Saturday's Content Post

It's 1:07 pm. It takes me 45mins to get to the office and I'm still in my pjs (woke up at 10:30). Time to get a move on, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with the link to a very interesting interview by Jason Pinter of Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner on the role gender/genre plays in literary criticism/NY Times review exposure.




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Daily Laugh

Here is an actual sign posted at a golf club in Scotland, UK

1. BACK STRAIGHT, KNEES BENT, FEET SHOULDER WIDTH APART.

2. FORM A LOOSE GRIP.

3. KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN!

4. AVOID A QUICK BACK SWING.

5. STAY OUT OF THE WATER.

6. TRY NOT TO HIT ANYONE.

7. IF YOU ARE TAKING TOO LONG, LET OTHERS GO AHEAD OF YOU.

8. DON'T STAND DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF OTHERS.

9. QUIET PLEASE...WHILE OTHERS ARE PREPARING.

10. DON'T TAKE EXTRA STROKES.

WELL DONE... NOW, FLUSH THE URINAL, WASH YOUR HANDS AND GO OUTSIDE, AND TEE OFF.

Update.

Sorry for the absence guys,

Work is taking its toll again. September is going to be brutal (I'll be going into the office this afternoon, and for a couple of hours tomorrow too, Pretty much expect to be working most weekends for the next month to meet projected deadlines.)

Twitter's 140-character post are all that I've got the energy for, and even then it's only on weekends. Also been managing to keep my Goodreads account up to date with current reading and a brief review or two.

But coming up with a ooherent post for the blog? Just the thought hurts my brain. I may have to cross-post some of book reading stuff from Goodreads, or interesting linkage from twitter. Aside from that, I've got a few decent joke emails I'll post.

So, yeah, the blog is on a meaningful content diet for the month of September. :-P

That reminds me of..

You know when a song is forever linked to a movie, show, moment, etc?
The other day I got Tony Bennett's The Goodlife stuck on an endless loop in my head. I love the song, but it always makes me sad. What's more whenever I think about the song I remember the movie Gangster No.1 with Paul Bettany and Malcolm McDowell. Excellent movie. More of a character study than a ganster film. It's violent but with much of it left to your imagination and copious splashes of blood. And boy oh boy, it's worth watch for Bettany's performance.

Anywho, here's the song,

The waiting game

Yup. Still waiting on hear back on the werewolf book. ::fingers crossed:: I had two primary choices for submission with it. I could have either sent it to my old editor (who had moved to a new publisher) or to my new editor at my current publisher.

I knew my old editor wanted to see the revised manuscript, and in fact her feedback on why she passed on the story in the first place is the reason I undertook reworking the story. Even after she left the company, I confirmed that she was still interested--at that time(!)--in the story. But the new publisher was a NEW publisher (always a gamble) and was only doing electronic releases.

On the other hand, I already had one title out at Samhain, knew they had an established reputation for quality reads in the community, and kinda felt it would be easier for potential readers to find me if I had a bit of a backlist in one place before spreading out. Actually it would be easier for new/potential readers to find me if I had any sort of backlist. :-P

In the end, while I did (do) feel that my old editor should have had first crack at a story, revised based quite a bit on her feedback, the story ballooned to a final word count around 50K, which gave it a slim chance of going to print. Which means that real-life friends/coworkers/family--who only read dead tree books-- would be able to buy/read it. And would also help keep me on bookstore shelves. While I don't have 10 copies of my book in every single store around here, or co-op placements or what have you, there's a handful of Chapters.Indigo stores across the country that have consistently sold and re-ordered/kept 1-2 copies on their shelves since the print release last July. Not going to retire on my royalties by any means, but not bad for an unknown/debut author with a small publisher.

So I'm in week 6 of a possible 16week wait. In hindsight it might have been better to submit to both publishers at the same time, rather than waiting up to a possible 8months in total, only to (maybe) end up making it a free read or uploading to Kindle as a self-pub effort, since the level of explicitness/kink in the story doesn't meet the requirements of (m)any other epubs.

I don't do a lot of 'writing' post because, to be honest, the whole situation at the day-time job has really sucked the creative life out of me and I do more 'not writing' or 'struggling' than enjoying that pure energy of just sinking myself into a story. And I can't tell you how depressing that is as a writer. It's like there's this dead spot, a black hole, inside of you. I'm really working at handling the stress, especially since it's become a health concern in the last couple of months. And while the situation at work continues to be very trying because of various upheavals, the workload has evened out some, so there's a light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully I'll be back to writing consistently sooner rather than later.

Going to try to do more writing process/craft & excerpts, etc, posts going forward. I think I've avoided it because if there's no progress being made one starts to feel like a fraud--or worse, a failure. On the other hand making these types posts--talking about process, progress and struggles--work as a sort of positive reinforcement or a check of sorts to keep thinking about the writing.

Another thing I need to do is get my butt to my monthly chapter meetings. And who knows.... maybe make it to Nationals one of these fine days... New York in 2011 might be doable.

I still reserve the right to post silly shit here, just because. ;)