I Don't Know What to Title This Post. How About I Call It "Edgar?"

My blog tour is over! (Almost.) The posts have all been published, the comments are all in, the winner will be announced soon, and I've written the recap post already, but I still need to draw the winner and add the post to my website. So, nearly, but not quite finished. I had a lot of fun with this thing! Was it worth the money? I'd say I got what I paid for. If I had been able to afford more, I might have gotten more out of it, but for what I spent, I'd say it was about right.

I'd say the biggest issue I had was time. Putting together 10 posts and recording an audio interview in a span of two months, on top of everything else I'm working on, is a lot of work! I also wish I'd had a better mix of interviews and guest posts. Guest posts are much harder, but if I can have some time to work on them, I can really turn out some good writing, which is partly what I was hoping for. I wanted people to get a feel for my writing more than for me as a person, thinking maybe if they liked my writing style, they'd like the book, too. Doing the interviews was fun, but I think three or four probably could have covered everything. I think I ended up with 7 (out of 11 posts total).

Still, I had fun and it was really great to hear some feedback about the book, the excerpts, the blurb, etc. I would still do things differently the next time around, but why do we fall? So we can learn how to pick ourselves up. I even got a 5-star review from one of the tour hosts, so that was awesome! It came near the end of the tour, and since none of the other hosts had decided to read the book and do a review, I hadn't expected it. It was a wonderful surprise to wake up to that morning!

Aside from the tour, I've been working my butt off trying to catch up on my health blog project. Since I just converted it a couple months ago, it's going to take me some time to rebrand the site to the world and to my existing followers, but I am getting a little traffic to site, which wasn't happening when it was just a product-based site. A lot of the visits are probably me as I develop the site and add new posts, but there are a few unique visitors, so that's good. I've got about a week and a half's worth of posts scheduled out as of this evening, so I can have a little time to redistribute my efforts elsewhere, but not much.

I'm still working on the story I worked on for April's Camp Nano, and I'm REALLY hoping I can finish it by the end of the month. Ambitious? Of course. But, if I can do 50k words in November alone, I certainly should be able to do another 20-30k in the 22 days left in June! I know I'm on the right track with it, but with all these other projects to work, and especially catch up, on, I haven't had the time to crank it out. If I sat down and worked on this only for a week, even with work, I could make some serious progress.

I have every damn intention of getting back to Always Happy to Entertain You soon, but I've got so much to catch up on and I want to restructure how I do the posts that it's going to take some real motivation and maybe a kick in the pants to get me back into it. Unfortunately, it's easy to break from right now since so many of the shows are on break for the summer. I'm considering moving the site to self-hosted WordPress soon (not the other WordPress I was bitching about last week), but that won't be for another few weeks.

Aside from that, I'm really financially frustrated at the moment. I was expecting to have a little more money coming in starting this month, and it turns out that's not going to happen now, so now I'm trying to figure something else out, and find the time to do so. I'm getting close to my savings goal for a new (used) car, but it's the little expenditures that are becoming a problem.

A lot of them are "luxury" expenses, like going to the movies and getting small things for myself like books or jewelry (all under $15 or $20, I assure you), so technically I shouldn't be complaining about not being able to buy that X Files memorabilia I want or that new book that comes out next week. I've been on a budget for a long time, and I don't have a problem budgeting or taking my time and saving up for things I want but don't necessarily need. I just really was expecting to have more money to budget by now, and knowing I don't means I have to adjust things and it's going to take a little time for me to come to terms with that.

In any case, even with the tour over, I've got plenty to keep me busy during the weeks and months to come!

Everybody's working for the weekend!

Pulsating to the Backbeat

  Done. Man, this book was an uphill battle every step of way. Part of it was my own fault for putting the pressure on, not only setting a deadline, but announcing it to everyone. I over-estimated how much time I would have to work on things, not leaving room for procrastination, time for myself, and other unforeseen circumstances, and I was not nearly as prepared as I was the last time around.
    Having a blog makes you feel like you need to tell people things, like when your book is coming out. The accountability factor can be motivational and helpful, but in reality, there probably wouldn't be an uproar if the book came out two weeks after I originally said it would.
    I also ran into a problem with the Kindle version--Amazon has connected CreateSpace and Kindle Direct Publishing so that CreateSpace will send your files over to KDP after your book files have been approved. You'd think that would make it more convenient, right? Wrong.
    They used to accept only Word documents, maybe HTML, and .mobi files for KDP and the website would convert the files to .mobi if need be. It wasn't perfect, but it did pretty well considering it was done by a machine and not a human. I send those files to myself to view on my Kindle Fire to make sure they look all right for the most part, and if not, I can edit the Word file to fix whatever doesn't look right, and reupload it and have KDP convert it again. KDP only takes about 6-12 hours to approve the files and publish them on the website, so if you have to make changes, you can usually upload the file the night before and it'll be back online in the morning.
    This time, I learned that KDP accepts PDFs to convert, too, and that's what CreateSpace gave me to upload to Kindle. I figured it's THEIR file--it should convert with no problem. Wrong again. When I pulled that document up on my Kindle, I couldn't believe how ridiculous it looked. There were no tab indents on the paragraphs, and perhaps worse, the conversion had broken up some paragraphs so that it looked a little like this:

The quick brown fox jumps
over the lazy
dog.

    Why would they allow you to upload a file that can't even keep paragraphs together? Ereader files are basically supposed to read like an HTML file--HTML doesn't break paragraphs up like that unless you specifically tell it to! So, last night, I went through and created my own .doc Word file to upload again. The tab indents were back, the table of contents looked normal, and the lines were all kept together in a paragraph like they're supposed to be.
    There are some nitpicky things I wish I could fix, but I'd have to hire a professional for that, and I'd rather not put any more money into fixing something as small as the size of a tab indent when I'm probably one of the few people out there who is truly bothered by it.
    Anyway, it's been a busy month, to say the least. I finished the files and published them on time as planned, on March 28, though it wasn't until about 2:30 PM. I'm so relieved to have the book finished, but now I get to the promotion part, and I'm not exactly looking forward to the marketing part over the next few weeks and months.
    It's not my strong suit, and I really wish I had more previous success to draw on and apply this time around. That's part of the reason why I'm spending money on professional marketing this time--I figure maybe these people know what they're doing better than I do, or at least I hope they do!--but apparently it takes a while to put together a blog tour so I won't know if it works until a couple months from now.
    Not much else to speak of--I got caught in a blizzard a week ago and scared myself shitless trying to drive home in it. I didn't realize it was going to be that bad or I would have stayed another night where I was. My allergies are doing a lot better now--I've only taken one pill this week and I have a feeling the "symptoms" I was experiencing were due to fatigue from staying up so late to finish my book stuff on time rather than from allergies.
    I'm finally getting back to blogging, so new recaps and I'm hoping a new weekly feature will be coming back to Always Happy to Entertain you soon, and I should be able to post here more regularly as well.

Hey, ho, let's go.

The Key to Coping: Keeping Busy

  I'm sure whoever is still stopping by and reading this is sick of hearing about this, but it's cathartic for me, and since it's my blog, you're SOL.
    I've actually been doing all right overall. I think I had about two or three days in which I lost it a little bit, thinking about being alone and being dumped, but it didn't last all day on any of those days.
    My main anesthetic? Avoidance. Not denial, but avoidance. I have blocked his posts on Facebook. I have removed his contact and photos from my cell phone. I have disconnected myself from his projects for the most part, except for one. The exercise DVD program we had set up on a website is still mine to work with. Why? Because I was doing most of the work on it to begin with, so I figured instead of just throwing away all that hard work I've done over the past several months, I'm going to take over the website and completely reimagine it.
    I'm going to transform it into a broader health related blog, as I think one of its issues before was that it was too narrow a topic and there was not enough good information (i.e. new blog posts) to get people interested in the product. I'm a little concerned I may have bitten off more than I can chew--it's a pretty drastic change, and it will mean I'll have to be posting regular content (in addition to the other 4 blogs I write), but I think it'll be good. It's a new angle, it's going to be more women's health oriented, and it's going to be useful. Instead of just sharing what other people write articles about on Twitter, I'll have my own new articles to share.
    Since I'm not a doctor or a personal trainer or a dietician, I'm going to have to include some disclaimers and make sure that I use credible sources (i.e. not Web MD) for the posts I create, but I think it'll be good. And the best part about it is that I won't have to look at pictures of my ex all over the home page anymore. The DVD will still be included on the website because I don't feel right about removing it completely, but anything related to it, questions and any potential (albeit unlikely) sales that come through will go directly to his email. Only questions/comments relating to the new articles and content on the website will be my responsibility. I don't know whether it will pan out or not, but I'm hopeful.
     Beyond taking on this new project, I've been editing my new book. It's taken up a lot of my time, and there's still so much to do before I release it, so I've been trying to keep up with it all. I'm actually considering paying for some marketing solutions this time around. Partly because I am working now and I have a little bit of extra money to spend (not really, but I have more now than I did when I released the last book when I wasn't working), but also partly because I really want to have this book do well and if it's just up to me to do the marketing, hiring a little temporary contract help for a blog tour may not be such a terrible idea.
    The book itself is coming along well, though. I still have a few more rounds of revisions to get through, but this round has been a lot less painful because it's mostly mechanics and minor tweaks rather than rewrites and major cuts. However, figuring out these mechanics is no easy task. I'm relying on a gigantic textbook of the Chicago Manual of Style and it's not always straightforward where to find the correct usages. Despite how thick it is, I think it could use a better index.
    In any case, keeping so busy has also been helpful in terms of keeping my mind off things. I think in terms of grief over the loss of the relationship, I'm at the anger phase. Not wanting to see, speak, or even think about anything to do with him. Since we don't really have the same friends or even live in the same city, running into each other isn't much of a concern.
    As to the other phases, denial seemed to come and go pretty quickly. I'm not quite sure how the bargaining stage is supposed to play out since I have absolutely no intention of putting myself back into that situation, but I guess I'll find out in the days, weeks, or (I hope not) months to come. Mostly, I'm still trying to keep my head up, focus on what comes next, and hope that whatever happens will be better and I'll be better for it.

Idle hands and what-not.

Getting Back on the Horse

  It's been a rough week. Not only am I behind where I expected to be on my editing, but I'm getting that itch to write again, and it's really difficult to choose to finish editing one book instead of jumping into writing another one. As much as I enjoy editing most of the time, I am a storyteller at heart, and I still prefer to write.
   Aside from that, I've been dealing with some other stuff at home. I keep looking over my finances trying to figure out if I have the money to be able to move out any time soon. Unfortunately, I think I'm about $250 short on monthly income to be able to do that comfortably.
    I was feeling sick for a while there too, and it gave me an excuse to put a few things on the back burner, including the blogs.
    The biggest hit came last week. My relationship ended just shy of my 7 year anniversary. It threw a major wrench into my motivation, and most of the weekend was spent in pajamas with plenty of Netflix, Ally McBeal, and sugary food.
    Somehow, in spite of my sugar jones, I managed to stick to my calorie counting and I'm down 10 pounds since the New Year when I first started, which is amazing to me. I haven't been at this weight since high school and it's kind of incredible to think that I finally succeeded in coming this far.
    I didn't really want to talk about the split because I think it hasn't completely hit me. Much of the time we were together was spent communicating long-distance, so I'm used to not seeing him that often. I think what I felt above all was confusion: I didn't see it coming, and that was probably what caused the biggest shock and hurt. Every relationship has obstacles, but we've come so far over the past few years and we've worked through so many things in that time that I expected to be able to continue working through it.
    On the one hand, there's a part of me that would love to vilify him and shout it from the rooftops what a horrible, cowardly, lying two-faced a-hole he is, but I still haven't processed it and made up my mind about how I feel about it yet, so I don't want to be the petty or vengeful one. I would like to think I'm better than that, no matter how much pain it caused me.
    You should know this is a big improvement from how I felt Friday (when it happened). I was ready to sue for emotional damages--seriously. I wasn't expecting to get more than a couple video game consoles out it, but it seemed like a plausible idea at the time.
    At first, I had every intention of trying to stay friends. It seemed like such a strange idea to sever ties completely after 7 years, but the more I think about what happened, what he said and how it ended, I'm not sure I want to stay in touch. The worst part is that if we don't see each other anymore, I won't get to see his family either, whom I consider good people and good friends. I'm sure I'd still be welcome there, but I also feel like I might be looked at differently. Not as a villain or anything, but maybe a bit pathetic and or pitiful.

    As of now, several days later, I don't feel incredibly upset or angry, but I'm still a little confused and still a little unsure about things. I'm trying to take it one hour, sometimes one minute, at a time, and that's been helpful for me. It hasn't helped me get anything done, but it has kept me from losing my shit for the most part.
    I think overall, I feel hopeful. There were a lot of things that didn't always make sense in that relationship, things that fall into the "opposites attract" category. Now, I'm trying to focus on the future, on the possibilities, and to stay hopeful that I will find my way to better things. Career-wise and relationship-wise.

Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks.

-Tom Petty

I'm Quiet and There's Nothing Wrong with That

  I feel like I should have a t-shirt that says: "No, I don't want to talk to you, and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me." I have felt inadequate and uncomfortable throughout most of my life because of my quieter personality. It's not that I'm antisocial or that I don't enjoy other people's company; I'm just not interested in being around people ALL the time. After getting into this new book I've been reading, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, I realize that there isn't anything wrong with me--there's just a disconnect with the way our culture views people like me.
    There are people who don't like (or at least, limit their interaction at) parties or large gatherings, don't like to speak up in a classroom full of people, prefer to study and read and spend time alone more often than not. These people are often introverts, and they are often dubbed antisocial or socially inept simply because large groups of people, loud noises, and speaking spontaneously or on the spot make them physically and psychologically uncomfortable.
    I'm not socially inept. I'm not antisocial either. I like people fine. I will talk your ear off, if you let me. I do like getting out and interacting with others. I can be loud and obnoxious. I just don't feel the need to do these things all the time.
    Once I get to know people, I am much better at talking to them. At a party, I am much more comfortable when I know the majority of people there than when I only know one or two people. Either way, I am apt to be a wallflower, but at least when I know most of the people, I can be pulled away from the wall and into the conversation.
    When it comes to conversing, I can speak intelligently about things. I can share my opinions pretty eloquently when given the chance. But I don't dominate the conversation or debate too heatedly because I am terrible at speaking spontaneously. I can't argue about something on the spur of the moment. I can't win a debate without due preparation. And I don't enjoy doing either because it happens too often that the person I'm debating is more forceful than I am and will look like the winner no matter how good my argument is simply because I do not carry the same weight in my presentation that they do. It's not that I don't know what I'm talking about. It's just that I have a lot more trouble explaining my ideas verbally in a convincing way than I would explaining them through writing.

    My entire life, people have been trying to "pull me out of my shell." I like my shell, thank you. It keeps obnoxious, loud people and things out. It also gives me a quiet place to retreat to when I need to process information or think about how something works or why something is. (This personality trait is probably the real reason I became a philosophy major. Philosophers are often quiet types prefer to think and reflect rather than talk, speechify, share and sell.)
    And you know what? There's nothing wrong with wanting be alone sometimes, wanting to think for a few minutes before I speak, or choosing to observe rather than participate. That's just the way some people are built to explore and experience the world. We will join the party, speak when we're ready, and participate when understand the game or conversation subject. We just need, and enjoy, a little more time to internalize the world than other people do. It's not a flaw. It's a fact, and it's an advantage in many ways.
    Being quiet and observant means it will often take us less time to understand how to do things. We learn from mistakes better and more quickly because we took the time to figure out what went wrong and how to avoid that outcome the next time. It means our arguments are often more structured and reasoned even if our enthusiasm and decibel of speech is not quite as high as someone else's. Those are good things to look for in a person, whether it's a friend, an employee, or a partner.

    This isn't to say that quiet types should try to take over the world and eliminate extroverted, social, talkative types. As always, moderation and balance are important with any two extremes. The point here is that, I'm quiet, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just because I don't act enthusiastic about everything or laugh at your jokes doesn't mean I'm deficient in some way. It just means I'm taking it all in. I experience the world like a game of chess rather than Marco Polo. I reason my way through it rather than feel my way blindly. We need both types of people throughout the world in business, family, and personal areas of our lives.
    I merely want to point out that you don't need to try to pull me out of my shell or try to get me to speak up. I'll come out on my own when I'm good and ready, and I'll speak when I've got something to say.
    This is part one of a series on this topic (I haven't decided how many posts to include in the series just yet). Next time, I'll delve into more examples of how being quiet has shaped my life, and how people have tried to unshape my quietness.

Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.

-Lao Tzu

It's Going to Be a Long Fall (Season)

  It's going to be a busy fall season! If you hadn't realized, it's already the second week of October, which means National Novel Writing Month is coming up in about 3 weeks.

    I am wrapping up one novel--with the goal to finish it before November 1, planning for my NaNo novel, also due November 1, preparing to edit a story I wrote a couple years ago--something I'd like to finish by the end of 2012, as well as continuing marketing for my recently published book through social media, guest blogs, review requests, etc.
    This marketing process will be ongoing until either A) it does so well I don't need to spend as much time telling people about it, B) it starts getting such bad reviews that I won't be able to recover, C) my next book is ready to release and I will have to devote more time and effort to promoting that one.
    And all of that is just the stuff on my "book/writing" to-do list! This is on top of my marketing work for my friend's website that I've been doing, as well as searching for a new job.

    However, I have an ace up my sleeve this year: I recently bought (with my awesome NaNo winner discount) the software program Scrivener. If you haven't heard of it, it is a writing software that can help you organize and lay out writing projects more easily. It features outlining, pinboards, keyword assignment, and too many other things to name. I've started using it with my current book, and I can't tell you how much easier it's been for me to figure out what I need to do next, which sections need to be added to, where previous characters appeared, and refer back to my outlines, character descriptions, maps, and other planning documents.

    Granted, I had to spend some time getting all those things in order first--uploading files and separating them out, adding the keywords,  etc., but since then, it's been so much easier to go back and work on chapters that need additional scenes or find any anachronisms in my timeline.
    Once I get to the editing process, I think this program will be even more helpful, rearranging scenes, matching up subplots, organizing the timeline, and catching any plot mistakes.
    Last year, I did a post on why you should do NaNoWriMo (make sure to read the comments!). This year, I'm going to go over how to do NaNo when you have a schedule as busy as mine or busier. You know what my schedule looks like for the remainder of the year--this is all on the schedule regardless of whether I get a part or full time job in the meantime. Check back tomorrow for the follow-up, "How to Do NaNoWriMo Next Month."

Ain't no rest for the wicked.

Back to the Future: Part 1

  I feel like I took a trip into 1999 last night. I've mentioned my recent entry into self-publishing, and I've been on the prowl for marketing options for my book. (Something I'm not crazy about, as I explained in last week's post.)

You remember sites like this. I hope you've updated yours
to fit into the 21st century a little better!

    So, I've been searching for blogs and websites where I can write guest posts, do interviews, or solicit a review from the blogger, and I am sorry to say that even in this modern, tech-savvy, drag-and-drop web-builder world, too many people still have awful-looking blogs and websites. Why do I bring up 1999? Because that was a time when you only build the most basic of websites if you didn't know much about coding or design. And some of these sites I looked at gave off that same feel--like the person who created them had no idea what they were doing and just slapped a bunch of stuff together and called it good.
    To be fair, some people had really beautiful sites. But they are in the minority. I must have looked at over a hundred different blogs and websites last night, and I was plagued by slow load times, an excess of 3rd party widgets and plugins, gigantic headers, ridiculously confusing navigation, poorly arranged photos and widgets that didn't fit the content/sidebar areas of the site, and things that were just plain ugly, like background images, colors, logos, poor quality photos, etc.
    I worked at a web design company, so I probably notice this stuff a lot more than the average person, but, especially with the slow load times, I don't know how these people have so many page views and so many followers with a site as disorganized/ugly/confusing as that!

  Because of all the problems I found, I'm going to break the analysis and advice into two parts. Part 2 will be up tomorrow.

1) Some of these people had gigantic headers, like took-up-almost-the-ENTIRE-screen big. Most of them were really pretty, and often, these were some of the better designed sites, but as far as attracting new visitors go, gigantic headers like that are one of the worst things you can do, no matter how pretty is it. Why? People spend the majority of their time on a website homepage ABOVE THE FOLD (i.e. the part of the webpage you see when you first arrive on a website without scrolling down at all).

Apparently these guys specialize in gigantic headers. Which might work for some products,
but for most sites, a big header is taking away from all the other great stuff you have to offer.

   Aside from not giving a new visitor any idea of what you do beyond what's in your header image, these big images can really take a toll on your load time/page speed (i.e. how long it takes for a web browser to load all the elements on a webpage from the time that a person clicks a link to the time that the page finishes loading.)

2) Confusing navigation was another issue. The majority of the sites were book blogging sites that published book reviews and accepted review requests from authors and publishers. The majority of them also had a review policy page which explained what types of books they accepted, among other details like whether they preferred print or ebook format.

    However, I would venture to say that at least a third of the sites I looked at had hidden this page somewhere on their site. If it's a big part of what you do, it should be ABOVE THE FOLD, and it should be easy enough for someone to find if that's what they're looking for. This means it should be in the navigation menu or in a widget or text box at the very top of the page. Some people had them hidden in "about" pages, "contact" pages, or profile widgets, and some of them were just little links hidden halfway down the homepage in between two other garish images or flashy widgets.

    That's it for today. Consider your website or blog and ask yourself if you commit any of these faux pas that can wreck your new visitor stats. Make sure to check back tomorrow for the rest of the list!

Social Media Attacks

  Book review, sort of, this week: I just finished reading a book called The 50 Megaton Tweet, by R.C. Wade. It's an interesting perspective on the power and prevalence of social media in the modern world. The premise is that somebody sends a tweet saying that the US President has been killed while on an overseas trip, and the entire world descends into chaos as pictures and videos of the incident appear, seemingly as proof of the horrific encounter.
    It seems a little far-fetched, or does it? Many people rely on social media for their news source these days, and people learn about important events, deaths, and more through social media before the news programs air their broadcasts. The story asks people to take responsibility for their responses when it comes to using social media--to check their sources and not just idly retweet and spread a message without knowing for sure if it's true.
    However, something like an April Fool's prank can go viral in a matter of minutes because of how fast and accessible social media is. The book asks you to take a look at an extreme example of social media getting out of control and doing some real damage.
    While some of the events seem to be over-reaching as to what might happen in the real world, the prose is eerily realistic, sounding almost like a news report, throughout the book. For $0.99, it's a pretty good read and it definitely makes you think about the role of social media in society and how it affects people's perception of the world.
    In one respect, I agree with the book: people need to take responsibility for their actions, especially if it was prompted by something that isn't necessarily true, like a (SPOILER) hoax tweet.

Think before you speak, and tweet.

Building Words into Books

The new book is out tomorrow! I'm really excited about this one. It's my first real attempt at a fantasy story, and I think it turned out pretty well. However, it's not your typical spooky monster story--it's not especially gory. It's not even about the monsters as much as it is about the people who fight back against them.

It's almost more of a mystery than a fantasy/supernatural story, as the characters dig into the past to discover how to confront their antagonists. It hasn't been reviewed officially yet, but the editorial feedback so far has been really positive.

It's a completely different type of book than the last one, which was more of a novel about relationships and maturity. I'm going to have another giveaway on Goodreads, so starting tomorrow, Sept. 4, head over to Goodreads and enter to win a free copy of A 21st Century Fairy Tale!

I have a few more cards up my sleeve for marketing it this time around, so I'm hoping to draw a little more attention for this book. If it sounds like something you're interested in, please spread the word to other readers with similar reading habits.


Marketing is a completely different animal than anything I've ever tried to do. Knowing how to say things to get people's interest, learning the best places to get the word out about a new project, and then keeping up with all these different points of contact is a real challenge. I'm still trying to get a grasp on the tools to market a book, and how best to utilize them. Working on marketing a book and then working on my freelance stuff to help with my friend's DVD sales is keeping me busy as much as full-time work ever did. But it's a lot more fun.

In a market flooded with pulp crap and genre stories, I don't write according to a formula. I write where the story and the characters wander.

Keepin' Busy

  Despite being out of work at the moment, I am far from lazing about on my butt all day. I'm finally getting around to writing my blog again (ta-dah!), all three of them--yeah, this isn't the only one I write, dear readers. I've also been helping my boyfriend with some of his entrepreneurial projects. While my writing is the only thing I have found I have to market to the public, he has plenty of ideas for products and books, and even videos.
    I've been helping with the SEO, content and web design and I must say it looks pretty good even though web design is something I know very little about. It's all based on Blogger templates, of course, since I don't know nearly enough HTML or CSS to do a site without a template, but it's way customized and I think it passes for a semi-professional job. 

    In addition the website stuff, I also started a Twitter account for the current project we're working on. Two days at it and I've got three followers. I thought that was pretty good for a beginner. I'm not new to Twitter, but I'm new to trying to promote something on it. My personal Twitter is what most people's personal Twitter accounts are--link sharing and brain farts. If I do a decent job at gaining some interest for the product and the website through Twitter, I might add this to my resume too. (I.E. Double bonus!)
    As to the blogging, I am hoping to get back to Insistent and Persistent more frequently. I've got a portfolio site for my professional stuff that I'm trying to keep up with at one post a week. And, on to the big one--for me, anyway--my author website.

    In April, I used CreateSpace to publish my first book. Of course, it's not really my first book, but it's the first one in print and I love it. I did the book cover design myself and it came out pretty well, again for an amateur designer. With that, I created an author website and an author profile on GoodReads to try to create some interest in it. It's not the next Great American Novel by any means, but I think it has the potential to be something that some readers can relate to.
    If anyone here is a member of GoodReads and interested in my book, go ahead and check out their giveaways section and throw your name in the hat for one of two free copies of "Realistically Yours". Make sure to read the description to find out if it's your cup of tea first. It definitely won't be everyone's. Or, if you're feeling spendy and impatient, find it on CreateSpace or Amazon. Reviews welcome, but please be kind to my fragile ego.
    All in all, I'm keeping busy and I'm so glad to have some time to work on these things now. I feel like my stress levels are way down and I feel healthier just being out of the fluorescent lighting and the office chair.
And now for your viewing and listening pleasure, Skynyrd!


Get it? ;)

On Meeting An Icon: Elmore Leonard

  Last weekend, I had the unique opportunity of attending a discussion/book signing with one of my favorite authors: Elmore Leonard. Author of Get Shorty, Rum Punch (better known as the film Jackie Brown), and several books and stories featuring Raylan Givens, the main character on the FX TV series Justified, the man is a legend. He was in Lone Tree out by Park Meadows mall to promote his new book, Raylan, along with his son, Peter Leonard--also promoting a new book. I was a a little surprised he hadn't drawn a larger crowd, but then again, he was at a Barnes and Noble way in the hell out of the way, and he is a writer, not a rock star. In fact, there were probably only 20 or so people gathered around the table he and his son, also an author, sat at.
     I was amazed to be sitting so close to a man whose books I've been reading for years, whose characters and sense of humor I've gotten to know so well. Once I start one of his books, I usually can't put it down, and I'm finished reading in a few weeks or less.
    During the discussion portion, I felt like I was in school again, where the teacher is at the front and nobody is brave enough to ask a question. Peter Leonard was the one leading the discussion, asking his father questions, talking about his own book every so often. In the end, the focus ended up being more on interesting memories, like meeting Charles Bronson and George Clooney, rather than on Raylan.
    When a few people finally put forth some questions, I was surprised again that the conversation was on writing tips rather than on Elmore Leonard's books. There are dozens of novels and short stories to pick from, especially the numerous ones that have been made into movies that people are more familiar with, and still, people were more focused on his 10 Rules of Writing and screenwriting in general.
    One of the things he said about screenwriting stuck with me: Peter mentioned how he showed a script he'd written to his father and asked his opinion, to which Elmore replied that wanting to be a screenwriter was like wanting to be a copilot. While I have always loved the movies, and I have always loved writing, I always enjoyed writing novels and stories more than screenplays. So, I thought his comment was pretty funny, and made a lot of sense, though I suspect he may have hurt the pride of the person who asked the question...
    Another thing I really enjoyed about the discussion was character names. Elmore Leonard says he spends days, even weeks, trying to choose the right name for a character in his books. I do not do this when I write. I hit up a names website (for whatever reason, I like BabyNames.com despite the bright colors and weird fonts) for anywhere from a few minutes to a couple hours making notes about names I like, until I narrow it down to a few. The ones I still like that don't make onto the list of main characters I keep on file for secondary characters as the story goes on.
    Elmore and Peter were saying how people buy names to be featured in their books. The money is donated to charity, but I was surprised that people spend thousands of dollars just to get their name in a book. Elmore Leonard was saying how he didn't always use the names, and he still had quite a long list of names to use in his books because they weren't right for the characters he was writing. If a person has a weak name or a boring name, "You can't shoot someone with a name like that," he said. And as fans of his books know, someone almost always ends up getting shot. That remark resonated with me as a writer. A WASP-y character can't have a modern sounding name, and a cowboy can't have a name that a dancer would have. It just doesn't fit. It won't be believable.
    What surprised me most about all this was not even how much people spend to have their names published in a Leonard book--it was more that Elmore keeps letting people have auctions where people can buy a name in one of his books when he doesn't use them very often. The man is 86 years old. He can't fit that many names into that many more books, something he realizes as well.
    One thing no one saw coming, not even the authors, was a surprise guest: during the discussion, a woman in the second of three rows of chairs raised her hand and asked a question about Rum Punch. Neither Peter nor Elmore recognized that it was Pam Grier, the star of Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown. Once she identified herself, there was general surprise and awe that she had shown up. I knew that she lived in Colorado at one point, but I didn't know she was still here! Considering Jackie Brown is my second favorite Tarantino movie, I was quite starstruck myself.
    At the end of the discussion, everyone lined up and Elmore Leonard signed books. While most people were buying new books, copies of Raylan, I had brought a book from home. I meant to bring The Hot Kid, Riding the Rap, or Glitz, one of my favorites, I forgot when I left my apartment and I had to ask my dad for a book. Fortunately, he happened to have a copy of City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit that I took. I think I was the only person that brought a book from home.
    When I walked out of there that afternoon, I read the note he'd written when he signed my used copy of the book--"Take it easy." You too, Mr. Leonard. You too.

Must start campaign to get Stephen King to Colorado...

Lonesome Town: Or, How I'm Learning to Stop Worrying and Live Alone

  Living alone is strange. It's been a while since I have lived alone, a little over two years. It takes a little getting used to. I'm also in a different situation than the last time I lived alone: I'm out of school, working full-time, and I have my cat living here. I'm trying to make it a home, not just a place where I keep my stuff, and that's different too. That is expensive, I've discovered. I had some money set aside specifically to help me get some of the essentials, the things that I would need to live here indefinitely. I'm operating under the assumption that I won't be moving out at the end of my lease, also somethign I've never done before. I still kind of feel like that's what people do, for whatever reason. College town, I guess.
    In any case, I've moved most of the stuff from my dad's house up here, and I've got furniture, my furniture that I don't have to give back to anyone after I move out. I am even working on hanging pictures, not just posters or magazine cut-outs, a hold-out habit from my high school days, but actual pictures with frames and everything. It's strange trying to be a real grown-up who pays bills, buys their own groceries, does laundry in the machines in the complex as opposed to at mom's or dad's, and has to cook for themselves because eating out all the time gets so expensive. I don't mind some of it, only I wish it didn't cost so much. I like having all my stuff in one place. I like having some of the responsibility, and I like that when I go home, I don't have to talk to anyone if I don't feel like it.
    The cat is getting used to being here--he's already found the ONE piece of furniture that I hadn't covered with something to prevent it from becoming a scratching post and turned it into a scratching post. But now that I've identified it, he will be SOL. I'll have to get him a scratching post, a real one, that he can do whatever he wants with. Boy, was he terrified today, though! His bowl was *gasp* almost empty when I got home! He sounded a little hoarse actually, like he'd been crying for a while for someone to feed him. I think he really believes that he will starve if he ever completely cleans the bowl, like no one will ever fill it again if he eats it all. I'd really like to get him on a schedule where he gets a proper serving size twice a day, but I have a feeling he might take out his frustration on the ottoman, aka scratching post.
    I mostly like being alone here, alone meaning without people, because while the cat speaks, it's not in English. I can watch whatever I want on TV, I can spend however long I want online, I can eat spaghetti four nights in a row without judgment, and I don't have to worry about anyone leaving the toilet seat up in the middle of the night. But there are times when I feel a little funny about being here by myself. I'm not particularly concerned about burglary being on the second floor and having so many neighbors around all the time, but I worry about getting trapped under a bookshelf with no one to come home and rescue me, or choking on a pretzel and having no one to thump me on the back to help me cough it up.
    This place even feels a little bit big, even with the cat. I wish I had more storage and closet space, but who doesn't? The rooms feel big, the bedroom in particular. I don't have enough stuff to fill the place, and yet I almost have too much. The living room is packed, two bookshelves, two small shelves for movies, the TV, a small kitchen table I'm using as a desk, a loveseat, and a chair. It's not crowded, but it's definitely full. I just don't want to buy something else for the bedroom unless I know I'll use it, and not just for table space.
    It's quiet here, and my plants seem to be enjoying the east and west windows instead of the overpowering sun from south facing windows like they're used to. I really should try to become a better cook, so I can do a little better than spaghetti and cheese for dinner occasionally. But in the meantime, I'll keep sleeping diagonally in my bed because I don't have to share it with anyone, and I'll keep watching TV and watching movies online because no one's going to tell me I should go outside or do something more productive, and I'll keep squirting the cat with the water bottle until he learns that the ottoman is not a scratching post. It's almost bedtime, as I have been a little sick since yesterday and I need to get a little extra rest.

At least it's whole wheat spaghetti, right?

What was your reaction to living by yourself for the first time? 

Fear? Independence? Homesickness? Freedom, at long last? Or something else entirely? 

Share in the comments. 

Yes, I'm now soliciting comments, dear readers. Kindly play along ;)

Dead Men Tell No Tales, Or Do They?

Literally, of course they don't. But what about the dead men (and women) who've written so many of the books that sit on your bookshelf at this very moment?
    The books that one reads can say a lot about a person. I, for example, might come off like a nihilistic maniac cook with what's on the bookshelf I'm looking at right now. I have several bookshelves, but this particular one contains almost exclusively books written by Elmore Leonard, Stephen King, and over a year's worth of Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazines. It also includes Orwell's 1984, also a nonfiction book about a 19th century serial killer from the Chicago World's Fair, some Dostoevsky, and a couple other nonfiction books and novels.
    I can't imagine anyone could really call me a maniac just for having so many Stephen King books. It's not like I've marked them up with devious little notes and furious scribbling. I suppose I just prefer getting a scare from a book than from a movie most of the time. And as for the Leonard books, I don't think there are too many people in this country who don't enjoy crime dramas, though they may get it on television instead of from a book with shows like NCIS, CSI, Law and Order, Detroit 187, Psych! (a comedy, but still a crime-related program), among myriad others. However, not to leave anyone out, many people do get their hankering for crime drama from a book, like those by James Patterson, Sue Grafton, and James Ellroy, to name a few.

The $64,000 question is, then, is it permissible, and more importantly, is it accurate, 

to judge a person by the books on their bookshelves?

What if I were to say that I had Jane Austen and all the Adventures of the Bailey School Kids books as well as Mein Kampf or The Communist Manifesto? Would that make me a communist? Or a racist? Or just peculiar, for still having books I read when I was eight?
    If we take Morgan Freeman's character (in the movie Se7en), to have given us a fact, we would have to consider the possibility that the US government tracks what books are checked out of the library for these kinds of suspicions, and according to this assumption, certain books are flagged--like Mein Kampf. Maybe it's movie bullsh*t and maybe it isn't, but if you're doing a paper on dictatorships through history, or even rituals and peculiarities of cults or Druids or something, you could feasibly come across one of these books that's "flagged." And then you get put on a "list." And nobody wants to be on that kind of list.
    While I'm certainly not suggesting that anyone ought to stop reading, or even that people should be more careful of what they read, some stuff is trash, but some stuff is "bad trash" (the way that Stephen King tells us his mother used to refer to certain literature). In other words, some stuff is worth reading, and some isn't.
    In any case, I don't think that what you read gives some deep, psychological insight into you as a person. I know there are plenty of people who do think exactly this--some psychologists, for example. While I don't think psychology is completely irrelevant, sometimes they reach for something that's just not there. Perhaps too much Freud addled their brains and caused them to see everything as a sign of the Oedipus complex or penis envy.
    I think if you read a book, it could be for a class or for enjoyment or plain curiosity.
But when something terrible happens, we want a reason. An answer. It's our nature.

Example: 'But why can't I eat from the tree?' 

'Because I said so.' 

But that's not reason enough. 

    We want something more concrete. And sometimes, we suffer the consequences when we go digging for those answers. But psychologizing everything is not the answer.

    Sometimes, ladies and gentlemen: sh*t happens.

    There are crazy people, and there are mean people, and there are people just trying to get attention. And then there's Maude. Just kidding ;) And then there's the rest of us just plugging along, trying to get from start to finish, without too much fuss in between.
    Since I'm starting to wonder what my point is, I suppose I ought to sum up. My point this: sh*t happens, and coming up with irrational and ridiculous reasons to try to explain it isn't going to make it un-happen. We move on, and we do our best to be aware enough, and brave enough, to see the signs and prevent the sh*t from happening the next time. It is not impossible. But you can't look the other way and pretend it's not there and then say, oh, what a shame, when it happens anyway.
    Participate. Be engaged with the world around you. You never know, you could do something really helpful, worthwhile, and even, perhaps, heroic, the next time the sh*t does go down.

Mindfulness, consideration, and courage, dear friends, courage.