I’m sorry for being MIA
this last week. The last ten days I’ve been consumed by two major tasks:
Keeping my house clean
enough to receive house guests.
Keeping my fridge
stocked for said guests.
School is out in many
areas of the U.S. which is great for me because it means people are leaving on
vacation and, if I’m lucky, popping over to Paris for a sejour. This week my
favorite cousin stayed with us for a couple days. Then my only American expat
friend who re-patted herself back to the U.S. with her family two years ago
came over for dinner with her kids and hubs. And, of course, yesterday was
father’s day so we had the in laws over for a barbecue.
Now, I think you all
know how I feel about housecleaning. Keeping even a hygienically normal house when you have four kids is downright
exhausting. But I bit the bullet and used our upcoming visits as motivation to deep clean our place, washing drapes and
linens, mopping, dusting, cleaning bathrooms etc…until the whole place shined!
Then, two days later, I
pretty much had to do it again.
And again, a few days
after that.
Trying to keep my damn
house clean pretty much almost killed me.
Because after about the third clean sweep, and mowing the front and back lawns,
I came down with the Bubonic French Throat Virus (this may or may not be the official
term).
Saturday my nose started
running. Sunday it reached faucet-like proportions and my head stuffed up.
Wednesday I thought I might be through the worst. Then Thursday I woke up with
a sore throat. Friday the fever set in and it felt like I was gargling glass
every time I swallowed. This was followed by a range of symptoms running the gamut
from mildly irritating to downright
bizarre that kept me on my toes all weekend- including chills, fatigue and
hand and face swelling.
Finally, today, the
virus seems to be receding back into the hell hole from which it sprung and as
much as I love having guests from the U.S., I’m thankful for the opportunity to
finally just get some rest and relax before we leave on vacation in July.
What I learned: house
cleaning can be hazardous to your physical and mental health. Avoid at all
costs.
And do you ever feel like life is out to get you
despite your best intentions?
First, I want to thank
you all for your kind words and advice on last week’s babyblues post. I’m happy
to report the postpartum blahs have high-tailed it back to the swampy recesses
from which they came (for the time being).
A few things that
helped: First off all, the sun finally decided to make its grand debut after
six straight months of rain.
Secondly, I was able to
get out of the house and run twice this
week. I’ll be honest. I’m not good at running. I actually really suck at it
(think Phoebe from ‘friends’- I can never seem to get my limbs to work together
like they’re supposed to and tend to look like a flailing crazy person the whole time) but the fresh
air and time alone, plus the exercise did me a world of good.
And last, and most
surprisingly, there’s songwriting.
Yes, I, creepy query
girl, have been writing songs. But not the kind of songs where I sit around
with a pad of paper and an acoustic guitar, humming lovely little notes and
tuning here and there, like those glorious folky singers do in the movies.
My songs are more like
an in-promptu soundtrack to my life.
There’s the baby’s bath time
song entitled ‘If you keep squirming, you will slip and drown you soapy,
squirmy little thing’.
And the spilled milk
song. I think the person who invented the ‘don’t cry over spilled milk’ expression
could have found a much better
analogy.
Spilled milk is a
serious pain in the ass, especially when you have children who seem to like to spill
it once a week or especially like to let it soak into the kitchen chair
cushions before, you know, telling their
mother. Milk also makes everything sticky and will start to smell like old
cheese if left unattended. So no, I
don’t cry when milk is spilled. But I
do go just a little ballistic and
start freaking the f#&k out. Thus I decided spilled milk deserves an angry,
profanity-strewn black metal song a la iron maiden.
And then there’s my
personal favorite, a pop-rock ode to breastfeeding entitled ‘One of these boobs is not
like the other’.
It’s a real
crowd-pleaser.
If you were writing a song, right now at this moment,
what would it be called?
I guess I should count
myself lucky. I’ve never had to deal with the full-blown, emotionally/physically debilitating
postpartum depression that some mothers have. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t
had my fair share of baby blues.
Hormones tend to yo-yo up and down for about a year after giving birth,
especially if you’re breastfeeding, which I am.
And for the last three
months I’ve felt fiiiine. Completely
fiiiiine!
Until, suddenly, I didn’t.
Phoebe turned three
months old on Monday and this entire week I’ve felt entirely un-fine. Emotions
are pretty much stuck between the irritation and sadness settings, and a part of
me would very much like to grab a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of wine, and a block
of chocolate and whole up in a shadowy corner to start writing dark poetry
about fading beauty or the abyss.
But then, I realized the
fact that I suck at poetry would render the whole thing more depressing than I
could bear.
So I cleaned my house,
thinking that a shiny environment would make things feel better on the inside…Then
I realized just how much I hate cleaning
and went on to despise every minute of the monotonous tasks before me.
I also felt bad about
missing not one, but two blogging days this week. So I decided- who cares if it’s
Thursday!? I’m going to blog today. I miss the interaction with my writer
friends. I miss opening up my email and reading the comments.
And you know what else I miss? I miss what pushed me to start this blog in the first place.
Writing and Querying
Okay, maybe not querying
so much as acting on the perpetual hope that somehow, some way I’ll one day see
my books on bookshelves all over the world one day. That hope has been evading me now
for quite some time and I need to set its tail on fire.
And then, there’s
writing. I’ve had a premise in the back of my mind for awhile but haven’t felt
that pull quite yet- the one that
makes you want to take a break from your life and go wade in a different world
of your own creation. I don’t want to force it, because I’ve tried starting
projects just for the sake of writing, in general, and they always remain
unfinished. But at the same time, I really miss that thrill and hope
inspiration will strike me hard, soon.
Where are you guys at, writing wise? And for those of you who have ever had to
deal with periods of ‘un-fine’, hormonal or not, what are your tried and true
pick-me-ups?
Yes, I was just the kind
of melodramatic, slightly emo-teenager who used to go to the local cemetery
to read in the
summertime. It was quiet there, of course, and added ambiance to the spooky stories
that were my bread and butter back then.
Plus, when I wanted a
break from paranormal love affairs, I could take a walk and let my imagination
fill in the blanks behind some of my favorite older-than-dirt headstones. Who were these people who died so long ago?
What were their lives like? Why/how did some of them die so young?
Dianne Salerni’s The Caged Graves reminds me of one of
those beautiful days spent in
my cemetery- surrounded by mystery, the scent of
fresh-cut grass and the tingle of something
other
climbing up my back with each warm breeze.
In her book, Dianne
captures the fictional story behind two very
real graves located in an abandoned cemetery outside the town of Catawissa,
Pennsylvania.
SARAH ANN, Wife of
Ransloe Boone, Died November 15, 1852, Aged 22 years
ASENATH, Wife of John
Thomas, Died November 15, 1852, Aged 17 years
How the young sister-in-laws
died and why cages were erected around their graves remains a mystery. But
Dianne did a hell of a job filling in the blanks!
The story is told from
the point-of-view of the daughter of one of the deceased; 17-year-old Verity
Boone, who arrives back in Catawissa to live with her father after fifteen
years away.
Her arrival in town
stirs up memories and rumors that had been thought long-laid to rest but Verity
is determined to learn the truth behind her mother and aunt’s caged graves,
despite the reluctance of the townspeople. Were the cages erected to keep
someone out? Or make sure the dead remained inside?
Add a hot love triangle between
Verity, her intended, and the doctor’s apprentice to the mix and you’ve got
everything needed for a fast-paced and engaging YA historical mystery.
Congratulations Dianne, on another fantastic story!
Have you ever spent time contemplating the lives of those
long-deceased? Why do you think we feel such a pull to explore and ponder the
lives of people who lived and died centuries before us?
As one of my favorite
television series (based on one of my favorite book series growing up; the
original L.J. Smith Vampire Diaries
Trilogy) comes to a season 4 series finale, I can’t help my utter
dissapointment.- Not because I’ll have to wait four months for the show to
start back up again, but because this season was just so... bad.
I don’t know what
happened. It's like the writers got so caught up in the plot (which was much weaker than usual), they
forgot about the importance of their character arcs and development. Up until
now, there had been a steady deepening and growth in each of their main
characters over the course of every season that really made the show come alive. This season, however, not only did their characters' development come to
a grinding halt, but they actually regressed.
Or, when that was too much trouble, they just got killed off altogether. *sigh*
And it got me thinking,
when I asked the agent I sent the R&R to why she preferred I make my book a stand-alone rather than the
first in a series, she explained that a lot of YA authors today tend to over-do
it with a series and it’s definitely felt by their readers.
I couldn’t help
but agree.
After all, when an
author is writing a series because they tend to sell more copies than
stand-alones, some very scary things
can in sue.
The author can get bored and resort to using the same old tried-and-true plots
and plot devices. I’ve definitely gotten tired while reading serialized romance
books. After the first three or four, I could see the same storylines being
used over and over again and lost interest.
The author can get bold. Which can be good thing. Or not so much. Like in the
case of poor L.J. Smith, who wanted to stop the Vampire Diaries at three books
but was pushed to write more by her fans and publisher. Which led to downright weird plot twists involving things like
angel wings, Japanese anime antagonists and other dimensions. Not good.
The author can get cocky. When a series is really popular, some authors take
liberties they wouldn’t have otherwise taken with the mindset that anything and everything they do will
turn to gold and be appreciated by their fans. Yeah. No.
I think it’s easy for authors
to picture writing a series, especially when they feel really close to their
characters. They want to spend as much time with them as they can BUT, if the
passion and the vision don’t follow, some stories really are better off being wrapped up in one volume.
What do you guys think? Have you ever read a series
where the author should have/could have stopped after one or two books? In what
cases do you think more books are necessary for the author and the reader?
Okay, maybe not rich.
But am I the only one that feels like, in order to successfully self-publish,
you gotta have an extra couple-thousand-dollars lying around?
As I enviously watch
many of my writer friends take the giant leap into self-publishing, I’ve seriously
considered following their lead and publishing one of my books to amazon. It
just seems like the next logical step for someone like me, even though I’m
still determined to keep querying agents and get published traditionally
someday as well.
However, it feels like all
the successful self-published authors I meet agree on the absolute
necessity of a high quality product if you’re going to put
something out there. I’m not just talking about the quality of your writing,
which has taken years to hone- But of
every aspect of your self-published book
from formatting, to cover art, to copy-editing. As well we should, I suppose.
The majority of readers won’t be drawn to shoddy book covers, weirdo spacing
and grammatical errors galore and putting out a less-than-stellar product can
diminish the view of self-publishing as a whole.
Now, I could try and do all
the work on my own and not spend a dime. But
it feels like most self-pubbing resources warn against it. While reading the do’s
and don’t’s of self-pubbing, doubts and worries fill my mind. ‘You’ll never be
able to successfully copy-edit your book and it will have a ton of errors.’ ‘Your
book cover might appeal to you, but
won’t appeal to a huge audience like a professional’s would.’ ‘Learning to
format correctly and actually formatting your book will take forever and you’ll probably have to go
back and fix it a million times, if you’re even successful at all.’ ‘In the end,
it will be just so hard and time consuming and you’ll probably fail
anyway so why try?’ *sigh*
Except, whenever I look
into what kind of budget I’d need to hire someone to make a spectacular book
cover (150$-400$), copy-edit my manuscript (450$-1000$), and format my book
(100$-300$), I can’t help but feel like ‘the perfect product’ is far beyond my
financial reach.
Am I the only one with
the impression that in order to make money self-pubbing, you have to spend it?
I wish there were some way to see how much money a mixed group of authors put into their first
self-published title and if that effected the success of that book in the long
run as opposed to someone who put in less money.
And, also, I can’t help
but think that a pretty cover and perfect grammar can go a long way, but in the
end- isn’t it the genre, concept and story that take center stage when it comes
to the success of a title?
What do you guys think? Are ‘do-it-yourself’ SP books
of a lesser quality and less popular than those that were invested in
financially? Or does the amount of money put into the book not matter at all
when it comes to success?
So, today is the first
time in a long time I’ve sat down in front of the computer to try and put together
something coherent. My baby girl, Phoebe, was born February 27th,
2013 and just turned nine weeks old which means I finally have the ‘go ahead’
to start exercising and getting myself back into shape. Therefore I figured it
would also be a good time to stretch back out the ole’ writing muscles and get
blogging again.
The last 8 weeks have
been FILLED with ups and downs so I thought I’d do a brief recap:
Week 1- Baby’s born!
First thoughts- ‘Look what I DID!’
*looks around the room
frantically* Do you guys
see this? I made this brand new little human
practically all by myself AND it feels like my body just broke
about a million rules of nature to squeeze the little sucker out! It’s a
miracle!
I am magical! I should have food and presents brought to me on golden
platters and tribes of people should bow down and sing my praises! Or I should
at least be given a medal by the mayor, or something.
So what if hundreds of thousands of women do this every day!? I still deserve a damn medal!’
Week 2 – ‘Yeah,- still
waiting on that medal’. *Hmph*
Week 3- ‘Boy, this baby
sleeps a lot!’. I mean, I practically have time to do whatever I want! Why did
I think this was going to be so hard again?’
Week 4- ‘Boy, this baby
cries a lot! What’s wrong? You’re fed,
burped, changed and in the loving embrace of your spectacular mother! Why do
you hate me?’ *tears*
Week 5- ‘Boy, this baby
sleeps great! I mean, she only wakes up once or twice a night. I’ve got this
new baby thing totally licked!’
Week 6- ‘Oh my god, I’m
never going to get a full night’s sleep again ever for the next seven years.
What the hell was I thinking? Why do you HATE me? *tears*’
Week 7- ‘She SMILED! Oh
my god, she totally loves me. I’ve got this new baby thing completely licked.’
Week 8- ‘Holy crap, this baby
got heavy fast. What are we feeding you? My back is killing me. And now the doctor says I can work out
on top of all this? Yay- *fake mini fist pump*.’ *Looks in mirror* ‘I don’t look
that bad. But what the hell is going on with my thighs? I mean, I understood when I had that big baby belly to support
that my upper legs had to kind of spread out to support the weight but it’s
been TWO MONTHS now since the baby jumped ship. Shouldn’t they start, I don’t
know, deflating on their own?’
Which brings me to the
present- nine weeks later and slowly learning to balance baby care, body care
and all the fun things in life in-between. You guys aren’t here to see it, but
I just took a nice deep breath and got a little teary. I hadn’t realized just
how much I’ve missed this part of my life. The simple
act of writing and sharing.
Well, that and the
hormones have me tearing up pretty regularly over things like nutella commercials
and realizing we're out of trash bags…But that doesn’t devalue just how much I’ve
missed all of you, too!
It’s good to be back!
Now, your turn! What have I missed? When you think back on the last 8 weeks
what’s the first word/event that comes to mind for you?
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
