WHEW!

I entered Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Contest for 2010 today.
Here's to hoping I make it past round one.

Went to work...unfortunately no one else showed up, so I had to therapize myself. It must have worked. I entered the contest.

Recieved comments today about the manuscript from a friend of mine who was kind enough to help me with some edits. I hadn't realized the painful quandry I'd placed him in when I asked him to read it. Guess he doesn't know me well enough to know he wouldn't be getting utter slop to review. Following are some of his comments from emails as he was reading, and his final comments:

First comments:
While I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, I wanted to say that I am really, really enjoying your book! In spite of the ergonomics, I keep forgetting that I'm reading a manscript and not a published novel. I just got back from a short work-out in our gym (on the recumbent bike at work) and I got funny looks when I'd burst out laughing at certain passages.

Danny is really coming into focus for me; in her own quirky way, she makes some kind of sense. Should I be worried?

Later:

Well, I finished the book. The bottom line, I suppose, is I enjoyed it immensely. I looked forward to the next opportunity to pick it up. I'd love to discuss the book with you whenever you'd like. IMHO it's definitely publishable, in Canada and/or the U.S.

And today, through email for this blog:

Being somewhat of a purist and a snob, I was measurably apprehensive about reading a friend's manuscript. My misgivings quickly turned to delight as I came to know Danny, Laurie, Andy, Bonaparte (the monumental turd) Haggeth the Shrew, Bryan, Alex, even Icabod! Such real people, such believable circumstances, such satisfying outcomes! Please tell me there's a sequel in the works -soon!

Thanks for the comments and support Rick, as well as your editing finesse. ( It turns out the dude is a hard-core (no, not porn) reader, willing to drop a book if it's at all dull or unsatisfying) Little did I know this when I asked him to read. I just knew he was really smart. And he wants a sequel to my manuscript. Can somebody please hurry up and publish me so I can help the guy out? Gotta go back to work. Hopefully this time someone shows up. I've had enough of my own therapy. Stay tuned. I'll probably put the pitch on here that I posted on Amazon for the contest. I was quite happy with it. I'll be happier when it gets past round one.

Random Musings from a Former Bathroom Inmate

The last time I posted on this blog was January 7. It was shortly thereafter that I began painting our upstairs bathroom. Out with the dark dreary old paint and in with the funky bright spring colors. A great project to deflect my brain while I waited for a friend of mine to finish reading and editing my manuscript. Or so I thought. At first. But then after hours and hours and hours of painting and several small breakdowns later my husband and son kindly pointed out that the green I'd chosen clashed with the fuschia, and it all looked rather stupid with the floor. A new paint color was chosen, a darker burgundy/purple...which somehow translated long days painting later to a crap red brown in the bathroom light. ARGH. The bathroom is now a light green and white, having been repainted by my husband who could no longer stand to be around me, and who knew that after all that hard work and disappointment, the only place in the house he wouldn't have to encounter me would be in that bathroom.

The lesson in all this? I can be one unhappy camper when I put a lot of hard work into something, sacrifice other things, and come out of it all with an end product that is crap. I mean, I sacrificed my social life for that bathroom, I sacrificed my exercise time. I sacrificed time devoted to my manuscript, family time, and I put up with chaotic surroundings, all to get something that isn't remotely like anything I wanted. My time spent in the outhouse feels like time I just lost. I made those same sacrifices last summer when I wrote the manuscript for No One In Particular. The good news is, I love the end product and that made all those sacrifices seem worth it. Over the weekend, I completed draft number 3, cleaning and polishing the manuscript with the assistance of a friend's notes. I now have another believer in the manuscript and he's passing it on to people he knows, trying to help me on the journey toward publication. I have the support of everyone who has read the manuscript fully, which has been great, because self-doubt has a way of creeping in when you're dealing with the publishing industry.

I'm still debating whether to post chapters on this blog, or on another site www.authonomy.com . Then there's the possibility of self-publishing, and publishing on Kindle on Amazon. We'll see. It's kinda like my manuscript is stuck in that upstairs bathroom. It wants to see the light of day, wants to enter into people's lives and create relationships with them, wants to make people laugh and feel good, but it's trapped...stuck because it's author is an unknown, trapped because maybe so far it's creator just hasn't found the right match for it, or hasn't written the query letter that sends agents and publishers into spasms of delight. I'm working on getting it out again now, my friends are working on getting it out. I will persevere. This baby deserves to see the light of day.