snapped the Pocket Wizard right off the flash plate, and voila! $250 down the tubes. Shit!) I don't cuss at the elementary school, unless we're in the drive-through at the front, and THAT place is a profanity marketplace all by itself. Some people are so incredibly dense and selfish when it comes to dropping off their Pretty Pretty Princesses. "She can WALK, lady! It's only some effing RAIN!"

A little history: As a wee lassie, I played soccer. Eight years worth, thank you very much. (I still sucked after eight years of trying. When puberty was slow to come, I was getting my ass kicked on the field by much bigger girls with fatter thighs and bigger biceps, so I quit. Yeah, I'm a quitter. But I was 4'11" and 100 lb. at 14--didn't wear a bra until high school--so cut me some slack.) The year I was eight, my team was the Terminators (long before the former governor of California took hold of the name and made it his). And this one ref we had on a regular basis, a total cow as I remember, was super lame. Called all the wrong stuff, never penalized the other team for being stupid, everything we think about refs when our team is getting killed on the pitch/field/ice. One game in particular, she blew her stupid little whistle one too many times, and I called her out by dispensing with the F Word. Loudly. It sorta just slipped. In return, she handed me a red card and sent my wee arse to the bench for the remainder of the game.

Worst part of it? My mom was the coach. I ate Ivory soap that day. But it didn't stop me from cussing. There was an incident in 6th grade with my then-friend Ester, but that's a different post entirely.

The POINT, and I am trying to make one: How much is TOO much when it comes to your writing? As I was writing Sleight, I kept in mind my audience: teenage girls, ages 15+, enough angst to keep the pubertals interested but enough drama to (I hope) attract older readers. My girl Gemma is 17, so she's right on the cusp of being a grown-up. The four teen beta readers I "employed" were fine with the language, but another beta reader, an adult, had an issue with the occasional colorful language spewed by my characters. This reader went in and changed my "damns" and "what the hells" to "darn" and "what the heck" -- you get the idea -- and I promptly changed them all back on the third rewrite. There is one use of the F Word, but it's necessary. REALLY necessary. I tried on different word combinations, but they just didn't have the same oomph. And in that scene, nothing short of oomph will suffice.

I've spent a lot of time worrying about this swearing conundrum in the YA realm, and then I picked up a copy of Hannah Moskowitz's Break. It's an amazing book, and the F Word plays prominently in the story, but not gratuitously so. If you're hypersensitive to profanity, this might not be the book for you. But Hannah is a sublimely talented writer, and if anyone can make it work within this context, it's her. After finishing Break, I went back into my manuscript and replaced those words I felt had been wrongly sanitized. I was inspired by Hannah's bravery, and felt that a little naughty language peppered here and there was worth its weight. It needs to be there. Come on, people -- they're words. And I'd be a liar if I didn't fess up to the fact that fu*k is one of my all-time favorites. What other word can say so much with so little?

I throw it to you, now. How much is too much?

Next post: On handling criticism, my strategy for doing so as I head into indie publishing (will involve Irish whiskey and chocolate, no doubt), and how Dr. Foran destroyed me when, after years of teachers/professors telling me I could write, he said that my work sucked rocks. I was 25. That day still haunts me...

On grammar, Blake Crouch's RUN, and birthing babies in multiple states/provinces

~Dirty Grammar Bite~

When writing numbers, particularly YEARS, this is how it goes:

~the 1980s (NO apostrophe. Common mistake = 1980's. Nope. Not good.)
~the '80s (Make sure that apostrophe is indeed an apostrophe and not a closing single quotation mark. Apostrophes are to be used any time you are abbreviating a number or even a word. In a contraction, the apostrophe takes the place of missing letters/numbers. Example: can't. The apostrophe stands in for the "n" and "o" in cannot. In the case of our example ("the '80s"), the apostrophe stands in for the "19" in the number. Capiche?)
~She is in her eighties. Or, She is 102.
~Street numbers (avenues, etc., inclusive) that are less than one hundred are spelled out: First Avenue, Ninety-fifth Street, but 120th Avenue.

When it comes to writing numerals in word format, there are going to be those folks who disagree with me, who follow AP and other styles. That's cool. I follow the Chicago Manual of Style like a slave, so don't crucify me if you like using numerals for everything over ten. I'm down with that. Whatever you decide to do, be consistent. That's most important. Oh, and the rules about the apostrophes and numbers still applies, no matter what. That's just basic grammar, babes.

While we're on the subject, I just had the conversation about comparative and superlative forms with still-at-home-under-the-weather MiddleBoy. I reminded him: fun, more fun, most fun (but funny, funnier, funniest). Make a note of it. (Apple ran an ad campaign here for the iPod. They used the word "funnest" in their posters. I almost cried, just because we don't need to perpetuate stupidity. It flourishes just fine on its own, thanks to the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, and Jersey Shore.)

OH, and just for the record: I got into a pissing match once (yes, a pissing match) on Facebook with a girl from high school about the comparative and superlative form for the word STUPID. (We didn't like each other in high school; we're not friends now. It was a pissing match hosted on someone else's wall. There is a reason why I've changed my name a few times...) STUPID can be either stupider/more stupid or stupidest/most stupid. They're both right. If you want proof, email me and I'll send you the relevant Chicago and Webster's passages.

Enough boring grammar. These things just come to me while I'm sitting at my desk, which is in the living room, while the kids' TV channel blares in the background (someone save me from the KidPop commercials...Justin Bieber is painful enough when he sings, let alone a bunch of tweens whose voices haven't cracked yet) or reading our small community newspaper or driving in the car and observing readerboards or thumbing through the magazines in my shink's waiting room. It sorta eats at me, the misuse of simple grammar. But I'm neurotic that way. I know I offend in my daily usage, but as punishment, I flog myself repeatedly with a mace, the spiked tips dipped in snake venom, just so I will be reminded to not re-offend during subsequent opportunities to communicate. Snake venom can really burn, especially when it's embedded in those fleshy holes left by the mace, but I'm growing more and more immune. It's a process.

In other news: I'm very excited. I get to review Blake Crouch's forthcoming RUN, which is described as such:

Picture this: A landscape of American genocide...

5  d a y s  a g o

A rash of bizarre murders swept the country…

Senseless.  Brutal.  Seemingly unconnected. 

A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike. 

A mass of school shootings. 

Prison riots of unprecedented brutality. 

Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.

4  d a y s  a g o

The murders increased ten-fold…

3  d a y s  a g o

The President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace…

2  d a y s  a g o

The killers began to mobilize…

Y e s t e r d a y

All the power went out…

T o n i g h t

They’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System.  You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.

Your name is Jack Colclough.  You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son.  You live in Albuquerque , New Mexico . People are coming to your house to kill you and your family.  You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more. 

You only have time to….

R U N

   
Doesn't that sound SWEET??? You know it does. And you know you're going to want to buy it. If it sucks, I'll definitely let you know. But Crouch has some killer street cred, lots of titles, and some important friends, so I'm sure it's going to be a breakneck read. I can't wait! (Doesn't hurt that I like his name. One of my kids has that name. It's a good name.)

Speaking of kids: I am the ONLY PERSON I KNOW who has had a baby in all three western U.S. states plus British Columbia. Vancouver, Washington, 1990 (first year of college + baby = umm, trouble...); Portland, Oregon, 1993; Tarzana, California, 2001 (Amy Brenneman from Private Practice had her baby in the room next to mine, six or so months ahead of me--I know--I was there the night she delivered 'cuz I worked in labor and delivery for a brief time. Yay for Random Tidbits You Don't Care About!); and New Westminster, B.C., in full view of the now-defunct/destroyed Labatt's Brewery, in 2004. (Canada loves beer!) I should get a medal for being so damn procreative and for diversifying not only the gene pool but for screwing up the genealogical efforts of my great-great-grandchildren. Ha ha ha...they're going to pull their finely groomed hair out trying to retrace the convoluted path of where their great-great grandparents came from. *giggles behind cupped hand*

Dudes, YESTERDAY I had thirty "likes" on my new Facebook page for my book, Sleight! If you haven't liked me yet, you totally should. It legitimizes my existence in ways I never thought possible. Yeah, so, I'm a mom and wife and stuff, but seriously? THIRTY people like me! (Well, if you subtract my husband, my mom, my dad, my sister, my best friend, and my daughter, then there are really only twenty-four people who like me, but whatevs. I'm so excited!) I will have lots of info forthcoming about the BOOK, the WEB SITE, the RELEASE DATES and FORMATS. Yeah. It's allllll good. This is really a fun way to pull myself out of bed every morning. 

It's Friday. I have to work this weekend on stuff other than words, which totally depresses me. Work sucks. Money should just come to be because I'm so dreadfully charming and adept with comma placement.

FUN TASK FOR THE DAY: Post your favorite (dirty) jokes in the comments section. I need a pick-me-up that doesn't involve a bottle opener or corkscrew.

Brain. Is. Tired.

I think it (the brain) might be misfiring, actually. Maybe a remnant from yesterday's headache. Or maybe it's because I'm immersing myself in uncovering all-things-self-publishing, jump-started not just by continued grappling with the ongoing process of agent rejection but by reading articles such as this and this. Do you have any idea how many folks out there have opinions, blog entries, Web sites, marketing packages, advice, links, etc., that provide insight into the world of self- and independent publishing endeavors? I've found a few good ones, thanks to Scott Nicholson and his list of friendly friends who know what they're talking about. But...omigod...I'm totally overwhelmed.

The myths surrounding the process of self-publishing are numerous; the greatest of them all, which I am embarrassed to admit I've bought into over the years of reading agency and author blogs, attending conferences, and listening to the well-heeled dole out their well-heeled advice, purports that self- and independently published authors are nerdy losers who can't get traditional publishing contracts. But the folks I'm finding online who have had some mad success with peddling their own work, without the help of agents and Big Time Publishing Houses is...inspiring. Interesting. Enlightening. Seems that times they are a'changin'. (For an interesting perspective on just HOW the publishing industry might be able to survive despite itself, read this, a fascinating opinion piece by Computer World's Mike Elgan. Hunh. Whodathunk it?)

I'm obviously on the fence here. But thriller writer JA Konrath has published traditionally and independently, and has a bitchin' blog devoted to his adventures as a scribe making money in this crazy industry (A Newbie's Guide to Publishing). Dude's a bit smarmy, perhaps, but it's definitely part of his charm. I'd have a glass of whiskey with this bloke and just watch him and his friends roast the neighbors. Too much fun.

So now I'm looking for concepts for cover art -- words, visuals, ideas, extracted from the book (thanks, beta readers!) -- to be converted into images in the brain of a sublimely talented graphic designer. I know my limits, and thus won't handle this task myself. I suck at graphic design simply because I am not a graphic designer. Folks think that because I have a camera, and I take photographs, I must have a shred of artistic talent. I don't. Taking photos of people's cute kids, a plastic duck, the neighbor's new puppy vs. designing an eye-popping book cover that screams BUY ME? Two completely different skill sets. Like I said, I know me limits, lassie.

JA Konrath (and others) offer links to some really talented humans (here) who, for a reasonable price, design that all-important book cover and lend some kick-ass legitimacy to self-pub'd work. Think about it -- when shopping on Amazon, Chapters/Indigo.com, Barnes & Noble.com, et al, if you come across some hysterically pathetic book cover, does it make you want to pay the $.99 or $2.99 and download the e-book for that Kindle/Kobo Santa brought you? Does it make you want to tear into the fiction that you hope is only slightly less lame than the writer's cat draped in velvet and pasted on the front of the book with the help of Photoshop Elements? I promise not to put my cat on the cover of my book. Probably a good idea because I don't have a cat in the story. Just a girl, a boy, a couple of elephants, a circus, and a really, really old book.

What I've learned today (and sort of already knew): Stupid cover art will make you look stupid. Period. There's a reason the Big Publishing Houses employ graphic designers. Even if the writing is brilliant (which, let's face it, just like with music and art, a lot of it is gonna blow chunks--this is true of traditionally published books, as well) and the cover art is completely retarded, no one is going to take you seriously. (And stop being offended by my use of "retarded." It's the perfect word for this scenario.)

In the meantime: I will be interviewing Hannah Moskowitz and reviewing her book Invincible Summer as soon as we can get our hands on the ARC (advanced reading copy, for those who are keeping track). Watch for reviews and contributor posts on Best Damn Creative Writing Blog. Just waiting for the ARCs to come in for books so I can do the really hard job of -- ho hum -- having to sit on my ass and read. Wow, that sounds so tough. And because I'm reviewing, I won't even feel guilty about indulging in some good books. Win-win!

Alas, this post has taken the entire day to write, between breaks to deal with a sick kid and Internet side trips, and now I have to drive another un-sick kid to soccer practice. (Call me a soccer mom and die. Just sayin'...)

Lates, turkeys...