Sword Swallower's Daughter is Finished

Last night at 1 a.m. I typed THE END to my first draft version of THE SWORD SWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER. What a fabulous feeling.

Writers and Websites

The following is the text to a talk I'm giving tomorrow to the California Writers' Club, Inland Empire Chapter.

Do I Need a Website?

Back when I was young and flippant, I informed my dental hygienist that I brushed twice a day and asked if it was really that important to floss my teeth also.

“Only if you want to keep them,” she replied without a missing a beat.

So it is with writers and websites. If you’re serious about writing for publication, it’s time for you to look into creating a presence on the internet.

I Googled Myself

In today’s marketplace smart people seeking information on a subject or person turn to the web. I just typed my byline Carolyn Burns Bass into Google and came back with hits filling the first four pages. Some of those hits are directly culled from my websites, but many of them links to book reviews I’ve published and responses that I’ve made on other people’s blogs and MySpace pages.

If an editor wanted to look deeper into my publishing history, it would not be hard to find more than enough information to prove that I am a serious writer, serious about being published.

You and Your Platform

Agents and editors banter around the word “platform.” In today’s publishing world, authors are packaged as commodities. It’s beyond genre, category, or voice. It’s about how the publisher can market the author along with the book.

A platform to the publisher/editor is a way to sell books. A platform to the author is a way to sell ideas.

A platform is not just the stage on which you stand to pitch your product, it’s the product itself. In the case of authors it’s more than just the book, but what drove the author to write it. It’s the backstory of the book, the story before the story and after the story ends. The author’s beliefs and passions are the foundation of his or her platform; what he or she would write about if they weren’t writers.

• Martha O’Connor, author of the novel THE BITCH POSSE, uses her platform to raise public awareness about diabetes; her young son was diagnosed with type 1, juvenile diabetes while she was writing the novel.
• Barry Eisler, author of the John Rain series of thrillers, has a CIA background and writes political views in his blog.
• Tish Cohen, a self-described agoraphobic in the making, is author of the recently released TOWN HOUSE, a novel about an agoraphobic man’s struggle to live with is phobias. Tish has a “What’s Your Phobia” section on her website.
• Good Girls Kill For Money Club is a blog written by a group of female mystery authors, reveal the mystery behind other authors with insightful questions and commentary.
  
• LitPark, operated by Susan Henderson, former editor of Night Train magazine, and author of the upcoming, TAP ROOT, uses the metaphor of a playground for writers to answer questions of the week, read about upcoming new books and authors, and share personal anecdotes.
• Ovations, my primary blog, espouses my platform in this log line: An ovation is rousing, prolonged applause. It's a display of public homage or welcome. More than enthusiastic hand-clapping, it's a way of rewarding hard work, showing gratitude, or offering praise. Ovations celebrates the unfinished script of life, where the earth is the stage and people are the stars.

Not only do these blogs promote the author’s platform and books, they can help other authors create an online presence and begin the foundation of their own platform. They invite you to join the conversation by leaving a comment. Your comments are forever logged to the world wide web and searchable to anyone around the globe.

Three Easy Ways to Build Your Platform

1. Read blogs and comment frequently on your favorites.
2. Begin your own blog or MySpace.MySpace is the easiest “website/blog in a package.”
3. When you have something ready to sell, be it a novel, non-fiction proposal or finished manuscript, think about opening a website.

How to, Where to Blog

There are dozens of free blog hosts. If you want to add bells and whistles, such as running polls or surveys, you can pay some blog hosts for upgraded accounts. I host my primary blog at Bloggger, yet I also have a LiveJournal account that is cross linked to my Blogger account. I cross link, so that if I comment on a LiveJournal blog (my agent has a Live Journal blog), it includes my picture and a link back to me.

MySpace is not just for teenagers. It has the biggest tent of talent in the world wide circ us. Here you’ll find pages and pages of authors, news about their books, tours, special offers, and often a blog. I have a MySpace page filled with a wondrous variety of authors, artists, acrobats, and all kinds of people from around the world. These people, some who contacted me and other who’ve sounded interesting enough to me to contact them, are my “friends.” I have 493 friends.

Rather than list the plethora of free source websites and blogs, visit this site and then surf until you catch a site that looks easy or interesting to you.

http://www.thefreecountry.com/webhosting/freeblogging.shtml

If you don’t see anything that appeals to you there, just type in your search browser: blog hosts. You’ll get pages and pages of blog sites and offers.

Other Important or Helpful Sites for Writers

I have long been a supporter of Writer’s Digest’s annual survey and publication of its 101 Best Websites for Writers. Surf these links and enjoy the ride.

http://www.writersdigest.com/101sites/2006_index.asp

If you attend my talk, I'd love to hear your comments here. If you're a regular reader of Ovations, you're already blog saavy, but I'd still enjoy hearing from you.

I'm in a write-a-thon

I’ve been asked to participate in a write-a-thon sponsored by Breath & Shadow, an online journal of literature by people with disabilities. The staff has invited their — and the readers’ — favorite writers to write a piece to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal. I’m very excited about this opportunity to write for Breath & Shadow and honored to have been selected to participate. The write-a-thon, as its name suggests, is a fundraiser.

What you may not know about me is that I have a hearing impairment. My hearing loss is the result of nerve damage caused by chronic ear infections as a child and sustained exposure to loud sound (live music, I’m afraid to say). Although I get by just fine with my hearing loss, there is much of the hearing world that I miss. I don’t hear crickets chirp anymore. I can’t hear the buzzer of my coffee pot, my kitchen timer, or many alarm clocks. I set my cellphone to vibrate and wear it on my body.

You know how with walk-a-thons you pledge a certain dollar amount per mile or kilometer? This write-a-thon works the same way. I will be writing a short story of no more than 500 words. If I get at least five people to support me with a pledge, Breath & Shadow will publish my write-a-thon piece. The pledge amount is variable and won’t be collected until after my work is published in the fall. A standard pledge is 2 cents or 5 cents per word for a 500-word piece — which comes out to a $10 or $25 donation. Of course, you can always pledge less (one cent per word) or for more (a dime or a quarter per word). Any amount of support is welcome. Remember, I have a word limit of 500 words.

Breath Shadow is a nonprofit publication; subscriptions are free. It’s the only magazine that prints the writing of people with all kinds of disabilities and is edited and written only by people with disabilities. It’s made a real difference in the life of disabled people to have their work about disability taken seriously and published in a quality journal. The journal is a project of ROSC, a tax-exempt charity. They will be happy to send you a receipt for your donation, if you like.

If you would like to sponsor me, please email me at Carolyn [at] wordartsolutions.com and tell me how much you’re pledging. Also, when my work is published, Breath & Shadow will post the names of the people who sponsored me, so please let me know if it’s okay to post your name or if you’d like to be listed as “anonymous."

A quiet Mother's Day morning

Awake again in the quiet of this Mother's Day morning. I've had the breakfasts in bed, muffins, eggs, sprigs of flowers in tiny vases, but this morning's peacefulness is the best gift of all. Tank, my canine son, is curled around my legs, while my human son sleeps. Husby worked until two a.m. and will sleep until about nine. My daughter's probably hugging her pillow in her dorm room across the valley and will greet us in church this morning. Life is profoundly good.

If you've read Ovations for a while (at least a year) you may recall this plaque that I created the year after my mother passed away. I run it each Mother's Day. It says everything I feel about Mother's Day. If you can't read the verse, click on the picture and it will open to a larger size.

Tish Cohen at Book Soup

Congratulations to Tish Cohen, seen here signing my copy of her debut novel, TOWN HOUSE. Book Soup, the famous independent bookstore of the stars on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood hosted Tish's book launch last night. Rex Pickett, author of SIDEWAYS, introduced Tish and gave a glowing endorsement.

Before signing, Tish read chapter two of TOWN HOUSE, offering a peek into her hilarious dysfunctional character Jack Madigan, the reclusive son of a famous, dead shock-rock star.

Film rights to TOWN HOUSE have already been sold.

Finally a quiet moment... and some squees

I’ve put on my favorite iTunes playlist, my cat and dog are sleeping on each side of me, the husby and son are out, and the sun is setting. This is my favorite time of day.

The last couple of weeks my husby and I have done some travel driving. Two weeks ago we drove to Scottsdale and last weekend we drove to Las Vegas. I often listen to audio books while I’m driving, so I thought it would be fun to load up my iPod with something that we both would like. I enjoy literary and up-market commercial fiction, Bassman likes thrillers, espionage, crime noir and police procedurals. After several hours of sampling through Audible.com, I downloaded Carl Hiaasen’s SKINNY DIP.

Part noir, part thriller, all humor, Bassman and I laughed our way across two deserts while listening to SKINNY DIP. I’d heard Hiaasen’s name praised among writer friends, but had never explored his catalog of work. This summer we’re flying to Orlando, renting a car and driving up to Chesapeake Bay, then driving back to down to North Carolina and flying home from Raleigh/Durham. You can be sure we’ll dish up some Carl Hiaasen on the road.

It’s been a while since I gave some squees...

For my husby, Bassman: At 48 he’s still got it. Last weekend was the annual Baker to Vegas Challenge Cup Relay, an annual footrace made of law enforcement teams from all over the country. He really didn’t want to run a leg of the 120-mile relay through the desert, but his team had someone drop out and they begged him to run. He had less than a week to train for the 6.5 mile section of the relay, but he keeps himself in great shape. It wasn’t a cakewalk, for sure, but he did pass six other team runners and helped his team look good. Bravo, Bassman.

For my friend, Susan Henderson: Susan sold her first novel TAP ROOT a few weeks ago—without an agent. I have followed her writing progress on this novel for several months through her blog, LitPark, and empathized her pangs of writing, revising, finishing, submitting. Hearing of its quick sale is like being a bridesmaid at a friend’s wedding. TAP ROOT is a coming-of-age novel set in the 1970s, about a girl who believes her mother has gone missing. After finding her mother living in a secret room in the basement, the nine-year-old girl must come to terms with their irrevocably changed relationship. Now that’s intense. I can’t wait to read it.

For my son, Jonathan: He’s not off to see the wizard, he IS the wizard. Jonathan’s in the final weeks of practice for his high school musical production of THE WIZARD OF OZ. Tomorrow we’re going out costume shopping and I’m going to have fun making his turban for the scene when he’s Professor Marvel.

For Southern California Book Lovers: This weekend is the LA Times Festival of Books. I’ll be working a shift on Saturday at the California Writers Club booth (12-2) and then enjoying myself for the rest of the day. This is an amazing two days of author signings, lectures, readings, panels, and exhibits. If you’re there, stop by the CWC and say hello.

When words fail: Virginia Tech 2007

Click on the image above to view a memorial slideshow.

Do you love what you do?

I’m sitting on the most comfortable hotel chair in the world. At least it feels that way to me. Traveling and staying in nice hotels is one of the best perks in my life. I say life, rather than job, because I love what I do.

The shingle above my business website says I do travel marketing, meeting planning, and business communications. My author's website says I’m a fiction writer. This blog is my attempt to synthesize both of these vocations into meaningful praise for the amazing people, places, and things that make this a wonderous world.

Last week I was looking out at the Pacific Ocean from Huntington Beach, California and today I’m watching the shadows fall across the rugged desert peaks surrounding Scottsdale, Arizona. We just checked into an amazing property—Hotel Valley Ho, a Scottsdale landmark and hip urban oasis since the late 1950s. This is our room.

Yes, that is an oversized bathtub in the middle of the room. When I said it was romantic; my husby didn’t argue. Ever pragmatic, he did voice a concern that I might get up in the middle of the night and fall into it. Our room has a separate glass-door shower and lush, Red Flower spa amenities for bathing.

Look closely at the shot to the right. See the 32-inch flat screen TV aimed at the bathtub? That’s a long, wall-length counter of luxury accessories like crystal wine glasses, a martini shaker and glasses, a magnifying make-up mirror. See the black bullet thing? It’s a pod expresso maker. Inside those cabinets are a fully-stocked mini-bar and quirky selection of gourmet snacks like Lucy’s “Predic-a-Mints,” Cracker Jacks, and chips and salsa.

You can’t see it in the picture, but I’m using it now: complimentary wireless internet in every room. Throughout the hotel, in fact. I can sit in a cabana next to the pool and work on THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER.

Hotel Valley Ho is the kind of place this sword swallower’s daughter never would have stayed in as a child. She’s pinching herself right now, making sure she’s really here. I write about travel, beautiful places, and gracious people. I believe much of my travel writing is to a create permanent record of where I’ve been—not in a look-at-me-living-it-up way, but in gratitude--a reflection of how far I’ve come.

Now if they only sold this chair.

Do you love what you do? Click the COMMENT link below and tell us why or why not.

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Special thanks to Jesse Thompson and Hotel Valley Ho for donating a stay at their fabu property to the SITE-SoCal Holiday Charity Auction. I bought the package and happy I did.

Between business and pleasure

I’m writing this morning from the glorious Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort in Huntington Beach, California. Although this hotel is only about an hour from my home, I’ve come to love this property for a number of reasons. The smartest reason is that the Waterfront has discovered that perfect blend between business and pleasure. I am here for business, but pleasure is what I’m getting right now as I sit in my room watching the famous Surf City waves peak and crest in the early morning ocean mist.

I arrived last night just after sunset and stepped out of my car to the scent of wood smoke, savory hotdogs, and crusty marshmallows rising from the firepits lining the beach. I couldn’t really distinguish the hot dogs and marshmallows, but having sat around those fire pits many times through the years, my memory filled in the details.

Poised on Pacific Coast Highway, along the Orange County Riviera, The Waterfront offers views of the wide sand and rolling waves from almost every room in the house. The first thing I do when checking into a hotel room is open the curtains (okay, this after tipping the bellboy). The lights along the famous Huntington Beach Pier had just lit, reflecting in the teal-blue ocean below.

This pier is one of my favorite childhood memories. My mother once dreamed she was standing on that pier watching me struggling in the water below, sucked under and swept out before her eyes. I don’t think I ever told her how that dream haunted me for years. Looking back, I think the dream was symbolic. She watched me go through some pretty rough times, unable to reach me from her motherly perch. The ocean of life threw me back, coughing and sputtering on the sandy shores of adulthood.

I want to thank J.D. Shafer and the fabulous Hilton Waterfront staff for making my stay in their house so fabulous. After my SITE-SoCal meeting today I’ll drive north on PCH a few miles to Seal Beach, where I spent many wild and carefree days as a child, and where my character Sheila’s daddy lives in my novel, THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER.

Where did you spend your summers or your wild and carefree days of youth? Click the comments link below.

Advice from and for writers

At a meeting of the California Writer’s Club last Saturday I heard Susan Straight speak and read from her latest novel, A MILLION NIGHTENGALES. Susan has long been one of my favorite authors, whose authentic life in Riverside, California makes her writing sing like a New York diva.

Susan voiced something I have internalized since I began writing fiction seriously, but have never heard from other writers: She says she's constantly working on her novel--even when she's not sitting in front of the work, she's ruminating over characters, setting, conflicts. Susan is one of the few authors I know who write complete novels longhand. Her method of choice are yellow legal pads, which she then transfers the work to her computer. Susan teaches creative writing at the university where my daughter is an English major, considering a minor in creative writing. If she takes one of Susan's classes, I'm going to crawl into her backpack and listen through the zipper.

Tonight I'm going to hear Anne Lamott speak and read from her new collection of essays, Grace (Eventually). I've heard Anne before and she speaks just like she writes--from the hip and heart. Stay tuned.

Before Susan's talk at the CWC meeting on Saturday, we were given an exercise to write advice to ourselves that we wish we would’ve received early in our writing career. Here’s what I wrote:
Read good books. Reading is the most important element of writing. Reading opens the door to worlds outside your own, will expose you to foreign cultures and diverse lifestyles, and will reveal the thread of humanity that we all share. Only through discovering the outer world can you hope to share your inner world.

Experience life. Plan for your future, but live in the moment. Observe people and places around you; participate in what is going on around you. Remember how you felt when you reached important milestones.

Discover what you like reading best. Read the kind of books you want to write. Study how they’re written: setting, characters, motivation, plot, conflict, story arc, pace, layers, subtext, theme.

Devote yourself to craft. Writing begins when you put one word in front of the other, but there’s more to writing than nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Study and practice the rudimentary elements of literature: theme, metaphor, exposition, dialog, narrative, and story. Remember that conflict is the heart of a story; without conflict there is no plot, and without plot there is no story.

Learn to edit yourself. Don’t fall in love with your words. Even the best writers have editors, but editing begins with the writer. Look at your words and imagine them written by someone else. Strike out the dead wood, kill your darlings. Stroke and polish. Send your baby out into the world dressed for success.

Accept criticism. Critics are everywhere. Learn to discern true criticism from the emotionally charged ranting of ignorant critics. True criticism offers suggestions for improvement or comments intended to encourage the author to strive for excellence. Accept good criticism; reject ignorant criticism and reviews.

Good things are happening

It's true. I’m in the final act of the SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER and excited about where we are now. Sheila’s Daddy just bought a sailboat to live aboard. Wouldn’t that be fun?

I got an email from an editor at a very nice print magazine, saying they loved my short story, STILL LIFE, the one that tied for first place in last month’s Backspace contest. She asked if she could use it in a future edition of the magazine. I’ll reveal more details when they’re available. But I’m happy to see this story placed in such a fine magazine.

In today’s LitPark, Susan Henderson, author and playground monitor extraordinaire, included a small memoir I wrote about my mom, and included a photo of her and me taken on my wedding day. Take a look here. (Can’t wait to announce your news, Susan!)

I finished reading Kristy Kiernan’s CATCHING GENIUS. This was one of those books that you can’t wait to find out what happens, but you’re sorry it’s over when you read the last page. The final chapter was a bittersweet finish on a glorious sonata. Here is the beautiful cover again.

Here’s something to give you a chuckle this week; this is from Bud Caddell, runner up to the Tech Brew/FeedBurner contest. Bud’s entry is a takeoff of the Bulwer-Lytton (Bad) Fiction contest.

From the moment she walked in the door and let down her hair, he was hooked, hooked on those warm blonde locks drenched in the sun filtering through the cheap plastic blinds, hooked on that shade of blonde that reminded him of the icons on the site he was feverishly posting and reposting his newest blog post, the one with the image of Britney Spears with the sign of the beast so artfully photoshopped on her bare skull, so hooked that he knew, from that moment, that she was the only real linkbait he’d ever known, and that he digged her.

The Reading List:

• THE KOMMANDANT'S GIRL, Pam Jenoff
• WHISTLING IN THE DARK, Lesley Kagen
• PROMISE NOT TO TELL, Jennifer McMahon

Beyond the Chair

This guy deserves an ovation: Drew Shelley, Beyond the Chair.

Note: The following bio is blantantly ripped from Drew's website. Talk about a hero, this man refuses to let his disability rob him of adventure, excitement, and lust for life. Bravo, Drew.

Andrew Shelley has a great life. By day he is an engineer, and by night loves to listen to music and DJ. He is also an avid weekend warrior, often exploring the remote hiking trails of Southern California and the sand dunes of the surrounding deserts. Andrew Shelley, Drew to his friends, is what most people would call a successful guy, with one unique trait; Andrew has muscular dystrophy, a disease that is characterized by the progressive weakening and degeneration of muscle. To keep with his lifestyle, Drew relies on a 260 lb power chair specially equipped for extreme off-road use.

Always up for a greater challenge, Drew will embark on a solo extreme world tour in March of 2007 that would make the most weathered of adventurers cringe. His journey will bring him to some of the most remote and almost completely unreachable corners of the globe. Drew will trek through the outback of Australia, cut through the jungles of Indonesia, and even navigate across the landscape of India. Each portion of his journey presents unique difficulties for Drew to overcome with both the use and transportation of his chair. Throughout this adventure, Andrew will rely on his sheer will, engineering background, and his extreme power chair to do what is difficult for some and impossible for most. His journey will be an inspiring adventure that will demonstrate the power of human potential to overcome all odds. It’s a journey he will face alone; a journey beyond the chair.

If you're on MySpace, you can friend him here: Beyond the Chair

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Having finished Super Mom Saves the World, by Melanie Lynn Hauser, I'm now into Kristy Kiernan's debut novel, Catching Genius, which, btw, is genius. And the cover is one of the most beautiful covers; don't you just want to crawl into the screen and sit in one of those chairs overlooking that endless ocean. I'm logging off to read. Check back later.

The Reading List:

• THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, Ellis Avery
• THE KOMMANDANT'S GIRL, Pam Jenoff
• WHISTLING IN THE DARK, Lesley Kagen
• PROMISE NOT TO TELL, Jennifer McMahon

More than a week

It’s Wednesday and I’m writing my weekly Monday post. I’m my own publisher so I guess that means I’ll have to discipline myself. Maybe I’ll dock my pay. Wait. I don’t get paid for my blog. I’ll have to figure out something else, like depriving me of chocolate for a week.

I added 2,000 more words to THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER and introduced my little Sheila to one of my favorite folk singers of all time, Joan Baez. By the way, on March 6th my daddy, who really was a sword swallower, would have been 77 years old. Sadly, he passed away in 1989 while I was living in Japan.

This month’s Backspace short story contest required a story about someone who came into a large amount of money, and the story has to have a river in it. This round may be tough competition because first prize is a signed copy of FINN by Jon Clinch. I have my own copy, of course, but if I win the contest and get this signed copy, I’ll run my own contest in Ovations to give away my first copy. (I won a signed copy of Sara Gruen’s WATER FOR ELEPHANTS in the last Backspace short story contest. I’ll have to think up a contest for next week to give away my original copy of Gruen’s wonderful book.)

So, after a week submerged in the brilliant darkness of Clinch’s FINN, I have returned to blue skies and heroes. Last week I called FINN extra-dark, Belgian chocolate. Having now finishing the book I’m suggesting it’s more like aged port wine. The prose is intoxicating and the story is addictive. The conclusion ferments the pith of Twain's river saga with Clinch's detached storytelling for velvet-rich satisfaction. Barnes & Noble's Online Book Club is discussing Twain's and Clinch's books side-by-side this month and Clinch has been logging in to talk with club members. He's a great guy, very approachable, and welcomes intelligent discourse.

And now I’m reading SUPER MOM SAVES THE WORLD, Melanie Lynn Hauser’s sequel to the acclaimed CONFESSIONS OF SUPER MOM. After a week on the dark Mississippi River of Pap Finn, the bright world of Hauser’s Birdie Lee is welcome contrast. Birdie Lee is the secret identity of Super Mom, who survived a Horrible Swiffer Accident that turned her into an apron wearing, mess-cleaning, crime-fighting super hero who wants to fly. Okay, so a Swiffer accident turns divorced mom into a super hero is kind of a literary stretch. But Hauser’s voice is so engaging, her perceptions of culture so astute, her bright voice never tries to convince you that stupidity is funny. Here is my favorite line in the book so far, when Birdie is fretting over her teenaged daughter’s new friend Vienna: “... if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that a girl named after a foreign city is going to be trouble.”

Still on my reading list:

• CATCHING GENIUS, Kristy Kiernan
• THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, Ellis Avery
• THE KOMMANDANT'S GIRL, Pam Jenoff

On a reading binge

This morning my word meter pushed past 60,000 words on THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER. That I got any writing done this weekend is a big deal. Not that anything cool was going on, but my pre-orded copy of FINN by Jon Clinch arrived and I’ve been engrossed in reading it. FINN is the story of Huckleberry Finn’s father, the notorious Pap Finn who kidnaps, beats, and imprisons Huck in Mark Twain’s THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN. Those familiar with Twain’s story know that Pap Finn dies and Huck finds it no loss. Jon Clinch doesn’t make old Pap a sympathetic soul, so knowing he’s bound to die doesn’t ruin the storyline.

FINN is like extra-dark, Belgian chocolate. The prose is so rich, the matter of the story so weighty, you can’t take too much in one setting. I find myself reading a paragraph several times just to savor the mastery of tongue. How can someone write so beautifully about such horrible themes as child abuse, slavery, alcoholism, rape, murder, poverty, deceit? Jon Clinch can and does. That’s all for now. I’m off to read.

Books on my bedside table:

• SUPERMOM SAVES THE WORLD, Melanie Lynn Hauser
• CATCHING GENIUS, Kristy Kiernan
• THE TEAHOUSE FIRE, Ellis Avery
• THE KOMMANDANT'S GIRL, Pam Jenoff

Squee with me

In the two weeks since I posted my Duh Moment, I had a Squee Moment. Or two. Maybe more. Read on and squee with me.

First squee: Remember one of my new year’s resolutions was to submit my short stories this year? Since January 1st, I’ve sent out four stories.

Second squee: I received my acceptance on one of those four submissions. This is my first fiction credit and I squeed so loud my husby looked up from Law and Order to see what the ruckus was about. The Rose & Thorn, a distinguished online literary journal bought my story EXPERIENCED ONLY NEED APPLY for its Summer 2007 issue.

Third squee: My son received his first college admission letter last week. The following day he received a second letter from the college offering him an annual $5,500 scholarship. He’s also been invited to audition for a choir scholarship. This is the same college (a small, private college out of state) whose football coach had been calling on him. Jonathan decided to forego football in favor of music, but will be a pre-law major. Oh to be young.

Fourth squee: My short story STILL LIFE recently tied for first place in the Backspace contest that just ended. I’m sharing the spotlight with a fabulous author AS King, whose short story DOWN BOY is a kick. You’ll be seeing AS King on bookstore shelves one day soon, so drop by her site and get to know her now.

Fifth squee: I just finished reading a great business book. In my other life as a travel marketing consultant I am blessed to meet some of the most extraordinary people in all manners of life. John Klymshyn is one of those people. He is a motivational speaker who motivates from the heart, not just the mind. I’ve heard him speak on several occasions and each time I leave with new tools to strengthen and tune-up my business. Yet the spokes of his messages reach into other areas of my life—personal relationships, family activities, and yes, my personal writing. John’s recent book, THE ULTIMATE SALES MANAGER’S GUIDE contains some of the most practical, relevant, and doable tools for anyone leading teams of people, whether in sales, recreation, or life.

Sixth squee: Need to be pampered? I did. The night before last week’s SITE-SoCal/MPISCC event I spent a lovely night at the brand new Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village. My room looked out on the hotel’s, oriental gardens, a lush carpet to the Santa Monica Mountains backdrop. Tucked away in a business enclave in The Valley, that legendary haven north of LA, the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village could become one of the most sought after conference and meeting properties in Southern California. Beyond business, though, the hotel houses the California WellBeing Institute which offers medical, dietary, lifestyle, and fitness services and activities. A colleague in my group suggested this jewel was poised to be the dream wedding location for every bride in The Valley. A second colleague seconded that by saying he was already considering it for his daughter’s bat mitzvah. Location-wise, it’s only a 40-minute drive up the 101 from LA, has easy access to Malibu beaches and fabulous golf, and is only a short hop to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Have you had a squee moment recently? Click the comments link below to share yours or to read about others. Now squee.

Flustration, Mind Muck, and the Duh Moment

Have you ever been troubleshooting something and you get out the manual to read something like, “Confirm that the power cord is plugged into the source.” You say to yourself, “Duh.”

Yesterday I had what I call a Duh Moment. I’d left my house in plenty of time to make it into Santa Monica for a SITE-SoCal meeting where Brenda Anderson, author of PLAYING THE QUANTUM FIELD, was speaking. I’d helped plan this meeting and had Brenda’s books and the meeting materials in the trunk of my brand new, fun and flashy, Camry SE—a very dependable car.

I’m streaming down the fast lane of I-10 listening to Wally Lamb’s SHE’S COME UNDONE through the iPod connection in the car, when the traffic slows to a crawl. But that’s okay, because I factored the traffic into the morning commute. Then it stopped. So did I. Then it moved forward again. I pressed my accelerator and my car went whoosh like it was in neutral. I checked the gear shift and it was in the drive position, so I moved it to park and then back to drive and hit the accelerator again. Whoosh, not zoom.

I look in my rearview mirror and see a frustrated face glaring through the windshield of the car behind me. I turned off Wally Lamb. Flustered now, I turned off the engine and tried to restart it. No clicking, no whirring, no audio.

I put my hazard blinkers on and called Husby, who called the Toyota emergency roadside service. They promised a tow out to me within the hour. The cars behind me began moving into the emergency lane to pass on my left. Several minutes went by; cars passing one right after another in their own rush to wherever. One kind couple paused beside me and asked if they could do anything for me and I was happy to tell them help was on the way.

A charming CHP officer arrived a few minutes later and stopped traffic in all four lanes and then pushed me across the freeway to the shoulder. I assured him that help was on the way and he took off to help someone else. Help arrived about a half-hour later when a knight in a shining white truck pulled up behind me. It wasn’t the tow-truck. It was Husby in his Ford F-150. We shifted the meeting materials into his truck and he sent me on my way with a kiss and blessing for safety.

Back on the road again, Husby calls me and says he got tired of waiting for the tow-truck and decided to try the car. You know the rest. The car started for him. Then he asks, “When you tried to start it did you…” I cut him off. “Of course. I tried everything.” He drives it to the nearest Toyota dealer and leaves it for a physical.

I pulled my big white truck into the Fairmont Miramar valet right behind a gorgeous red Ferrari 612 Scaglietti. I was a half-hour late to the meeting, but I was there. My dear friends and colleagues Louise Lyon and Brigitte Lundrigan had stepped up to the registration table and had everything under control when I got there.

Brenda’s topic was synchronistic to my day. Using examples from her book, Brenda spoke about how we operate within a gradient between the fear zone and power zone. When we’re entrenched in the fear zone, we take head trips that loop through our mind, criticizing, regretting, or reliving all our mistakes. The fear zone zaps us of energy and produces confusion, poor judgment, frustration, and fluster. When my car first whooshed instead of zoomed I got flustered. The more aware of the cars piling up behind me, the more flustered I became. I call this “flustration.”

After the fabulous meeting I’m driving home in more traffic, head-tripping about my reaction to the morning’s flustration. I replayed Husby’s role, my response to his insulting question, “When you tried to start it did you…” and how I am the type that never gives up on a technological challenge. Then something Brenda said floated to the top of all what I call mind muck.

Brenda said, when you’re in a head trip pause. Stop thinking. Look at it from outside yourself. I paused, which wasn't hard because traffic was snarled. I wondered what Husby was going to ask in the question I cut from him. So I called him and apologized for cutting him off and asked what he was going to say.

He was going to ask if I had enacted the anti-theft device when I turned the ignition. That was the duh moment. No I hadn’t. In my flustration, I’d forgotten all about the anti-theft device.

Have you lived through a day like this? Need to purge the mind muck? Tell us about it. Just click the link below to leave a comment.

Ode to Joy and Failed Resolutions

Well it’s three days past my first failed resolution. I did not finish the first draft of THE SWORD SWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER by the 15th. January has been a month of mixed projects, beginning with follow-up from the SITE-SoCal Holiday Event, to learning how to make animated banners for a client’s website design, to supporting my son in getting his stuff together for college applications, to getting myself back in the habit of gymercise, to nursing my 17-year-old cat, to just being me.

THE SWORD SWALLOWER’S DAUGHTER is five-thousand words richer than when I made the ambitious goal. Truth is, I lingered too long over a critical scene where Sheila is confronted with the ugliness of the world and chooses a new course for herself because of it. Some writers have a hard time at the beginning of a story; I have a hard time at the end. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown to love my characters so much I delay finishing their story.

Last week I got exciting news from my friend and fellow author, Karen Dionne, that her novel FREEZING POINT sold to Berkley. This news made my day and is still ringing into this week. I met Karen online about six years ago, commiserated with her when her first novel went the rounds in NYC. She buoyed me when my first novel met the same fate. Undaunted, Karen began writing a new novel and encouraged me to do the same. In the midst of writing FREEZING POINT, Karen co-founded Backspace, an online writer’s community that reflects her generous heart and her brilliant business sense. If you enjoy thrillers, watch out for FREEZING POINT.

It was on Backspace that I met Jackie Kessler, author of HELL’S BELLES. Like Karen, Jackie wrote a couple of novels that didn’t find a home. Until she got a hotter than Hades idea to write a novel about a succubus who’s kicked out of Hell and sent to earth to live as a mortal. Jackie wrote this novel in a matter of months and then polished it to perfection. I was thrilled to refer Jackie to my lit agent, Nephele Tempest at The Knight Agency. But by the time Nephele offered representation, Jackie had already signed with another agency. HELL’S BELLES was released by Kensington last week and I got my copy yesterday. Here’s to Jackie, who knows I’ll bring the chocolate to this summer’s Backspace conference.

New Year, New Goals for 2007

Have you made your new year resolutions? I have. I've never been much on making New Year resolutions, but this year I decided to shout out my goals.

• Finish first draft of THE SWORDSWALLOWER'S DAUGHTER by January 15th.
• Revise and send second draft to beta readers by March 1.
• Send polished ms to agent by April 1.
• Submit at least one short story each month to lit pubs.
• Read more good books
• Balance my personal life, my business life, and my creative life.

Are you a resolutionist? Do you want a place to shout out your resolutions? Feel free to post them here. The blogosphere is listening.

Four Words in Four Colors

Joy
Peace
Love
Hope

Four words in four colors
Wishes all
For now and for tomorrow.

Shout out for my daughter

Today on LitPark Susan Henderson gave readers the opportunity to shout out something of themselves. I chose to shout out my 19-year-old daughter's blog Bella Voce. Elisabeth, or Elle-chan as we called her when she was born in Japan, delighted me last year when she exercised the freshman tradition and changed her major from political science to English. She hasn’t lost her political charge—as you will see when you read her review of Blood Diamond in her blog—but she has found her voice through writing. You may also remember my proud mama moment when I wrote of Elisabeth here back in September.

Give yourself a hug this holiday season.