HOW A BIG YELLOW TRUCK CHANGED MY LIFE

(for the better)

An orange peel grapple is a big machine. Excavator on the bottom. Long arm in the middle. And a metal grapple on the end that looks like a horror movie claw. The base spins. The arm moves up and down. The grapple grabs stuff like SUVs and big piles of metal.

You may come across one while driving, and if you have a little boy in the car, you may have to pull over to watch the thing move cars into a tractor trailer. Otherwise, nothing about this machine will rock your world.

But an orange peel grapple changed my life.

My life was a complete disaster at the time. Though I had a beautiful baby boy and a good husband, I had a job in an industry I swore I would never return to, at a company that wanted nothing more than to suck the blood directly from my heart with a curly straw. This, after I had already sold all the blood in my heart to the film industry, which after a few meetings and screenwriting awards, looked like it might want to take a sip from that straw.

A sip, because as good as things were looking, I saw a long road in front of me. My work was not “commercial enough,” and my manager had made it clear that years would pass before I would be able to convince anyone that this lack of commerciality was a quality that was, well, commercial.

But no. My husband lost his job, and I found work in the fashion industry soon after. What I rapidly discovered was that, though out-of-towners could schedule meetings back-to-back all over town, Angelenos were expected to take a meeting at the last minute, or blithely accept a rescheduling. My boss, on the other hand, had no interest in moving around my personal days, and my sick days dwindled in my first three months on the job. It took only a few months for the meetings to dry up and for me to start writing a Santa Claus script out of desperation.

So, the blood-sucking fashion job with the inflexible hours was right next to a scrap yard, which apparently opened at the crack of dawn because when I got there at seven thirty every morning, the orange peel grapple was already grabbing away. If I had a minute, I watched it go up and down as I clutched my coffee, and I thought, one day I should get a video camera and film this because my son would love it. Really love it.

My son was about eighteen months old and just learning to talk. I missed him while I was at work, adored him when he was awake and with me, and the rest of the time, I found room to resent him for taking me away from writing. He was then, and has remained, a fireball of energy. His teacher alternated between calling him a Jack Russell terrier and a buzz saw. He is also obsessive. Right now, he has a room full of Legos. Before that, it was Thomas the Tank Engine, and before that, it was trucks. Big yellow trucks. He wouldn’t fall asleep unless he gripped a toy truck in each fist. When he received a Tonka loader for Christmas, it was love at first sight. He called it “lolo.”

One morning, with the vision of that big ‘lolo’ that I would later know as an orange peel grapple dancing in my head, I dialed a friend’s number. I’d known this man from Brooklyn, and he’d come to Los Angeles a few years earlier to attend the American Film Institute. Most importantly, he had a camera. When I got his answering machine, instead of asking him for the camera, I said something else entirely, something like, “Hey, wanna produce a kid’s video together? Here’s the pitch. Trucks. Okay, bye.”

That moment may not seem pivotal, but most turning points don’t when they happen. That moment, I took control of my creative life. My friend called me back the minute he got up, and we began the journey toward becoming business owners. We did not pitch the idea around town, and we did not ask permission to bring the work to the public. We put the DVDs on Createspace, and eventually had to hold inventory to meet the demand.

Lolo Productions and the Totally Trucks series have had ups and downs, but the process taught me two things. One, my concepts need to be simple. If I can’t pitch it in five words, it’s not a concept I should develop. My second lesson is that I can be in control of my product and my creative life. If I think something is worthwhile, I can bring it to my customers. Becoming the producer and publisher of my work means I understand now what agents and studio executives meant when they said “commercial.”

Without my son, I never would have taken the life-sucking job. And without that job, there would have been no orange peel grapple. And without that scrapyard, there would have been no Totally Trucks. No eye for the commercial and no control of self-publishing. Who knows what I would have made without all the things that pissed me off for interrupting my work.

 Website: Fashion is Murder

 Dead is the New Black (Fashion Avenue Mysteries) on Amazon.com

 Dead is the New Black (Fashion Avenue Mysteries) on Barnes & Noble

******* This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To read all of the stories, buy your copy today. *******

]]> http://lindadwelch.com/2012/02/how-a-big-yellow-truck-changed-christine-demaio-rices-life/feed/ 3 http://lindadwelch.com/2012/02/when-life-lets-you-down-hold-onto-your-dreams/ http://lindadwelch.com/2012/02/when-life-lets-you-down-hold-onto-your-dreams/#comments Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:29:04 +0000 Linda http://lindadwelch.com/?p=1033 Continue reading →]]> Life changes, but our dreams live on inside us. I’m thrilled to share this inspirational story from fellow Indie Chick Cheryl Bradshaw.

Just Me and James Dean…by Cheryl Bradshaw

When I was a little girl I used to make up stories at bedtime for my younger sister, Michelle.  The most vivid centered on a boy and a girl who received a piece of gum for Halloween in their trick-or-treat bag, and when they chewed it, they were transported to a magical land where they were granted unlimited wishes.  Even at such a young age, the process of concocting stories was effortless.  My mind revolved like the reel of a movie spinning inside my head.

I spent many hours daydreaming as a child.  Back then everything was as beautiful and white as a freshly painted fence.  I fantasized about the day I would get married, the children I would have, the house I would own, and the life I would live when I was all grown up. 

When I was a teenager, my mind still swirled with girlish hopes and dreams.  I remember lying on my bed in my room staring at a poster on my wall of James Dean.  He was hunkered down on the seat of a motorcycle, and Marilyn Monroe was perched behind him with her arms wrapped around his waist, and her head resting on his shoulder.  I wanted to jump into the poster like the girl in A-Ha’s Take on Me video and ride off into life’s highway, just me and James.  Together, forever.

When I became an adult and moved out on my own to attend college at the tender age of eighteen, I thought I had my whole world figured out.  I’d developed a slight obsession with Agatha Christie and knew mysteries and thrillers were the perfect genre for me as a writer.  All kinds of ideas flowed for the first novel, and I thought I was on my way.  There was just one problem: I never started writing.    

Why? 

I wasn’t prepared for the events that were about to take place in my life or how they would affect my journey.  Life didn’t turn out to be the dream I thought it would be, and I struggled—a lot, and faced challenges and trials that at times seemed more than I could bear.  My relationships didn’t always work out, and all the babies I hoped to have didn’t come like I’d planned.   There were times when I felt like my life was like a shattered mirror, and I was on my hands and knees desperately searching for all the pieces of myself so I could glue them back together and feel whole again.  During those times I wondered how many other women out there in the world felt the same exact way. 

Time went on and I struggled, but eventually I picked myself back up and I healed.  With a new lease on life and a positive attitude about what I’d overcome, I thought about writing again.  In 2009 I wrote Black Diamond Death, the first novel in my Sloane Monroe series.  Sinnerman followed six months later and now I’m hard at work on the third, I Have a Secret. 

As I sit here and write this, I’m shocked that I am being so candid.  Normally, I safeguard my feelings.  To say I’m a private person is an understatement, but I feel compelled to get this out.  My message in all of this is to never lose sight of your hopes and dreams.  Never forget who you are, where you came from, and what you are capable of accomplishing in your life.  And if you have a passion, foster it with everything you have inside you.  Let it shine.  Let it breathe.  Let it be. 

When I pondered about the dedication I would use for Sinnerman, my direction was clear and I wrote the following:

This book is dedicated to anyone who’s ever had a dream. We have but one life, and one opportunity to live it.  Make it last, make it count, and make it the best it can be.  Live your dreams, I know I am.

Today, I’m no longer waiting for James Dean to ride up on his shiny black motorcycle.  I’ve fallen for a different kind of boy now, one who dreams of wide open spaces and a simple life.  One who wants to be a cowboy when he grows up.  Now the poster I see in my visions is one of man hoisting me up on the back of his trusty steed while we ride away together into the Wyoming sunset.

If you asked me ten years ago if this was the life I thought I wanted, my answer might have been no, but if you asked me today I would say I’m right where I’m supposed to be.  My life isn’t perfect, the challenges are still there, and I still have a lot to learn about myself.  But no matter what the future holds for me, I know one thing for sure: I’ll never stop writing.

******* This is one story from Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To read all of the stories, buy your copy today. *******

Cheryl’s book’s on Amazon:

Black Diamond Death (Sloane Monroe Series—Book One)

Sinnerman (Sloane Monroe Series—Book Two)

Whispers of Murder (A Novella)

To learn more about Cheryl, visit her here:

Website

Facebook

Twitter

My results are not so great.

I published on January 30th and had a few sales on the 31st. Then Amazon’s major glitch hit. Nobody knows exactly what happened, and may still be happening. We only knew purchases made on February 2nd did not show up on our sales report, and the Amazon rankings went wonky. Myriad emails to KDP  went unanswered. I knew I had sales on that day, because several readers told me they purchased Femme Fatales, including UK readers, and some even emailed me a copy of their sales receipt, but none appeared on my sales report. I emailed Amazon twice, and only received a reply today, to say they were working on the problem. This raises the question, when they do update our sales, how do we know? We have no way of knowing if a rise in sales indicates sales for this particular day, or Amazon is catching up. It doesn’t matter in the long run, but it would be nice to know if there is a surge in sales but not in ranking, Amazon KDP is catching up, not messing up. Again.

But I digress. On Friday February 3rd Femme Fatales’  rank on Amazon had reached the 44K range for Paid, so I know I sold a reasonable amount, but not how many because of the KDP glitch. Femme Fatales went free on Saturday February 4th. I had 248 downloads that day, which took my ranking to 865 Free. Bear in mind I don’t get a penny from Amazon for free downloads, but the effect on my ranking was great because it upped Femme Fatales’ visibility on the Amazon site. Very nice! But, I neglected to take Superbowl Sunday into consideration when so many watched the game instead of buying books!

I only had a few US, UK and Germany downloads on Sunday My totals on Sunday evening had reached 300 in the US, 25 in the UK, and 5 in Germany. This was disappointing after hearing that many authors had thousands or tens of thousands of downloads in January.

But here’s the thing. On Monday, when the book was no longer free, my ranking zipped back from Free to Paid. The Free ranking no long appeared on my product page, and because I had not sold any books for two days, my ranking for Paid was in the 187K range, making the book all but invisible to browsers. Today it’s ranked 201,762 Paid.

Bummer.

I think those who published in January had an advantage over those who publish(ed) in February. Select was new in January, as was being able to offer a book free. Readers went crazy downloading all those free books, but their Kindles are now stuffed with hundreds of books which will keep them occupied for quite some time before they go looking for more.

I’m committed to Select for 90 days but I don’t know if I’ll use my other three “free” days. And if sales and ranking for Femme Fatales has not improved at the end of the 90 days, I will remove it from KDP Select so that I can sell it through other e-tailers.

I repeat: Bummer!

WRITING FROM A FLOUR SACK

by

Dani Amore

Fact:  I was born on a bathroom floor.  Literally.  My arrival into this world was followed seconds later by an unceremonious drop onto the cold tile of St. John’s Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.

You see, I was the fifth out of six children.  My mother knew my delivery would be fast, but the nurse at the hospital insisted she go to the bathroom before the doctor arrived.

Later, after the drama and I was pronounced healthy, my mother told the doctor that the nurse should have listened to her, that she had warned the nurse that the baby (me) was going to arrive any second.  That, having already delivered four children, she knew her body pretty well.

The doctor said, “Five kids, huh?  Maybe you should tell your husband to keep it in his pants.”

True story.

 ***

Both of my parents were born in Italy.  They emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s.  My father always said the biggest difference between Italy and America at that time was that you could work your ass off in Italy and have nothing to show for it.  If you worked hard in America, you could eventually become wealthy.  He started a construction company and worked 6 days a week, from dawn to dusk.  Eventually, he was successful.

My mother raised six children. 

She is a strong woman.

 Both she and my father share a love of aphorisms.

 The one I remember most?  “A well-made flour sack stands on its own.”

 It was almost like a mantra with her.

 At a key point in my writing life, that phrase came in handy.

 ***

So there I am.  I’ve got a full-time job in advertising.  I’m writing about products that suck, working for people I can’t stand, and with two good friends, drinking every night after work.  At a little bar not far from the office.  I’m averaging about five or six drinks a night.  Every weeknight.  More on the weekends.

But on those weekend mornings, I’m writing fiction.  Just short stories that I try to picture in The Paris Review.

Everything gets rejected with remarkable efficiency.

One night, probably half in the bag, I come across THE DAY OF THE JACKAL on television.  The original movie is pretty campy and the remake with Bruce Willis is a pure load of crap.  But the book.  The novel by Frederick Forsyth is one of my all-time favorites. 

The scene on television is the best part of the movie:  It’s where the Jackal is sighting in his rifle.  He paints a little face on a small melon, then blows it apart from 500 yards away.

There’s no epiphany.  I go to bed.  But as I toss and turn, vodka fumes in a cloud around my pillow, I think about the narrative structure of the story.  I’ve read the book several times.  Even have a collector’s edition.  The chase.  The tension.  The violence.

When I wake up the next morning, I make an especially strong pot of coffee.  I push aside my short literary fiction, and start a new story.

It’s about a hitman and a female escort.

Later that day, during some interminable meeting where everyone is throwing out insidious phrases like “let’s get on the same page,” and “think outside the box,” I realized what I was doing.

I was writing to please others, instead of focusing on the kind of stories and books I like.

Crime fiction.  Thrillers.  Suspense.

I had forgotten one of my mother’s cardinal rules.

A well-made flour sack stands on its own.

 ***

I know it sounds melodramatic.  But the truth is, everything changed after that night.  I still despised the advertising industry, but I no longer let it bother me so much.  I begged off going to the bar with my friends, instead choosing to work out and then get some writing done in the evenings.

Eventually, I finished several crime novels.  Even landed a big New York literary agent.

But a funny thing happened.  My agent, and publishers, seemed to have endless debates about how to market me.  Should I be a hardboiled crime novelist?  A thriller writer?  A traditional mystery author?

There were suggestions to change this book and change that one.  Then change it back.  Then change it to something else.

But now I had learned.  I was smarter.

I told them thanks, but no thanks.

It was time to stand up and be the writer I wanted to be.

So I became an indie author.

And when my first book became a Top 10 Mystery on Amazon, I knew I had made the right decision.

Never underestimate the power of an Italian mother armed with an aphorism.

Dani’s Books on Amazon:

Death By Sarcasm

Dead Wood

The Killing League

To Find A Mountain

To learn more about Dani, visit her at http://www.daniamore.com

Dani Amore is featured in the Indie Chicks Anthology, 25 women, 25 personal stories. All proceeds go to breast cancer research. Get your copy now!

The author of Whisperings Paranormal Mysteries takes you to a future where creatures of magic and myth openly mingle with humans, or hide inside other skins. When Mankind and the Otherworldy live side by side, who are the monsters?

This collection of six short stories is 26,360 words (approx. 75 paperback pages) plus a 4,000 word introduction to Whisperings book one, Along Came a Demon (approx. 11 paperback pages.) Adult/some sexually explicit content.

 Let Me Bring You Into The Light.

Priestess Veronica accepts gifts for the temple, and rewards supplicants in the name of her god. When she whispers in their ear, they leave with a smiling face and promise to return. They will return, time after time, until she brings them into the light.

 Harpy Song

Special investigator by night, the ultimate housewife by day, Rhea adores cooking, cleaning and pampering her husband Penn. One evening she witnesses a neighbor’s brutality. Someone should have told him, nobody had better disturb Rhea’s domestic bliss.

 Cast in Stone

Meddie has been here since the dawn of the world. Lauded for her art, she captures the mighty and the lowly in stone.

 Come Fly with Me

The gargoyle thinks she has seen everything on Earth, but when she decides to die and her soul flees to a human body, she learns the evil of which men are capable.

 Troll Love

Ashamed of her stunted body, little Brillig does not think a man can love her. When she falls for Christian and her feelings are reciprocated, she must choose between her desire, and his life.

 Gladiators

Jo is a bounty hunter and gladiator undefeated in the arena. Betrayed by her elven lover, she and her friend Etta are doomed. But Jo has an edge.

Available at Amazon, this short story collection is $0.99 from Amazon.com and £0.77 from Amazon uk.

]]> http://lindadwelch.com/2012/02/introducing-femme-fatales/feed/ 0 http://lindadwelch.com/2012/01/can-readers-trust-paid-for-book-reviews/ http://lindadwelch.com/2012/01/can-readers-trust-paid-for-book-reviews/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:40:37 +0000 Linda http://lindadwelch.com/?p=972 Continue reading →]]> I’m delighted to welcome fellow author Kevin Domenic. Kevin has published a number of novels, including the Manga style Fourth Dimension series. Today he talks about the ethics of paid book reviews.

Promotional Honesty

 Got my first one-star rating last weekend.  Wasn’t a good morning.  I never really expected to get glowing reviews from everyone and anyone who picked up my work, but that didn’t take away the sting that came with being told the book I spent so many hours imagining, writing, changing, editing, deleting, rewriting, publishing, and promoting was so terrible in the eyes of a reader that they gave it the lowest possible score.  Granted, it is only one rating.  And the person didn’t leave an actual review to go with it.  Not even a name, for that matter.  It simply says, “Anonymous, 1 out of 5 Stars.  No text was provided with this review.”  But that was all it took to send me into a weekend-long review hunt, sending promotional copies of Key to the Stars to as many book review websites as I could find, hoping a few more good reviews might offset the damage done to the book’s overall score by that single star.  After all, there are plenty of readers and websites out there who are more than happy to give honest reviews for free.

 Then I found a website (which shall remain nameless) that offered book reviews for fifty dollars each. 

 I am not a supporter of paid reviews.  Considering many corporations are employing people within their organizations to post fake 5-star reviews on their products (The Consumerist: Spot Fake Product Reviews) and some are even giving customers free products in exchange for positive reviews (The Consumerist: Retailers Resor to Offering Refunds to Customers For Positive Reviews Online), I refuse to take part in any of that kind of nonsense.  I want my reviews to be honest, legitimate, and from real readers with nothing to gain or lose from reviewing my book.  I want to know what they thought, how they felt, and whether or not the book was worth the money.

 Shortly after discovering this website, I found myself in a conversation with a paid reviewer.  This person referred to herself as a “Professional Reviewer” and felt that the both the cost and the title added extra credibility to the reviews she wrote.  Additionally, a book review from this website came with an in-depth analysis of the author’s writing ability which points out where the book fails and where it can improve.  Her argument was that newspapers like the New York Times pay their book reviewers, so why would this be any different? 

 But there’s a fundamental difference in ideology there.  A book reviewer for the New York Times is paid directly by their employer, not the author.  It doesn’t matter whether the review is good or bad, they will still be paid.  And, provided they do the job to the satisfaction of their employer, they will be given more books to review.  The authors themselves have zero input.  It doesn’t matter whether or not he or she likes the review; such feelings have no bearing on whether or not the reviewer will get more work, and thus, continue to receive a paycheck.  Therefore, there’s no reason for them to feel swayed one way or the other. 

 On the other hand, paid reviews inevitably come with a stigma because the reviewer is making money.  Think of it this way.  Reviewers are well aware that most authors are not going to write, edit, publish, and promote just one book.  They’re going to make at least two, if not more.  That means an opportunity for repeat business.  If the author is happy with the first review, it’s reasonable to expect they’ll go back to the same reviewer for the next.  So, a positive review serves the financial interest of the reviewer.

 In other words, I don’t trust paid reviews.

 I know that there are plenty of people out there who just want good reviews on their products regardless of how they get them.  Whether it’s a book or an album or a wrench or a stove, many sellers are happy to forge reviews in exchange for profit.  The problem, aside from the fact that it’s immoral and dishonest, is that people feel betrayed when the reality of the false review comes to light.  Honestly, how would it make you feel as a customer of Amazon.com to see a report that employees of a product’s manufacturer have posted fake reviews to influence your purchases like this: The Consumerist: Yet Another Company Learns the Difference Between Amazon Reviews and Ads.

I know I’d feel betrayed.  And you know what?  I’d rather have a thousand one-star reviews than betray my readers.

 God bless,

Kevin

Kevin Domenic Blogspot

Kevin on Facebook

Key to the Stars on Amazon.com

A KINKY ADVENTURE IN ANGLOPHILIA

 By Anne R. Allen

 When I started writing funny women’s fiction fifteen years ago, if anybody had given me a realistic idea of my chances for publication, I’d have chosen a less stressful hobby, like do-it-yourself brain surgery, professional frog herding, or maybe staging an all-Ayatollah drag revue in downtown Tehran.

 As a California actress with years of experience of cattle-drive auditions, greenroom catfights and vitriolic reviewers, I thought I had built up enough soul-calluses to go the distance. But nothing had prepared me for the glacial waiting periods; the bogus, indifferent and/or suddenly-out-of-business agents; and the heartbreaking, close-but-no-cigar reads from big-time editors—all the rejection horrors that make the American publishing industry the impenetrable fortress it has become.

 But some of us are too writing-crazed to stop ourselves. I was then, as now, sick in love with the English language.

 I had three novels completed. A fourth had run as a serial in a California entertainment weekly. One of my stories had been short-listed for an international prize, and a play had been produced to good reviews. I was bringing in a few bucks—mostly with short pieces for local magazines and freelance editing.

 But meantime, my savings had evaporated along with my abandoned acting career; my boyfriend had ridden his Harley into the Big Sur sunset; my agent was hammering me to write formula romance; and I was contemplating a move to one of the less fashionable neighborhoods of the rust belt.

 Even acceptances turned into rejections: a UK zine that had accepted one of my stories folded. But when the editor sent the bad news, he mentioned he’d taken a job with a small UK book publisher—and did I have any novels?

 I sent him one my agent had rejected as “too over the top.” Within weeks, I was offered a contract by my new editor—a former BBC comedy writer—for FOOD OF LOVE. Included was an invitation to come over the pond to do some promotion. So I rented out my beach house, packed my bags and bought a ticket to Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, where my new publishers had recently moved into a 19th century former textile mill on the banks of the river Trent—the river George Eliot fictionalized as “the Floss.”   George Eliot. I was going to be working and living only a few hundred yards from the ruins of the house where she wrote her classic novel about the 19th century folk who lived and died by the power of Lincolnshire’s great tidal river. Maybe some of that greatness would rub off on me.   At the age of… well, I’m not telling…I was about to have the adventure of my life.

 I knew the company published mostly erotica, but was branching into mainstream and literary fiction. They had already published the first novel of a distinguished poet, and a famous Chicago newspaper columnist was in residence, awaiting the launch of his new book.

 But when I arrived, I found the great Chicagoan had left in a mysterious fit of pique, the “erotica” was seriously hard core kink, and the old building on the Trent was more of the William Blake Dark Satanic variety than George Elliot’s bucolic “Mill on the Floss.”

 Some of my fears subsided when I was greeted by a friendly group of unwashed, fiercely intellectual young men who presented me with generous quantities of warm beer, cold meat pies and galleys to proof. After a beer or two, I found myself almost comprehending their northern accents.   I held it together until I saw my new digs: a grimy futon and an old metal desk, hidden behind stacks of book pallets in the corner of an unheated warehouse, about a half a block from the nearest loo. My only modern convenience was an ancient radio abandoned by a long-ago factory girl.   I have to admit to admit to some tears of despair.

 Until, from the radio, Big Ben chimed six o’clock.   That’s six pm, GMT.   Greenwich Mean Time. The words hit me with all the sonorous power of Big Ben itself. I had arrived at the mean, the middle, the center that still holds—no matter what rough beasts might slouch through the cultural deserts of the former empire. This was where my language, my instrument, was born.   I clutched my galley-proof to my heart. I might still be a rejected nobody in the land of my birth—but I’d landed on the home planet: England. And there, I was a published novelist. Just like George Eliot.

 Three years later, I returned to California, older, fatter (the English may not have the best food, but their BEER is another story) and a lot wiser. That Chicagoan’s fit of pique turned out to be more than justified. The company was swamped in debt. They never managed to get me US distribution. Shortly before my second book THE BEST REVENGE was to launch, the managing partner withdrew his capital, sailed away and mysteriously disappeared off his yacht—his body never found. The company sputtered and died.

 And I was back in the slush pile again.

 But I had a great plot for my next novel.

 Unfortunately, nobody wanted it. I was now tainted with the “published-to-low-sales-numbers label and my chances were even worse than before.

 So I wrote two more novels. Nobody wanted them either.

 Then I started a blog. I figured I could at least let other writers benefit from my mistakes. My blog followers grew. And grew. The blog won some awards. My Alexa and Klout ratings got better and better. Finally, publishers started approaching ME. (There’s a moral for writers here—social networking works.)

 And finally, six years later, another publisher, Popcorn Press, fell in love with FOOD OF LOVE and sent me a contract. Soon after, they contracted to publish THE BEST REVENGE, too.

 And this September, a brand new indie ebook publisher called Mark Williams International Digital Publishing asked if I had anything else ready to publish.

 Just happen to have a few unpubbed titles handy, said I.

 He liked them.

 So in October and November of 2011, those three new comic mysteries will appear as ebooks: THE GATSBY GAME, GHOSTWRITERS IN THE SKY, and SHERWOOD, LTD (that’s the novel inspired by my English adventures.) Popcorn Press will publish paper versions in 2012. THE BEST REVENGE debuted as an ebook in December, with the paper book to follow in February.

 A fifteen-year journey finally seems to be paying off.

 Did I make some mistakes? Oh yeah—a full set of them. But would I wish away my English adventures?

 Not a chance.

*******

 Links:

 Bloghttp://annerallen.blogspot.com

 Twitter@annerallen

 Authorpages:  At Amazon.com , at amazon.co.uk , on Facebook 

SHERWOOD, LTD

(Romantic comedy/mystery: MWiDP) A penniless socialite becomes a 21^st century Maid Marian, but is “Robin” planning to kill her?  Buy at amazon.co.uk , amazon.com, or Barnes and Noble

 THE BEST REVENGE

(Romantic comedy/mystery: Popcorn Press) A suddenly-broke 1980s celebutante runs off to California with nothing but her Delorean and her designer furs, looking for her long-lost gay best friend—and finds herself accused of murder. Buy at amazon.co.uk or amazon.com and in paper at Popcorn Press or in paper at Amazon.com .

Anne is one of the authors featured in the Indie Chicks Anthology. Get your copy today! All proceeds got to breast cancer research.

Turning Medieval by Sarah Woodbury

Sometimes it’s easy to pinpoint those moments in your life where everything is suddenly changed.  When you look across the room and say to yourself, I’m going to marry him.  Or stare down at those two pink lines on the pregnancy test, when you’re only twenty-two and been married for a month and a half and are living on only $800 a month because you’re both still in school and my God how is this going to work?

And sometimes it’s a bit harder to remember. 

Until I was eleven, my parents tell me they thought I was going to be a ‘hippy.’  I wandered through the trees, swamp, and fields of our 2 ½ acre lot, making up poetry and songs and singing them to myself.  I’m not sure what happened by the time I’d turned twelve, whether family pressures or the realities of school changed me, but it was like I put all that creativity and whimsicalness into a box on a high shelf in my mind.  By the time I was in my late-teens, I routinely told people: ‘I haven’t a creative bone in my body.’  It makes me sad to think of all those years where I thought the creative side of me didn’t exist. 

When I was in my twenties and a full-time mother of two, my husband and I took our family to a picnic with his graduate school department.  I was pleased at how friendly and accepting everyone seemed.

And then one of the other graduate students turned to me out of the blue and said, ‘do you really think you can jump back into a job after staying home with your kids for five or ten years?’

I remember staring at him, not knowing what to say.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about it, but that it didn’t matter—it couldn’t matter—because I had this job to do and the consequences of staying home with my kids were something I’d just have to face when the time came.

Fast forward ten years and it was clear that this friend had been right in his incredulity.  I was earning $15/hr. as a contract anthropologist, trying to supplement our income while at the same time holding down the fort at home.  I remember the day it became clear that this wasn’t working.  I was simultaneously folding laundry, cooking dinner, and slogging through a report I didn’t want to write, trying to get it all in before the baby (number four, by now) woke up.  I put my head down, right there on the dryer, and cried.

It was time to seek another path.  Time to follow my heart and do what I’d wanted to do for a long time, but hadn’t had the courage, or the belief in myself to make it happen.

At the age of thirty-seven, I started my first novel, just to see if I could.  I wrote it in six weeks and it was bad in a way that all first books are bad.  It was about elves and magic stones and will never see the light of day.  But it taught me, I can do this!

My husband told me, ‘give it five years,’ and in the five years that followed, I experienced rejection along my newfound path.  A lot of it.  Over seventy agents, and then dozens and dozens of editors (once I found an agent), read my books and passed them over.  Again and again.

Meanwhile, I just wrote.  A whole series.  Then more books, for a total of eight, seven of which I published in 2011.

And I’m happy to report that, even though I still think of myself as staid, my extended family apparently has already decided that those years where I showed little creativity were just a phase. The other day, my husband told me of several conversations he had, either with them or overheard, in which it became clear they thought I was so alternative and creative—so far off the map—that I didn’t even remember there was a map. 

I’m almost more pleased about that than anything else.  Almost.  Through writing, I’ve found a community of other writers, support and friendship from people I hadn’t known existed a few years ago, and best of all, thousands of readers have found my books in the last year.  Here’s to thousands more in the years to come . . .

Links:

My web page:  http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/

My Twitter code is:  http://twitter.com/#!/SarahWoodbury

On Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/sarahwoodburybooks

Links to my books:  Amazon and Amazon UK Smashwords  BarnesandNoble  Apple

Cold My Heart is just one of the books featured in the Indie Chicks Anthology. Get your copy today! All royalties are donated to cancer research.

                                                 Holes    

I used to think I had to be perfect. Of course, I fell short of perfection on a regular basis so I frequently felt like a failure. 

The only way to prevent failure is to hide. If we don’t put ourselves out there, we can’t fail. 

To prevent myself from failing, I hid in a fantasy world. As a young child, I longed to be a ballerina. I loved to dance, but more than that, I wanted to escape into the fantasy world of the ballet. I wanted to live inside a fairytale, and in my mind, I did. I invented worlds I could escape to, perfect worlds that seemed more real to me than life. Meanwhile, I ate, and ate, and ate. Not ideal, if you want to be a ballerina. My reality never matched my inner world. 

I created this pattern, this external and internal disparity, throughout my life. I brought it into my marriage, convincing myself that my marriage was perfect, while in reality it was a mess. Instead of leaving, I found escape in writing. I lost myself other times: ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome—worlds as far away from my reality as possible. In my writing, I disappeared for hours, days, years. I got a job working at an airline so I could travel and do research. I got an agent. I felt sure I would be published.

Then my world fell apart. After nineteen years of marriage, my husband wanted a divorce. I fought it. Divorce didn’t fit my idea of perfection, my fairytale. I viewed this loss as a disaster, but in truth it was an opening, a hole leading me to greater understanding and compassion for myself and others.

I was broke, trying to live on what I made at the airline. I was lonely. I had no time to write. Worst of all, I had to admit my life wasn’t perfect. I wasn’t perfect. Forced to accept myself with all my imperfections, I discovered that the more I could accept myself, the more I could accept others. Even my ex-husband. To this day, we remain friends.

Because I no longer had time to sit down and write for hours, the kind of time it takes to write a novel, I wrote short stories. I wrote about my experience, about my struggles as a woman of fifty going through divorce and entering the dating world. Initially, I wrote the stories for myself as therapy. Then I began to share the stories with my writing group. They encouraged me to submit the stories to magazines, and several were published. I read a couple of stories at our local library and people laughed. Then my good friend, Blake Crouch, convinced me to publish the stories on Kindle. A frightening prospect. What if my stories weren’t good enough? What if they weren’t perfect?

At first I resisted. I’d had two literary agents, and a longtime dream of being traditionally published. Self-publishing didn’t fit my idea of perfection. But, in reality, I no longer had an agent, and I hadn’t worked on a novel for several years. What did I have to lose? Nothing. So I published Dating My Vibrator (and other true fiction). 

My world changed, not because I was finally published, but because I changed. I finally found the confidence to pursue my dream despite my imperfections. I found the courage to stop hiding and put myself out into the world. This freed me.

I rewrote my novel, Vestal Virgin—suspense in ancient Rome. Originally, my characters were a bit flat. Why? Because they were too perfect! I hadn’t looked at the manuscript for two years, and a lot had changed for me in that time. I rewrote the book with a cold eye: cutting, digging deeper. My characters became multifaceted, real people with flaws. 

I became busier and busier, caught in a whirlwind, trying to hold down a full-time job, write, promote my books and have a life. Trying, once again, to be perfect.

And then the universe stepped in.

I had an accident at work. While moving a jet stair (which weighed over 1,000 pounds) away from the aircraft, my right foot got crushed. I fell, screaming, onto the tarmac while passengers onboard the plane watched. A coworker rushed me to the hospital for the first of three emergency surgeries. I suffered intense pain due to nerve damage, broken and dislocated toes and, ultimately, amputation of a toe. As I write this, I’m still recovering. 

I spent five weeks at a nursing home, a good place for me (even though most of the patients were over eighty years old), because it would have been close to impossible for me to take care of myself at home. While there, I had a chance to meet a lot of the patients and residents. All of us had obvious holes. 

I learned a lot from the other patients. And I was forced to face my own mortality. Aging offers us the gift of acceptance. In order to age gracefully, we must the release the idea of perfection. We learn there are some things we can change, and some things we must accept. And, when we accept what is, we may find the good in even the most difficult situations. We learn to accept the holes in ourselves and others. We even welcome imperfection.

Since the accident, I’ve been thinking about holes a lot. I’ve been thinking about being whole, in relation to loss. How can loss make a person whole? I’ve learned that loss can make a person strong, more self-reliant. Loss can make us more compassionate to ourselves and others.

Where I had a toe, there’s now a hole, and that hole reminds me that I’m not perfect. But, despite my imperfection, I am whole. I am me. It would be ridiculous to think that I am any less of a person, because I’m missing a toe, because I have a hole. Just as it’s ridiculous for any of us to think we must be perfect.

Physical wounds can’t be hidden as easily as emotional and psychological wounds. And that’s a gift. Physical wounds make us confront our mortality, our humanity. Physical wounds can’t be denied. They are tangible and force us to accept ourselves, with all our imperfections. 

It’s impossible to get through life without being wounded. Some wounds are obvious. Others are internal, even spiritual: the loss of the ability to trust, to connect deeply, to hold a friend and know that you are loved. We run away from wounds. Try not to look at them. We think they’re signs of weakness, but our wounds—the holes in us—provide a doorway, a soft spot in our armor. We walk around armored, protecting ourselves with platitudes and false smiles, never touching our own vulnerabilities, afraid to share our tender rawness with another or even with ourselves. If we can touch the tender spots, allow ourselves to feel fear, sorrow, loss, we become closer to wholeness. The more we accept our holes, the more compassion we can have for others. When we feel compassion we are able to connect. We are able to expose our soft underbelly to another human being and share the salt of our tears, the sweetness of our joy. That’s what I want to write about, that’s what I want to share, because salt makes all the difference between a bland, protected life, and a true life: pulsing, bloody, messy, passionate and truly whole.

Flaws, or holes, are what make a character seem real—in life and in fiction. Perfection is impermanent, an illusion. A person who seems too perfect is repulsive. We don’t trust him. We know that person can’t be real. Holes speak of truth. Holes allow us to connect, to ourselves and to each other. Our holes make us human, make us beautiful. Holes allow the light to shine through. 

If someone had asked me last spring, “Would you give up a toe in order to learn, in order to have time to write your next novel?” I might have said, “Yes.” 

Funny, how life works.

Links:

My blog: Who’s Imagining All This

Suzanne Tyrpack on Facebook

Twitter: SuzanneTyrpak

 Vestal Virgin—Suspense in Ancient Rome: Currently available on Amazon Amazon UK

Hetaera—Suspense in Ancient Athens: Currently available on Amazon  Amazon UK

This is only one of the stories featured in Indie Chicks Anthology. All proceeds go to charity. Get your copy today at Indie Chicks Anthology

The consecutive series began with Royal meeting Tiff in Along Came a Demon, and ended with her discovering her origins in Demon Demon Burning Bright. Note I say consecutive series. The four-book consecutive series is done. I’ve said all this before, I said it here.  But I also said readers can expect to see stand alone  Whisperings adventures and they will be coming. The first “Whisperings Mystery” will be Demon on a Distant Shore. Will they expand on Tiff’s history? Perhaps. Will Gia make a reappearance? Perhaps. And Chris Plowman? He does have a sleazy cameo appearance in Demon on a Distant Shore, but I don’t know about future mysteries. You can be sure of one thing: Royal and Tiff will have fun and solve cases. I go where the muse takes me and she can be a contrary bitch. Who knows what she will come up with!?!  

In the meantime, I’m venturing into short stories.  I heard writing shorts is difficult, and by golly they are. No sooner do you get deep into a character’s psyche, you have to leave them and go on to the next. It’s like ripping out a part of you.  You can’t do as much world-building. You can’t spend time mapping out a character’s full history. You have to leave a lot to the reader’s imagination, and hope you gave them enough to make their imagination flow. 

Coming spring 2012, Femme Fatales is unlike anything I have written before.  The five short stories are fantasy on a future earth. Yeah yeah, I know, been there done that. But although they are populated by trolls, vampires, angels, harpies and gargoyles, I don’t think you’ll have seen anything quite like them before. I hope not, anyway. 

As part of my new game plan, I increased the price of Whisperings e-books. At the moment, Amazon is selling Along Came a Demon at $2.99 reduced to $0.99; The Demon Hunters, Dead Demon Walking and Demon Demon Burning Bright are $3.99 reduced to $2.99. Amazon will go to full price when the new prices siphon to online retailers via Smashwords. So if any of your friends have indicated they want to get Whisperings, now would be a good time. 

One of the advantages of publishing as an Independent is that I see sales as they happen, so I want to send a huge thank you to everyone who’s jumping in to get the Demon Demon Burning Bright e-book. And for those who prefer paperback, it’s finally here, available from Amazon.com. Wohoo! 

Stay warm, everyone.