Stephanie Gayle

My next scheduled reading is next Monday, August 6th at the East Bridgewater Public Library. This might be the most significant reading I do for MSoSD, because it's at my hometown library. Not surprisingly, I was a big reader as a kid. Even before I could read I loved exploring the low shelves of the children's section, pulling out illustrated animal books. One of my first words was book, which I pronounced "bookuh." My mother and I would descend the incredibly steep steps down into the basement section of the children's area and we'd pick 6 books to read together. The children's librarian was wonderful. I wonder if she still works there?

Once I began reading my own books I enjoyed the transition from the low shelves to the tall bookcases where you had your Little Men and Little Women, Narnia books, and Nancy Drew collection. When I got older I ascended the library into the main level fiction section. In my mind I can still see the shelves. I know where Richard Adams' Watership Down is on the back shelf of the A section. I know where I planned my books would go one day: not under Gayle, under King. I was going to wed some man named King, write horror stories, and preempt Stephen alphabetically. Ah the dreams of my youth!

I generally went upstairs when I needed to do school projects because that's where the biographies and history books were located. Staring over the banister down to the second floor always made me dizzy. I liked leafing through the art books upstairs in high school, seeing works of art from all over time and the world. Did I mentuion it smelled different at the library: a little musty, like old books. I loved that smell.

Being a voracious reader is what made me want to write, and I couldn't have read all I wanted without access to a library. I certainly could never afford to buy all the books I wanted to read. Besides this, the library offered a calm, cool place to explore the world without leaving my small town.

I'm excited to go back on Monday and give a reading there. Somehow, I know, it will make this whole author thing seem legitimate and exciting all over again.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Peoples of the Midwest: I have joyous news! I shall be in your heartland in early October, attending the Midwest Literary Festival from October 5th-7th. Much like the Sasquatch I am rarely seen outside my native territory, so this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It is certainly a once-in-this-October opportunity.

I'll be sitting on some panels, talking fiction, and signing books. Also reading from my novel. I promise not to make any Wayne's Worlds jokes (while sober) even though the event is being held in Aurora. I'm sure the folks there have probably gotten a bit tired of that whole "shwing!" gag.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, not that kind, though I admit I was an Optimus Prime sort of girl once upon a time.
No, I was doing very important research (cough) the other day and I came across this site: The St. Andrews Face Transformer. You can upload a photo of your face, a friend's face, an arch-nemesis's face, and then you pinpoint the eyes and mouth and then select a 'style' of transformation. Some of the ethno choices were freaky, but I sort of liked my "Mucha" face. See below.

It seems my Masculinese (say what?) face involved giving me a fivehead. Yikes. Good thing I'm not Masculinese.

Posted by Stephanie at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last night I read at my neighborhood bookstore, Porter Square Books. I dig this bookstore because the staff are friendly, the aesthetics pleasing, and it brings joy to what is essentially a strip mall. The turnout was lovely, though I was puzzled by the very old couple seated in the back. As my Mom said, "Do you suppose they knew what was going on? Or did they just want to sit for a spell?" I think they actually came for the reading because they were early, but I do think one of them was asleep during the reading.

Nathan from the bookstore asked me to read longer than I usually do, so I was reading some parts cold, which freaked me out a little, but I think it went well. It was good I read longer though because no one had questions. Well, we made Erica ask a question but it hardly counted as it was coerced.

I was delighted to meet in person Jason Feiffer, whose blog,Happyscrappy, I've been reading for some time now. We talked about reading the New Yorker and his new gig at Boston magazine. I think Jason is the first person I "knew" through the Internets and have met after "knowing" them. And he wasn't a sexual predator lurking for 15 year old girls so yay!

I think perhaps the funniest moment came after the reading was over. A woman was hovering near the reading area and I felt my crazy radar spiking. So, of course, my mother starts talking to her. When confronted on this later, she admitted, "Oh sure, she seemed nuts. That's why I wanted to talk to her."

Anyway my Mom was talking up my book and waves me over and the woman asks me, "Does it have a happy ending?" I laughed and gave her a half answer and then she said, "But does the character stay down South or move back North?"
"I'm not going to tell you that," I said.
"Oh, well I'll never have time to read it," she told me.

Maybe I should start reading audiences the last chapter, to save them, you know, the time and trouble of reading the book?

Posted by Stephanie at 09:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hey y'all, good news!
My book has gone into its second print run.
Come celebrate with me at Porter Square Books in Somerville tomorrow night (7 pm).
By celebrate I mean come listen to me read, ask me questions, and watch me wield my signing pens with the greatest of artistic flair.
Hope to see you there!

Posted by Stephanie at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every now and again I like to check the stats for this blog: to see how many visitors have stopped by, how they got here and if they came vis another site. I'm always interested to see where people are from geographically. I got very excited when I had my first visitor from Kuala Lumpur (mostly because I really enjoy saying Kuala Lumpur).

But I've noticed I have a very odd mindset when it comes to checking the stats. For example, I get many folks visiting from Texas. So I'll sit and think, "Golly. Who do I know in Texas? Greg and Em and...huh. I can't think of anybody else, but I must be forgetting because there are Texans visiting my blog." The whole point of publicity: reaching out to folks who don't know you seems to have missed me. I assume anybody interested in me knows me.

Similarly, at my launch party I was delighted (and again) surprised when strangers attended. These folks didn't even KNOW me. Wow!

I worry that I must come across as somebody who never leaves the house, much less the state of Massachusetts by saying things like "You're from Florida! Amazing! Do you know my friend Dawn?"

I've got to work on being suave, urbane. I remind myself I once lived in Manhattan, but then I realize that the city exacerbates my "do I know you?" mindset because Northeastern city folk do NOT talk to strangers. We freak out a bit when strangers talk to us. Stranger danger indeed.

I've got a reading coming up Thursday. I'm going to practice not sounding like an idiot lest I run into anyone I don't know. The people who do know me? I'll just have to tell them to keep my idiocy under wraps.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just finished watching the Democratic debate on CNN. Wow. Did no one tell those idiots on CNN that when the YouTube videos had text you had no way of reading it unless you own a 40-foot TV screen? That was frustrating. Also: Anderson Cooper wears a suit very well, but honestly? Those candidates ran all over him. When they went over their alloted time he would say, "time" softly and repeatedly until they decided to stop talking. Though he did make a good joke at the end by telling Kucinich that they "couldn't find anyone to the left of him."

Damn there were a lot of people on that stage. My prize for best answers of the evening, and injecting some humor into the proceedings, goes to Joe Biden.

They're going to do a similar YouTube free for all with the Republicans in September, so if you're interested in submitting a question to the candidates, you can via YouTube.

Posted by Stephanie at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it just me? Or have literary magazines become, how shall we say, crazy? Last week I got a slip of paper from the North American Review. What I like about NAR is that they send you a postcard verifying that they received your submission and assigning it a number (sort of like at the deli counter, only you never get luncheon meats or cheeses). Anyhoo that's well and good.

What's not well and good is that the second part: the slip of paper I received, was the front page of my story, with a number written just below my word count. I thought they were telling me my story's word count was wrong. My word count was 4990 and the number they had written below was 3995. So I double-checked. Nope, my word count was right. Then I remembered the assigned number thing and put two and two together. They'd written that number on my page. Okay.

There was nothing else in the envelope. No tiny scrap of paper saying, "Sorry. Not for us" or "We liked it, but not this time. Please keep us in mind." Nothing. I'm not saying I crave rejection, but I do like the process to be simple, to be obvious. Even a big old "NO" in red pen across the top would've been better. Are literary magazines so tired of rejecting pieces that they've stopped sending rejection notices?

Posted by Stephanie at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have a four day weekend (due to a backlog of vacation time I need to start spending). Yay! What have I got planned for this grand spree of freedom, sweet freedom?

I'm going to work on book #2 a lot!
I'm going to read lots of articles on cults, laws, and other such fun topics.
I'm going to cook and bake and eat what I've cooked and baked.
I'm going to write long overdue thank you notes.
I'm going to watch more Muppet Show episodes (it's research).
I'm going to practice reading more scenes from MSOSD because I don't want folks (hi Mon and Dad!) who see me read multiple times to be bored. And I don't want to be bored.
I'm going to write myself a memo on the meaning of vacation so that the next time I'm 'on vacation' I act like it.

Posted by Stephanie at 02:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was reading Gawker( like always) and they mentioned their sister site Jezebel had a story related to the July issue of Redbook. Yes, the same issue of Redbook that featured my novel, so yay!

Only not so yay. It seems someone got their hands on the original photo of the cover of Faith Hill, and Jezebel compared it to the on-the-magazine-cover of Faith. To say that there are differences is to master understatement. They airbrushed all her laugh lines and wrinkles (bye bye!) Her skin is bleached. She has more hair on her head. Her 'excess' back skin has disappeared. They inserted an arm! (To the left, to the left, as B would say). They reduced the size of her real arm to twig proportions. Disturbing.

I knew editors retouched cover photos, but I had little idea how much they retouched them. Some people are angry because the cover is a lie, and because the editors didn't think 'real' Faith Hill was pretty enough. Some people want their own Photoshopper. Me? I'm on the verge of a seizure because I cannot stop watching the picture got from untouched to retouched and back. Watch here (you have to scroll down a bit).

Posted by Stephanie at 01:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jackie K. Cooper, an entertainment reviewer living in Georgia, sent me his review of my novel. You can read it here. The best part? His suggestion that the "Macon Chamber of Commerce should make her an honorary citizen." Ha ha! That would be...weird. Do people get honorary citizenships for writing about a place? I always assumed those "keys to the city" things were reserved for athletes and movie stars.

I'm told my book will get a blurb in the next issue of Macon Magazine.
I just found that it was listed in this month's Tampa Bay Illustrated as a terrific summer read offering "delicious escapism."

So there you have it: Southern stamps of approval.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been reading lots of books published during the 1970s. Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, Ordinary People. Last night I finished The World According to Garp. Before this, the only John Irving book I had read was A Widow for One Year. It is safe to say I am done reading John Irving.

I find him gimmicky. He has many too cute or implausible details and they recur in every novel. What's with the bears? And the prostitutes? And the rape. The rape, most especially, bothers me. I wish he would stop using it as a plot device. Yes, rape happens. Yes, it's not uncommon, but he's unable to write a story without it? I can't help but feel he uses it as some sort of emotional trajectory shorthand for his characters. No thanks.

Honestly, when I finished Garp I was puzzled by people's love for it. The structure is very uneven, and Garp, as a writer, felt artificial. We read lots about the fact that he's a writer but we see so little of it. We're always being told he writes (and occasionally shown pieces of his work) but do we see him writing? Garp is a more convincing athlete. I found the description of his workout far more true than Helen listening to him type. I also got tired of being told things: Roberta is Garp's best friend (how many times does that get mentioned in the last fourth of the book?)
Show me an emotion once in a while. Plus: the crazy long wrap-up-how-everyone-in-the-book-ends-up epilogue? Was that necessary? Oy.

I'm sure tons of people will disagree with me (the man has a huge fan base). But I'm done with Irving. It's on to other authors of the 1970s. I think some Cheever might be in order.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I was nuking another frozen dinner I realized something: my life is a seesaw. One on side we have writing and on the other side nutrition. When I'm writing a novel the seesaw tips down and oh look! There's nutrition, way up on the other side kicking her legs and shouting, "You need vegetables!"
"Nah, you don't," writing says, pushing his feet around in the dirt.
"Let me down. She needs vitamins."
"No doing. She likes it the way it is," writing says.

Sadly, writing is correct. When the writing is moving along in a steady, satisfying way, I'm more than happy to eat meals that take 3 minutes to prepare and 5 minutes to consume. Any more time and I get antsy, anxious to return to my characters. My breakfast and lunch patterns don't change, because those are structured around my day job. But dinner definitely gets sacrificed. In the past week I think most of my dinners came from the freezer and there may have been one that wasn't dinner so much as several mini-grazing trips through the pantry.

I wonder if other writers do this, or perhaps they have people that take care of them and feed them healthy meals.
Hmmm. I should get me one of those.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those of you who like charts (who doesn't?) Charteo is a site that will chart your Amazon rank for you over time. You simply enter your ASIN number and watch it go!
This just might keep you from constantly Amazoning (ooh, sounds dirty!) yourself. Or not.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I thought I would prove immune to Amazonarankitis, but alas, I have fallen victim to its disease. I check where my novel is ranked on Amazon more than once (ha! understatement!) a day. Then I got to thinking: how much does the Amazon ranking tell me about sales?

Being the geek I am I looked into this. For all the similarly afflicted, I'm going to share.
First, the obvious: Amazon.com rankings are like golf scores. You want a low number.
Second: only the top 10,000 books have their rankings recalculated hourly, and that's in comparison to the sales of the other top 9,999 books. Books between 10,000-100,000 in rank are recalculated daily.

Here's an estimate, provided by Dimitri at Civil War Bookshelf.

Rank / Copies per day
1 / X
10 / 100
100 / 30
1000 / 10
10,000 / 2 (11 copies every 5 days)
100,000 / 1 copy a week
1,000,000 / around 15 total, depends on pub date
2,000,000 / around 2 total, depends on pub date

It builds upon the chart and algorithm work of Morris Rosenthal (who uses too much math speak for me to follow well).

So, if your book is ranked, say 17,381, it means you're selling approximately 2 copies a day. Yes, less than that but let's aim for whole numbers, shall we?

This means you're never going to earn out your advance and earn royalties and be able to quite your job. Kidding! Kidding! Excuse me, but there are 6,380 in the year, yes? That's a relief.

Posted by Stephanie at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So in my daily Googling on "My Summer of Southern Discomfort" I came across a link to Cornerstone Books, which is the lovely bookstore where I did a reading with Jennifer O'Connell. At first glance, I didn't see my book on the page link. But then I looked to the left, under Cornerstone Bestsellers and there was my book! Ranked #2 above Khaled Hossseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns and Paulo Coelho's The Witch of Portobello.

Suffice it to say that on all other sales list Paulo and Khaled are kicking my ass, but not this list pals!

So thank you Cornerstone Books. You and your customers are #1.

Posted by Stephanie at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am predictable, terribly predictable. In times of stress or when I am feeling dissatisfied and bored I dye my hair. Not every time, of course, or my hair would change color like a chameleon. All this is a preamble to saying that I dyed my hair last night and I am no longer a redhead. I'm a brunette.

You know what? Brown hair dye is a lot less messy than red hair dye. Don't ask me why, but it's true. While rinsing the red dye the shower always looked like a scene from a gruesome horror film. Not so much with the brown. It also rinsed faster, much faster.

I read somewhere that you shouldn't change your appearance drastically when you're promoting a book (or people won't recognize you from your author photo?) Then I realized that my author photo is black and white. It gives the impression of dark hair, but the red was okay.

I also had a realization yesterday: it's a good thing I pursue my stress with hair dye and not tattoos. My mother would freak out and I'm not sure I'd have much space left for fresh ink.

Posted by Stephanie at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I cannot believe I forgot to celebrate Butterstick yesterday on the occasion of his second birthday. I am sure he enjoyed his special fruitsicle and child-sized pool.

He's come a long way, baby.

And now that scientists at the National Zoo have determined that his mother, Mei Xiang, failed to conceive as a result of her recent insemination, he doesn't have to share the limelight with any panda siblings.

Posted by Stephanie at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The other day I realized that all my problems with works in progress relate to time. It's damned difficult to manipulate. I had a two-day breakdown during draft #1 of MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT when I realized that Natalie couldn't practice law in Georgia. Why? Because there was no way her fitness certificate could have cleared in time. That was a bad epiphany. It involved me saying "Fuck" a lot and clenching my hair in my fists. I worked around it, but man, those were a shaky two days.

Similarly, while working on some research for book #2 I was playing with the birth date of the father and realized that if I wanted a plot element (the Dustbowl) to be present I needed to adjust his age. This impacted the age of all the children, one of whom I'd drafted to Vietnam. Then I panicked, afraid I'd thereby made him too young to be draft eligible. Never mind that this is all back story. It makes my heart race. clench my hair and mutter obscenities. Damn Time.

I don't expect this will be the last time I battle Time. I just wish it didn't always have the advantage.

Posted by Stephanie at 08:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At my reading at Cornerstone Books in Salem, MA two weeks ago someone asked about target audience. At first I thought they meant writing for an 'ideal reader,' but Jennifer O'Connell, who was reading with me, was savvy to the question. What the person wanted to know was: do I market my books to a target audience before I begin writing?

My answer: no.
Jennifer's answer: yes.

When I began writing MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT I didn't think about who would read it. Most days I hoped my chapters would be good enough to pass muster for my writing class. Even when I was polishing it up to send to agents I didn't have a great handle on how to describe it. Literary fiction? Women's fiction? Commercial fiction? Miss Snark, agent par excellence, often remarked that writer's pitched their fiction wrong. That made me feel better, though still uneducated.

Much like a resume for different jobs, I pitched my query letter differently to agents depending on who/what they represented. I mean, I never called my book something it wasn't: a cookbook, for example, but I was willing to swap women's fiction for commercial fiction if it seemed the right thing to do.

Anyway, my lack of marketing focus is now leading to interesting reviews. Barnes and Noble has my book marked as a literary thriller. Huh. And it's gotten lots of favorable reviews from sites dedicated largely to romance novels though there is very little romance in my book. In fact, I think there may be more anti-romance (relationships gone sour) than romance of the good persuasion. I think my favorite description of the novel thus far might be as a "strange little story."

Jennifer, market savvy as she is, pointed out that the excerpt I read sounded more "literary fiction" while my cover said "chick lit."
"Um, yeah," I said. I didn't have a better answer than that.

So there you have it: lack of marketing focus=confusion. Ah well. I like to think of it as "my book is all things to all people."

By the by, if you run across any interesting descriptions of MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT, please leave a comment. White-knuckled thrill ride? Sweeping epic? I want to know!

Posted by Stephanie at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those of you unwilling to shell out the $3.50 for the July issue of Redbook, be not ashamed. Even you cheap bastards can see MY SUMMER OF SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT displayed in the Top 10 Summer Reads thanks to the freeness of the internets! Here is the link to see my book. My book is #10 so you have to scroll to the right to see it. (I'm sure #10 is the best number. As in "on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing plague and 10 representing panda hugs, where would my book fall?")

For those of you who purchased the July Redbook, may I please call your attention to page 50? A "double zip belt bag" is a fanny pack by another name. Do not try to fool me, editors of fashion. I know a damn fanny pack when I see one. The shorts on this page are cute. Why would you assault them with a fanny pack?

Posted by Stephanie at 03:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apologies to the person who was directed to my site by typing the phrase "spanking Stephanie." I'm sure you didn't get what you came here for, did you?

Posted by Stephanie at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a tool called gender genie. You copy a swath of text, insert it into the genie, and it tells you the gender of the writer. It has key words it defines as female or male, and bases the gender on the number of times you use these words. I've used it before and been greatly annoyed that most of the time it gets me right, whether I'm writing fiction or a blog entry.

I get annoyed because I don't like the idea of being defined as a "male" or "female" writer, especially not on the basis of preposition use.

But then I had the brilliant idea of using the genie for a new purpose: to 'discover' the gender of Hilary Tamar. Hilary features in Sarah Caudwell's mysteries and throughout the series his/her gender is never revealed. I always admired the trick. Caudwell did a damned fine job of never tripping up. So I inserted a lengthy passage from The Sibyl In Her Grave, a scene narrated by HilaryTamar, and the verdict was: writer male!

Of course, technically, Sarah was the writer, but she died in 2000 without revealing her the secret of Hilary's gender, so this is the best I can do.

Now go ahead and play with it.

P.S. If you like espitolary novels or old school British mysteries I recommend Caudwell's Thus Was Adonis Murdered. Plus the cover art is done by Edward Gorey, and who doesn't love some Gorey?

Posted by Stephanie at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When you dial a gigantic corporation and get the calm, mildly robotic tone of an automated operator and the operator tells you to say into the phone what you would like him to do and you say, "Die! A slow and painful death, you fucker! Just die! Now!" Why doesn't he do what you say? Why does he then say, "I'm sorry. I didn't understand that selection."

Posted by Stephanie at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I decided to clean out my closet today because it was becoming increasing difficult for me to extract clothes from it each morning. My closet is a walk-in, though not the sort you see in movies. As I was discovering that I own enough recycled tissue paper to wrap a truckload of gifts I uncovered my secret trove of presents. A couple of years ago I began buying people gifts when I would find something I thought they'd like, rather than waiting until a few weeks before their birthday or Christmas. It all seemed wonderful, both from a time-saving and financial point of view. Much like a squirrel that buries a nut. Ahem. The theory is only as good as my memory.

Apparently, my memory is crap. I found a bag of gifts, including a book I bought for my mother and meant to give her last December. Oops. Lots of bath/beauty gifts I thought I'd give away, but didn't, probably because I kept buying more, unaware that I was stocking a small arsenal of soaps and lip gloss.

Then I had to wrestle with the Christmas trees. That's right. I said trees, as in plural, as in two. This last holiday season I felt denied my usual deck-the-halls joy so I stuck an artificial tree (my first) in my room. Then, after the holidays I bought another, thinking I could persuade the very handsome boyfriend to put it in his place next year so I'd have trees in each place.

I don't consider myself a hoarder or particularly holiday-crazy, but my closet has forced me to rethink that. It has also forced me to admit that no, I'm never going to hem that red skirt or wear that very, very short black checked skirt so they should leave my wardrobe.

As to the gifts: I gave some items to my roommates and to Sara who is visiting from DC. They are gifts after all and are meant to be given. Besides, I fear if I put them away I'll simply curse the next time I unearth them.

Sara said, "It's Christmas in July!"
I said, "Happy birthday of our nation. Have a compact."

Posted by Stephanie at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some days it feels as if the Cosmos is trying to beat a lesson into my thick head. This week, the lesson has been: if at first your polite inquiry yields no results nag, nag again. It's been happening at work (sorry to bug you, but...) and it's been happening in my promotional efforts for the book.

Just yesterday I called the bookstore across the street from my place of business. Yes, that one. And I asked if they wouldn't mind my dropping by when convenient to sign some copies of my book that I know they have (hidden, face in, on the shelf, not a table, but nevermind, nevermind). The person I spoke to said he'd check with his manager, and then took down my name and number. And never called me.

So I called again today and got the manager. Who said I could sign the "couple copies" they had in the store. Okay!
So on this sort of holiday week I'll be skipping out of work early to attend to the business of marking up those copies with my John Hancock. Hey, you know what would be funny? Singing them 'John Hancock.' Or maybe not. No, I'm going with my gut on this one. Funny.

My point is that as much as I dislike having to ask for something more than once (or twice), it can and does pay to do so.

Shoot! Guess who doesn't have her trademark signing pen on her? But I do have a purplish (it's not quite purple, not quite pink) Sharpie. John Hancock never looked so good!

Posted by Stephanie at 03:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From the Onion:
Kitten Thinks Of Nothing But Murder All Day
August 16, 2006 | Issue 42•33

So I love this image. I loved it so much I bought the t-shirt from The Onion store when it became available, prompting Tracey to throw up her hands because it was what she planned to buy for my birthday (she really gets me). It freaked out the receptionist at my hair salon. At first she said, "Oh! Cute kitty!" And then she began reading the words aloud, "Kitten thinks of nothing..but...murder?...all day." Priceless.

Since I threatened to write a book called 1,000 Cuddly Kittens after reading gruesome criminal law/death sentence stuff, I thought, why not bring the kittens back?

Plus, it's all so meaningful because my Mom has been tracking the "woods kitties" behind her house. We used to have neighbors who had a lot of cats and they mated and then my parents' neighborhood, which does have lots of woods, became a ground for feral cats, or "woods kitties." For my birthday this year Mom got me a woods kitty or so she claims. The label says Gund, but she insists it's real and very low-maintenance. I named it Ghengis and have been moving it about the apartment.

Ghengis looks damn real, and kept startling me and my roommates the first few days after his adoption. We'd walk into the room and think "Where did that cat come from?" Right now, he's seated atop the purple couch, gazing out the window.

So there you have it. Probably a complete mental history of me and my Mom and our tendency to anthropomorphize things. Also some evidence as to why I'm a writer.

Posted by Stephanie at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've not been spending much quality time in my kitchen. What with pre-launch and book launch, my time was dedicated to book promotion. This weekend I have a break, so what have I done? I've baked. I started with blueberry muffins and I'm now making banana coconut bread. The batter was delicious so I have high hopes for the finished product.

While I was baking I was thinking of writing (not too deeply, otherwise, trust me, we'd have problems). I've just finished editing my dolphin story, and I need to put it away for a week or so. Give it time until I can decide whether my new ending works or not. So now...new project. It's like the baking. I've made the muffin before but not the bread. And I was simply editing the dolphin story whereas now I need to write a new first chapter for my work-in-progress book that I last worked on in March.

I'm still waiting to get my marked up first draft from my writer friend, but that shouldn't stop me from beginning the new beginning as it were. I sense that I'm hesitating, and I think I'm hesitating because once I start...I won't stop. Not until draft two is done, and while that sounds productive I also know it means goodbye social life, ta-ta lovely summer weather enjoyment and hello to being sequestered in my room.

How long did my second draft take me last time? I can't remember. Months probably. And this manuscript is even longer than the first. Can I finish before I take vacation in late August? Will I be able to give myself up to a vacation fully if I'm not done? Did I write something good (please, please) or (God forbid) not?

The baking is a distraction from the writing and a means of satisfying my sweet tooth. But after the bread comes out to cool on the rack I think I'm going to have to take a mental journey back in time and start breaking new ground. Wish me luck.

Posted by Stephanie at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)