Seriously

I keep saying Barnes and Noble bring me the most sales, but I promise not to let it go to my head.

Mixed feelings

This is the plan. I am going to rotate the four books through Select and rewrite each one, heavily editing the sex out of the first, at several people's suggestions, and doing new covers at least for the third. I feel like I am done being a writer. I wanted to do the four and they are done. And they pretty much are tanking. I average a sale a day. I realize that is sixty times better than no sales for months at a time, but the word of mouth thing is not working for me. I blame my personality and lifestyle for that.

But I'd like to say a few things about the "business" end of this business. I get lots of email and even phone calls that they want to tell me about this publishing deal and that. Okay. Leave me alone. I'm published. Unless you have some promo ideas, I have nothing to say to you and I don't want to listen to you. Word of mouth is the ONLY thing missing from my equation and you cannot sell me a program for that. Don't ask me to send you copies of my work. It is all out there in many different forms or places. If you can't do anything else, you can name search for me. As far as I know there is one other Virginia Llorca and she is a 23 year old girl in North Carolina.

Thanks to everyone who read my stories and double triple thanks to those who said nice things about them, and think about the Karma, especially you family members who pretend it doesn't exist or it's a whim. Read any Lora Leigh and then get back to me about MY work.

The only thing that is bothering me now is that I am toying with ideas. It is just because I am bored and am so very unused to dealing with a sense of relief. I'm trying to talk myself out of it.

Today's CTA: Do you get angry with yourself when you break promises to yourself or do you just shake it off? What do you learn from the experience? Share.

Saturday, March 25, 2012

This is not a chart of my mood swings. If it were there would be more peaks and valleys. It is a graph of my blog hits for the week. It is nuts.

I posted about my two freebies and had the dates wrong for ANYMORE and the link wrong for THE MAZE. I post in a German forum, an Italian forum, a French forum, and I think I hit up the Spanish forum this time, so I made the mistakes international in scope.

Today was my daughter's thirtieth birthday and everyone had such a good time. It was so nice. Her little girl took some of her first steps and I got to see it. We blew bubbles in the driveway and even my dad said it was a great party. No small praise from such as he.

And now I am #92 on the Amazon best seller list of 100 for my genre. This is even with the mistakes I made. It is basically meaningless in the long run, kind of equates in my mind to having someone tell me my hair looks nice but what a great day. And while we were gone, Henry did not pee the carpet.

Louie said that Lisa called this morning and asked if the women from the courts had called to tell us we have been awarded custody of Billy. There is a terrible misunderstanding here somewhere, but still I feared coming home and finding him standing on the porch with a bag of clothes. This is a huge tragedy, but I might as well try to win the election as figure this one out. What that girl has done to people's lives is beyond horrible and when I think of the darling baby she was and how happy I was to hold her and take her for walks and watch her take a step, it is fucking heart breaking. And the one thing about getting this old is I know I cannot do a thing about it and I won't even try and I won't bother feeling guilt about it. I do feel anger toward the people that have made such a muck up of his life and thwarted all the good I did for him. But I look at Jupiter and Saturn and say "What's up with that?" and think this was a beautiful day.

From the Playhouse

I've already been read the White Paper on why it is not nice to "shit" in the Playhouse. So I have left the Playhouse for the moment to say words that I know are not "shit" in my own house, on my own soapbox (If you don't want to read them, you can leave.) , but judgmental people also seem to be kind of quick on the draw. At least in my experience.

The organ harvesting entity in our state is corporate. Here is part of their statement regarding employment.

" Our employees enjoy competitive salaries, a team environment and business-casual workplace attire. Qualified full-time staff receive full medical, dental, vision and life insurance benefits, as well as pension and tuition reimbursement benefits and a generous time-off plan.

All of our employees work in support of our critical mission: to save and enhance the lives of as many people as possible through organ and tissue donation.

All candidates must demonstrate excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills; be detail-oriented; possess the ability to handle multiple projects; and possess the ability to work independently. Basic computer skills are a must. Travel by personal auto and the ability to work outside normal business hours may be required."

A teenager gets $15.00 plus to sell t-shirts in a record store in this neighborhood. Also, a corporation may stipulate they are not for profit in order to get certain ear marked funds, but they manage to build executive type salaries into that structure. A fund raiser for Community Chest cannot live in North Oak Park on thirty grand a year.

Certain people with certain lifestyles tend to take offense at certain things. I feel this is drawing a parallel, not making a judgement. That is, of course, an exercise in semantics. I have gotten on my high horse about being treated dismissively before, and I will fight it. Say it if you want, but I do have the ammo. And as I have said before I will lend you some so the battle will at least be almost even. People say things in public about their most personal relationships, like why it is just easier to give the husband a blow job then have to explain one's thoughts on love and respect to him. They can do what ever they want in their multi layered lives. My marriage and my life in general are travesties of the case model. Maybe yours is model perfect. I don't fucking care. What I do care about is you pointing a finger of judgement at me for no reason. I did not point the finger of judgement at you, so back the fuck off.

Do you honestly think Larry Hagman or Steve Jobs were on a waiting list? Do you know all the fine print on signing the organ donor thing on your driver's license? The rules about why you can't let the EMT intubate the 92 year old stroke patient, and what you MUST do to prevent that? The ramifications of putting the tube in versus taking the tube out. I don't care what kind of environment you work in, there are people doing the same job you are doing that are way dumber and less capable than you, just as there are people doing the same job you are doing that are way smarter and way more capable. There is also a very broad spectrum among these various people regarding their moral judgement and personal prejudices or beliefs.

I am not going to go look in a book to find out if I should put a certain comma in a certain place in a certain sentence. I am not going to take what someone else "feeds" me as the truth. I am going to make my own decisions based on my personal experience, my knowledge, and carefully gleaned and weighed knowledge and opinion from other more experienced people. Then I am going to do exactly what I want and make a shit load of mistakes, errrors, wrong turns, false statements, and when I find out about it, I will apologize. I will also live with the results of my choices.

When zulily, or some like entity, asks me to post for them on my Pinterest board, that is whoring. When I post a link or a remark on Mises.org, that is whoring. When you have sex with someone you don't respect cuz he makes the car payment, or lets you come first, or whatever, that is whoring. I do not care what sex either of you are, or whether or not a priest made a gesture in front of you, or you have a piece of paper with an embossed emblem on it. Everyone is a whore for something. But that is just MY opinion, my PERSONAL feelings,and another exercise in semantics.

It is strange how you get a sense of pure hatred through the ethernet. It is so palpable, and yet, it cannot be seen or measured. Can it? And if you stopped to ask yourself why you were emitting that or receiving that feeling, you would be hard pressed for an answer. You would be. Probably not me.

Once upon a time, a girl. . .

Sometimes you see something at just the right time.

Inexplicable.

Philippa Gregory says she has to fall in love with her characters. The book about Margaret Beaufort was not easy to read. She pissed you off most of the time. But she willed stuff to happen and at, what I consider, great personal sacrifice. "What I did for love" etc. She could love and did love but had this other agenda. Couldn't do it. I'd carry the growler to the bar to get a refill for grampa. So she admitted she found it hard to love her and you knew it when you read the book THE RED QUEEN. It was one of her least enjoyable works.

So this last book I wrote, I couldn't fall in love. There really was not a character for that. But now I am finished and I am in love with them and don't want to put it up, want to keep living their lives for them, controlling the weather and what color to paint the porch.

Amazon goofed up the listing and the royalties and Smashwords has yet to cough up a cent. And the promoting is so whorish. Either you like it or you don't but why the fuck don't they even want to look? I spend hours every day just reading blurbs cuz I am so afraid I am going to miss something. And my Kindle has at least twenty books I am dying to get to. So I sit and play Spider Solitaire on the iPhone. I am so sick of it. I don't think I am going to do it anymore. I just read this John Steinbeck quote where he says you have to not stop and think and plan otherwise you lose your association with the words that are making these people live and that is in direct opposition to all this MFA stuff and outlining and little index cards with plot points. And how I write. Just sit down and wish the fucking crippled fingers would not keep hitting the wrong keys I want to go so fast.

And I am half in tears over it. Like they said my baby was funny looking and kind of dumb, and that is when I get these ridiculous blog spikes and I do not even know where they came from. Some one read a post from about six years ago. It tells you that, so I looked at it and I was talking to Louie about it being when Lisa had that little house and Billy lived with her and it was like a lull in our lives. So strange. Why did someone go and read that out of a clear blue sky? And what could it mean to them? What do anyone else's words mean to someone else? I don't know, but sometimes I am crying over it and laughing and hoping for a certain thing to happen to imaginary people. Cuz I couldn't make it happen for my real people. I guess.

Tomorrow: back to the big white Welbies, for sure.

Today's CTA: Do you put stuff in your fiction that you really wish did happen to you? Or do you want it nothing like your real life?


Image Attribution:  thecollaboratory.wikidot.com

Over the Pipe

Mood. What a silly word. Silly sounding. Something a cow did. Must look up the etymology. Starting to think Wikipedia is more useful than google. Reminds me of a joke.

That was cheap of me. Cute tho, no?

I am in the slough of despond, I think. I am in an adolescent place. For sure. I did one of those Kindle Select promotions, and it was so important to me that I forgot to start promo til half way through the first day. So it pretty much tanked. I felt so desolate. For a couple of minutes. Whatever I didn't do to enhance that promo, my blog stats again went through the roof. Then I got some kind words about my "craft" from another source. So if my life is a see saw, I am standing on the board in that middle place where you could make it rock back and forth. You know exactly what I mean. In our playground it was over the pipe. Which sounds much cooler than 'mood'.

Then we had a recent family event where an aunt by marriage died and all the other strings tied to that part of my life are already gone. I hold grudges till like eternity, and found less and less reason to deal with those people, but the aunt was always nice to me. She kind of treated me, when I was little, like she knew I needed someone to be nice to me. My brother did some really mean stuff to me, like the story about the swimming pool and the watch, Bobby. And auntie Edie was kind. Maybe she was kind to everyone, or maybe I noticed it cuz she was the only one kind to me at that time, but when I went up to the casket, I was thinking, Auntie Edie, this does not look like you AT ALL, but where ever you are you are fine now, and thank you for teaching me the easy way to learn to swim.

You go to these things to offer condolence and to say good by and "pay respects". Because you are supposed to. They had this slide show thing about her with many wonderful pictures of her and her family and these certain friends of theirs. One of the sons said, "You are in there a couple of times." No. I wasn't. Nor my brothers. Nor my grandma who was her mother in law, one glimpse of my mom who was Edie's husband's sister, that I got ticked off about at his wake cuz my mom, his sister, was left standing in the rain, and one glimpse of my dad. This family was so close to mine when I was small. I would take the bus to go stay over at their house. My cousin, the godmother of my first child, used to ask me everything about the facts of life. And at that wake, I realized, we were nothing to them. Not even a memory. And all my instincts to draw away from them over the latest years have been correct. When my mom was dying, they did a couple of things that displeased me, but I chalked it up to them trying to be nice and it being an awkward time, and most of them are kind of slow, but now I don't think I am going to have anything to do with them if I can possible avoid it. My circle of friends and relatives is growing smaller and smaller. It seems convenient to me. There are so many things in life you can't control--that you have to put up with, and up to this point I thought I was growing more mellow and tolerant, and making peace with some of the crap that is my life, but I'm not. In my head I am more angry than ever, and at the same time, I feel so good about so many things. One thing I would love to tell younger people is that they need to be more selfish, but I can't because I don't know how to tell them how to do that with out hurting anyone's feelings. That has been the consistent thread running through my life. I was always teased about having hurt feelings, (which I always had)and I always worry about hurting people's feelings. This from the person who has said, "I hope a truck runs over you on your way home." Yeah, I apologized.

"The problem is all inside your head", she said to me.

The gospels should be Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul and Art.

Love Songs

There was a kind of a joke, maybe one of those semi-viral facebook things, comparing a song of Justin Bieber's with an older love song in two columns where he says "oohoohbabybaby" and the other song says "I'll be there for you to share with you through laughter and through tears."
And that "Til the End of Time" song keeps running through my head. Any of us of a certain age, that would probably include 99% of the people who read THIS blog, know a song like that would never fly today. And why not? And in the TV guide there was a blurb about a Debbie Reynolds movie that was a light-hearted comedy about divorce. And that was probably in the early seventies. Yeah, I could go look, but you don't really care, and I don't want to get up and walk through three rooms, and I would forget it by the time I got back here, so just take my word.

Maybe that is why those bodice rippers are so popular now. I write about contemporary people, and I would love to give them this big huge end of time love to share with each other. But the circumstances they are in, it kind of doesn't fit. And when I do it to them, there is always something that comes along that ends up being, "Yeah, you are the big love of my life, but this and that happened and we must just move on with our lives". I know when I got married three old boyfriends showed up at the door (at different times, of course, although it would have been interesting if they all pulled up together). "Why can't it be the way it was?" Yet, none offered a tantalizing alternative or brought a white stallion with them. And two of them and a third who didn't show up at the door, called my dad over the years to see how I was doing. My dad wept over one of them.

And my thought is, and I have tended to share this idea with my daughter, which is probably not a good thing, is that they were interchangeable. And maybe there would have been rough times, but I am betting, aside from one of them shooting me dead and leaving me for the birds to pick at, nothing could have worked out as badly as some of the shit I have had to deal with in the chosen marriage.So all I could ever say to my daughter was "Yeah, he is nice looking, and you will always have financial stability". So I guess I am not romantic. Or maybe I was and now I am jaded and/or calloused. Nevertheless, why did I choose to write in the genre I have chosen? The truth is, I can only read mine. The only romance I ever read and loved was Katherine by Anya Seton which was fucking awesome, and Historically based. (John of Gaunt, poor guy. Shuttlecock) and I love to read my own work, but most other romances are too unrealistic. Maybe I am trying to rewrite my life as alternative reality. I am currently reading "Reamde" which is as far away from anything in my life as I could get. I favor police and medical procedurals, but I am lazy about the research. What I do write--I did the research. And fuck that happily ever after shit.

Refreshing Viewpoint

“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.” — Will Durant, Life,
Oct. 18, 1963


This is copied from Futility Closet, a site that I have to keep in my email and stop to read every now and then to counterattack the usual banality of my life. The site always supplies something grounding and refreshing.

Excerpt from The Maze

Switching Annie to the other breast, Maisie glanced up and saw Bob in the doorway. She actually blushed a little and adjusted the diaper she had thrown over her shoulder. Like he’d never seen her breasts. “You are even more beautiful now. You look so happy and content. Lucky baby. What a cutie she is.”

“Thank you, Bob. How are you doing?”

“I’m dying inside. I keep thinking it’ll get better. But it doesn’t, even seeing you being all modest and motherly, like I never saw your tits? I should laugh, but I want to cry.”

“Bob.”

“I know you loved me. I know it didn’t go away. Lie to me and say it did. It’ll make it easier for me.”

“I can’t. It didn’t go away. It won’t. And I don’t understand it. I try not to think of it.” Annie was sound asleep and Maisie laid her in the little crib, tucked her breasts away and as she turned, Bobby was right there. “You shouldn’t. . .” But he placed his hands on her forearms and she felt like she was getting lost.

“See? That’s what I mean. That’s not going away. On that bike in Pennsylvania?”

“I know. We should have just kept going. But, this isn’t wrong. This is where I’m supposed to be. I told you, I don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it’s timing. I think all the time how it would be if we just kept going.”

“You shouldn’t.” She looked up at his face and he stepped a little closer.

“You can back the fuck away from my wife now, and keep your hands off her.” They didn’t hear Barney coming down the hall. He made sure of that.

Barely a year ago, same scene, different players. No, thought Maisie. Same players. Different roles. Except for me. Me. “Barney, it’s okay. He’s just saying hi. We’re just talking about Annie.”

“Get the fuck out of here, Raia.”

“Back off, old man. Everything’s cool.” Thought that sounded okay, even though he knew his mouth had gone dry and his heart nearly stopped--eyelids, scrotal sac and all its contents, disappearing into the depths of his body.

“Go, Bob. Go. Please don’t start anything, Barney.”

Unfortunately, Bobby had to walk passed Barney who was filling the doorway, standing with clenched jaw, clenched fists. Maisie stepped passed Bobby and took Barney by the hand. “It’s okay, Baby,” she said as she kind of tugged him toward the crib and the sleeping baby, trying to adjust the dynamic. “Bob. Go. Please.”

As he stepped passed Barney, through the doorway, into the hall, he turned, and feeling he had to at least get in the last word--since he had no waiting white stallion to escape on, his Maisie and her infant in his arms--Bobby muttered, not quite under his breath, “This is not over. Never think it is. Never.”

Barney started to lunge toward the doorway, but Maisie, not quite a hundred percent physically, tugged at his arm with both her hands, “Let it go, Barn. The baby?”

“It’s over, asshole. You don’t know how over.”

Bobby walked away reluctantly. Totally unwilling to let this rest. Determined it would not rest. But that guy is fucking scary. I wonder if she’s safe around him. But she treats him like a little dolly on a string. What the fuck is wrong with her? What does she see in him? I need another beer.

Writing

Something has to go "click" in my head.

I stumbled on a blog. The guy's name was Ray I think. I usually remember the name Ray. He was a writer. Some of you will stumble across it if you don't already know who I mean. He can write.

Lately, I think of everything in terms of long drawn out analogies. I think it is a way I explain things to myself. I did that long drawn out blog about the end product I come up with. For which I feel no shame. There is a place for that product and I think I handle it just fine. And it is what I want to do. Writing wouldn't do what it needs to do to the inside of my head if I had to keep a bunch of note cards and characters and plot lines sorted out. As it is, I have to search before I publish to make sure I didn't change someone's name along the way. So story one is the way I write. Story two is the way Ray writes. Process, not story or style.

Story One: I have a really pretty house. It is just a box. It is a pretty color. It has nice trees. It has a great yard. It has good proportions. It is large. It is a nice house. I change the wreathes on the front door for the season. I go to Michael's. I buy a wreath form. Sometimes I use last seasons. I strip it and start anew. I buy some fake flowers that make me think of something nice I remember, some color that makes me feel good. I buy some leaves that are the right proportion and color. I buy fake polystyrene berries. I am crazy about those berries. They have to be on every wreath. The size and the color have to be just right. Sometimes I use last seasons. If the white plastic is showing through, I color it in with a marker. I assemble the ingredients in a pleasing pattern. I put a little glitter on some of the leaves cuz my front door gets muy sun. Some times my daughter is supervising or assisting. "You should put a little more glitter here." "There are too many berries there." I have to make two because the front entry is double doors. They have to match but not identically. They have to harmonize. I make frequent trips to the edge of the yard to look back and see if the scale is pleasing.

One day a neighbor and her friend and their daughters knock to sell girl scout cookies. One of the first things the women says is, "I LOVE your entryway. I want to go home and copy it." My heart soars with the eagles. This is the end of story one.

Story two: A young man is walking along a stony beach on an island in the Outer Hebrides. It is chilly but there is a spring smell in the air. The beach is cross hatched with an occasional scarp. Farther down the scarp meets the water and the young man will not be able to walk further on the waterfront. But before he reaches the end of the beach, right around the place he first intended to turn and head back, he spots a very white baby lamb half way up the scarp. It is bawling piteously and very white but smudged with dirt and a little redness. It is in distress. The man, wearing a perfectly aged pair of Vasques, and happening to have an old thin pair of leather driving gloves in the pocket of his oiled cotton Barbour Mac, climbs somewhat carelessly, but with years of experience to support his efforts and grabs the baby lamb. He continues to the top of the scarp from which the lamb has fallen, carrying it over his shoulder and trying to hold its two back legs when he doesn't need both hands to keep his purchase on the craggy rock.

After he reaches the top and begins to walk over the barely perceptible path leading to his ancient but picturesque cottage, he examines the lamb and sees it is fine except for a few abrasions on its haunch from falling against the stone. He puts the lamb in the yard with the other few sheep he owns, some who have recently lambed. None of the ewes will let the baby nurse so the young man drives his little red car to town and buys special formula for abandoned lambs. He loves the lamb. The lamb loves him. The lamb thrives under his care and is always a bit brighter, a bit bouncier, a bit larger than the other lambs.Sometimes the other lambs, now young sheep, gang up to tease him, but they know he is the leader and usually they let him lead. He is a good leader anyway, they know. The next spring, when it is time to shear the sheep, the young man notices his favored lamb has a more lustrous, healthier looking crop of fleece than the others, so as he shears away, he keeps the wool from the special lamb separate. The wool goes to market as is usual. Walking around money. But the special wool he takes to his aunt's house who lives the other side of the tiny village. "This is wondrous wool," she says. "I will make a special sweater." And she does. Then the young man goes out in the world wearing the special sweater. As he progresses through the world many people say, "Hey, cool sweater." "Oh, what a lovely sweater." "Is that wool bleached? It is so very white."

Then one day the young man is on his way back home. He never stays away for long. He is on a pedway in an airport. Approaching on the opposite pedway is a lovely young girl. The pedway is very crowded but she looks up intently at the oncoming traffic as she notices a certain evocative scent of aftershave that gets her attention, and she spots the young man. "If I didn't have to run for this stupid plane, I would vault over this wall and make a move on that guy," she thinks, and gives him a delicious smile which he hungrily tastes as he moves past, returning a glimpse of self satisfaction over what might have been, as they both well know. As she moves on, the young girl, too busy to feel regret, thinks only, "God, that sweater he had on was gorgeous." The end of the second story.

THE BEST and the GHOSTS

LAWMAN is the best. I just keep rereading it, mostly cuz I can't take my eyes off Tim who is a Getty Image for god's sake. And the ending is so great. Life, whether you like it or not. SACRED SIN is a bit of a stretch. When I can afford it, I will do a rewrite, but already I left out about half. And I love the gas station sex. And the Maze, well, I hate what I had to do to Barney cuz I love him so, but that's life, like I say whether you like it or not.

And just when I start thinking the ole well has run dry, I got a great idea for Anymore to introduce a pivotal character that ties this all up. God, I am enjoying the hell out of this.
So ninety days is my deadline, but I will finish sooner. Especially if I stay this manic. Ghosts are in my house actually. They leave me things, tangible things. Some shiny and new. Puzzling.

So VERY Up

Well, Louie got the new transmission installed for his heart yesterday and that seems to be going fine. They desperately wanted to show us the one they took out and talk about how it worked and describe its various components. It was large and shiny and, strangely enough, shaped like a tombstone, but I didn't want the explanations because there were still little bits of blood and gore attached to it. He is asleep at home now, as usual. On the way from the hospital this morning, we stopped at the "Orgy of Gorging" pancake house near our home , (not its real name) and Delaney ate pancake and behaved delightfully, so that many smiles will last most of today and tomorrow for me.

PLUS, the KDPSelect program has kicked in, so I am rapt, watching those results come in, much as, I am just supposing here, that gubernatorial candidate with the dark secret would be watching his election returns.

Yes, I harbor dark secrets, many of them hinted at in my fictional works, many of them to be kept hidden beyond the grave. Except, I am not going to have an actual grave. But you get what I am saying.

Discovery

I rewrote The Maze and put it up on Kindle Select today. I was a nervous wreck. Then I was "speaking" to my spouse and I said I wondered why I got so nervous because what difference did it make if I did something wrong. I could go back and fix it. And he replied, "Now you're catching on." So I guess that means I am never going to get nervous about anything ever again. Sometimes I just wonder why he is not the ruler of the whole fucking world.

No. I know exactly why he is not. And so do you.

I wish we had a special font for sarcasm in case any of you aren't getting my point.

P.S. I don't want the Maze to be over. I want to write and write and write about these people.

Reality Check

First of all: I HATE f-ing HATE typing on this new laptop and I have yet to figure out why I am torturing myself by trying to do it.

Secondly: I took down book three because I decided to make something else happen. I need a special kind of psychotherapist who specializes in the "God Syndrome".

Someone commented in a review that they wanted stuff to work out for several of my characters whose/who's lives were sort of being lived at cross purposes to one another's. (I have a real problem with the possessive pronoun here. You would too.) Even one of my more severe critics mentioned having this dilemma. I felt this way too. That is kind of why I wrote it basically. It is an extension of certain parts of my personal experience. ("It happened like this, but wouldn't it be interesting if it happened like this?")

So I made this hunky dory type story in the third book that made everything sweetness and light, peaches and cream. The HEA that I HATE in Romance books. No such thing. Anyway. I decided these people were too complex and it couldn't be that simple so I have made the book like twice as long as it was and the development was fun, and I like it. But the thing is, I was kind of idealizing this one male character, did it in book one, mentioned it in book two, and I am crazy about him. But, this new section makes him do a really ass hole thing. And I just kind of think that no matter how great a guy is, this stuff happens because of the "Y" chromosome. Fortunately my audience is predominantly female or I would probably have my house burned to the ground by now and my body dismembered in the town square. (Please put my head on a rust proof pike.) And I make him all man up-ish and come clean-ish and acceptable to the amazing female protagonist who would never fall in love with an asshole. Yeah.

And, once again, I feel like a complete whore for doing it. It is so manipulative. Okay. Here is the deal. These are fictional people, Ditty. What the fuck difference could it possibly make?

No answer. Go the fuck to sleep.

Spin

Some days I do not want to leave my bed. I love my bed. Very old, wrought iron "campaign" bed. (I do not know why they call it that, but I saw a picture of one like it in Arch. Digest and it had a bunch of weird chains on it and said it folded and was a civil war campaign bed.  Strange, since it is very pretty.) Any way, all cotton blankets, sheets and quilts. Favorite stuff that I indulge myself in.  Little enough of that going on, guys.  But, as usual, I digress.  (I will have to find a phrase to replace that.  It is getting very old, even to me.)

Sometimes I can let the littlest thing get me down so  bad, so far down, definitely inordinately so. Other days, like the second half of yesterday, and so far, all of today, I am kind of high. And the tiniest thing can get me so high, no, not ALWAYS a pill, guys.   I am being a bit figurative here.  I know it is my nature, and sometimes I hate it, but usually I enjoy it.  It is like Chicago.  Chicagoans are rabid in their love for their city, but it is never the same for very long.  They say if you don't like the weather in Chicago, just wait a minute cuz it will change.  Maybe that is why they love it.  So I am at peace with the way I am.  Good thing cuz it is way too late to alter it.

Anyway, one thing I notice is that, more and more, I am able to mentally adjust my take on things to feed a certain mood. I wonder if I have always done this and everyone else knows it, but I am just now noticing it.  The first time someone said something negative about my writing I felt so weird, like a little bit sick with that hot forehead thing. You would not think at my age I would have a fragile ego, and it is a damn shame that I do.  So, it took a while to see that the person was not criticizing my writing or even my choices.  He was criticizing the lifestyle of the characters which means I created characters.  It was the first time I realized that and it was a watershed moment.  Now you couldn't stop me if you wanted to.  I have had enough said at this point that I am totally able to be perfectly at ease with what I say and how I say it. So I poke around looking for reviews, but mostly looking for sales and perusing reviews if they are present.  Barnes and Noble, for some reason, gets me the most readership.  I have a strange feeling it is because of this interesting interaction I had with a gentleman that works at Barnes and Noble, but I may be wrong. It may just be part of the natural order of things and beyond my control.  So I got a pretty nice review from someone on B&N and felt good and was glad someone "got" me.  My only requirement.  Steal the book out of the back of my car as long as you read it and "get" it.

Then, this morning, my daughter was taking a terribly long time in the Sprint store getting a replacement phone.  In unexpected idle moments such as this I like to go up to any device in the store (Best Buy is fun.) that has browser access and look up my books and leave the picture of my cover on display.  Sometimes I even say to whomever is nearby, "This is my book," but Francesca gets put off when I talk to strangers. (Loony mom syndrome.)  I booted up B&N and there was a new review.  One star.  Very long.  He was furious with Jenny.  He offered all kinds of recommendations about how she could improve the moral quality of her life and how the gentlemen involved were nuts to put up with it and it could never happen (which I adamantly counter with "Oh, yes it can") and immediately I noticed that he said nothing about my style and was so invested in my characters it had strongly affected him  He said he read it in six  hours  and wished he had the six hours back.  Um. . . You could have put it down after twenty minutes or so. Why didn't you?

I found the whole one star review immensely flattering and gave it a five star rating. Still waiting for that "right" person to read it, though.

Today's CTA: what do you think about this whole cell phone, iPad, computer, TV morphing thing?

RETURN to UPSY DOWNY LAND

Bad start to the day with emotional interchange about visiting my grandson. He's here and all is fine.   Then:

Four star review from Barnes and Noble:   "Crazy good read".

 Bipolar overload

Jenny is one bipolar crazy woman. She climbs into her best friend Barney's window as a young teen and begs for him to teach her about sex but it leads to a connection that neither of them can ever let go of even through marriages and children. While Jenny will always love Barney, she loves her actor husband Daniel too and they all have to learn to live with her actions and her condition. Crazy good read but after 600+ pages, the ending seemed kind of abrupt.

That's 600 Nook pages, guys, so don't worry. Sort of a series  And everything works out for all my guys so better keep reading!!.  I couldn't be happier with this person's choice of words.

Indie Publishing--an Analogy

(Loudly blowing horn. . .)

I'm an "Indie Publisher".  That covers a lot of ground:  self-published, Kindle, Smashwords, Indie Press and others.  It was a combination of impatience and snobbery that led me down that path.  I don't even fit the amorphous indie model.  I write street language, infidelity, God dropping in for an occasional remark or two.  But it's good.  It's light, fast, fun, irreverent, sexy and not dirty.  I don't think a good BJ scene has to be dirty, with a lot of slobbering,  romantic over-the-top description of the penis,  submissive behavior, and a bossy guy to be realistic or good or sexy.  I'm probably one of  a very few that can write a sexy BJ scene that is nice.  Lora Leigh's are f-ing scary.  Rate 'em.

And then when the rejection letters came filled with poor grammar, misspellings, missing words, (fill in the blank in their form letters where they could not bother to fill in the blank) and obvious signs that they never looked at the work, well, I love you, Betsy, but fuck 'em.

So a new track ball on the desktop pc, a new laptop, and an illness have kept me away from my creative endeavors and I have been watching movies. Last night I fell asleep watching Teeth which was about vagina dentata and sucked, which I realize is an oxymoron. But, when I woke, I was wide awake and it was quite late so I surfed Starz On Demand, and started to watch The Cleaner. Did you ever hear of it? I haven't.  Samuel L. Jackson, who has been in some turkeys, but was doing an excellent job of being Samuel L. Jackson, always his best role.  That beautifully aging fox, Ed Harris.  Complex plot. Little straggling octopus threads grabbing you right off.  Good subplot with Jackson's daughter, not thrown in, important, interesting. You know how in Transporter Jason Statham goes up to the wrought iron gate of the manse and it's what's her name --Amber Valletta?-- and it rates him a huge cardboard statue in the theater lobby?  Well, Jackson goes up to the wrought iron gate and it is Eva Mendez doing her usual wooden Barbie thing, but being very beautiful and just interesting to watch, but no cardboard statue for Jackson.  Alicia Silverstone as Jackson's office manager looking better than she ever did, (needed a little more of her acerbic commentary here).

So here's my point.  They have algorithms.  And Alvin and the Chipmunks gets the play, the licensing, the press. Pirates of the Caribbean--you see how much those fucking Legos cost.  Cleaner gets shit.  Probably went straight to Video.

I write The Cleaner of love stories.  Lora Leigh writes the Alvin and the Chipmunks or The Transporter of love stories. Harlequin Press has its algorithms, probably constructed by the same programmer that said Alvin and the Chipmunks would make millions.  I walked the walk.  Alvin didn't. We can't fit any agent's algorithm.  Too bad for them.  A couple of four star reviews by strangers that indicate they actually got what I was writing tell me I did good.  Maybe not for the fans of The Tortured Love of the Troubled Duke or Alvin, but good enough to appeal to the same people that surf for a good movie to watch--and occasionally find one. Maybe not great, but good.  And enjoyable.  I got more than 900 downloads from Barnes and Noble for my Lawman freebie and 21 of those people bothered to rate it so far, and some were four stars. I can still walk the walk. Pay attention to my name.

I am feeling waaay better, and I told you you were gonna get it.

Obviously

I have the Style Guide thing all worked out and I figured out how to load non Amazon stuff on my Kindle.  No.  I didn't figure it out.  I figured out how to follow someones perfectly explicit and clear  directions.  So, obviously, I have no more barriers in the way of my getting on with publishing my book and a half, and, obviously, my head is spinning with thoughts that need to pour out.  You can't stop me from pouring them out. Just don't read them if you don't like them.  If it will make the inside of your head feel better, you can even delete them.  But, I am warning you, that would be a mistake. Anyway, this whole rant is a stall and a waste of everyones time.

The  theme of today's discussion is tattling.  If you were ever a mom, you know the painful dichotomy of trying to teach  your kids not to be a tattle tale and having the burden of knowing they are aware of something horrible going on that they are afraid of telling because they don't want to be a tattle tale. These bits of knowledge may run the gamut from Joey taking that dime that you left on the dryer after it fell out of someones jeans, or he let that horrible little boy down the street ride his bike and that is why it is broken, but after all, he will man up and take the blame because you already told him  not to let that creature ride the brand new bike, and he cannot possibly tattle on the horrible creature.  First of all it would be tattling, and foremost, the horrible child would maim him for life.   Somewhere along the line, most children learn to determine that it is a necessity to tell your mommy that you saw Mr. Jorgenson burying his wife under the birdbath and you should just keep quiet about the fact that your sister puts lipstick on as soon as she is half way down the block.

But not everyone gets to this place in their life.  I was standing at the service desk in WalMart, waiting to send the latest multi thousand dollar money order to my lover that  lives on a small Greek Island when a woman came in and CUT in line, her mission was so important.  She gave the description and license numbers of several cars in the parking lot that had ignored and/or disobeyed the handicap sign regulations and she demanded that the service desk commander, already stressed because she was alone and eight people were already waiting  in line, call the local police immediately to come and cite these people for their malfeasance.
The service desk person began to look about for the telephone book, muttering how she didn't have the number at hand and couldn't this wait while she took care of the other people ahead of her, and the parking space troll said it had to be done immediately in case the people breaking this law left before they were properly chastised and made to give up a portion of their time and their personal fortune because of their sin and "the number is written right here on your desk blotter because I saw it there yesterday".  This is the woman's hobby.

Before I got my new prosthetic knees and it still hurt to walk, I nudged a shopping cart up a little with my car so I could fit into a space closer to the store and the shopping cart rolled into the corral for carts that was directly in front of the space I had chosen.  A woman saw this and circumnavigated the lot  so she could drive all the way back to tell me she didn't think I should do that because the cart corral deserved that space also. By this time I had left the car and was walking toward the store and exaggerating my crippled hobble for her benefit.  I said, "Call the police." and went into the store.  She may have been the Wal Mart parking lot troll and I just caught her at shank's end of her daily forays.

My neighbor's children raised a few chickens, maybe five, for a 4-H project.  They built a maze type structure for the chickens to play in which extended into my yard.  One of our more observant neighbors reported us.  The police showed up at my house.  I blurted, "but they are Miller's chickens".  The Millers, eleven years later, still refer to this as me reporting them to the police.  At least they are being facetious.  I hope.

I made a half joking remark on a thread that I didn't need to be on, one never does need to be on a thread actually, about how I had cheated on the NaNoWriMo contest (if you don't know what that is, leave well enough alone cuz it is stupid) by posting a novel I had finished writing months before.  I was called out for my moral turpitude and lectured on how that would destroy my character and tarnish my legacy, if I was not already beyond hope, which they pointedly remarked, I must already be.

I was discussing the variety of resources one could access when making or buying cover art for their self-published works, and I mentioned that one image I used was gifted, three were purchased and one was stolen.  I got  the lecture about copyright law and how someone would come after me.  What?  Are they going to confiscate my royalties?  Good luck with that.

Then there are the times when you (at least I) sit and mull about how you let so and so get away with such and such, and how one person you know sues anyone and everyone for anything and everything, and the only thing I can come up with is something my mom said.  And I am not given to quoting bon mot from my mother because she was not too big on that, preferring the Martini as a coping mechanism; "Mend your own fences."  Which, I will translate for you, my beloved readers, "Mend your own fucking fences, asshole."

Today's provocative, dialogue inducing question: Do you even have a fence?

It Happened Again

When you do this indie publishing thing, you(I)  hear from so many people that are so opposed to it.   I, personally, am all over the map about is this whoring?  Is this frustration?  Is this vanity?  Is this a need to enlighten?  Is this a waste of my time and other's time and space?  When the gauge by which you judge yourself is so palpable and undeniable as actual dollars or actual printed words, it is so easy to let yourself be wracked by self doubt.  I think this is normal.  I don't think I am particularly more or less filled with self doubt than any other Joe Shmoe.  And I already discussed being a Joe Shmoe and being accepting of that. And I totally feel that putting your words and thoughts out in the public eye indicates that there is a lot more going on than self doubt.  And then you get a random review from a random stranger and you are jubilant.  Not so much an ego thing, that they Like you, like Sally Field, but that the words they chose indicate they get what you are saying.  This holds far more meaning for me than having someone say  "Your style is so fun or amazing, or ridiculous, or convoluted, or strange, or  stupid, or hideous."

But then you are kind of noticing a person, and identifying with their doubts and their struggles and you go so far as to compliment them and try to encourage them and buoy them up a bit and thank them for sharing with you, and then you read something, and it is like Holy Shit.  This sucks.  This makes no sense.  I can't follow this.  My sophomore English teacher gave me more props than this will ever get.  This is fucking hopeless.  What do you do?  I know what I do, what I will do, what is the only comfortable path for me.  I am going to fade out of the scenario.  And I'm gonna wonder.  Self doubt?  Apparently I have none.  Apparently there is just a certain blindness people have.  Apparently people that love me want me to just stay in my cloud of self-delusionment for fear  of hurting me (which never seemed to bother them before) or robbing me, in my final moments, of my last thread of hope.. . Or apparently I can write.

And, you know what?  I will never have an answer for that.