Sucking It Up Yet Again

In January and February I was a submitting dervish--novels, short stories, memoir, agents, editors. So many envelopes trundled off to the P.O. Hope is always rampant (maybe that should be my motto or crest or whatever: hope rampant) that this will be the year, the month, the week, that something good happens.

Well, not yet. The first bad news is that the agent who had the whole novel and nothing but the novel did not accept it. I didn't even get a personal letter or any feedback. Major aggro.

There's still the OTHER novel, the Amazon contest (I fear I didn't double space) and the various short story submissions, and all the dumb born writing I sent into the world.

I read some of The Shadow Warriors today and wondered if that wasn't the best book yet. Sad, mad, bad thought. The writing contains a lot of energy, zaniness. Can you write your heart out and then everything that follows is just empty words? Dunno.

So I'm still trundling along with In Flight, and the plot seems to me to have a hole big enough to shoot a bazooka through and still not touch anything. It's kind of stopped talking to me. The sagging middle. Send in a man with a gun. Oh yeah. Good idea.

Grapeshot, who made her delicous poppy seed lemon cake this morning and wonders if she missed her calling as a cook.

Amazon's Contest, Authonomy, and the Fish Story

Yesterday morning I got my entry up on Amazon's novel contest. Not only did one need the actual book but a pitch, photo, anecdote (mine was pretty anemic) and all that jazz. It was like---work. https://www.createspace.com/abna

I put another book up on Authonomy, but haven't had a chance to participate in the web site. You read my book, I'll read yours, we'll blurb each other and may the best writer win. We'll see.

Finished the robot fish story. Love that fish. It's it crazy how one comes to love one's little characters, even a robot fish. He seems very real to me.

Now it's back to the novel. Poor old Maxine. She hasn't been given her due lately. It's always hard to get back once you leave a manuscript. Speaking of leaving, we taking a few days of R and R in Washington DC. So far no dinner invitation from the Obama's. Hell, I would even make my to die for pork shoulder tacos.

Yesterday I made cookies, and they're incredibly tasty and not too sweet. Recipes have lately become over-laden with sugar and even the cranberry sauce recipe changed the sugar recommendation from one cup (already on the sweetish side) to 1 1/2 cups. Yucko. I bet the grocery stores who are labelling "healthy foods" will not skip the sweet stuff. Overdosing on sugar is not healthy. The low-fat freaks took out the fat and added sugar and salt. What sense does that make?

I lost my favorite glove at Walmart this morning. Already lost a nice red leather pair this winter, and my good fleece baseball cap. So far it's a bad winter for losing clothing. My warm up jacket is also among the missing. Where does all this stuff go?

Up to the kitchen to make some low-cal rice pudding. What could be better on a snowy winter day? High-cal rice pudding, that's what.

Yeah, it's snowing. Again. We put more suet out for the birdies. Writing group cancelled last night. About 13 people, now and we still have to cancel all the time. Major bummer. All this stuff about hardy New Englanders is bull. Other myths: up North they really know how to drive in bad weather, and up North they keep the roads plowed. I am here to witness that neither is true. Sometime I will make a list of lies. Around here at least, the ground hog saw his shadow and I never remember a spring coming in March no matter what. Yet another lie.

Bah humbug.

Grapeshot

Has Suck It Up Become a Food Blog?

Fair Question. I haven't been writing about writing, because it's too friggin' depressing. But,
Bill Loehfelm won the Amazon (ABNA) novel contest and congratulations to him.
http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Kills-Bill-Loehfelm/dp/0399155317
The competition for this award was keen, and I've only heard good things about Fresh-Kills, Bill's book. A masterly job.


Last night we had potato pancakes, and the small houseguest ate eight (count 'em) eight. She is a picky eater who doesn't like onion, but somehow these passed all the taste tests. I served them with bacon and sour cream (real) and a peach applesauce at $1.00 a jar from Ocean State Job Lot. We had a chocolat pudding made in the microwave that was ultra-chocolately and very tasty. Serve with lots of whipped cream.

At lunch today at the Museum of Science where we saw the IMAX (Grand Canyon) movie. This was a new one, not the old Grand Canyon. Very good. The museum is perfect for a curious eight year old and was an excellent choice.

ABNA Finalists

Best of the best. I haven't read anywhere near ALL of the finalists, but these two are the best so far. Great writing. Good stories.


Knocking Over the Fishbowl - Official ABNA Entrant, an Amazon Shortby David Oppegaard (Author)

http://www.davidoppegaard.com/


The Stars Here Are Mostly Planes - Official ABNA Entrant
Author: Sarah Harris

http://pinkyspaperhaus.com/

ABNA Contest

I've been reading a few of the ABNA finalists, and have noted that most of the prospective winners have blogs and that indeed, many of them are published writers, so don't feel too badly if you didn't make the cut. Competition was stiff.

I have two favorites, neither crime fiction. This morning I read an entry, must be young adult, although I couldn't tell for sure. The author is a self-admitted romance writer, but someone on the message board was squawking that there were no romance finalists, and since the couple pages I read seemed like teen-age romance, I guess it's Y.A. Young Adult to the uninitiated.

Y.A. is very hot right now, and I'm probably making a big mistake not to write my Y.A. before the California book.

Back to the teenie bopper romance, there was a glaring writing mistake in the first paragraph, which made me wonder how the story reached the finals. Well, maybe it's good story. I understand now, that good story tops bad writing.

Repeat after me. Good story tops bad writing.

I'm reading a California book, Pasadena, a big whopping historical that is holding my attention so far. Plan to take it to Florida because it's long enough for two plane rides and some before bed reading. It begins with a gripping Prologue. Didn't know "regular' novels did that. Well, anything to catch the reader's attention.

I'm preparing my reading for the mystery conference. Discovered that the group I practiced in front of didn't know what a "back cover blurb" was. Also didn't understand that all hackers have handles.

Never assume anything.

Ah, the sun is out! The snow plows were in our neighborhood late last night and early this morning. Did anyone say sleep?

Yesterday was cat blog day and the cats were lumps of fur, fat and bone. Did absolutely nothing bloggable except that Annie discovered that twist ties make a good cat toy, and Thisbe did a fine 50 yard dash when the DHL man rang the doorbell rather late in the day.

Next post I'll list my two ABNA favorites. Go read them and leave a comment. If you are an Amazon customer. Or whatever.

Grapeshot

ABNA Hell

No email from Amazon. Most, but not all, got theirs yesterday, and my mailbox and spambox wer empty. Still empty. This really sucks. Everyone who was not notified has morale in the toilet.

This should not have been a surprise, because many never heard from Amazon as to whether their entries had been accepted or not. I really had high hopes for World of Mirrors. First the Gather SNAFU which was mostly a popularity contest, now the ABNA SNAFU which is just a SNAFU.

God knows, I worked in IT for a donkey's age and know how these things happen. Actually, under my watch they happened damned seldom and when they did they were fixed ASAP. A few days ago I was actually recalling my days in IT, or trying to recall them, because this was such a big part of my life and I can't recall anymore why is was so important to work a gazillion hours a week. It was like I wore blinders for twenty years.

Writing is for those with nerves of steel and guts of granite, egos the size of Everest and the eye always, always on the prize.

Screw it. I'm working on my California book and actually wrote a few pages last night. Feeling my way into it. Kind of fun. Nice to be writing again, even if no one will ever read it.

Snow still beautiful on the trees. We were in Wellesley this morning and took a stroll through the new Roche Bros. Holy Christmas! What a fancy store! Takes ones breath away. One's wallet, too. I paid $4.99 for some bean dip. Couldn't find the $1.99 that used to come in a can in the potato chip aisle.

Every kind of fancy pesto and gourmet goodies known to shopper. They had smoked trout, which I usually despair of finding anywhere. But no more doughnuts. We asked. Leave it to me to ask for the one old thing that is no longer carried. I am starting to feel like that that old doughnut nobody wants. Sigh.

Well, off to do more writing chores. I didn't stop writing. Probably couldn't if I wanted to. Blogging away, starting a new novel, working on a short story.

Imagine me waving my middle finger at the ABNA contest. Sticking out tongue! Making crazy faces involving crossed eyes. Shouting you-know-what! You know what? Shame on you. This is a clean blog.

Grrrrapeshot, sucking it up as is her wont

January Storm

The photo looks like needlepoint, taken as it is through the screen. That is not a "real" raccoon but a sculpture of one. The snow is finally falling off the branches and you need a hard hat outside. The cows were in the snowy pasture, eating some dry hay, I hope.

The little one always comes running with her (his?) Mom whenever we show up with treats. Old Maggie likes to be first and is the hoggiest. Poor young bull never gets anything. Well, his day will come, we assume.

I made it to a workout this morning, but it's so nice to hunker down with writing tasks, maybe even some writing and enjoy the snow from indoors. Tomorrow we will have to venture forth to the grocery story. Looks like good snowshoe conditions. The main task is to keep the bird feeders full and logs on the fire and lanterns and candles at hand, because the power went out for the umpteenth time this morning. Guess the wires are broken by falling branches, a good argument for underground utilities, don't you think?

I finished Sarah Winnemucca, and was charmed to find out she came to the Boston area and gave talks in Concord. Cool. Such a sad story, our mistreatment of the Native Americans. Makes one so ashamed.

Onward. No news from Amazon. Time to freakout?

Grapeshot

And the snow came down in buckets

More power outtages. We had just started dinner when the lights went out again. Ha ha! Food was warm and we ate by candlelight. Just cleaning up the kitchen and the lights were on again. That makes about six hours w/o power today.

I sent out three queries (two email and one snailmail) for Promiscuous Mode. Got a positive response to one of the emails already. The books is such fun; I hope someone will finally get interested.

Tomorrow is D-day for the ABNA. I keep obsessing about it. Not the only one. The Amazon chat board has been obsessing for 4 weeks, and some people never shut up.

We watched Pan's Labyrinth, an odd but compelling movie. By the end, just about everyone was dead. Like an old Jacobean Tragedy. You English majors will know what I mean.

Annie goes to the vet tomorrow, and of course she has been very frisky since I made the appointment. Why is that? The cats were really cool with the fire going all day (and all evening) and their adult humans parked in the living room. Eeek. Today is not cat blog day.

Grapeshot

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

In less than a week, I'll know whether World of Mirrors made the first Amazon cut. If it did, I'll be weaseling around and asking friends, fellow-writers and even my wonderful blog readers who are also Amazon customers (is anyone not an Amazon customer?) to sign in, read my first chapter and write a short review. And do tell the truth. If you think it sucks, I need to know that, too.

This is so demeaning, but of course even more demeaning is if the chapter tanked/and or cratered with the reviewer and was rejected. Right now my self-confidence if at the bottom of the storm sewer with last year's leaves and a few old mouse carcasses. You get the idea.

And I have a cold. I never catch colds. I am blaming it on not eating meat for 2 weeks, and missing all that good zinc and B-vitamins.

We had chicken cutlets with tomatos, capers and wine tonight, ripped right out of the food section of today's Boston Globe. Very tasty, and enough for tomorrow. The tomato and parseley looked so cheery, almost like Christmas was back. It's always a shock when everyone takes down the Christmas lights and the night is so dreary again.

Made reservations for Sleuthfest today, and I continue to tweak the beginning of Promiscuous Mode. I decided it didn't have enough tension and conflict for the beginning of a crime fiction novel. Why did I ever start writing crime fiction? I don't even much like to read it anymore, however, I still want to read Sue Grafton's latest. I don't get tired of her. And then there's poor old Proust who I've been dawdling over for 13 months and 772 pages.

My first readings of Proust, I totally missed all the humor. How is that possible? There is a lot of humor, not in the romantic love parts, but in his descriptions of the daily life of the family. Humor enlivens any kind of writing. Humor enlivens life.

Rant alert! Boston is a dirty town, sad to say. The "T" is dirty--people strew newspapers all over. Sullivan Square was filthy. The sidewalk was a continuous garbage can. Disgusting. We came here from Chicago which was, by comparison, squeaky clean. End of rant.

Another warm day, but rainy, and I didn't walk because of my blasted cold. It's almost worse than having a broken ankle. Onward.


Grrrrrapeshot