Wowza...this is like Christmas, without the eggnog stomachaches or the fist fights in parking lots over the LAST space

So, I guess this is a little anticlimactic, only because I didn't plan things very well. But considering it's the first time I've done it, I've been a little too scatterbrained to do it properly, what, with all the research, networking, reading of fine print, re-reading the MS 42 times to look for errant commas, etc. HOWEVER, my Tweeps are setting me straight (thanks, Angeline, Heather, Evelyn, and Tiffany!), and I am making notes so that next time--which will be sometime this fall, me thinks--I'll do it right.


Without further ado, Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. A print version will be available soon, and as such, I will do another blast of marketing when folks can get their hands on a physical copy of the Precious.

Just a quick tutorial: SMASHWORDS is an amazing site that offers the book in multiple formats. Here's a screenshot from the site:

If you have a Kobo or a Nook or Sony ereader, you can download the ePub format. If you have Kindle for PC/Mac, you can download the Kindle format here, or from Amazon, of course. If you want to read on your computer, there is a PDF, doc, and plain text version (those look a little more squished together, but the words are intact). A version WILL be available for iPad via the Apple iBookstore, but it will take a little longer. In the meantime, I'm told there is an app for iPad from Kindle, so check it out. These formats are CRAZY! Now you won't feel like you're left out of the loop if you want to download and read it but you're lacking a Kindle. And like I said, I will pimp the hell out of the print copy, as soon as those happen. Stay tuned.

I did get the book out to reviewers (nine so far!), so that's good. (Want a review copy? Comment below and we'll chat!) My mom bought her copy this morning--my FIRST sale--after months of wanting to know when she was going to be able to read it. The Kindle has revolutionized everything. It was really a lot of fun to call her in California at 8 a.m. and say, "Hey, Ma. The book is up. It started appearing on Amazon around 2 am. Sweet!" We squee'd a little after she downloaded it wirelessly onto the Kindle (amazing!), and then she handed the phone to my dad and sister while she read the first five pages (she reads like a fiend), and then they all told me how awesome I am. Folks & baby sisters are so good for that. Well, mine are. Maybe not yours. Sorry if your people are evil. Send me an email and I'll send you my shrink's name/number.



IN THE MEANTIME, TONIGHT we're having a party on Twitter. Starts around 6 pm PST, and the hashtag'd keyword to start following is #TGNO (Twitter Girls' Night Out). The info is HERE, from Angeline Kace's blog (BTW, GO to her blog and help her pick the new cover for her book!):

Thanks for the support, all of yous...now go buy a book and ensure that Book 2 will get finished.

OH! And I'm going to be arranging guest posts around the blogosphere. Angeline is going to help me put together a giveaway of some sort, I think, eventually, but in the meantime, I'll be haunting other people's blogs -- so STAY TUNED. If you're looking for GUEST POSTS, drop me a line.

ONE LAST THING: If you find TYPOS, I want to know. Heather has already emailed with one she found in Chapter 4, and I will be compiling a list to send to the formatter to get things fixed. I WANT TO KNOW. You won't hurt my feelings. I'm a copy editor, yeah, but this is my work. I've looked at it so much, it's going to happen, for sure.

Over and out, babes.

On word repetition, stuff that makes your ass go funny, and tattoos

My focus needs focusing.

You know why? Because I'm drinking a diet Coke that has been sitting on my desk for three days. I can't stop checking Twitter to see if anyone's mentioned me for #WW (Writer Wednesday) because I am just that needy, and because I used the word "focus" or some variant of it thirty-four times in my manuscript. Freaking THIRTY-FOUR times. (Granted, there are 119,000 words, so it's a frequency of only 0.000285%, but still. Thirty-four? Annoying as hell.) It's a sign. I need some focus.

My best friend is from South Africa. She says funny things, with her funny accent that for the life of me I cannot replicate, and she paints beautiful paintings. One of the more notable things she says: "Ohhh, that just made my ass go funny." She might say it if I tell her I just saw a cat get run over by a car (which I did), or if I tell her about smashing my finger in the door (done that), or if I tell her about these photos I saw online of this guy's leg after he had most of the flesh of his calf removed due to a terrible bout of flesh-eating Strep. You get what she's saying -- and your ass really does go funny when those images, those thoughts of "omigod" enter your brain. Right? (Maybe you're tougher than we are. My best friend is sorta squeamish, and it is rather like a party trick to say things that will make her blurt out, "Oooh, you just made my ahss go funneh." That's what her accent sounds like.)

There is definitely something making my ass go funny today: my manuscript is due at the formatter bright and early tomorrow morning. Omigod, you mean all this talk about turning this into a book is really going to happen? You mean, I'm going to be like the folks who have literally taken me under their wings in the last two weeks and pushed my Twitter followers into the triple digits, like Heather Hildenbrand and Megg Jensen and Angelina Kace and Tiffany King and Angela Carlie and Ashley Bray and Kara Helen, writers who have crossed over and are now called authors? Did you know there's a difference? Writers write. Authors publish. I'm freaking out a little, hence the lack of focus, and every time I think about the MS coming back to me in its finished form--yup, you guessed it. My ahss goes funneh.

So...yeah...after I wrote the post the other day about being afraid of stuff, I started to obsess (I do that) about another big milestone happening this year. I'm sorta turning...40. When I was in my twenties, I went through a divorce. I moved in with my parents, my then-3-month-old daughter in tow, until I could get my bearings, go back to school, get a job, all that. The woman across the street (super weirdo lady) had a bumper sticker on her crappy car that read "39 Forever." And guess what? She died. At 39. So she really was going to be 39 forever. I'm careful not to say stuff about not wanting to turn 40, because then I might jinx it and maybe I really won't make it to 40.

For my 37th birthday, I got a tattoo--William Shakespeare's autograph on my right forearm.

It's bad-ass. You can say it. The neighbor said I was having a midlife crisis and wanted to know if my husband was offended that I had another man's name inked forever into my flesh. Considering he paid for it and held my other hand while the needle scraped its way into my tender cells, I'm guessing he wasn't offended.

For my 39th birthday, I got another tattoo. This time, it's Joan of Arc's signature:

(Her name in French = Jehanne.) I'm fully protected now. I have creativity flowing through my writing arm, and courage streaming through my punching arm. (Okay, that's a lie. I punch right-handed. And I'm a weenie, so it's usually me getting punched. If there's a fight. Which there hasn't been since I was, like, 12, when Scott T. turned my sister's wheelchair off mid-ramp and she tipped backwards and struck her head on the asphalt. I punched him then. But I'm prepared nevertheless...oh! There was that one time when my step-sister chased me through the house with a rolling pin because I wouldn't stop making fun of her boobies, but let's leave that one alone. In case she's reading. Shout out to Sandi and her boobies!)

Maybe the tattoos are part of some lame midlife crisis. Maybe the desire to publish my book fits in there, too. I'm not getting any younger. And waiting for NYC to validate my existence is not helping the cause. I have to remind myself that this last year in the query trenches has not necessarily been a waste. I started querying a year ago Easter. Easter Sunday, in fact. The first one went out to Daniel Lazar at Writer's House. He answered me back in two hours and asked for the full. He read it, passed on it, told me to rewrite a few things, and then he'd reconsider. So I did just that, but I rushed it. I should've waited a month and brought in more beta readers/critique partners, but I didn't. I was panicking. I gave the MS another go-through, changed a ton of stuff, and then resubmitted. And he shook his head no again. Devastating. I think that one cost me two days hiding under the covers.

Things went on like this for the whole year. Suzie Townsend asked for a full (and I love her, so that was big). Then she said no. It sat at Random House Canada for three months, and I had high hopes because some important decision makers were reading it, one of whom told me that they liked it so far and were going to take it to the editorial committee. Then the rejection came in on December 12, and it stopped my life. Catastrophic is the best way to describe what it did to me. The kids tiptoed around me. Husband made pancakes. My youngest (6) wrote me a note that said I was the "best writer in the whole wide wrold," typo included.

A few other agents have asked for fulls, and partials, but most haven't bothered responding with even a thanks-but-no-thanks, the last of whom was just in February, an agent from Toronto. I was getting better at hearing no--not great at it, but better--when I started to consider the unthinkable: publishing it myself.

I don't know if you guys do this -- tell me if you do so I don't feel like the last kicker to be chosen for the dodgeball team, as per usual -- but writing anything can be very difficult if you slip into the mindset of No one's ever going to read this, so what's the point? My artist friends tell me that you write/paint/sculpt because you have to, because not doing it will eat you alive. Okay, so fine, yeah, writing keeps my Prozac dose lower, but moving forward with a project that is dead in the water? It sucks. NOW I feel energized, like there is something to write for, that I have to finish Book Two (and Three?) because someone might want it. Maybe. The point is, there now exists "hope" where before there was only "no."

I've stopped shopping for that perfect pen to use at book signings, stopped worrying about dyeing those new gray-ish hairs so people won't snicker at me being almost 40, and that energy has been redirected into where it should've been all along: in the words. Oh, and on Twitter.

I won't go on ad nauseum, but the thought of having the work out there is definitely making my ass go funny. And yet, I'm confident that the new contacts, dare I call them friends, I've made in this incredible community of writers and authors will make the transition easier, even if the book tanks.

And that, my friends, is enough to pull any sorry suck outta bed every morning. Now I'm going to go finish this flat diet Coke so I can hack at the word "focus" and send my baby for its day at the formatter. Tweep me: @JennSommersby.

On reviews, hearing you suck, and falling to Twitter

I'm not afraid of anything.

Okay, I'm lying. I'm a terrible liar. My face gets all blotchy and I can't make eye contact, even though I know people know I'm lying when I blink and look away because in the police academy, they taught us that perps will look away and avoid eye contact when they're lying. Or, they'll blink. A lot. I do that. (Yes, I completed a police academy, albeit a reserve academy, because I'm just that bad ass...here's the part where I don't admit that I got my scrawny ass kicked on a regular basis and talked my then-husband into having a baby so I wouldn't have to become a real cop. Best. Decision. Ever.).

I'm afraid of lots of stuff. Lightning, thunder, spiders, and bridges top the list. Prose constructed minus the use of serial commas. I'm terrified of the dentist, of dying before my kids are old enough to call me for advice about Geritol vs. Centrum Advanced, and of driving off one of Vancouver's many bridges and plummeting into the icy depths (I run survival drills in my head where I successfully roll down all the windows and unbuckle everyone's seat belts before we slam into the wall of water, after which we will all swim to the surface and be rescued by the Coast Guard and/or a boat full of hot fisherman who have cookies for the kids, Irish cream for me).

Now I'm afraid of something new: reviews.

WHAT am I going to do if someone hates this book? Seriously? Husband keeps reminding me that it's definitely going to happen, that someone is going to say something terrible and mean and "she shouldn't quit her day job" because it's impossible to make all of the people happy all of the time and blabbity blah blah. That's why I don't sing in public. I don't want to get shot or have someone turn a fire hose on me because they think I've caught on fire and thus explains the discordant undulation and ear-piercing vibrato.

I come from a long line of oversensitive people. Man, my mom--she's the worst. If you look at her the wrong way, she bursts into tears. She cries when her clients yell at her (Mom's a kick-ass kitchen designer. If you live in Southern California and you're in need of a killer kitchen, she's an uber-designer. Just don't yell at her.) She cries when my 27-year-old sister and I are fighting. She cries at the grocery store if someone tells her a sad story and she only has $5 to give to them for their child's kidney transplant. (She might be a bit of a sucker, too, especially when we see that same fellow behind the 7-Eleven just moments later chugging a bottle of Colt 45.) So I come by this need to people please quite naturally. I want people to like my work. I want folks to feel that they haven't wasted their time, or eventually, their money. And since I'm only allowed to call my shrink twice a week AND I'm out of American Oreos, I need to keep my sensitivities in check.

This sounds stupid to even say out loud. Machiavelli would rip me a new one, tell me how it's never good to let the enemy see your weaknesses and certainly, don't come right out and admit them. (You're not my enemy, though, right?) I mean, duh, we all want other folks to like us and read our work and tell the world of our brilliance. We don't want 2-star reviews (and worse) and snarky comments popping up in the Amazon stream or on Twitter. It's like telling us our children are ugly (which, for the record, mine are not. The last one is sorta funny lookin', but he's wicked smart). The other day saw a fair bit of commentary on blogs and Twitter about how GoodReads has had to change their policy about writers commenting on reviews that may not be as magical as one would hope--but who are these writers who are actually taking the time to go in and refute a review? (It was GoodReads, wasn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong.)  If you have time to go in and comment on someone else's comment/review, your time would be better spent learning how to make your writing suck less. YES, I know--this advice from someone who, at this juncture, has received one written review of the novel. (It was a good review, so I can't provide commentary with any weight as to the devastation of hearing I suck. It's going to hurt. Bad. Like a super-heated fork tipped with snake and spider venom, stabbed into an open, infected wound, over which is poured hydrogen peroxide and ammonia. And lemon juice.)

However, if the vomitus from Mean Reviewer Person is riddled with spelling errors and incomplete sentences and sounds like it was written by a 2-year-old or your ex's inbred cousin, then, again, I remind you what my mother often told me growing up: consider the source. Like the time that pesky Andy McCarthy cut in line again on the new slide and stuck his tongue out at me, and after school, I told my mom I was going to call him a fu*ker but instead decided to consider the source. (Maybe I didn't quite grasp the whole concept, but at least I got to say fu*ker at age 8 without the usual soapy snack.) It was very easy for me to criticize painters and paintings until I actually picked up a paint brush for the first time ever. Which I did, about two weeks ago. It was excruciating. See?

The same is true for us. Writing is hard. I could insert some overused quotes here that equate writing to blood draining from arteries, but you get the point. (And thanks, Lauren, at Back to Earth Designs, for being so patient with me while we giggled our way through Tofino's landscape.)

The POINT: It got me to thinking about the whole process of critiquing each other's work. There are a lot of writers who won't review other writers. Again, lots of debate in the blogosphere about why writers reviewing is a bad deal. It's the readers we want to connect with, right? I had someone ask me once, "Why do you care what other writers say about your writing?" Omigod, I SO CARE! But I also care about readers--and THAT is the circuitous way of me saying that I'm freaking out about those first reviews. I think an ulcer has reactivated in my gut. *squirt squirt* 'Scuse me. Gastric juices abound.

We're all people pleasers. That's why we're writers who are grabbing this publishing bull by the testes and saying, "Down, demon! You're mine!" And, unless you're one of those people who really doesn't give a rip about what others say, I'm guessing that I am not alone in this darkened room with my insecurity. There are lots of us here, aren't there? I can hear you breathing...oh, man, I think someone just farted...

This past week, I finally joined the Twittersphere and set to expanding my virtual connections. This exercise has reassured me in one thing: we're all in this together. The gals at DarkSide Publishing have certainly figured this out, as have the collaborators at Independent Author Network, Red Willow Digital Press, and numerous other sites springing up every day, the writers becoming partners in this grand adventure.

Don't believe everything the reviewers are saying (unless they're consistently saying you should take up dog walking as a profession). It would be like being a virginal 17-year-old and believing your boyfriend when he tells you he probably is infertile because he only has one...

Wait. I could be sued for defamation if I finish that sentence.

New friends are so much fun. I had no idea. If you haven't found me on Twitter yet, I'm @JennSommersby.

Time for chocolate!

On barf, writer blogs, Kandahar, and my book

My youngest child, age 6, woke up puking this morning. (For those who are keeping count, I have four children, aged 20.667 down to the baby, 6.58 years. As I've said before, I'm a slow learner. Hence, four children.)

Puking is so incredibly disgusting, but it breaks your heart when it's coming out of the face of a really small person. Feel better soon, KennyG.

Beyond the vomitus that has been spread about my bathroom and the concomitant Lysol/Clorox odors now wafting through the rest of the house, I've been spending far too many late nights looking shit up on the Web. I've been doing research. Tons and tons of research, about self-publishing, e-books, marketing, Kindle Boards, GoodReads (BTW, if you're on GoodReads, friend me), what a self-pubber SHOULD do and should NOT do, how to sell yourself, how to sell your book, how to make your blog attract more readers, how to, how to, how TO. I think my eyes are bleeding. (And I really should be writing. Too much work trying to figure out how to sell the book when I should be concentrating on writing it. Rest assured: Book One is done. But if I want readers to take me seriously, I gotta get Book Two finished. My young friend Alanna will be happy to know that Henry and Gemma will not be stuck in the skies above Turkey forever, and that yes, they will kiss. Again. But they're not having sex. Not yet. If I tell you why, I'll have to kill you.)

Funny thing is, writers who take the self-pub route have a completely different approach as to how they carry on their business, each as different as the books they've written. Some folks write in one genre; this scares me as I've written this young adult novel, with plans for it to be a trilogy, but then I think that might be it for me in terms of YA. I write different stuff...with swear words and really dark themes. Not stuff for sweet, romance-hungry minds. I mean, the YA market is saturated. And I don't do vampires, werewolves, or faeries. I do like blood, though. And mean people. And I like it when the mean people are made to be bloodied. That's sorta fun...

By staying with one particular genre (thrillers, mysteries, crime/police procedurals, romance, young adult, etc), these self-publishers have been able to build their business, their "brand," their platform. (I'm beginning to loathe that word.) I've learned lots from Joanna Penn of the Creative Penn, Joel Friedlander of the Book Designer, JA Konrath, Scott Nicholson (he answered my dumb questions via Facebook messages...nice guy). Amanda Hocking (recent self-published phenom) and Zoe Winters (another self-pub with remarkable success) apparently have used the Kindle Boards to boost their business and establish friendships. And a gal named Victorine Lieske has broken all the rules and had self-publishing success with only one book on the shelves. A lot of the advice coming from seasoned self-publishers says that shelf space begets success, i.e., the more titles you have, the more you will become noticed. Thanks, Victorine, for disproving that like a shoddy 8th grade hypothesis at the county science fair.

I could go on and on. But I won't. Because if you're here, reading this, chances are you don't give a shit about all this self-publishing crap. You don't want to hear about writers building platforms, holding giveaways, and inviting other authors to cross-post on one another's blogs, or how Borders Books has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is closing 200 stores in the US, how the face of publishing is changing. I'm guessing you don't want to hear about how I have to figure out a way to make social media work for me, and all it does it make me feel like an old woman because I do not get the point of Twitter. I'm not clever enough to come up with something witty to say every ten or fifteen minutes like some of those Twits do. (I don't think they like being called that. Oops.) And, no, I don't think the Twit-o-sphere cares about what color shirt I'm wearing (the blue one, or maybe the bluer one...) or if I should have creamer or milk in today's coffee.

One of the issues the writing-centric blogosphere seems to talk a lot about is that writers who have blogs should offer something on said blogs in order to build a following. A lot of writers have writing and editing advice, how-to stuff, what to avoid in fiction, how to kill your characters, how to write dialogue, etc. Most of it is really basic, and thus a total snorefest (God, that sounds pretentious), though there are those few gems that I've found to be pretty helpful. I won't list them here because you don't give a rat's ass. I don't blame you. There are few things more painful than having to listen to someone go on about something you don't really give a ding's dong about.

And frankly, I don't want Planet Jenn to be a spot on the Web where folks come for writing advice. I have NO business giving anyone advice about anything, except maybe if they're going through a divorce and there are kids involved. My advice to you: get a good lawyer. And never, ever believe your ex if he tells you he will keep the kid(s) until you get back on your feet at that new job, even if it's just for a month or two. Those exes, they're crafty little scoundrels, lemme tell ya. When it comes time to bring the kid(s) back home because you're now on your feet, the ex's crazy mother will chase you down the street with a baseball bat and then call the police on you. It happens, people. Don't ever let go of your babies.

But, I digress. Blogging, Jenn, we're talking about blogging. So, um, anyway--I'm not going to use my blog as a platform for anything other than talking about what's making headlines on Planet Jenn. And right now, there is a fair amount splashing itself across the Town Square news ticker.

My oldest son, the one who is 20.667 years old, is preparing to leave for Kandahar with the US Army's 515th Sapper Company. He leaves on/around March 7. He's brave and ready. I'm scared shitless.

I am a mother whose son is going to war. I never, ever thought I'd have to say something like that.

So, my blog posts in the near future are probably going to be about my boy, as long as he doesn't forbid me to talk about it, and most assuredly about my book (do you want to know what it's about? I can drop the veil of secrecy because if anyone wants to steal my ideas or laugh at me, they're gonna, anyway) and my (mis)adventures in becoming an "indie publisher," maybe some grammar stuff here and there when I just can't take anymore bad grammar in the e-books I've been reading lately, and about whatever the hell I find funny, sad, or totally irreverent. Like this:

Did you hear about the solar flare that happened on Valentine's Day? No, not the one in your neighbor's bedroom after he gave his wife the diamond tennis bracelet (gross), but the real one that happened on the surface of the sun. Yeah, apparently it disrupted GPS and radio communications in China for a little bit. Once a solar flare does its thing (which sort of looks like a shockwave on the NASA video), it takes the charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (that sounds so naughty!), approximately eight minutes to reach Earth. That's when the potential for disruption can happen. Oh, and auroras, all over the world! So pretty! Apparently, the light shows have been pretty spectacular up north the last few days (see what I mean?). The solar flare that happened Monday was the largest in four years; the sun runs on an eleven-year "weather" cycle, and we are at the tail end of one that is scheduled to end in 2013-2014. The brains who study this stuff say that even though the flare was impressive (rated as an X2, which is pretty big), as of Thursday the 17th, it was not expected to cause any disruptions to electrical services here on the Third Rock. So, gadget addicts and device divas, rest assured, you and your electronics are spared. For now. Until the next solar storm dances its way through the stratosphere, which, according to scientists, could be any time. And the next year or two will prove interesting as the solar cycle winds up for the end of its eleventh year. (2012 Doomsdayers, go away. I don't want to hear from you. Freaks.)

So, yeah...that's the way the cookie crumbled today. Although no one's really eating many cookies because they sort of hurt when they're hurtling back through one's nostrils...

xoxo

That blue typewriter along the margin...

...was where it all started. My older sister, who recently passed away (love you, Shell), was born with cerebral palsy. She couldn't use her hands very well, certainly not to hold a pen. So she had a sky blue Smith Corona electric typewriter that looked something like this:

I loved it. I think I used it more than Michelle did. My first story (I was 5, maybe 6) was a ridiculous epic about a trip to a dentist. Had I known at that time that dentists would become a totally scary part of my future, I perhaps would've chosen a different topic to write about. Maybe bunnies or unicorns. Or maybe unicorns who spear bunnies with their horns and then host barbecues for their troll friends. Unicorns and trolls are friends, right?

My favorite part of that keyboard is the chunky, fat button of goodness on the right--the return key--isn't it just delicious?

The reason this is important: when you hit that button, you've moved onto a new line. Maybe that line is a continuation of the prior line, a sentence still incomplete. Maybe it's a new thought, on a line all its own. Maybe a poet is using the sky blue Smith Corona, like my buddy Shakespeare (although they didn't have typewriters, or electricity, in Shakespeare's day, I suppose), and that new line is an introduction to a sparkling-fresh, compelling thought that will leave its reader breathless and wanting more. Maybe you just like to hit the button because it's so damn big and fun and it makes the coolest sound. (I have yet to find a keyboard that gives me the same clicky sound satisfaction. Maybe my friend Lauren's keyboard--it has a nice click to it. Very satisfying, indeed.)

When you hit that button, no matter what you're writing or have written, it is a commitment to move forward. You're moving on, skipping to the next part of the page. After you hit that button 10 or 20 times, you've moved to the bottom of the page. Time to insert a new page. Clean, white, begging to be desecrated by whatever is clanging around in your cranium. It's weird, really, but the Big Blue Button wants you to hit it. It's begging you to hit it.

By hitting it, you're making a decision. You're moving ahead. You're moving.

Moving.

That's the important part.

I'm trying to do that. I am awaiting my turn at an e-formatter (March 10th is my date); I'm working on cover art options. I'm going to offer my YA paranormal/magical realism tome as an ebook and perhaps as a print edition in the future. I'm moving ahead, even if it is in a way I never imagined I would consider. (I'm a snob. There are a lot of us out there. This guy is one: http://crossroadsroad.com/. And this fellow has had mad success stemming from his self-publishing endeavors. He earned himself a fat, multi-book deal with Crown, subsidiary of Random House. He earned it, for reals. Lots of hard work marketing oneself. It can happen.)

If I do this, then maybe, someday, I'll be able to say thanks but no thanks to the folks who didn't believe in me the first (and fifteenth) time around. And I'll say LOADS of thanks to the folks who WILL believe in me, or who, at the very least, will believe in my story. It's not for everyone. I know that. But it's fun. I think you'll like it. If you don't, well, we'd probably still be cordial to one another in line at Starbucks. I might even buy your coffee for you. Well, that is if the book sells. Otherwise I will probably give you googly eyes in the hope that you'll buy coffee for me instead.

In the meantime, I'm gonna keep hitting that Big Blue Button. I'm gonna keep moving, one line at a time.

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...

Jenn, you need a new post. Slacker.

Yeah, so I'm a slacker. But my shrink would probably tell you that it's all due to a lack of confidence. I mean, I could blog something every single day, but that would mean I'd have to think of something witty to say every single day. And I can't do that. Some days I'm really bitchy and mean, like, I-want-to-drive-over-the-neighbor's-cat sort of mean. Other days, I'm still bitchy, but less mean; those are the days I want to kick the beagles. In fact, I tried to start a new holiday called National Kick A Beagle Day, for September 19 this year (also happens to be my birthday AND National Talk Like A Pirate Day!), but no one was interested in kicking beagles with me. In fact, some said I was downright mean. But that idea came to me on a day where I was just bitchy, and not mean. I'm so confused.

Anyway, back to the point: I can't write all the time because sometimes I just don't have anything interesting to say. Sometimes I sit down to write a post, and all I can think is, "Wow, Jenn, no one wants to read this shit," simply because there are a million blogs out there that can teach you HTML, how to make tiramisu, how to scrapbook, how to replace the transmission in your car, and how to get a better love life. This blog does none of those things. Sometimes, if I have a book or movie review I must share with you, I do post that. Or at least I did. But mostly, those things were originally intended for publication on other sites. Not this one.

The most important, viable of my excuses: I was sorta busy last year.

I spent the latter half of 2009 and all of 2010 writing. A lot. I finished my novel and started querying agents. The process led me to rewrite the damn thing four times, after eight different readers vetted and two NYC agents provided invaluable feedback. It's a better book than it was in April '10, but apparently not good enough in January '11 to get an agent. Or so that's how the story goes. I get a lot of this: "Thanks, but not right for me. Good luck." The book spent three months at Random House Canada with the director of publishing and her senior editor, and they provided some kick-ass praise any wannabe writer would kill to get about his/her first book. Alas, RHC didn't chase after me with offers of advance money and reams of savory contract jargon. No still means no, no matter how much glitter and chocolate you drizzle on it.

As I await the final few rejections to come in (and no, I'm not being a Negative Nelly -- I'm being Proactive Patricia with a little Antsy Annie and Let's-Get-On-With-This-Shit Shirley), I'm venturing into the unknown abyss of e-publishing. Doing lots of research, looking for authors who have had success taking this route (eg, Scott Nicholson (http://www.hauntedcomputer.com/) seems to be burning up the charts). I mean, seriously -- we "unpubbeds" (my catchy new word for unpublished novelists) spend SO much time and energy and money and blood and sweat and buckets-full-o-tears to write these books. We sacrifice time with friends and family. We dream about it. We have nightmares about it. We obsess, make notes, and do research. COPIOUS amounts of research. We talk it over with our therapists and just about anyone we feel we might be able to trust to NOT steal our ideas. We sit in our cars, alone, at local coffee shops and drink peppermint tea until 1 and 2 in the morning in subzero temperatures, braving parking lots full of cops and schizophrenics and Mercedes-driving gang-bangers, just so we can write undisturbed. And for what? So these agents can tell me I suck? Thing is, none of them have said that. They've said that they like it. The editor and director of publishing assured me that I definitely have a future in publishing in this genre. Yeah...sure.

I'm an editor, too, so I know the grammar and syntax is squeaky clean. I know there is tension in every scene. I know the characters are interesting and that the plot is well structured and that nuance oozes from all the right places. I KNOW this. But the agents aren't loving me. The requests for fulls have come back without the Magic Call; the requests for partials have stopped at partials and haven't progressed to fulls. That SUCKS. The unpubbeds can't even send unsolicited manuscripts to publishers anymore, like they used to in the olden days. Thanks, digital age, environmentalists, and Unabomber for making cryptically labeled brown envelopes that contain manuscripts bound for the slush pile so un-PC.


I know my shit is better than some of the stuff that's out there on the store shelves, but then again, every unpubbed who is halfway down Bitter Street is singing the same tune. There are so many of us, we should start a damn choir. We could challenge the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to a sing-off. But they probably have Stephenie Meyer singing with them (she's allegedly Mormon though she only has THREE children--I'm a better Mormon than she is 'cuz I have FOUR, even though I'm totally not Mormon). Word on the street is, she can sing like a diva--and she'd crush us with her sparkly vampires and staggering sales records. (If I were her, I'd go on a crazy diet and have surgery to restore my honeymoon vagina so I could steal Robert Pattinson away from K-Stew. He's cute. And as I am technically eight months shy of being classified a "cougar," I'd be all over that delicious Brit like a fat kid on a box of M&Ms.)


There has to be a better way. I'll keep you posted if I figure it out.

In the meantime, go buy a Kindle, a Kobo, or an iPad so that when I do e-publish this flaming ball of volcanic sputum, you'll be ready to splurge on the $1.99 cover price and send me into publishing infamy.