Rumors

So, I was hearing these rumors, see. And when you keep hearing the same rumors over and over again, well, you just have to confirm them for yourself, right? I mean, you can't go on forever just taking the word of people who call you up or email you to tell you the juicy news. There comes a point where you just have to go see it for yourself.

Well, today was the day. I finally caved and went to see for myself if the rumors I was hearing were true. I got in the car and drove. When I parked, I thought I was going to be sick. I felt all light-headed and dizzy. My hands are sweating right now as I type, just thinking about it.

"Do NOT make a scene," I say to my husband as we park the car.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

I roll my eyes.

I pulled myself out of the car and somehow got my feet to walk me up to the door. I don't remember opening the door or even how I got to the spot I needed to go - I just got there. And when I did, my eyes went on autopilot and frantically started scanning the shelves.

Holy smokes! Since when did Chapters get so many darned books? I thought to myself as my heart did flips and my eyes started drying out for lack of blinking. It's not here. It's not here. I knew it wouldn't be...

Ack! There's my book!! Right there on the shelf above Eragon!! Somebody catch me!

A young girl was sitting on the floor right by the shelf browsing through the books. "What kinds of books do you like to read?" my husband asks her.

I knew I should have left him at home.

She looks at him like any normal person would look at a complete stranger asking her what kinds of books she likes to read and says, "I don't know," in a very pre-teen girl kind of way.

"This one's really good," says my husband, pulling Smudge's Mark from the shelf.

The girl stands up and walks away.

So do I.

Then I hear him taking pictures. Gotta love his enthusiasm.

Anyway, the rumors are true: Smudge has made an early appearance on some shelves at Chapters. So the next time you go there, take a look and see if you can find a copy. And if you see that poor pre-teen girl my husband scared off, please apologize for me.

Real Life?

A friend emailed today and told me I've been neglecting my 'real life'.

By that she meant this blog. (I think)

Well, whatever she meant it got me thinking.

Maybe I have been neglecting this real life. But, maybe I've been neglecting my real real life, too. I'm seriously starting to think I need to completely unplug for a few days and breath.

But can I do it? Can I really do it? I mean, how will I know what all my "friends" are tweeting about? What if I miss out on something? And what if I have something really clever to tweet myself? All of my 133 friends will miss out, then.

And how will I survive not checking how well Smudge's Mark is doing in the Amazon sales ranking? I mean, so what if no one on the planet - other than the mute and hidden gods of Amazon - knows what the ranking system means; I still want to know. Every day.

And how can I live without the Yahoo news headlines? I mean, think about it. If I'd unplugged myself yesterday, I'd totally have missed out on seeing Lady GaGa's flaming brazier today.

And how would I survive without my email account? I mean, what if I get a rejection email from one of the agents I've queried. I sure wouldn't want to miss out on that, not even for one day! I've been waiting so long for those!

"Real life", or real real life?

Hmmmm...

It's a real, live book!

The day has finally arrived.

Just as I was starting to think it was all just a huge, cruel, elaborate hoax... a cartonful of my very own book arrived on my doorstep this afternoon! And, just as it is so often with me, after the three year long process and waiting for what seemed like forever to get this baby in my hands, when the moment finally arrived, I was in the shower! Sheesh! Good thing hubby was home to open the door for the delivery guy. He told the delivery guy it was lucky for him I didn't open the door or I might have jumped him and kissed him. Delivery guy said he'd be back.

Anyway, the book. It's here. It's awesome. And apparently the amazon orders have been sent out, too, so soon some of you will hold in your hands the incarnation of my blood, sweat, and tears of the last few years. I hope you enjoy the story.

I'm now fighting off a headache before we go out to celebrate. I live totally and completely in the moment, which often leads to my head feeling like it's going to split open due to the intensity of the moment in which I'm living. If I knew I'd be getting the books today, I'd have prepared myself the way I usually do when anticipating an emotional and exciting event: by loading up on Advil, pre-moment. But this is one headache that I'm not going to complain about. It couldn't have come soon enough.

When you finally crack open the cover of Smudge's Mark, and invest your time in reading it, I'd love to hear from you. Let me know what you think.

Now, on to the celebration!

Evening with Neil Gaiman

So, I went to see Neil Gaiman last night at Luminato. Considering the event tickets sold out in less than 3 minutes, we were pretty lucky to be there. It was a great event; a very classy act by the author.

I, on the other hand, was anything but classy. I did the stupid star-crossed thing and was a blithering idiot when I met him. Let's just say it was good for laughs all the way home, especially considering the friend that went with me was equally as blithering and idiotic as I was. The good thing is that out of a crowd of 500, it's (almost) guaranteed that we will not be the two fools who stood out. Anyway, I did have enough wits about me to take this great picture of him signing my daughter's book for her...

In other news, I'm still awaiting the arrival of my carton of books from the warehouse. Hopefully they'll arrive sometime before Armaggedon hits.

Anything yet?

So far... no good thing #3

what's up, yo?

Oh my word! It's been forever since I've been on here... but at least I can say I've been writing. Lots. Which is good. (and no, I haven't been keeping my almost daily writing journal up, either!) Anyway, I just tho't I'd drop in for a minute to let you know a bit about what's been going on.

I'm waiting for my carton full of Smudge's Mark to arrive. I've heard from both the publisher and a fellow author friend that the book is amazing. I'm dying of anticipation! But I've been keeping myself distracted and busy by immersing myself in the continuation of the story. I must say I was stressing quite a bit as I realized what I'd already written just didn't jive with the story anymore and I found myself cutting more than writing! And then came the job of re-organizing what I had left so I could move forward. Being the kind of person who writes the story as it comes to me, rather than being a plotter (a trait which my editor has told me is both my best ally and worst curse) this process of semi-plotting was killing me. But, I'm happy to say I've finally managed to cut and re-organize myself to the point where I've now begun to move ahead. I thrive on not knowing what's going to happen next! And I've found myself stumbling into the middle of some pretty creepy scenes as a result. Yay! My writing groove is back!

Something else I'm happy about is that so far this week I've won tickets to the Trillium Book Award readings at Harbourfront and I've received an advance copy of Matthew Skelton's new book, Cirrus Flux, that isn't going to be released until July 28th. Both the tickets and the book were unexpected scores, as I'm the kind of person who never wins anything. So, being on a roll, my question is this: What's good thing #3 going to be? I'll let you know when I find out.

In the meantime, back to my work in progress. I need to find out how my poor protagonist is going to get out of his current bad situation.

Ciao!

are you pre-, mid-, or post-?

I remember, years ago, listening in on conversations that dealt with pre-, mid-, and post-. These conversations revolved around people's opinions on when Jesus was going to return to earth: pre-tribulation, mid-trib, or post-trib. I never really saw the point of these conversations because I thought, really, Jesus will come when he darn well wants to.

Today, (on twitter, of course) I discovered another kind of post- thing concept. It's called post-publication depression. Never heard of it before. But it got me thinking...

Post-publication depression. What triggers that? Maybe the high wave you ride of the excitement of publication followed by the sudden low of... nothing after that. Yeah, I can see that. Good to be made aware.

Then the faint memory of the conversations of my past got me thinking some more...

How about pre-, and even mid-publication depression? Actually, I've had those! And what were the triggers?

My own thoughts.

Pre-pub depression: "This will never get published." "Why would I even venture to think that anyone would want to read this book?" "I'm a nobody" "Maybe I should just forget about it and stick to my day job!"

Mid-pub depression: "Why do I have so many edits? See! I knew it! I'm really not a good writer after all!" "Gak! People are going to read my book! What if they think it sucks?" "Why is this taking so long?" "What if no one buys it?"

Not looking forward to the post-pub thoughts.

Anyway, after my moment of introspection, (I just taught that word to my ESL students yesterday during a lesson on the root word "spect" so it's fresh on my tongue) I realized that no matter how much I think or worry or plan, what will be will be. My inner-monologues during pre-, mid-, or post- make no difference to what will actually happen in the end, or what is happening in the here and now. All I do is waste precious moments being consumed by what I think MIGHT happen. And those thoughts could potentially paralyze me into doing nothing at all. Yikes!

So, I guess I'm pre-, mid-, AND post-. Before, during, and after.

And yeah, come to think of it, "publication" and "tribulation" could very well be synonymous. And Jesus can show up anytime he darn well wants to.