WEbook Page To Fame Update

A few weeks ago I got some astounding news. My WEbook Page to Fame submission got elevated to the final round! (They call me a winner, baby!) I had to go and check out what this meant… It means that my submission is now hanging out in the literary agent showcase. Then I had to see what that means… Which is basically that all submissions that have made it through all the rounds are placed in a virtual pot where agents can sift through looking for the next bestseller. (Not thinking that my story will get snapped up, but still, very cool!! And good company to be in!)

So, I guess this is the final deal for my submission. It’s been a $4.95 well spent, I tell ya!

Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that a month or two ago, the publishing pro who rated my first five pages gave me a 5 out of 5!!!! Whoa! How crazy is that? It almost makes me think I might have something here. That inspires me to keep on writing! Has a contest inadvertently inspired you lately?

Ay karumba!

Purely Coincidental Memoir

I just finished reading Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern. (It’s a book of stories and quotes about a guy’s dad.) It’s taken me awhile to get to this one even though my husband bought it and laughed his way through it last August. I suppose I didn’t think it was going to be as charming as it was. And that could be due to several different factors. One being I was pregnant. A little side note on that… when pregnant I tend to find America’s Funniest Videos side splitingly funny which says an awful lot for just how disturbed my sense of humour is while under the influence of an influx of maternal hormones. However, I did not find my husband reading this book amusing what-so-ever. I did not share his mirth at the funny little quotes he shared with me. In fact, I found most of the parental ‘wisdom’ nuggets he shared with me to be mildly horrifying due to their straight-up bluntness. Again, note that I was under the influence of hormones that tend to tinker with one’s judgment when it comes to all things amusing.

Two, we were in Florida and it was August. And it was scorching-freaking-hot. And we were tramping through the paved paradise of everything Disney every day for five or six days. That can put a damper on anyone’s sense of humour.

Three, I was trying to nap.

Four, my husband was frequently shaking the hotel bed by trying to contain his very frequent mirth. (In a way, I think this was karmic payback for all those times I laughed out loud (and thus disturbing him) when I read A.J. Jacobs’ The Know-It-All in bed.

Anyway, I finally read Sh*t My Dad Says. And it was amusing. And kind of sweet actually. Despite the blunt and somewhat harsh advice and quotes from Sam Halpern, you can tell this father loves his son an awful lot–and even before you get to the last chapter where Justin talks about that fact.

But that’s all me just babbling on, what I actually wanted to blog about is this little disclaimer at the back of the ebook: “Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”

Did I mention that this book is nonfiction and based on this guy’s dad and actually quotes him and shares REAL LIFE stories about growing up? Yeah. So, I’m not really sure how that disclaimer works seeing as this is a memoir of sorts… but I found it… interesting. I guess nonfiction isn’t what it used to be. Or maybe they just want to cover their butts in case this turns into A Million Little Pieces (a memoir that turned out to be a whole lot of fiction). Or maybe, just maybe Halpern’s father is purely coincidental or what he’s done and said is purely coincidental. (Not just plain ol’ “coincidental,” doncha know.)

And now look at me… I’m no longer making sense either. Coincidental, too. Purely.

Hello.

Repeating Yourself… Repeating Yourself

I just finished the very talented Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes and certain elements of it reminded me of her book The Pact. And that got me thinking: As a writer, how do you not repeat yourself?

2007

1998

By this, I mean, how do you ensure that you don’t use the same phrase or comparison or even the same word or situation or character trait over again? How do you catch yourself? (For me, critique partners are McAwesomely Awesome at helping me see this sort of thing.) But after you have written a bazillion stories, how do you catch yourself–particularly stories that have been edited eight hundred times and you no longer can recall what actually stayed in the story and what went into the ‘reuse if possible’ pile?

The reason I bring this up is that in these two Picoult books when she flashes back to the moms being expectant, they both took long walks, right up to their due dates, and in both books the husbands make cracks about the wife giving birth out on her walk. As well, I noticed the use of a strange and rare word in a comparison twice (dang if I can recall it now though!) in Nineteen Minutes. This is something I know I do sometimes. Reusing a strange and wonderful word is so easy to do. You generally don’t think about that kind of thing as you are writing along. Also, I found that in both books the female teen characters both end up pregnant, and both feel less than perfect, but both put on the perfect facade in hopes that nobody will notice that they don’t quite fit and aren’t quite real.

Picoult has published 18 bestselling novels which is no small feat. So how do you keep it fresh in each story? How do you not fall into your own little groove? And can you? Is some repetition to be expected? I really don’t know, but it’s something I’m thinking about this week. That is, when I’m not changing killer poppy diapers.

Canadians… Vote!

Guess what time it is in Canada, boys and girls? That’s right, it’s election day and time to vote for the next prime minister.

Don’t know who to vote for? Don’t know what political party lines up with your values? Fear not, the CBC and U of T have come to the rescue with Vote Compass. Spend a minute answering questions and you just might be surprised to find you are lined up with a different party than you first thought! Craziness!

As the Air Farce once said, “Vote early and vote often.”

Oh, and if you want to relate this to writing you could use the vote compass to help develop a character and their liberal or conservative values. Yeah, that’s right… life always comes back to writing.