Gotsta Have A Cool Cover

Yes, the cover has to still invite the viewer to “read me” even when it is an e-book. Just text might have worked when these things just started a few years ago, but now more is expected. My hubby was going to design the cover based on a schematic I drew. He is the computer savvy person of the family and thinks there is a program where he can “draw the cover”. We are getting down to the line here so I hope he is right.

He is starting with a program called Inkscape. Things were going swimmingly for a half an hour when it crashed. Now, we realize the autosave was not on, will save after every new addition. I am sure an easy way to have a good cover now a days is to use a digital photograph. That is great for memoirs, and personal fiction. What we are doing (a satire of a secret government organization) is so different from that so a picture of a mountain would not work. We are adapting pictures of government seals to make our own IDIOT seal. It will not be the most professional cover out there, but I hope it conveys what the book is about.

I guess this means I need to write a little synopsis for the “back cover” or as Amazon puts it their “Product Description”. Need to decide to adapt from other synopses or try again. Since these synopses did nothing to win a contest or attract an agent, I am opting to start over.

Sorry kids, but only a short blog today cause I gotta get back to editing and finishing this hopefully sweet cover.

Why Editing is the BANE of my Writing Existence

Bane, that is a funny sounding word. It sounds rather innocuous. But, here is it's definition from Dictionary.com:

bane

–noun

1.  a person or thing that ruins or spoils: Gambling was the bane of his existence.

2.  a deadly poison (often used in combination, as in the names of poisonous plants):   

          wolfsbane; henbane.

3.  death; destruction; ruin.

Yep, and nothing caused the death, destruction, and ruin, of a book like the author trying to edit the content. You come up with what seems like a good idea, you write it (editing as best you can at the time) but you do not want to interrupt the flow, so maybe you let spelling or a few commas get by you.

Now the story, book, or novel is finished and you need to go back and fix all those silly errors you probably have made. EEEEKKKK!!!!!!

This is why authors who get their works published by publishing houses are so lucky, they have people there who will be the stylist to your ugly duckling of a book. You created her, but you have no talent for giving manicures and hair cuts that will help “sell” her in the big, wide world. You have to be your works' own stylist, and that sucks.

Part of the problem for me is that looking at the work suddenly makes me nervous, and I start to doubt myself. Those negative thoughts come creeping in, saying, “who is going to buy this?” or stuff that is even worse. We are our own worst critics. That may inspire people to put their manuscript “in the desk” where it may never be heard from again, sad but true. Or it may inspire people to write more, and so this novella, turns into a novel 2 years later, which then 20 years later turns into something rivaling “War and Peace”. Then you have to go back and edit that! EEEEEEKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!

For me, I am just going to have to finishing the editing as best as I can, let go and see how it sells. The book may be successful, or it may not do well at all. That may depend upon my ability to publicize it, yet another skill that most introverted writers (like me) will have a hard time trying to do.

From what I understand, many e-books are poorly edited and that is the main criticism for these new authors who do not have publishing houses to pretty up their work. I am trying to not let that happen, and that is why I am rather nervous about going the self-publishing route. BUT, I am not going to wait to get a Literary Agent, who will then sell my book to a Publisher. I am not that patient. 10 years ago, that would have been the only way to get published, but now thanks to Amazon, and other forward-thinking websites, I can be as impatient as I like.

I do try to heed the words of advise about writing from such sources as Grammar Girl. They are helpful, funny, and can possibly let your first draft be something that is not so hard to fix. She also lets you know that while there are many hard and fast rules in English, there are also things that are disagreed upon, showing some flexibility in the interpretation of our language, and that makes me feel better.

Lastly, I would like to thank my Mother. She was the first true “editor” of my book. She is quite a good stylist, if you know what I mean. It was quite a feat to fix all my rookie errors. It had been quite a while since I had to write dialog, and boy did it show. It is always helpful to have someone else look at your work before you set it out into the big, wide world. I always have my hubby look at every blog post, just to make sure I don't say anything too embarrassing.

I am still going to go over the book at least two more times, but I am sure something (many things, probably) will get through that someone will say is a run-on sentence, or missing a comma or semi-colon or something.

BUT, I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THAT WE WILL BE SELF-PUBLISHING “The Chronicles Of IDIOT” ON AMAZON IN EARLY JULY!  

You're an Independent? Are you Nuts???

Yes, I am a political Independent. And yes, I am (a little) nuts. But I think I have good reasons not to affiliate myself with any one party. Basically because there are issues that I agree with for both parties. That and I feel that the party (like Lobbyists) may do things that may be in American's interest, but are mostly in that party's interest.

There is another reason I choose not to affiliate myself with a political party. The people.

Some of the Reasons I am not a Republican:

Tom Delay

Newt Gingrich

Rick Renzi (I am from AZ after all).

Karl Rove

Some of the Reasons I am not a Democrat:

Rod Blagojevich

Charles Rangel

Jim Traficant

Anthony Weiner

In the names above you will find people found guilty of corruption and/or were lying to the public, why should I vote for these con artists? I would rather do my own research and vote my conscience on election day than to take the easy way out and only support a party. You may think I am being harsh on Rep. Weiner, but it was the cover-up and lying that is unacceptable. If they lie about sexting, what else are they lying about?

Sorry, this is so short and sorry to get so political on you all. I promise that next week's blog will be about gratuitous male frontal nudity! #notintendedtobefactualstatement ;P Oh yes, Senator Kyl, you could be on this list as well...

Mamma Bears, Angry Tweets and a Society of No Apologies

My dog and I almost got ran down by a Lady in a Lexus a few weeks ago. We are fine, don't worry. But, what got to me most is was what happened afterward. Let me rewind and say what happened. My dog, Blizzard, and I were on a walk, during the ½ an hour, twice a week where both of my children are at school this year, before summer began. (They are 5 and 3 and go to different preschools.) I was walking by the front entrance of this gated community, where usually the cars coming out of the gate are very careful and concerned about anyone crossing their street. I was looking at my phone cause I had just listened to a voice message, as I crossed the street a Lexus zoomed right across our path, cause the gate was open for this lady and she must have been in a hurry. So I give her the international 'WTF' signal – I shrugged with my hands up. My response (if I were in that situation) would be to show the international 'I'm Sorry' where you show a placating gesture with your hands pushing down, basically the opposite of the WTF signal. Instead, Mrs. Compassion gave me the WTF signal right back. I guess she was pissed that we were in her way. Damn pedestrians!

Last month, my daughter got shoved down by a boy at our church. He was severely abused as a baby and acts out at times, this I understand. What bothered me was his Mother did not apologize for her child's behavior. If my kid had done anything of the sort, the first words out of my mouth would be “I am so sorry.” When I was trying to talk to her on the phone about the situation, her first words were (quite aggressively) “This is (her name)”. I will not bring up her name here, that is not necessary. My point is that she is a Momma Bear, and so am I. She would rather be defensive than apologize. The rest of the conversation did not help either of us, I later sent a letter of apology about hanging up on her, but have not heard anything back. For Momma Bears, sometimes it is hard to find common ground, even if we are just both defending our children.

Bears are scary, just ask Stephen Colbert. The parental instinct is (and should be) very strong, enough for us Mommas to be quite aggressive with others who might harm our children. My son, recently, was rejected from a special speech school for their summer camp, they said he wouldn't fit into their “intensely structured system”. Let's just say that this let out the Momma Bear in me. His behavioral issues were due to his speech delay and they would help him with his speech. You would think they would love to have a 'challenge' for their school, but apparently not. In the two previous instances, I did not talk about those things on social media. But, I could not keep my mouth shut about this preschool, there was an angry tweet, and an angry posting on Facebook. My Sister-In-Law recommended writing a review on yahoo. I did just that. I also wrote to the school, telling them I was shocked that he was rejected and saying that they seemed to want “no challenges, please”. And I will not apologize for this, they did my son wrong. MOMMA BEAR HAS SPOKEN! I was also thinking of writing to politicians, the charity that the school was associated with, and the state regulation of schools. It was decided against, because I know that they have the right to reject a student if they feel he/she would not be a 'good fit' for their school. Private schools are fun that way.

I do feel that our society needs more apologies, when they are necessary. It feels like our culture has been a bit brainwashed by the 'Jerry Springer Types' who as South Park so eloquently mocked with: “I don't care, I do what I want!” Yes, it is good to have strong self-esteem and try not to care what others think. I need to do that more often. But it is sad if you (or your child) does something even close to wrong, and you refuse to apologize. It leaves our world a bit harder to live in for the rest of us.