The Business of Bookworms

Taking a break

2009-03-13T20:51:00.001-07:00

In May of 2007 I graduated from a county high school in a class of less than 50 students and moved across the state for college.
In September of 2007, I took my first fiction workshop course. A week later, I was a marketing major/creative writing minor.
In January of 2008 I started working as a financial aid counselor in a high school guidance office. I quit on a Friday in April and on Tuesday morning at 6am, I landed in Zurich, Switzerland. It was my first time to leave the country and my first time to travel without my family. I spent a little more than three weeks in four countries on a creative writing trip and wrote my first two poems, both of which were unrescuably awful.
I returned in May of 2008 and dealt with a lot of emotional drama.
In June of 2008, I started working at my neighborhood Drive-In.
In July of 2008, my previous employer offered me a better job. I quit fast-food and started telemarketing again as well as regular office work, 40+ hours a week.
In August of 2008 I moved back to school and started working as a literary publicist. The funding fell through and I did it all on my own dime, both myself and the author I represent mostly figuring everything out on our own, stumbling blindly.
In August of 2008 I also started writing a novel.
In August of 2008 I also formed a writer's organization and got it chartered through my school.
In December of 2008 I finished my horrible novel.
In December of 2008, I started telemarketing again on my winter break, 40+ hours a week, as well as continuing my publicity and marketing job.
In January of 2009, I was paid for the first time for doing my job. I also had more emotional drama and quit blogging.

From March 6th to March 13th I have done everything in my power to become a ghost. I have kept up with my RSS feed, I have maintained contact with my author's and taken care of pressing tasks, I have answered emails, I have organized spreadsheets and cleared out links, I have written creatively and professionally, I have read assigned material, I have even reviewed a friend's work. But all at the most minimum of requirements, or actually, at the maximum of my tolerance level.
Mostly, I have rested. I have slept during the day for the first time since...August? Maybe? I have tried to do only what has strengthened my body and my soul. I have put aside the to-do list and done what was wanted and what was needed.
I might have been better off in the future if I had knocked out more of that list. There's a very good possibility that I will collapse next week since an excess of scheduled events are aligning on top of my regular work.
However, I feel so comfortable and so rested and so content with myself, that I do not care that I never got around to reading my stack of books on religious psychology or started outlining my next novel. I have taken a true break for the first time in 15 months and it was worth it.

Tomorrow, the to-do list begins again. Tonight, I will again read until my eyes collapse and I drift to blissful sleep.

Awesome

2009-03-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

This is amazing! I would love to be there right now!

Looks like I'm not the only one who has problems with change...

2009-02-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Weiner's post today is a pretty ridiculous and self-centered take on the economy. Maybe I'm just hypersensitive because Wednesdays are "World News with Charlie Gibson" days and we all know how warm and fuzzy you feel after watching the evening news.

The "C" word

2009-02-25T14:46:00.001-08:00

CHANGE, not that other word you adults were thinking of...

Changes are needed, changes are unavoidable, changes are often beneficial in the long run and should be appreciated. But I am a stubborn, headstrong person who has a system for everything and generally resents change. I've had a lot of changes in my life recently and everything's a lot more uncertain now, and I'm having to adjust. Part of the changes I'm making is becoming more aware of myself and my surroundings. This is facilitating my creative nonfiction writing, but it's something that will be helpful when I return to fiction also.

But it still took my roommate's inability to sleep to the sound of my typing (I have 18 writing assignments due in the space of 8 days) as a catalyst.

Every day I have spent in this particular dorm complex (almost 2 academic years now) I have spent some amount of time typing on my laptop on my desk by the ethernet connection. When I was taking my novel workshop class, it was close to 3 hours a day. Every day. Same spot. I have spent time writing in other locations, but usually out of necessity, not by choice. The desk is in the most advantageous spot for research and minimal distractions. Because I share my bedroom, it is also one of three spaces I can truly claim as mine.

So yesterday I disconnected from the internet (gasp!) and went into the living room to write a press release. The simple change of venue from the lightless, silent bedroom, to the soft grey morning sun and wide couch made me feel much more open and eager to finish the project.

I did the same thing again this morning, so hopefully I don't turn one rut into another, but it was a simple test of mindfulness and an affirmation that not all change has to be fought.

Product Review--Simpleology.com

2009-02-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

Ironic that I would return to blogging by discussing a time-management program--rather than by finishing my post about time management.

Suffice it to say that I still haven't worked out how to schedule or even prioritize my time. However, Simpleology has helped me keep better track of it. While it hasn't delivered on the promise of doubling my efficiency, energy, and "power", it is the best task-tracker I've used.

The way it works is that once a day you do a "daily target praxis", resulting in a list of "targets" that you can check off as you complete them. The order of the list can be adjusted, but you cannot delete, edit, or reschedule an item until the next day. While this can be frustrating sometimes when you don't want the reminder of something you failed to do, it has also been a motivational factor for me and I've ended up completing a task I originally didn't think I would have time to do.

Simpleology also has a "dreamcatcher" option that lets you enter tasks as you remember them/they come up. Once entered, you can edit or delete them, or move them to your daily targets. All the leftover items in this "dreamcatcher" show up on the next day's "target praxis" for you to delete them, schedule them for the day, or move them to your "mental lockbox". The "lockbox" is my favorite feature, as you can create categories to arrange the things you need to get to, just not right now. I have mine arranged by deadline, and as the day gets closer I move them out of my "mental lockbox" into the "dreamcatcher" and then to my "daily targets".

My advice is not to use the "scheduling" feature, as it just tells you to enter those tasks into your Outlook calendar and then deletes them off your daily targets. While I keep a hard-copy calendar on me to refer to when I'm away from my computer, having multiple programs keeping track of my to-do list seems inefficient to me.

As always, there's no free lunch. Just as when using facebook you have to deal with the annoying ads on the sidepages that prolong loading time, so you have to deal with the ads for Simpleology 2, 3, 4, and a myraid other products by this guy. There is no obligation or fee to use the features I've described, and you are also privy to lengthy pdfs and daily emails of typical business-inspirationals. How effective these things are will vary between individual cases, but I found it all a load of bullshit. Either way, the basic software is useful and simple to use, and easy to integrate into your lifestyle. The rest is just fluff.

I am lost

2009-02-06T14:03:00.000-08:00

I will never be able to leave the internet again...

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2009/02/05/top-100-creative-writing-blogs/

Sabbatical

2009-01-14T19:25:00.000-08:00

I hate to join the legions of blog-givers-uppers out there, especially since today is that crucial two-week mark after New Year's. I certainly had higher hopes than for it to stop like this, but there are extenuating circumstances that were completely unexpected. My personal life is in a shambles right now and it's all I can do to keep my academic and professional life on track. Blogging requires a great deal of concentration and a strong support system to operate successfully and both are a little too shaky right now for me to justify my presence as a blogger.

So I bid you adieu for the time being as I straighten up this reshuffled deck but keep watch out of the corner of your eye--we'll see what turns up next.

Best,

BookWormBusinessWoman

The greatest thing happened today

2009-01-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the interruption to the expected series of posts, but, ironically, I'm a little too off-schedule to write about scheduling.

But I had this fanastic idea! What if: a bookseller, the head of a press, a publicist, a prolific poet, a published novelist, a professor at a highly regarded MFA program and a writing student (this is starting to sound like a bad joke) all sat down and discussed how to bring their community's writers together, creating a central meeting place to bring together big-name authors, midlist authors, local authors, unpublished authors and readers with intriguing events that go beyond the passive reading? This would create a line of benefits from the casual reader through the writers up to bookstores and publishers.
Well that happened today. However, our bookseller was the owner of the local indie, the poet doubled as the MFA professor, the novelist was my author who's published through an small indie press, the press represented was non-profit, and yours truly combined publicist and student into one inexperienced observer for an hour-long meeting.
The result? Some seriously credible talk for implementing a weekly writer's program at the indie. The plan is to alternate open workshop/discussion meetings with guest author readings. The workshop meetings would open with discussion of next week's author's work, segueing into an "immersion" workshop, wherein participants would produce a completed piece--short prose or poem--by the end.
The benefits are universal. Avid readers get to add a new sense to their enjoyment of a book by hearing it read by the author. Unpublished authors have a regular time and place where they know they can come in and refine their art, either through direct workshop or by hearing from the professionals. The bookseller gets customers, of course, and the author not only has the satisfaction of knowing his/her work is being discussed, but will get free exposure to sell more books, making the publisher happy.
Definitely on the small scale, but from what my newbie but quick-learning eyes have shown over the past 6 months, it's practically a revolutionary idea. I subscribe to author blogs, writing blogs, literary journal blogs, publisher blogs, bookseller blogs, book marketing blogs, editorial blogs, agent blogs, even freelance writing blogs. Other than news blogs like galleycat, they stick to their specialties 99% of the time.
With so many great minds producing fresh, interesting content, why aren't they combining their areas with current, innovative dialogue to figure out how to surmount the rising wall of difficulties facing this industry?
I take today's meeting as a sign for the future, and have faith that similar dialogue is going on in other areas, but that it's quiet, like today's conversation. But as we keep adding voices to the crowd, the volume will only get louder and that's when change happens.

New Year's Resolutions--Update

2009-01-08T08:44:00.000-08:00

While Nine-Thrive focuses on freelancers in general, writing is probably the most common freelance work and probably a good source of contributive income. I haven't tried it so I don't know for sure.
Anyway, check her latest post for some great tips on increasing the "stickiness" of New Year's Resolutions and I'll be back tomorrow with the next topic.

New Year's Resolutions--Trimming

2009-01-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

What's the one, sure, no-fail way to lose weight? Burn less calories than you take in.
The burning's not that much of a problem for me these days. I like to run and swim and play frisbee. But food is just so tasty and social and easy, I love cooking.
So the hardest--and most effective--thing for me is cutting unnecessary calories. That second bowl of cereal, that extra cup of juice, or--god forbid--M&Ms left out in candy jars. Before I eat something, I really have to stop and evaluate not only what I'm eating but why. If I need a quick snack to hold me through accounting, that's fine, here's an apple, but if the cookie in the cafeteria is calling my name just because it's sitting out there and I'm not really hungry, I need to turn around and run the other way.
Words are just like calories. You need a certain amount to be healthy, to build up plot and realistic characters. But too much and your readers start getting turned off and if you're not writing for readers, then what are you doing?
I know I’ve talked about this a lot, but I truly believe that being concise is something a writer must be in control of and it's my biggest obstacle. They might start out slowly--an adverb here, a series of adjectives there--and I might pout, "They're just so good! Surely one wouldn't hurt..." That's how it starts. Nix it.
So how many is really too many? JA Konrath says to eliminate everything that doesn’t move the plot forward. That's easier said than done when they’re your words and you’ve really come to like them, whether they’ve still got their shiny new gloss, or have become as old and familiar as Grandma’s afghan. But really, you don’t need to describe your main character from head to toe, or their life history or the exact floor plan of their house. I will always come into your story with connotations for girl, retired, home. Sparse, unique details are all that’s needed to shape the impressions the I started with into the images you want me to see. Too much information brings the pace of your writing to a screeching halt as I struggle to hold all these details into my mind at once.
Sidetracking is equally distracting. Just as it’s difficult to focus on a lecture when two people behind you are having a separate conversation, unnecessary information interrupts the flow and causes me to lose track of what's important, and muddles my understanding of the story.
As I've admitted, It's difficult for me to do my own editing. If I have to sit and labor over whether to keep a phrase, I generally keep it because that's easier. And the next time I read through the piece I sit and fidget over the same words again. So I suggest cutting out any and all questionable words, saving them somewhere else or saving the document under a different filename and going to sleep. Wait until the next day, then read over your chopped piece. See if those details are necessary for the story or were just necessary for you to write it.
Or try what I do and delete the words completely, wait, and try to write them again. I promise you won't completely forget your story overnight, and the writing will almost always be more condensed the second or third or howevermany times around.

Next up: scheduling

New Year's Resolutions--An Introduction

2009-01-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

If you can't tell by the sudden influx of advertising for exercise machines and diet plans, probably the most common New Year's resolution is to lose weight. While I didn't put it on my list of writing resolutions, it's on my personal list.
I've got a little more incentive than most people. I've got an ultimate frisbee team expecting me to haul my ass up and down a football field but I did more working--and eating--over the break than I did working out. Also, I'd like to look a little more trim at AWP next month.
So over the past week of last-minute sprints and lifting, I've been thinking about the correlations between getting my body in better shape--and getting my writing in better shape.
We don't have practice this week and I don't have to turn in any work for nonfiction workshop until a week from today, so I'll take this time to document my training--not in minutes on the treadmill or in the lap pool--but in these traditional techniques work for my writing.
First up: Trimming

The web...it knows me...

2009-01-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

RSS feeders are my single most favorite discovery of 2008. So much relatable, useful content, brought right to your browser with Internet Explorer 7.
Today's favorites:

My hero writes me a letter on the day that I finish edits on two submissions to my college literary magazine
Book Club Girl brings me someone to tell me it's okay, we all feel that way sometimes.
And my buddy J. A. K. gives me more help on my new goals. I've been devouring his hugenormous The Newbie's Guide to Publishing and at page 275 I'm about 1/3 of the way through it. Since there's no classes offered in literary publicity, I'm marking this as resource number 1. And unlike the hundreds of dollars (no exaggeration) that I spend for textbooks every semester, the pdf is free and practically 100% useful--no color diagrams or bullshit "calculus in the business world" testimonials.

So what are you waiting for? Go learn!!

New Year's Resolutions

2008-12-30T19:57:00.000-08:00

The always-edifying JA Konrath listed his growing list of resolutions, prompting me to edit it for my personal list. I'm more of a short-term-goal person, meaning I generally make a huge list of things to accomplish in too little time, get as many of them done as I can, and sweep the others under the rug for the next list...and the next...That's probably why I like his 2006 list best. They're specific and are more about developing good habits than one-time goals (notice words like "every" "always" "refuse"). The others are more like the inspirational bits at the end of chain emails. Pertinent, and helpful on occasion, but without any tangible direction.

My 2009 resolutions for:

Writing:

I will set aside time to write on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

I will write more in longhand to get the benefits of the creative process unique to a hand moving across paper.

I will do more timed writing exercises for the same reason.

I will always have one story in submission, and one in revision.

I will finish all the stories that are unfinished, or in the middle of drafts.

I will back up all of my work with the dependability of Rain Man.

Reading

I will subscribe to some of the magazines I submit to.

I will read the magazines I submit to.

I will continue to mix my reading list with contemporary works, banned novels and recommended short stories.

I will seek out work that is not in my usual reading list, including nonfiction, experimental and - possibly - poetry.

Professional

I will attend AWP (blizzard or not) and introduce myself to agents, editors and other writers.

I will expand my presence on the net, including learning html
I will learn more about/practice writing book reviews

It's up to you invisible people to keep me honest on this, you hear?

I love the South

2008-12-28T07:12:00.000-08:00

I went day-after-Christmas shopping in short sleeves because it was over 70 degrees but yesterday my northern relatives were telling me about the weather in Chicago. They made it sound like the innermost circle of Dante's hell, except windier. I've never seen more than 3 or 4 inches of snow but I'm going to Chicago in February for AWP.
Oh, help me Elvis, help, help me Elvis.

Marketing mistake

2008-12-23T18:20:00.000-08:00

If you haven't noticed, most retailers are offering huge sales to tempt customers through the doors because of the slow buying season. While a store loses a certain amount of money from these discounts, by reducing "select items", they get buyers into the store, browsing, and more than likely making an unplanned, full-priced purchase. Another discount strategy is to require a minimum purchase which also encourages spur-of-the-moment buying as customers must pick up enough items to meet the minimum value. That was the kind of coupon I had for Bath & Body Works: buy $30 worth, get $10 off. It's only valid for the shopping season, December 1st-24th. Seemed like a good enough deal, and if I'd gone to a store, I probably would have used it and bought more than $30 worth. However, when I'm not in Collegetown, I'm home in Seriously Smalltown, the South and the nearest Bath & Body Works is at 30 miles away, highway.
With the expiration date tomorrow, I, like most of my peers, was prepared to turn to the internet. I've purchased from the online store before, previously subscribed to their newsletters, have an account, etc. However, the coupon is only redeemable "in store only".
What?
Why?
Merchandise online costs the same as in-store, except online retail has practically no overhead charges that have to be made up. I even pay the shipping, so they make a bigger profit margin on online sales. Also, one can find items online that the stores have run out of, so inventory moves out more efficiently.
Is this major retail chain another industry that has failed to embrace the potential of online promotion, like publishing? 2009 is nine days away and Borders may not make it there. Rather than just let Amazon rule the web, why aren't publishers and bookstores doing more online promotion?
My dad always says the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It's ridiculously simple, but if you think a minute that extremely applicable to most parts of your life. And such a simple problem should have a simple solution--try something different!

Sacrifices

2008-12-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

I've experienced the accuracy of this statement countless times in the past 3 semesters.

Welcome to college! You may only choose two of the following:
1. Good grades
2. A social life
3. Adequate sleep

I could add quite a few more things--a love life, good health, money--but you get the idea. With life comes sacrifices. To get what you want, you have to give up something else, and you're lucky if it's ever easy.
Not only do you have to sacrifice time, comfort and possibly friendship to write, within writing itself there are also sacrifices to be made. We talked one night in my novel workshop about how we deal with cutting and editing our work, especially those beloved lines that read so poetic and lyrical but just refuse to fit in the overall piece. While they're making edits, some writers rename their word documents as they go, preserving a timeline of revisions. Some writers cut the lines and paste them at the end, only to reach the end and find they still have nowhere to put them. Some take it further and have an entire document of orphan lines and paragraphs waiting for the perfect story to adopt them.
Sacrificing words for the good of the whole is a frequent function of my writing process. After a workshop, I don't think I've ever had to go back and write more, it's always cut, cut, cut. My best work to date, which was published in my university's literary journal, was cut in half after its first workshop. Since it was under 1000 words to begin with, it took some time to build up enough courage to press the delete button, but the result was a very polished, compact piece that I am proud enough of to submit it for publication. The deadline for the next issue of the literary journal is in January and I'm really struggling with deletion for the piece I'm working on now. It's about 20 shy of the 3,000 word limit, but not only do shorter pieces just fit better in this format, I think the story is sagging in the middle. Rather than work on it, I'm expounding my troubles to the world.
So, world, echo back. Are you a deleter or an appender? What have you sacrificed for your writing?

Buy books for the holidays!

2008-12-17T06:36:00.000-08:00

Monday I received the first of what I expect will be many boxed pens in the professional gift-giving sphere. Today I received an equally ubiquitous coffee-cup-with-bagged-coffee-and-candy-inside.

For the same investment, businesspeople could give copies of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, How to Win Friends and Influence People, or this career book that's on my backlist to read. These would not only last longer and be infinitely more useful to the employee/colleague/employer, but a $5 mini-book looks handy--a $5 pen looks cheap.

If you haven't noticed the icon to the right of this post, it will take you to a very comprehensive guide to book-gift-giving. Books on the Nightstand has some great input, and Moon Rat's very proud of her guide, which is certainly one of the more original. In case you need another reason to buy books for presents, Joshua Henkin said so too, and you should probably listen to someone so successful. (I can't count how many times I've come across his name from just surfing)

So after all this, did I practice what I preached? Well, to be honest, I didn't even support my own genre. I've never given books as presents before and I was just too distrustful of my own eclectic tastes to buy fiction for someone else. My Dad and boyfriend are history nuts, so they were easy, and then my friend chose an interesting field to specialize in, but I just couldn't justify one for my mom. She just graduated with her bachelors in nursing last week and has not only been extremely (loudly) busy for the past year, but also has some lingering distaste for books after 18 months of forced reading, especially since she's never been a big reader. I have the Love, Lucy memoir saved, probably for Mother's day, when I think the effects will have worn off. It's certainly much cheaper than buying her a season on DVD and will probably take her more time to finish. So what did I buy?

For my boyfriend: Team of Rivals , which he'll be able to get signed when she visits our school. (Don't bother trying to figure out which one, it's not on her appearances schedule.) He's an Obama fan in addition, so that works well.

For my Dad: American Lion, which I stood in line for 30 minutes to get it signed and a signed book on Collegetown history. He only reads military fiction (Tom Clancy, W. E. B. Griffin) and he's very picky about which ones, but Southerners are lucky because local history almost always includes at least one Civil War battle.

For my best friend from high school: Confessions of a Working Girl and One Nation Under Therapy because she's in school to be a sex therapist.

All of the above books but one were bought at the local Collegetown independent book store, partially because I had a gift certificate, partially because three of them were signed/I could get signed, partially because the store is run by some nice people who have a really good relationship with the school, the author I work for, and the creative writing society I'm president of. The copy of Team of Rivals I bought was the store's only copy but I was leaving town the next day when the shipment would come in so they let me buy it. The downside: I paid up to twice the Amazon price. So I think of it as an investment in my future career.

By the way, the one book that didn't come from the indie store? One Nation Under Therapy, which I came across at the dollar store and just thought was too funny.

Responsibility

2008-12-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

So Joe the Plumber's book is out any day now

I know I'm a little late on this but I've had a long day of kid's movies, Xbox, and frisbee golf to get away from the days of work I've racked up this week.

While I don't think anybody but the marketing folks at Pearl Gate Publishing are excited, neither does everyone seem as vehement as Timothy Egan, though I did pick up the article off my regular circuit of blogs. However, as usual, my environmental-science-major-biology-minor boyfriend gave me a diferent opinion. Missing the gravity of the situation, he mostly just felt that shit happens so you might as well just deal and move on.

Unfortunately, as a college student starting to plan her future in a faltering economy, this bothers me. Combine that with Joe's pay and the recent numbers from Sarah Silverman's and Jerry Seinfeld's advances, and I get a little pissed. It's like GM spending $x-millions to design a custom Hummer with nuclear moose-targeting missiles for Sarah Palin--yeah they're going to make some money off of it, but is that really the best thing to invest in right now?

And speaking of Sarah Palin, in case you don't feel like clicking on the article link above, here's my favorite quote,

“I had great faith that, you know, perhaps when that voter entered that voting booth and closed that curtain that what would kick in for them was, perhaps, a bold step that would have to be taken in casting a vote for us, but having to put a lot of faith in that commitment we tried to articulate that we were the true change agent that would progress this nation.”

Literary agents across the country have their hands full trying to pick a tiny percentage of fantastic submissions to bring to a publishing house for publication. But she's got $7 million set aside for her advance? Let's hope it brings enough money back in so they can publish a slightly larger percentage of those fantastic submissions by serious, dedicated writers. Let's hope.

The Outsider's Dictionary!

2008-12-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

I just learned more about publishing in the ten minutes it took me to read this than the past semester I've spent as a literary publicist.

Oh I hope I'm exaggerating...just a little...If not, at least all my work was unpaid!

Twilight

2008-12-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Long book=long post

As a marketing student, I wanted to figure out for myself how this book became the explosive hit it is (at the time of this post anyway, we all know how fickle pop culture is). Before and since reading the book, I've been hearing over and over again about the qualities that the book-buzzing world contributes to the storm. I found them myself: the bookish, "odd-girl-out" protagonist, the relatable high-school setting, and the re-working of the vampire myth for the modern generation--except I thought this fourteen-year-old did it better. Most of the articles I've read (maybe I'm just reading the wrong ones) seem to treat Stephenie Meyer as a pioneer in YA vampire fiction. Since it hasn't been that long since I was a die-hard-YA-vampire-novel-lover, I disagree. This list backs me up, and I'm sure it's one of many that are probably even more comprehensive--it was just on the first page of Google results.

Granted, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and the dozens of other YA authors never generated this kind of frenzy, but has everyone forgotten Anne Rice? She practically invented the modern, sexy, rocker vampire and was probably one of the most read in the genre not that long ago. Of course now Louis, Lestat and all the other favorites are lost to Catholicism, and you can argue that the Rice's audience was older, but all I have to say is "Buffy" and you'll probably get my next point. You can then counter that point with the point that novelization of the "Buffy" universe came around after it was on the air, but I will point out that the opposite happened with Charlaine Harris, and Twilight's similarities to TrueBlood have already been noted (unfortunately for Twilight).

Vampires aren't new. Vampires in high school aren't new. Different interpretations of vampires will continue to pop up and whenever they hit their niche on the head they'll become ridiculously popular. And Meyer, by taking out the sex that goes so well with the genre, jumped the gap from teenage girls to their moms. While moms and daughters alike have probably enjoyed authors like Laurell K. Hamilton, Poppy Z. Brite, and the countless other "supernatural" romance novels, they probably found it too awkward to discuss. And while that innocence was a major appeal to some reviewers, others see it as a threat to feminism.

Personally, if I'd picked this up in middle school, I would have been right there with all the other fangirls. I didn't get all those author names from research but from memory. Even now, picking up Twilight after all the workshops and creative writing classes I've taken, I read it in one day. All circa 500 pages.

According to this galleycat survey, my fascination is just generational. It's always humbling to find out you're one of the masses, but at least it validates my career choice.

I finished it...

2008-12-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

...the first draft of my novel.

It's ridiculous how unprepared I was for this endeavor. Between writing this book and working as a publicist, my view of the publishing industry has completely turned around. I'm so grateful that it happened now, with this novel. From J. A. Konrath's and the Writer's Beware and the Editorial Ass blogs, I realize how rare it is to have learned all this so early. I still have time to write and to learn before all the pressures of "real" life clogs everything up.

One of the most significant things I learned about myself is that I am a short-term writer, at least for right now. This semester I plotted 3 brand new short stories, finished the first draft of 2 more, and wrote more than half of 2 more. They were ideas that I just couldn't let go of, and I can't wait to devote real time to them, instead of frantic writing sessions in the middle of the night.

That's why the draft I turned in is just about 32,500 words, half of what I had planned for if you add back in the 2,000 I copied over. I was going to write those back in today, but instead wrote a short-short and half of a longer story. So I consider this half of a first draft, but a completed discovery draft because I discovered the novel this semester--and I have a notebook full of exercises and plotting to prove it. Sometime soon--possibly this summer--I plan to go back and fill in the other half, search for all the times I wrote "something" and put something else there instead, so that I'll have a completed first draft. After that, I'll print it out, possibly get a cheap binding--depending on the cost--put it away and hope something better comes out next time.

I have to thank my anonymous teacher--who suffers at my selfish attempt for anonymity because she has published a fantastic novel that I'm supposed to be publicizing but can't mention the name of--because without the class, my novel would still be 4 pages and the vague ideas that floated through my head when I listened to a Coheed and Cambria album. Her guidance and support buoyed my morale, but by simply holding me responsible to the goal--I reached it. I've been setting dates by which to have a novel finished for at least 7 years now and this was the first time I made it.

And now I'm depressed...

2008-12-03T20:10:00.001-08:00

So what was the common theme of all those posts? Layoffs, buying freezes, and restructurings. These particular posts are all from galleycat but there's plenty more wherever you look. As a newbie to all this stuff, I barely recognize these houses from the spines of my personal book collection--much less understand bids and titles or recognize individual's names or understand how we got in this mess in the first place or how any of this is going to help. I think confusion is the tradeoff for the protection of an outsider, however. When I go to my local bookstore tomorrow for an author reading and to pick up a copy of Team of Rivals for my boyfriend, there will still be books on the shelves and readers in the chairs listening to the famous author. My boss's book is still in the queue for full printing in March, and my Traditions of China paper will still be due by 11am. There are a lot of people out there whose lives just got even more uncertain, and for all our sakes, we need that change more than ever.
So I'll keep writing and reading and buying books in the hopes that my small actions on the outside can reverse the dopplar effect and make its way to the heart of things.

Apropos

2008-12-03T19:21:00.001-08:00

As I settled in to catch up on two days worth of missed updates from my bloglist (73 entries, to be exact), this was the first I chose, purely because the feed is listed alphabetically. I like J. A. Konrath a lot, he doesn't sugarcoat anything and he gives a lot useful information. I downloaded his book on publishing for free, but at over 700 Adobe pages, it's on my list for the upcoming break.
Anyway, I know exactly what he's talking about because the first draft of my novel is due tomorrow. I'll extrapolate after I send it in, sometime in the next 25 1/2 hours in fact.

Wall-E and Waffles, Cupcakes and Pancakes

2008-11-30T18:51:00.001-08:00

Those are the highlights of my 20th birthday.
I just thought I might recognize it, it didn't have that much of impact, worldview-wise. I had a tiny little breakdown this time last year because 19 seemed so...unplanned...in comparison to the previous 18 years where I knew exactly what to expect and what each birthday meant. Now I really feel like my future is in my hands and I've had a year to get used to that. While it's scarily uncertain, it's also very liberating and empowering. And blah blah blah.

I've got to finish up this classics paper before I can sleep off my birthday, good night!

The Winners of Narrative's 30Below Contest have been announced!

2008-11-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

Here's the list of names of 18-30 year olds that won...
...mine's not one of them.

The official rejection email came a few weeks ago, this was just yet another reminder.
It's not the first time I've been rejected from Narrative, I've twice submitted the story that was published in my university's literary journal, once for a "first-person" contest and then for the under 30. Both contest made me think I had a leg up, something that made me think winning just a tiny bit more likely than your average, all-takers literary submission, especially the 30Below, which gave me hope that I wouldn't be competing with career professionals. Alas, I'll be sending the story back to worshop, once I get time in my schedule to fit in another class. Until then, I'll console myself with this post sent my way by a Casperian Books author. They're one of my favorite independent publishers and I recently finished an great anthology from their newest authors called And Now For a Story... that rekindled my excitement for the short story.

By the way...The minute I get that acceptance letter this thing's coming off the anonymous setting and I'm shouting my name to the world!

Anonymity

2008-11-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to: Philosopher by Mi & L'au
On: Pandora, Mirah radio

As you know, I've added a new title to my repertoire: blogger.
While there is a percentage of executives, experts and existentialists using this tool to communicate significant messages to an unlimited, simultaneous, audience, the overwhelming majority are plebians like myself, satisfying the itch to share their piece of the world with the world. There is significance contrived in this blog, in the capability to share my thoughts with the world at large--and in the possibility that I could show up on someone's RSS feeder, to update them on what I ate for dinner.
That is all theoretical, however, because so far the only person invited to read this blog is me and I haven't accepted. As I get more comfortable with blogger and more confident in my hidden identity, that will change, though. I chose anonymity for this blog out of fear. I'm afraid of what my roommates, or my boss, or my boyfriend would say if they read these silly notes. Also, I have residual distrust in the security of internet identity, leftover from a hyper-private father and supported by the numerous identity theft commercials/articles/warnings. Even my facebook doesn't use my whole name. So when I realized that by simply googling the full name of one of my courses, my school pops up first and since it is a class restricted to honors students, I got a little freaked.
Then I googled my name and found two pages of women who were not me. Accounts on facebook, on linked-in, on myspace and other social networking sites I'd never even heard of. Sometimes we had a few interests in common, sometimes not (such as a Canadian doing some kind of research that made me sleepy just reading the google excerpt) and sometimes I was ashamed that we shared the same name, however none of them were me. So as long as I'm careful, and have this little army of not-me's to hide behind, I think I can continue with my new occupation. However, my respect for Moonrat has risen to even greater heights.