I is for Nostalgia (Okay, so I can’t spell)

A to Z BLOGFEST - click "next blog" or "surprise" button on sidebar for more "A to Z"ers

I: I got nothing

I had planned to write all my A to Z posts in March and preschedule them so I wouldn’t have to struggle each day to rush in a post at the last minute.  Yeah, that happened.  I’ve been particularly busy these past few days (and anyone who knows me knows I’m normally busy, so there you go), and I haven’t had the time to devout to my posts that I would like.  I don’t want to drop out or skip any letters, so here is the biggest cop out so far.  Hopefully, it’ll be the last.

Capitol I–Sesame Street

Anyone over thirty-five or so should appreciate this.  Anyone under that, just chalk it up to crazy Gen-X nostalgia.

Enjoy.

Blog Awards and Stuff

I got a couple of awards last week, both of them from Zan at In the Shade of the Cherry Tree.  The Stylish Blogger Award and the One Lovely Blog Award.*  Thanks, Zan!

We all know how this works by now, so I won’t bother you with the rules guidelines.  I’m suppose to write seven interesting things about myself and then pass the awards on to fifteen other blogs.  The passing on is no problem, but I’ve tried to come up with seven interesting things about myself, and guess what?  I’m not all that interesting.

In light of this unfortunate realization, instead of listing seven facts about me, I’m going to open it up you guys.  Ask me anything you want, and I’ll answer it.  It doesn’t even have to be about writing.  Go on, it doesn’t matter how private or potentially embarrassing.  I’m not currently under any gag orders, so do your worst.

Anyway, onto the awards:

• Bess at It’s the World, Dear
• Lana at Lana Banana
• Marieke at Marieke’s Musings
• Sarah at the Precocious Scribe
• Susan Fields
• Jodi at Turning the Page, a Literary Ramble
• Cindy at Dreamer’s Perch
• Kimberly at Meetings with My Muse
• VR Barkowski
• Lindsey at Dangerous with a Pen
• Elizabeth Twist
• Summer at My Inner Fairy
• Misha at My First Book
• Patricia at Simplicity in Volumes
• Jane at Jane’s Ride

These blogs, and many others, always brighten my day with there wit, insight, and just downright awesomeness.  I won’t say Congrats, but instead Thank You.

*I am lovely, if I do say so myself.

That’s the Best You’ve Got?

So I got my first rejection Tuesday morning.  It came at around midnight Chicago time, for some reason.  Despite knowing the odds and understanding the nature of the business and the overwhelming depth of competition, and knowing that I’d probably be rejected at first, I was still mildly surprised at my reaction to the form rejection email:

Meh.

Seriously.  I was almost glad I got it; it beats the limbo of not hearing anything, of wondering if you screwed up so royally it was all they could do to hit the delete button before any more damage was done, like Captain Kirk struggling to pull the warp drive lever before the ship explodes  (“Must…delete…query!”).  Or something like that.  Logically, every rejection is a setback, one more magnetically sealed security door keeping me separated from my goals.  Logically, I should try to glean any drops of info from the form rejection that help me understand what went wrong.

But really, I didn’t feel anywhere near the emotional reaction I thought I might.  I didn’t drop to the ground in my Nancy Kerrigan impersonation (Why?!  WWhhhyyy!?).  I’ll probably get two more in the next week or two I can add to the collection, though I’m not dreading it.  Which of course begs Nancy’s question.

Why?

Not “Why did I get rejected?” but “Why don’t I seem to care?”  I can’t really answer that.  It’s not because I have time, that’s for sure.  I’m not ancient, but I am a month from forty.  I don’t have the luxury to query a project for two or three years, give up, and move on to the next, and hope I can be published “by the time I’m thirty”.  Thirty was ten years ago.  I don’t want to just publish a book, I want to build a career, a body of work that I can leave behind as marker of my time here. 

Maybe it’s because I’m no stranger to rejection.  Don’t worry, I won’t hop on the psychiatrist’s couch here, but the realty is, I’ve had a lot worse.  Using a 300-word cold-call to convince an overworked agent that my MS out of thousands is the one she should commit her time and reputation to?  We’re set up for failure.  Rejection is expected.  We don’t cry when our lottery ticket’s a bust; we don’t rend our clothing when we’re not the thirtieth caller for concert ticket giveaways.  For every lucky (and deserving) duck who gets his book published, there are probably dozens of great novelists whose work will never be known. 

From a career standpoint, every rejection sucks.  From a personal standpoint, it really doesn’t bother me.  Maybe that’ll change after a hundred rejections, or even ten.  But for now, I’m rolling with it.  This is what we chose to do.  And we chose it because we love to write.

And no one can ever take that from us.

Show Me Yours Blogfest Entry

For my Eye Candy entry, click here.

For my 100 Words entry, click here.

DISCLAIMER:  I haven’t touched this since NaNo.  I’ve made no attempt to edit, revise, polish, whatever.  What you’re getting is pure first draft.  So, considered yourself warned.

This for the Show Me Yours Blogfest, host by Hannah @ Musings of a Palindrome.  I signed up for it before I remembered my NaNo novel kind of blows.  Well, it’s not that bad, but it needs a lot of work, as most first drafts do.  So I’ll show your mine, just promise not to giggle.

The setup: This is from Kids Eat Free, a YA horror novel.  Sixteen-year-old Wendy died when the bus she was on crash into a lake.  She died saving others.  Wendy’s boyfriend Doug couldn’t handle the grief, and made a pack with a mysterious figure who promised to give him Wendy back.  Unfortunately, he didn’t say anything about “alive”.  Wendy comes back, but as a revenant, basically a zombie with a brains and a personality.

Despite the creep factor, things go well at first with both Doug and her family a accepting of her new status.  But when Wendy starts give in to new urges, everything falls apart.

The setup for this scene is that Wendy has killed a fifteen-year-old girl, Cami, and Doug has finally realized how dangerous she is and tried to kill her…or whatever.  Feeling hurt and betrayed, she pays a visit to Doug’s house.

Remember: Rough Draft.  Very, very rough.

She can’t feel the pain, but Wendy knows something’s wrong.  She must have broken something. He must have broke something.  Doug.  The boy of her dreams.  The love of her life. Well, her life’s over, isn’t it?  And her dreams are as dead she is.  She had to stand there and listen to him as he tore her apart with his words, murdering her with hate.  He called her a monster, and his “mess”. He dragged her across the ground to the bridge as she begged him to stop, begged him to just talk to her, but he wouldn’t. He didn’t give her a chance. She was good enough for a cheap fuck in the stockroom, but when things got tough and she needed him the most, he turned on her. 

It’s good that she can’t cry anymore, because the tears would never stop. She doesn’t need tears. There are other, better ways to express grief, and she can’t wait to try them out. They want a monster, guess what? 

The door opens and derails her train of thought.  This is her first visit to the Stanton home; she’d never yet been invited, big surprise.  Behind the door stands a blond girl about seven years old with wide blue eyes: Doug’s sister.  She wears a pink cotton nightgown and clutches a white stuffed bunny to her chest.

“Well, you’re up late, Cutie Pie,”  Wendy says, though she knows the girl will hear nothing but a sick moan.  “Aren’t you afraid the monsters’ll get you?”  The girl slices the air with a scream that hangs in Wendy’s ears as the girl gets a good look at her.  She doesn’t blame the little thing.  She’s young; she doesn’t know what else to do. She doesn’t know that it won’t do her any good.

Remember, it’s a very rough draft.  Just saying.

Sweltering Prickliness, Preaching Canine Abstinence, and Apparently Having a Dragon Tattoo Doesn’t Automatically Make You Interesting

Just some random thoughts on a Friday morning until I get off my butt and write a real post:

(For my Query Letter Blogfest Entry, click here.)

Has anyone read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo?  I assume “yes” because for the past year, I haven’t been able to escape hearing about it.  For a while there, it seemed so incongruently popular it was as if Jonathan Franzen had written a book about sparkling vampires on the coast of New Jersey who were part of a secret society founded by Leonardo Di Vinci.*

I finally broke down and bought it because the (virtual) jacket flap sounded interesting.  I’m on page sixty or so right now, and you what?  It kind of sucks.  I’m bored, the writing is tedious, and the only character I’m slightly interested in is the old guy who’s got a crush on the girl.  Can anybody tell me if it gets better?  Am I the only one who doesn’t think it’s the best thing since a book about sliced bread?

*I’d totally read that.

I recently switched browsers from Internet Exploder Explorer to Google Chrome.  I was leery after the debacle that was Firefox, but I love it.  It’s faster, more streamlined, and it’s a lot easier to perform simple tasks like bookmarking.  One of the unexpected perks is that it has an automatic spell check.  Whether I’m typing in a search box, a blog comment, or a Facebook update, it catches my misspellings and makes me look smarter than I actually am (Yay, deception!).  One of the side effects of this is that it always red-squigglies my last name.  Out of curiosity, I right-clicked.  These are the spelling suggestions for Klinefelter:

• linefeed
• interlinear
• sweltering
• prickliness

I’m thinking about having a flash fiction contest with those words as prompts.

All three of my dogs (two male, one female) have finished up Puppy Puberty and are looking to score – with each other.  Fortunately, they’re rarely left home alone, and it’s pretty easy to keep an eye on them.  Unfortunately, the earliest the vet can get any of them in for surgery is February.  In order to prevent any unwanted coupling while all four of us are out, my wife bought doggy diapers to put on the girl.**

In other words, my dog is wearing a chastity belt. 

Don’t make fun of me; maybe there’s a story in here somewhere.  I’ll call it The Red Crayon Diaries.

**In case you’re wondering why we chose to lock up the girl’s goods instead of the boys’, it’s because we have two boys and would go through twice as many, that’s all.