Erm, my book's out!

"Was it any different for you last night?" I asked Dave as he was shaving this morning. "Y'know, sleeping with a published author?"

He thought about it for a moment then said, "You snored more."

Just so you know, I have now officially self-published my book. After at least three years of doinking around, I finally bit the bullet and got it done. For me, this is nothing short of a miracle.

The book itself is OK. It's not going to win a Pulitzer and it's certainly not going to outsell 50 Shades of Grey, but you know what? It's not as bad as I sometimes think it is. This afternoon I spent a happy hour curled up on my bed with my Kindle, reading My Very Own Book. I bought it last night and, wham, it downloaded in a heartbeat, right there on my Kindle beside Stephen King's new book, Doctor Sleep.

Me and Stevie, hanging out in Kindleland.

That's pretty darn sweet.

I'm not going to launch into any big whoop-de-doo about all this. Suffice it to say, if you'd like to read Green Eggs & Weezie, you can find it on Amazon or on Kobo. If you happen to like it, I would sincerely appreciate if you could write a short review on the Amazon site. Apparently the more reviews one garners, the more books one sells and the closer I get to retirement.

Oh wait. I am retired. I KEEP FORGETTING! That's the greatest thing about getting old – you forget all the good stuff and every day you wake up to go to work and then you remember – I DON'T HAVE TO!

I'm so glad I published my book before complete Old-Timer's sets in, or before I'm dead. Seriously, I was beginning to think Dave would have to publish it post-humously. I made him promise that he'd publish my damned book if I choked on a chicken neck or something equally hideous. I mean, poor Mama Cass, she sang some of the best songs on the planet but she'll always be remembered as that fat chick who choked on a chicken bone.

Since, however, I am still alive I am able to tell you that my book can be found by clicking on the following links:

Kobo

Amazon.ca (Canada)

Amazon.com (United States)

Amazon.co.uk (Great Britain)

Thanks to GP Ching for helping me get it online. Man, that job was a bit of a pig. Gen, I owe ya.

I've got a new blog! Say hello to Separation Advice

One of the reasons I wrote Weezie Polk's Man Lessons was to help people, particularly women, as they stumble through the hallowed hell of separation and divorce.

In the book, Weezie sets up a blog with advice for the lovelorn and I thought, well, if Weezie can do it, so can I!

Welcome to Separation Advice.

I've been through a lot on this current road to happiness. I've lost and I've gained and life has basically been rebooted. Overall, I like where I am now but, lordy, lordy, it sure was a tough old go getting to this point.

As a result, I have a lot of advice for folks going through the same thing. It's all basic stuff, but it's stuff nobody warned me about and it's stuff I want to share with you, so you can avoid unnecessary heartache in the very painful segue between unhappily married to happily ever after.

I don't want Separation Advice to be all about me, though. I want stories from all my unmarried friends. If there's advice you want to share, or something you want to warn people about, or if you just want to vent and cry, by all means, come here. Together we can get through this. We can, I promise. Because even though it seems like your life is over, it is honestly just beginning.

Drop by for a visit, give me a follow if you feel like it and, if you want to help spread the word, I'd adore you forever.

HA! Don't you just get the heebie-jeebies whenever somebody promises you "forever?"

A lookie-loo

Helen Howell, author of Jumping At Shadows, and hostess of the writerly blog Helen Scribbles, tagged me with The Look Challenge. This game is a relatively painless one: find the word look in your work in progress and post the neighbouring paragraphs.

The first thing I realized when I did a word search for 'look' is that I use it too damned often. There were 303 occurrences in my 87,366 word manuscript. Is that a lot? Cause it seems like a lot.

The second thing I realized was how hard it was to choose one section out of 303 occurrences. Gah, I could have spent all day choosing one bit.

Naturally I chose one involving excrement:

When Shawn was a little kid he was a veritable dog poo magnet. Everywhere he went he picked some up in the soles of his sneakers. They’d be going somewhere in the car and the heater would start working and that’s when the aroma of canine du jour would waft up to the front seat, sending his parents into a gagging, whining chorus of, “Awww, Jesus Christ on a stick, Shawn, not again!”

He’d be like, “What? What’d I do?” Butch would stop the car in a flurry of curses and he’d pile out and open the passenger door and examine his son’s feet and, sure enough, there’d be a dog turd smeared on the sole of his shoe.

“We don’t even have a Christly dog!” Butch would say as he helped Shawn clean up.

“That’s because he’s a Dog Poo Magnet,” Weezie would add. “Shawn is magnetically altered to pull in dog poo from all points of the globe. He is the north pole of dog poo. If you don’t believe me, look up Dog Poo Magnet in the dictionary and you’ll see a picture of our Shawnie.”

Of course, posting my own lookie-loo isn't enough; now I must tag five others. All of these bloggers, by the way, are writers I met at this summer's Muskoka Novel Marathon, and I chose them in honour of our marathon wrap-up event being held this Saturday in Huntsville. I had the BEST time at the marathon this year and can hardly wait to rub elbows with these guys and hear what they've been up to. 

Kevin Craig is a multi-published author and one of the kings of the novel marathon. It's amazing how fast and how well this guy writes. Also? He has literary tattoos, one for each of his books that have been published. So, as well as being king of the marathon, he's the king of cool. Srsly.

Lizann Flatt is one of Canada's best known children's authors and I had the absolute pleasure of sitting next to her at the marathon. A few years ago one of her books was selected to be involved in a very prestigious program which gives a children's book to every Grade One student in Canada. Lizann's book was chosen! How amazing is that? (Plus she's really sweet. Really sweet. Did I mention sweet?)

M-E Girard is hell on wheels. She is outrageous, outspoken and funny as the day is long. Lately her hilarious blog is ranty and raucous, just like she is. And I mean that in the nicest of all possible ways.

Sharon Ledwith gave me bling! She had bracelets and bookmarks from her new book, The Last Timekeepers, and she was handing them out to everybody at the marathon. I have worn the bracelet many times since and, whenever I do, I am reminded of how very, very nice Sharon is. 

Lori Twining? What's not to love about Lori Twining? She's a veritable cheerleader of life and her enthusiasm was full on and adorable at the marathon. Her blog is self-deprecating and charming, just like she is, and even after pulling an all-nighter at the marathon, she was still cheery and wonderful to be around.

I'm done!

I don't even know how to say this so I'll just say it: I finished my novel yesterday.

WOOT!

I had set a word count goal of 8,000 words for yesterday but by lunchtime, with only a couple of thousand words under my belt, I was closing in for the kill.

A bit later I was writing a paragraph and suddenly I realized it was the LAST paragraph. It was a stunning revelation. I had thought that writing the end would require more planning, more, I don't know, fireworks. I didn't even know this was the last paragraph... until those last few words appeared on the page and a flood of recognition washed over me in a feverish chill ... I typed a period at 2:31 p.m.

And then I started to cry.

I must say, if you're going to finish a novel, I would highly recommend you do it at a novel marathon among friends who are also writers. They truly appreciate the momentous nature of the occasion. Within minutes of that fateful finish I was hugged and high-fived, wooted, photographed, cheered and applauded.

I drove home from the marathon in a complete and utter daze. I still feel that way.

What I need to know is how I should celebrate this milestone.

Champagne?

Cake?

Dancing?

Tell me, dear friends, what I should do to celebrate.

A caveat – I'm going camping today and won't be online for about a week, but I will anxiously await your answers on my return.

Thanks to everyone for being so supportive, everyone – I am so fortunate. Hugs and big sloppy kisses to all you all. oxoxo

My novel marathon t-shirt, which I LOVE.
The caption, above, is what it says
on the back. Be careful, ex-husbands ...
you should never mess with a writer!

Let the marathon begin!

Today's the Big Day! WOOOOOOOOOOOOT! It feels like Christmas morning, only without the snowbanks, credit card hangover and egg nog brain freeze. (Egg nog brain freeze. That would be an egg nog noggin' ice cap. And a cap is a hat that sits on the noggin'. So really it would be an egg nog noggin' noggin'...)

Today – tonight, actually – is opening day for the Muskoka Novel Marathon. For the next three or four days (I'm only doing three) writers will be hunkered down in one room (Club 55 in the Algonquin Theatre building in Huntsville, Ontario), staring at their laptops, trying to squeeze out a novel from their fevered, blistered, battered brains. I mean, who DOES that?

Believe it or not, plenty of people have gone on to have these marathon novels published. Some of the best and brightest writers in this part of the world come to the marathon to accomplish just that. Judges will look at the finished manuscripts and the winner will go to a real life agent for critique and possible consideration.

I'm not going to be submitting my manuscript, however. In order to be judged, manuscripts have to be written during the marathon, with no other help other than a single page of notes. Me, I'm going to be using the marathon time to FINISH the book I already have in progress.

This whole novel has been a seat-of-the-pants adventure all along. I have a vague notion of what's going to happen but that's it. Generally I sit down at the computer and stuff pops down onto the page and usually I go, huh, that's cool, or that sucks, and keep typing. The problem is that it seems like I'm never going to finish. I'm more than 70,000 words into it with no clear end in sight. I was starting to feel like this was a triathlon with no finish line and the whole project was becoming a millstone around my tired neck.

So just recently I said, enough! And I sat down with my manuscript and a piece of paper and a pen, and I wrote down everything I wanted to happen. In point form. What appeared on the page was eight different events – eight chapters. That wasn't as daunting as I thought it was. I did some math and figured that if I wrote approximately 2,500 words per chapter, I would need to come up with approximately 18,500 more words to finish the novel.

I figured I could write 2,500 words on Friday night. Then I'd have 8,000 words to write on Saturday and 8,000 on Sunday. That breaks down to 4,000 words before lunch and 4,000 after. Or, approximately 1,000 words an hour.

It sounds kinda crazy, I know, but it's DOABLE. I know I'm perfectly capable of writing 1,000 words in an hour ... when I'm fresh ... the problem, of course, is keeping that up, hour after hour, for two days.

The good news is I'm going to be surrounded by other writers writing their faces off, too. Their fingers will be blistered. Their brains are going to be fried. Their backs will ache and their heads will be nodding as exhaustion sets in.

My, my, doesn't this sound like fun?

We will  cheer each other on, of course. We shall kibbitz. We shall LAUGH. We shall drink enough java juice to make Columbian coffee cartels dance with caffeinated joy.

I'm excited about this. My work in progress has been idle for too long. I want to FINISH. I want to start editing. I want desperately to send it out into the world. It's a fictional story that is based on my personal experiences and it's full of love, pain, sadness and great joy.

So wish my luck. Wish me strength. Wish my eyelids to remain open. And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all your generous donations. Above all else, the marathon is a fundraiser for adult literacy programs. It's writers helping readers. How great is that?

The doughnut lesson

Yesterday I talked about aging – again. Obviously one of my favourite blog topics and will likely continue to be as the rot process carries merrily along. I just wanted to say how much I loved your comments. I think everybody who chimed in feels pretty much the same about our age and our looks and how it's what's inside that really counts.

Last night this point was driven home to me by, surprise, my very own writing.

I was at my writer's group (my lovely, lovely writer's group – how I love those girls) and reading another chapter of my novel, when I came to the following paragraph. I was dazzled by my own brilliantness. If I was on Oprah, it would be The Doughnut Life Lesson. If I was Forrest Gump I'd be saying, "Life is like a box of doughnuts." 

A doughnut box lay between them, empty save for the one with sprinkles; the one in the variety pack that nobody ever eats. When they were really young, Weezie’s boys would fight over the sprinkle doughnut, dazzled by the bright coloured candy on top. But, once they realized that the sprinkles were as tasty as dust, they started fighting over the less ostentatious Boston cream or the ignominious plain old-fashioned. Weezie used the sprinkle doughnut as a lesson in life. “See?” she had told them. “Looks aren’t everything. Remember that when you’re choosing a wife.”

Lucky me, lucky Weezie

I am so excited about this! I saw the Lucky Seven meme floating around Facebook yesterday and was wish-wish-wishing that somebody would tag me because I have been dying to show off a little bit of my book! 

Imagine my complete joy this morning seeing that Helen Howell had tagged me! You must pop over and see Helen's Lucky Seven, by the way. I've been helping her with some editing and I adore her novella, 'Jumping at Shadows.'

Here’s the rules:

1. Go to page 77 in your current manuscript
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next seven lines as they are – no cheating
4. Tag 7 other authors (do it on Facebook)

Here’s my lucky seven. This is taken from my novel, my work in progress, the bane of my existence and my sweet, sweet love. I'm calling it Weezie Polk's Man Lessons and it's about a middle-aged woman with a cheating husband and a sense of humour who loses everything but gains a night in jail and a new perspective on life. Sounds familiar, right? It's based on my own story only it's more exciting and less pathetic. When it happened to me I was surprised how many so-called decent women become tangled up with the law and lose their children, their homes and their stature in society. I wanted to warn women to stay away from the emotional pitfalls that can swallow them whole in the chaos of marital separation. 

I also wanted to tell my story. It started as mine but Weezie has taken a life of her own and now the story is all hers. I love that woman. She's everything I want to be. Fierce and hopeless all at the same time. Imperfect in every way. So, thanks Helen! You don't know how much I appreciate this tag.

Anyway, here's my girl, who's in the midst of laying down the law to her cheating husband:

“The minute there’s any tension in this house, you’re gone. And no talking to that woman, either. Oh, and you’re sleeping in the basement.” 

Butch smiled. A tiny, tired smile. “I figured,” he said. “Thank you, Weezie. I’m sorry about all this. I am, you know. Sorrier than you know. You married yourself a real asshole.” 

Weezie ignored the apology. 

“No tension,” she repeated. “I mean it.” 

And then she invited the vampire into her house. 

Now, to tag seven authors: Lou Freshwater, Mark Kerstetter, Laurita Miller, Dawn, Paula, Linda and Sasha. The last four names are the ladies of my writer's group and I love them silly. None of them blog but all of them have stunning works in progress that I get to listen to every two weeks.

Thanks again, Helen!