Gah! I caved! NaNo…*facepalm*

That’s right, writer-friends, I caved. I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

Yes, I know I’m already in the middle of a novel (okay, the beginning). And yes, I know my novel’s totally going to be more than 50,o00 words. But here’s the deal: I’m starting over with a new outline.

You heard me. I’m starting over.

See, I was trying to be a pantser, writing scenes as they came to me, sketching a few scenes ahead at all times. Except I don’t think I’m a pantser.

Look, I’m an engineer. Well, I have an engineering degree, anyway. I have a logical, orderly brain, and I like things to make sense. So just writing without any real idea of where I’m supposed to be ending up simply wasn’t natural for me.

There’s no shame in this. It’s just the way I’m wired.

So…yeah. I signed up for NaNo tonight. I’m giving it a shot. Wish me luck, y’all!

Oh, and I’m SimonCLarter, if you want to buddy on up. I guess the more people I’m buddies with, the greater the mortification if I can’t make the wordcount, right? Right? Yeah.

It’s going to be a long November….

The Publishing Industry Knows What It’s Doing. (Mostly.)

OH MY HELL DID THEY REALLY JUST GIVE SNOOKI A BOOK DEAL!?

Yes. Yes, they did, to the collective dismay of tens of thousands of aspiring authors. But let’s get one thing clear: Snooki ain’t writing the book all by her lonesome, you can bet your sweet cream-filled donuts on that one. Unless our shockingly-unwidely-read reality star is a natural writer with the instincts of an MFA grad and the market-savvy of a  J.A. Konrath, there’ll be editors involved, and likely a ghostwriter.

Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Press is buying the name, and the publicity, hoping to cash in on Snooki’s destined-to-be-short-lived fame before it expires. And y’know what? They might be successful. They might make money on the deal.

Which is the point.

See, it’s popular for us fledgling writers, hoping and praying to break into the big time, to dog the publishing industry. And it’s true, the old blockbuster model of making the big money (or taking the big chances) on a few flagship titles and letting the midlist and entry-level simmer along at break-even or less is crumbling under the onslaught of eReaders and the democratization of the publishing process (read: self-publishing). But by and large, the people who work in publishing really do know what they’re doing.

Eric, over at Pimp my Novel, wrote a post on this issue a few weeks back. “You know what?” he says (in my paraphrase of his post, anyway). “We in the publishing industry have been doing this a while, and we’re pretty good at it.”

Y’know all those ranks of books lining the walls of Barnes & Noble and Borders and Powells? Publishing industry professionals shepherded those to print. They’re good that way.

Now, some of you may know Allison (@allison_pang on Twitter) is coming up on publication of her first novel, A Brush of Darkness. And maybe you also know that she’s under contract for two sequels. Perhaps you don’t know, however, that the delivery schedule for the first draft of the second book is INSANE.

I kid you not. She’s had to seriously buckle down to get this draft together in time and I found myself wondering why her publisher set such a tight deadline. But on reflection, I’m pretty sure they have their reasons: urban fantasy is still hot, they want a second book coming out quickly so people that loved the first are still hot for it, they’ve got other books in the pipeline that dovetail nicely with the series, whatever.

Point being, the publishers think they’ll sell more of Allison’s books by pushing a bit with the deadlines. And in the end, it should be a win for her, too, because she has professionals supporting her and guiding her book toward optimal sales.

Look, we writers are in the business of understanding people. We have to in order to create believable characters. So next time you hear about The Situation getting a book deal, why not extend a little understanding to the people working in the biz? I’m pretty sure they’re not happy about it either, but they’re pros. They’re going to do their job. Which is to make money for their publishing house.

After all, when you get that deal, don’t you want a competent team working their asses off to sell as many copies of your book as they can?

Yes. Yes, you do.

Even genius has its off days….

Yes, writer-friends, even I have off days with my writing.

…

…

BAHAHAAA!!! *snort* *snarf*

Er…okay, no. I wasn’t talking about me. I’m thinking of Cormac McCarthy, actually, since I just finished reading All the Pretty Horses.

Now, while I was absolutely flattened by some of McCarthy’s prose (starting with the first paragraph, even), I did come across some spots where it fell flat for me. These were often the spots that, for whatever reason, the writing took a bit of a literary or philosophical turn, and it’s not so much that they’re poorly done, or that the images aren’t brilliantly concrete, more that I was jarred out of the flow of the narrative by the “literariness,” if you get what I mean.

Examples are always good. Here’s a couple. The first one describes John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins riding out into the starry night. It gets a little, uh, high-flown.

They heard somewhere in that tenantless night a bell that tolled and ceased where no bell was and they rode out on the round dais of the earth which alone was dark and no light in it and which carried their figures and bore them up into the swarming stars so that they rode at once jaunty and circumspect, like thieves newly loosed in that dark electric, like young thieves in a glowing orchard, loosely jacketed against the cold and ten thousand worlds for the choosing.

Aaannd…WTF? Okay, I love the “swarming stars,” and “that dark electric,” as they’re lovely, evocative word choices. But what the hell is with the  literary, writerly stuff about young thieves and ten thousand worlds? Does it even make sense? If it does, I certainly don’t get it.

And the thing is, McCarthy’s prose is otherwise so spare that you can’t help but notice passages like this. He must have written this, edited it, made the decision to keep it for some very specific reason, but to me, for all its beauty, this kind of sentence falls flat.

Don’t worry, the next example’s short.

He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.

Here again, I was pulled out of the narrative flow. It sounds awfully deep, doesn’t it, to “contemplate the wildness within?” But up till this point (this is on p60), we haven’t really been shown John Grady as much of a deep thinker. Sure, we know he has thoughts and feelings, but he’s a quiet one, not given to expressing them. The parallels between Cole’s inner landscape and the wildness of the country in which he’s travelling are already pretty clear by this time, so to directly state that connection seems a tad inelegant.

Now, I know each reader’s experience of a book is different, and I’m just spouting off right now about what didn’t quite gel for me in a National Book Award winning novel, but I believe this kind of exercise can be helpful in our own work. Reading with wonder and admiration is a sheer pleasure, and I love, love, loved All the Pretty Horses. But I can never turn off the writer/editor brain. I’m always, on some level, looking for what works, what doesn’t, what I could emulate, what I could avoid. It makes the experience of reading richer for me, somehow.

Or maybe I’m just a cantankerous little bastard who likes to tear down great works with nitpicky comments. It could be that too, I guess.

But I don’t think so.

Anyone else have similar experiences with top-notch literature? Tell me I’m not the only one to pick apart award-winning books like this.

Alex Cavanaugh’s CassaStar Release Par-tay!

Right, folks. Y’all may or may not know who Alex Cavanaugh is, but if you read my comments section, his name’s likely to crop up pretty regularly. Well, Alex’s debut novel, CassaStar, releases today from Dancing Lemur Press, and since I’m all about promoting my fellow authors, today’s post shines the spotlight on CassaStar.

And, according to the Library Journal, it’s pretty good!

“…calls to mind the youthful focus of Robert Heinlein’s early military sf, as well as the excitement of space opera epitomized by the many Star Wars novels. Fast-paced military action and a youthful protagonist make this a good choice for both young adult and adult fans of space wars.”

- Library Journal

Well, what’s it about, you ask? I can’t tell you, ‘cause I hain’t read it yet, but y’know what? I’ve got a synopsis right here. Check it:

To pilot the fleet’s finest ship…

Few options remain for Byron. A talented but stubborn young man with a troubled past and rebellious attitude, his cockpit skills are his only hope. Slated to train as a Cosbolt fighter pilot, Byron is determined to prove his worth and begin a new life as he sets off for the moon base of Guaard.

Much to Byron’s chagrin, the toughest instructor in the fleet takes notice of the young pilot. Haunted by a past tragedy, Bassa eventually sees through Byron's tough exterior and insolence. When a secret talent is revealed during training, Bassa feels compelled to help Byron achieve his full potential.

As war brews on the edge of space, time is running short. Byron requires a navigator of exceptional quality to survive, and Bassa must make a decision that could well decide the fate of both men. Will their skills be enough as they embark on a mission that may stretch their abilities to the limit?

And if that’s not enough to pique your interest, maybe a book trailer will be?

Pretty nifty, huh?

If you’re interested, why not check out Alex’s blog here. Seriously, anyone who shares my epic crush on appreciation for Kate Beckinsale is all right in my book.

Oh, and ‘cause I’m cool like that, I haz links to places you can buy CassaStar online. You’re welcome.

Amazon.com

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Powells (independent bookstores FTW!)

I have seen the future of publishing, and it is the Bookanator 10000

Welcome to the Bookanator 10000. How can I assist you today?

Let’s see…I’m in the mood for something exciting. Maybe a thriller?

Thriller. Check. please select sub-genre. Examples include: international conspiracy, government cover-up, murder-mystery—

I think international conspiracy.

International conspiracy. Check. Select story pacing: leisurely, standard, or breakneck.

Standard, please.

Protagonist male or female?

Male.

Male protagonist. Check. Romance elements?

Yes.

Romance. Check. Love interest male, female, or other?

What the hell would “other” be?

Error. Please rephrase question.

Um…what is “other?”

Love interest category: Other. Encompasses animal, alien, robot, paranormal entity, self, park bench, automobile, cypress tree, ironing board, no. 2 pencil, credit ca—

FEMALE! I’ll go with female, thanks. (Erm…that was weird.)

Heterosexual romance. Check. Please select level of sexual explicitness: none, mild, medium, heavy, full-on freak, or ZOMG.

Hang on, who programmed these choices?

Error. Please rephrase question.

Um…. *looks around* *whispers* ZOMG.

Level of sexual explicitness, ZOMG. Check. Select level of violence: none, mild, medium, gross, shocking, or vomit-inducing.

Er…medium?

Level of violence, medium. Check. Select story length: novella, novel, or Michener.

Novel, please.

Story length, novel. Check. Please specify any additional story elements you would like. Examples include jewels, antiques, fast cars, scuba diving, dogfights, torture, theme parks, zombies, literary agents, staplers, Monty Python, intravenous drug use—

Geez! No thanks. Just the book, okay?

Selection process complete. Stand by for book generation. *beep* *boop* Book generation complete. Please select book format: electronic, hardcover, or paperback.

Paperback, please.

Luddite.

Pardon me?

Error. Please rephrase question.

Um…can I just get my book now?

Printing book now. Please enjoy, and thank you for using the Bookanator 10000.

Thanks.

*takes book*

*goes home*

*reads*

ZOMG!

~~~~~

This not entirely serious post inspired by the following article in the Wall street journal: William Gibson on the future of publishing.

On Respect

Let’s talk a little about respect, writer-friends. I don’t mean the kind we’re supposed to owe politicians and pastors and police offers and such—I don’ t hold much truck with respecting people simply for their profession or social position. My respect is earned, not granted because you just happen to be an M.D. or Ph.D or whatever.

No, the respect I’m talking about is simple human being to human being respect, the kind earned through quiet strength and integrity. And nothing earns my admiration faster than grace in the midst of suffering. Nothing.

This has been on my mind because of the recent fracas over Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. Many have written about the issue of book banning more eloquently than I could, and I appreciate them for it. But what hit me on a deep level was the soul-shredding honesty some writers displayed. Like CJ Redwine. Lord, but what that woman wrote took courage! I respect that.

Then there’s Mercedes. We tease each other mercilessly, sure, and she’s a wonderful sport, but spend some time on her blog and you’ll quickly realize that she’s much more than just a writer playing the femme fatale. Her son has Williams Syndrome, a genetic disorder so rare that when he was born, there were next to no resources for parents with Williams children. She and her husband have had to deal with some pretty severe medical emergencies with their boy, which—to drastically understate the case—totally sucks.

If you’re not a parent, you might not have any idea how much that hurts (you may…who knows?). If you are a parent, and you’ve suffered through a night in the ER or ICU with a sick child, maybe you’re getting close to understanding. Naked fear and helplessness and love and pain and weariness all wrapped together and twisting in your chest. And yet what do we see of Mercedes in the world of social media? A dedicated, driven writer, a supportive friend, a wonderful sense of humor. She’s suffered, yes, but she’s done it with grace, and still extends herself to help others in the Williams community. I respect that.

And my friend Bryan. Catch up with him nowadays, and it’s rare that he doesn’t have some fantastic bit of news about his career and new writing opportunities. But I’ve known him for years, and remember a time when part-time night jobs were his only source of income while he volunteered an insane number of hours running a drama ministry for our church.

He’s now a two-time Harvey Award winner, but it took almost 20 years to get there. That’s 20 years of grinding away in the trenches of the comic book industry, accumulating writing credits the hard way. It pains me now to think that I at one time judged him for “not getting a real job.” His job is writing. It’s what he does best, what he was born to do. And he’s kept at it with a dedication bordering on ferocity, even when other people have looked down on him for it. I respect that.

Not everyone’s really suffered in life, I know this. Not everyone’s called to. I can’t say I’ve suffered all that much, but I’ve had enough of a taste to admire those who bear up under infinitely worse pressures and still have the grit to stand and look the world in the eye. We’re all going to get knocked down in this life, friends. The thing is to keep getting back up, keep fighting, keep standing up for what we believe in. Now that’s living. That’s being human. Hell yeah, I respect that.

*

I could relate this all to writing, I suppose, but screw it—I’ll save that for another day. I’ll just leave you with a few more links to posts that I respect the hell out of. Enjoy. Maybe I’ll have something funny next time.

Tabitha Bird, whose passion and soul are inspiring, speaks out.

Janet Reid is not always snark. When it counts, she cares.

The Rejectionist continues to rage against institutionalized racism in the publishing industry. Long live The Rejectionist.

Another mother of special needs children, with an attitude the size of Alaska, and heart to match: It’s you and me against the world, kid.

A Slightly Skewed View of the World

Writer-friends, I’ve been ruminating on the nature of excellent prose. I do this because, well, I’m me, and I’m an insanely picky reader. Not that stolid prose will utterly scuttle a story for me, just that it’s far easier for me to lose myself in a narrative if the writer’s prose is rock-solid and occasionally startlingly lovely.

I’m thinking about this because a friend recently passed on Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses to me, and boy howdy, does that man know how to write! No joke, he puts you on notice with the very first sentences, which I’ll share here so you can get the full effect.

The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscotting. He looked down at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping.

Holy hell, but that’s a tour-de-force paragraph! I’ll unpack that for you a bit. Here’s why it’s phenomenal.

Check that first sentence.  Now, McCarthy could’ve said something like, “The candleflame flickered in the wind as he opened the door, stepped into the hall, and closed the door behind him.” But no, we have a single, concrete image now in our minds of a candleflame twisting in a mirror as someone enters a hall. The slight skewing of perspective makes the image immeasurably more effective.

Then look at the rest of the imagery: lilies lean palely (note the adverb [put that in your pipe and smoke it, adverb police], and the assonance of the repeated “l” sound), waisted vase (alliteration), guttered candlestub (technically not even correct, since guttered is a past tense verb, not an adjective, but we accept it nonetheless), the thumbprint in warm wax, and lastly, the caved, drawn face and the paper-thin eyelids. You see it all. It’s presented in slightly oblique language, but I think it’s because of the obliqueness that the visuals are so effective.

And don’t even get me started on the repeated last sentence. Just that simple device, a sidewise slide into the point-of-view of the main character, tells us so much. There is confusion, and loss, and sorrow, and a sense of being adrift, all encapsulated in a four-word sentence, repeated.

I think the power of this prose consists in McCarthy’s taking a view askew. He takes a series of fairly conventional images and twists them a bit, giving them a freshness and vitality. You can learn to do this too.

Because I’m self-aggrandizing like that, I’ll give you one example from my own work. In my Bad Girl Blogfest entry, I depict the shooting of the antagonist thusly:

The bullet sent chips of asphalt flying behind Hector’s head. He choked, staring at Ana with wide eyes as blood spurted from the hole in his throat.

Notice I didn’t mention the bullet entering or exiting, or brains splattering across the sidewalk. All of that’s a bit bog-standard, no? Instead, I chose the image of the bullet chipping asphalt, and a quick bleedout from a throat wound. A bit skewed, but I feel it’s more effective that way.

And you know what? I think you can do this too. It just takes some retraining of the brain to think a bit differently about what you want to convey. Instead of bitter cold, perhaps it’s an Antarctic blast. Rather than a character slipping quietly through an archway, perhaps they scuttle, cockroach-quick and cat-silent, beneath the arcing doorway. It’s all in how you look at things.

Why not give it a try? I know you have it in you.

Write on, friends.

Really? An Actual Work-in-Progress Wednesday?

It’s a short one today, writer-friends, mainly because my progress on the novel has been completely pathetic. Mock me, please. I deserve it.

What did I write? Well, there was that Three-Minute Fiction contest for NPR, a Stilettos & Shirley Temples episode, a night or two of complete distraction trying to submit fiction before October 1st for the #10bythen challenge, and, um, I’m now about two and a half weeks advance posted on the ol’ blog.

I’m hoping that all those advance posts I’ve made will let me ignore the blog for a while and concentrate on some serious wordage.

I don’t even have the heart to update the progress meter. *sighs*

But today I’m driving down to DC for work, so I’ll be on the road a LONG time. Maybe I can get some solid brainstorming done on the way, or get stuck in traffic so I can write some actual words down!

I have to redeem myself somehow, after all.

In which I attempt a strained analogy between cycling and writing….

I started bicycle commuting last week, writer-friends. It’d been a while since I last rode, so it took a while to get back into the swing of things (i.e., for my ass to stop hurting). And since now I have extra time in my commute every morning and evening, I’m at liberty to think up fun things to write about on my blog. Or, y’know, brainstorm the novel or short stories and things. That too.

So in honor of my return to cardiovascular health and fitness, I present to you five cycling-writing analogues. (Shaddup, they’ll totally make sense once you read them. I hope. Oh, stop pre-judging me and just read, wouldja?)

1. You will look silly at first…

…because the helmet seems kind of dorky and those bike shorts make you feel a tad exposed and if you get those clip-in pedals you might come to a stop light and be unable to clip out to put your foot down and consequently fall over in what seems like slow-motion to sprawl inelegantly on the asphalt to the amusement of nearby motorists and pedestrians and then you have to get up and just keep on riding and hope the wind will cool your flaming cheeks.

Kind of like when you first tell people you want to be a writer and they look at you with a pitying expression and you want to shrink into a very small and hard-to-see ball and roll behind the bureau and you feel stupid but the stories won’t let you alone and the characters fill your brain and despite the fact people are skeptical you decide to keep on writing anyway.

2. It will stink…

…because you’re sharing roads with cars and trucks and sucking exhaust fumes into your lungs and despite your longstanding support for public transit you discover that being stuck behind a slow-moving, diesel-smoke-belching bus is somewhat less than enjoyable when you’re on a bike and then there’s the squirrel that got flattened on the road last week and no one’s shoveled it up yet and every day it smells a little worse so you try to hold your breath when you go down that stretch of road but that’s tough to do when you’re exercising so you usually get a noseful of rotting rodent and have to spit when you get a particle of stank in your mouth.

Kind of like that first story in which you hadn’t quite gotten the hang of showing not telling and adverbs crop up like pernicious dandelions* and you actually did use “insinuated” as a dialogue tag one time and your critique group ever so gently pointed out that you might need to work on your prose style and you flush beet red in mortification but promise yourself you’ll do better next time.

3. It will hurt…

…because unless you live in one of the plains states you will have to ride up hills and that makes your quads hurt and after a while your glutes hurt too and you have no choice but to grit your teeth and keep pushing despite the lactic acid burn in your thighs because the top of the hill  is just up ahead and you won’t’ accept being that pansy that gets down and walks your bike the last little way so you duck your head and accept the pain because every muscle fiber that rips and reknits will make you that much stronger in the long run.

Kind of like that first rejection in your inbox that you were expecting because everyone gets rejected and you knew that on some level but when it’s you staring at the NO on your screen it feels different somehow and then you get more rejections and try to laugh it off or blame it on the market or Mercury being in retrograde but it stings like a sonofabitch for that manuscript you sweated over for a year or more and revised till you knew the damn thing by heart to be turned down with nothing but a form rejection but you suck it up and send the next query out because what else can you do?

4. You will get better…

…because when you keep getting back on that bike even though your ass hurts something fierce from yesterday’s ride and your muscles are considering taking out a restraining order against you there’s comfort in knowing you’re faster this week than you were last week and that the hills that nearly crucified you your first time out on the bike don’t feel like much more than gentle inclines to you now and that gear you didn’t have the strength to push just last month is now your go-to gear on the flats and perhaps all that sweat and ache is worth it after all.

Kind of like when you keep writing word after word and story after story you realize after a while that maybe you’re beginning to get the hang of pacing or dialogue or structure or whatever it was that you stumbled over back when you started on this journey and your beta readers aren’t correcting your grammar that much anymore because you’ve mastered the fundamentals and now their comments are all about the story and characters and sometimes they even forget to critique they’re so wrapped up in your story and you think perhaps all those late nights in front of the computer have been worth it after all.

5. You will feel something…

…because you are not hermetically sealed into an office or a car with filtered air you are out in the rushing wind and the cold and the heat and sweating and feeling the rain sting your eyelids and you feel the air scrape your lungs in the winter and hang heavy in your throat in the humid summer and your legs hurt and your shoulders are tense but sometimes when you get up before the sun you see it stain the east red in the morning and see the high-risen creek whipped by wind in the late afternoon and by god you are alive and every beat of your racing heart tells you that you are here in the world and experiencing something for yourself.

Kind of like when everything finally clicks with a scene and the characters come alive in your mind and on the page and you laugh or cry or suffer with your creations and that last passage is the most beautiful you’ve ever written and the story’s finally starting to look complete and there’s a fierce joy in your chest because you have created something in the cauldron of your imagination and by god there it is on the page in black and white and it’s alive and outside of you and now you’ve shared part of yourself with the world and it is utterly, utterly freeing.

*

Write on, friends.

Also, I <3 my bike. :)

* The “pernicious dandelions” phrase I lifted from Stephen King’s On Writing. Sorry, Steve.

♪ Happy Blogoversary to Me…. ♪

What the crap? Has it really been a year since I put up my inaugural post on this ‘ere blog? Yes, I suppose it has, now I think of it. It was September 29th, 2009, when I first sent the thoughts of a fledgling writer-blogger out into the ethernet. I was such a naif.

And now? Now I’ve a year of blogging under my belt, and dude, I’m SO, like, a pro at this shiznit. For serious.

Um…it appears as though I’ve picked up some silly expressions in the blogosphere this past year too. I never used to say “for serious.” Huh.

Anyhow! Let’s have a recap of the highlights, shall we? Since that appears to be de rigeur for blog anniversaries and all. I give you, gentle readers, the year in blogging!

Sept. 29th, 2009  1st post! I think I came across as a bit of a sententious tool, but only about three people read it anyway, so whatever.

Oct. 17th, 2009  I did what? I placed top 10 in Nathan Bransford’s 1st Paragraph Contest? Huh. I guess I did. That’s a nice kickstart to the social networking thing, innit?

Oct. 21st, 2009  I blog about my first ever publication. Granted, the piece went up on the first of the month, but still, I was kinda proud. I even got paid for it!

Nov. 5th, 2009  My first blog award! It came from the lovely and über-talented Carolina Valdez Miller, whom I’m still proud to call a friend.

Nov. 11th, 2009  I won my first writing contest thingy, over at Suzy Hayze’s Tales of Extraordinary Ordinariness blog, and discovered how much fun entering blog contests is.

Jan. 2nd, 2010  My first blogfest! This story, incidentally, made a reappearance in iambic pentameter form on Livia Blackburne’s blog. What? She dared me to do it! Plus, I got a free book out of the deal. :)

Jan 11th, 2010  My first contest! Since Carol and I hit 100 followers around the same time, we co-hosted a flash fiction contest, and got some seriously awesome entries. Merrilee Faber and Michelle Davidson Argyle took home top honors in that one.

Feb 19th, 2010  I host my first and only blogfest, due to a Twitter-challenge. That’s all I have to say about that. *cough*

April 21st, 2010  I hit 250 followers! And, of course, I host a contest.

May 22nd, 2010  Courtney Barr, the Southern Princess, makes me my very own blog award! Color me flattered, Charlie. :D

May 25th, 2010  Victoria Mixon kicks me in the balls.

Jun. 7th, 2010  I ruminate on the Cycle of Blogging. Iz teh funny. Also, iz teh true, which is why it’s teh funny. (Incidentally, I also picked up a LOLcat-speak habit this past year. Not sure how I feel about that.)

Jun 17th, 2010  I crank out a tiny bit of flash fiction that grows some serious legs and turns into my work-in-progress novel. Seriously? It’s UF? With vampires? I was SO not expecting that.

Jul. 20th, 2010  Really, it was only supposed to be a dalliance, a brief, back-and-forth story, but the Stilettos & Shirley Temples blog serial I started with Mercedes M. Yardley has morphed into…something else entirely, hasn’t it?

Sept 24th, 2010  I pass 500 followers! And have no idea what kind of contest to run. Still considering that. :)

And there we have it, writer-friends, my year in blogging.

Actually, looking back on it, a helluva lot happened this past year. Here I was thinking that time was flying by, but when I think about that 100 followers contest, it feels as though it were eons ago. I suppose it was, in social media years, but still.

So here I am, one year later, still writing away, trying to add words to the novel, submitting short stories and flash to fiction markets, planning on my first writers’ conference at the end of this month. I’m still the same douchebag I ever was, but I’m an older, wiser douchebag. I’m a better writer now, more assured, more practised. I’ve met some damn cool people, and made some fantastic friends in the blogosphere. Some of them I even met in real life!

And you know what? I appreciate every single person who swings by my blog to read my random and meandering musings. Thank you, truly, for spending time with me here in my little corner of cyberspace. You are, quite simply, awesome.

Let’s see what this next year brings, shall we? I can’t wait.