Jack Reacher: Movie Review by a Book Lover

I went into the theater with a chip on my shoulder. Tom Cruise as the invincible Jack Reacher? No way. Jack is like 6’6” and like 230 lbs. Cruise is just a skinny little guy with a body more like a teenager than a man. How can he possibly play this hero I’ve been reading for years?

So why did I go? One reason; Lee Child. This author gave me Jack Reacher and many great books in which to live for a little while. How could I not go and support an author who’s given me such great times?

During the opening scenes I had to keep reminding myself to calm down, give it a chance. Keep an open mind. It was hard at first…and then I got sucked right into Reacher-world.

Tom Cruise aced Jack Reacher.

There, I said it. And by the end of the movie I could definitely see him step into the skin of our hero. There were several reasons this worked.

Tom put on some weight for this character; mostly muscle.  When he took off his shirt his body had the muscular thickness I could see on a man I visualize as Reacher. Tom looked better than I’ve ever seen him in any of this other movies. Skinny kid gone, grown man awesome.

Camera angles. Tom didn’t appear 6’6” but he did come across as taller in most of the scenes. Good camera work made him appear larger overall which let us see him as a possible Reacher. It wasn’t there all the time but enough so that Tom definitely came across as much more than the skinny character he’s played in movies like Mission Impossible. 

The story was true Lee Child. The language of Lee came through in almost all of the scenes and they stayed true to character of Jack Reacher. We see him buying new clothing and dumping his old stuff in a Good Will bin. Yes, his toothbrush is in his pocket!  A little sexy, a little unreachable, very dynamic.

Action scenes were awesome. From the fight scenes to the car chases. I was on the edge of my seat throughout. It was Reacher style fighting, no holds barred and dirty as anything we’ve read in the books. Totally fitting our beloved Reacher.

If you’ve read the book you see things from the inside of Reacher’s head and because this is a movie you don’t get that as much but that’s true with every movie. However the plot was there and kept us on the edge of our seat. There were moments I had to cover my eyes the action was so graphic. (That’s a good thing!) I laughed out loud, nearly screamed with fright and wanted to yell at the screen at times. (I restrained myself since the woman in front of me was doing enough of that for everyone ~ )

When we go to the theater, if the movie was GREAT we call it a “Buy”. Meaning we have to get the DVD when it comes out so we can see it again and again. Jack Reacher was definitely a “Buy” in my book.  I’d go see it again today if my family wouldn’t think I was crazy.

Well played Tom. Jack Reacher gets 5 STARS in my book. Go see it and keep an open mind. I’m glad I did. One more thing: make sure you check out the sexy desk Sargent…..

Unemployed and Uninspired

Maybe its the holiday season but getting a pink slip two weeks before Christmas can be a bit of a downer. Now you worry about money and doing all those things you're used to doing. First file for unemployment. Get that out of the way so some cash comes in while we decide what to do.

Reality? We show up for work on Monday morning, 2 of the bosses are sitting in reception. Look over and see none of the computers have monitors on them. Ut oh!

"Yeah," says boss #1, "Ut oh. We're closing up shop."

Just like that.

Everyone in the office is unemployed 2 weeks before Christmas. Merry you too.

To tell the truth I wasn't surprised. The last two months it seemed people had too much free time. When I brought this subject up others in the office weren't worried. "Look what good moods the bosses are in!" they would say. Good moods indeed. They were in that office every single day laughing and joking. This leads me to believe they did know what was coming and were probably milking the biz for all they could get. Why else would a floundering business put the powers in such a good mood. Get it while it's hot, folks!

So now what? To write or not to write? Better to use this time to finish one of the great American Novels I have under my keyboard or should I jump back into the rat race, find another boring job and kill my soul?

I vacillate back and forth trying to come up with the answer. Universe? Send me a sign!

Challenging Youself

One of the writers I most admire is Zoe Winters. She regularly posts her word count and how far she's gotten in her lastest WIP.  I need to do this. Not post it per say, but challenge myself to get X amount of pages done each day. In Stephen King's book, On Writing he says he completes at least 10 pages a day. Now I question if he perfects those 10 pages with edits or does he just blow them out to come back and edit later? Probably a little of both since we know writing isn't an exact science. I usually plow through to the end but sometimes I back track.
So what word count to set?
I work full time, volunteer and just started piano lessons. :) So with all that on my plate, what would be a viable word count? Should it be set for each day? Week? Or should it be a time goal? X amount of hours each day or week?
Sometimes 10 pages fly by, other times 5 pages are absolutely painful and time is a factor when you work 8 hours a day.
Do you set word/page goals? Are they daily or weekly?

How do you get it done? 

Work of Art for Writers

There was a show on Bravo for two seasons (I'm praying it comes back!) that brought like 20 artists together for a competition: Work of Art, the next great artist. Each week they'd be given an assignment, work through it and then it goes to the gallery for judging and some one's eliminated. I loved this show. Watching the artistic process, seeing how each artist comes up with his own ideas for challenge and the rush to finish by the deadline.
So I was thinking this would be cool for writers except for one thing....watchin a dozen or so writers sit and curse at their puters while they pounded the keys and hit the delete button probably wouldn't be too entertaining.
Too bad.
However, I could probably watch Stephen King write.
Not matter how interesting the process, the grunt work isn't always that entertaining in some industries. Watching a work of art go from lumps of clay and paint to magical works can be interesting. When writing the excitement is all in your head. The scenes are like visions that take us into another, far away world that is much more fun than everyday stuff.

So here I sit on a Sunday afternoon, ignoring the counter clutter, laundry and other stuff, to go into that far away land inside my brain. Its so much more interesting than anything else I could be doing today.

Forcing it?

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you write just as long as you write. Forcing something down on paper/keyboard can be liberating. Sometimes.
Other times its torture.
I have several books completed, but not ready for public viewing. Some are shorter, but still book length but there's a few that are huge. When I can't wrap my brain around anything new I go back and play in these books. There are a few that I really like and would love to see them all polished up for Amazon, but for some reason I procrastinate. I believe this is some kind of phobia. If I finish them I'll put them up on Amazon and God forbid someone hates them! Crushing!
And then there's all these new stories in my head that keep nagging at me.
The full time job really gets in my way.
I have a really boring job and actually have time to work on my stories there, but its a room full of cubes and everyone can see each other. Just when I'm in the zone and going good someone demands my attention. Its like walking out of a cloud. Suddenly I'm not miles into my story but being yanked back into the cube-world. (I hate cube world) I did try to use head phones but the others objected because I didn't jump when they wanted my attention. Even if it wasn't about work--all summer long we do NOTHING--they were still offended that I would zone out on them. Heaven forbid I miss the building's gossip!
So now my writing time is either early morning, before work or after work or at night. Morning is when I do my best writing but sometimes I get so pulled into the story I lose all track of time and end up being late for work...where I'll sit in a cube and do nothing for hours. After work is better but there's dinner to make, family to talk to and dogs to walk. I usually practice piano after work too. Sometimes there's meetings.
I admire Zoe Winters who sets word count goals and meets them. Maybe that's what I should do. Page or word goals to get the job done.

Any other goal setting ideas? How do you get it done?

Ambition...where did it go?

I feel foolish confessing my writing has fallen by the wayside. Normally writing is my savior. Its where I go to hide from the world. In the past year it feels as if I lost something. That drive inside me that makes it so I HAVE TO write has faded, vanished, slammed into park and refuses to move. I can't seem to jump start anything to do with writing.
This scares me a bit.
I've been painting a lot and have started to learn piano, but I know these are substitutes for that thing inside me that wants to be writing.
As silly as it may seem I blame this on a loss of a pet. Elvis, my parrot of 11 years died suddenly. He was jumped on by one of the dogs I fostered and died in my hands. He nipped my finger once and was gone. I cried for days. I'm still crying inside and the smallest things can set me off. Its been over 6 months and still my heart weeps. I blame myself. I was his protector and I failed. His death is all my fault.  I don't blame the dog. Something fell beside him and he pounced. My daughter and I were standing right there and still couldn't stop it. I don't even think the dog knew what it was when he jumped on it. Probably thought it was a toy. Dogs move instinctively. I was the failure. Elvie's death is mine. I should have kept him safe.
Silly, I know but since then I can't write. I don't know what I'm waiting for, or why I've been so stuck over this. He's not the first pet I lost and I'm sure won't be the last. But parrots are special. They are almost like little people. He talked and would say the absolutely right thing at the right time. He ate when we ate, slept when we slept and was part of the family. I miss him terribly.
They say grief has five stages; Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I guess I'm in depression since there is no guilt. Or maybe there should be guilt. Or is that in bargaining? Am I trying to bargain my way out of guilt? Justify that I didn't keep him safe?
I know accidents happen and we can't stop the world, but still my heart broke when Elvis left me.
Weirdly, about two weeks before he died I had this overwhelming feeling that he was going to be gone soon. Like I looked at him once and knew he would leave me soon. The thought so horrified me that I shook it off immediately.
If I ever have pychic powers I don't want to know things like that but sometimes...
Why don't I ever get the lottery numbers? Something useful.

Then a few months ago my dog died. Halston was 16 and a golden retriever so we knew it was coming. Still didn't make it any easier.
So now I'm plodding through an old story, trying to get it ready for Kindle but my heart's just not in it.
Tell me how to get "it" back. That thing inside that makes you write. I think it's still there. It just won't come out and play.

Captured!

Putting it out there...

We all know the scary side of going Indy is putting your real name out there with a big bold sign that says LOOK WHAT I DID.  When we were real little most were anxious to show our artwork or newest creation to the world. We vied for attention of adults. Then getting older we were suddenly too cool to care. Shrugs, head  flips, acting out in other directions, and, for some, hiding replaced our anxiousness to share.

Stephen King never seemed to have this problem. He wrote in his book, On Writing, that he was sending stuff out to magazines even as a kid. He had a big nail in the wall over his desk and used to spike the rejection letters onto it. I find this brave stuff for someone of such a young age. 

I had good parents. We were on the poorer side of life but happy. My parents went the extra mile to talk with us and be active in our interests. When the teen years hit I was mostly a hider. I hid my stories and most of my art work but for the life of me I don't know why. Even after high school I wouldn't show my work to anyone. I got married, never shared. Had kids and made up stories just for them and let the adult stories fall by the wayside.

Then I met Leni. Our kids were in kindergarten and we'd sit outside by this big tree waiting for them to come out of class and talk. She was one of the smartest people I'd ever met. A voracious reader, Leni was the kind of person who believed we were capable of anything. Eventually, I told her about one of  my stories and her first reaction was: PUBLISH IT! I stared at her. Never in all my years of writing had I thought of publishing anything. I wrote because I couldn't not write. But Leni was a do-er. She saw something and did it. She was amazing and encouraging and I decided to write something aiming to publish.

The story was about a woman who went back in time to the days right before the Civil War. It went into how a woman from the 80's  adapted to life without all our modern conveniences and how she dealt with the climate of slavery, suppression of women's rights, etc. It was a hard write. I'm way too liberal to be able to survive that without a fight.
That story is in a box somewhere and will probably never surface again, but I have to thank Leni, my dear friend, for giving me the power to put it out there. Without her I'd still be hiding. Leni passed away from MS but her spirit has never left me. She was all that was good in the world.

My question under all this is when did you decide to put it out there? How did you find the courage?

Marketing....the other side of Indy work

As in any art things are a work in progress. Even after the book is written and rewritten and rewritten there's more to do. Once the story's told we move on to preparing it for publication/formatting, cover art, and then correcting the formatting.
When I first put Soul Mates up for some reason in the first paragraph (and only the first) all the "o's" turned into zeros "0". Very weird. Then I saw all my other typos! Yikes! How embarrassing.
All corrected...hopefully.

Moving on to marketing (Yuk!) Marketing is like stripping naked and running down Main Street. You want people to notice you but actually putting yourself out there is intimidating.
So you Facebook your people, email your friends and then attack the web.
I'm just starting the attack and am in the process of building a website. Scary putting your real name on a website. Here in Aimless land I'm pretty anonymous, but out there I am who I am.

www.jeannedonnelly.com

For better or for worse.
But like the tiger and life in general: Its a work in progress. 
Now where should marketing go from here? I have a few ideas and I'll be blogging them later. Where did you go with it?

Punctuation!

I see the story unfolding and suddenly someone yells. Woof! Woof! Woof! (It makes sense in book, I promise)

So since I've been warned by writers and an agent that we should never use exclamation marks. So I stare at the page...what to do, what to do....
I need to read some more. I usually read constantly, two or three books at a time, but lately I've been painting. When my soul is sad I paint. All other emotions I can write through, but not sadness. For some reason slopping paint on canvas works. Its like blanking my mind out in a way nothing else does. Time ceases, paint heals.
I miss reading. This has gone on way too long. I need to get over the losses and find a way back to what I enjoy.
Maybe then I can see what other writers do about the woof.

Blogging, Facebook, and time...

I love bloggers. I have a list of blogs I used to visit daily, but I'm sad to say I've drifted away from blogging. It seemed like a giant slow down on all the bloggers and I know we all have real lives that take us away from all this, but I think when I was blogging all my writing moved better. It was almost like morning pages (see The Artist's Way) that were meant to flex the writer's muscle in a way to clear the clutter.
Then there's Facebook that can really chew up time. It's entertaining and keeps us in touch with friends and relatives we don't get to hear from on a daily basis. I love seeing what my nieces and nephews are up to even if I haven't seen them in a while. Then two hours fly by and I realize I've done nothing. Facebook is a time-sucker.
Finally there's this job I have to go to everyday because I need to earn money. Even when I do have down time (and there's a lot where I work) the other people in the office are always chattering so I find it hard to concentrate enough to write. I tried head phones but people get upset when I tune them out. They have nothing important to say to me, but want me ready to answer anyway.
I used to get up an hour early to write. I made it a job I went to everyday. Where did this determination go? 

To get back to writing on a regular basis I'm trying to start with getting back to blogging. Flexing the writing muscle that I hope will get me writing regularly again.

I NEED OTHER WRITERS

There are several reason why writers need other writers. Number one is you can't write in a vacuum. If you take one tip from each writer you meet it moves you that much closer to being an awesome writer.
Writer's groups give you special insight into how your work looks from the outside in. When i write and rewrite and rewrite I miss the simplest things. A good writer's group will tag these things and offer suggestions to improve. I had a great writers group at one time but it dissolved when Barnes & Nobel kicked all their groups out. In protest I don't shop at B & N anymore. I'm an Amazon girl now. I think removing the chairs and groups was a big mistake on their part. I belonged at several groups in our local store and they just stopped all of them and removed those cozy little seating arrangements. Pity. I never left a group without buying something on the way out. Now that I'm not there for my group, I shop on Amazon. My bank account is grateful but I miss my group. One of the members was an agent and she was awesome with the grammar and punctuation. Another was a multi published author who gave amazing critique. Miss those peeps.
I need other writers for insight into the publishing biz. Its changing. Agents used to be the gatekeepers to the world where only the ubber talented and lucky (yes, i think some are just lucky) get passed onto the major publishing houses. Now with Amazon cracking the lock down on the publishing biz its a whole new world for publishing. Other writers are a wealth of information on the in and outs of this new world.
I need other writers for inspiration. Every time I hear about the success of one of my writer friends it inspires me to work harder. I rejoice for every book they publish, every bridge they cross and every moment they shine in the author spotlight. These amazing writers, who forge ahead in conventional publishing or the new world of Kindle and Nook, give me hope.

I need them all.

Characters---Why does my rogue need a rule?
1. One of the first things I heard about character rules was not to name your main characters with the same beginning initial.
Reggie and Regina will confuse your reader especially if you name their kids Rudy and Rebecca. The theory behind this thought is that all the "R's" will get mixed up in the reader's brain. Not sure I believe this, but it might be true. What do you think?
2. I have a problem with books introduce too many characters in the first chapter. Yes, I know the characters build the story and we need to see our main character's interaction with them to get a feeling for who he/she is, but too many all at once is just a blur of names and later when the character comes back into the limelight I'm confused as to who it is and sometimes have to go back and find out his relationship to everyone. In doing so I fall out of the story while I search.
3. Bad behavior from the main character that is out of character. I used to read the Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton until she started sleeping with the detective (Kinsey, not Sue) while the detective's wife was very ill with some incurable illness. Gee, how sleezy. Excuse me, he's still married and she's sick. I thought; how low can you go? This made me stop reading because I suddenly disliked the morals of the main character. Call me a prude, but this behavior hit close to home. My best friend was very sick with MS and we discovered her husband was cheating on her. I know no one knows the journey of another until you've walked a mile in their moccasins but still...ewww, he's a cheater and she's the cheater-enabler. What happened to "until death we do part"? I missed the codicil that says, "except if you're really sick then I get to have sex with my coworkers".
I understand I'm a woman and men may not feel the same about this issue but it really did ruin the series for me.
4. Rambling. This is subjective. Unless it's painting the picture...move on. I want story not six pages about the color of the drapes or how grandma spun the wool to make the  thread to sew the drapes. Unless of course someone steals the drapes and wraps the body in them and the DNA brings grandma's lineage to justice.
What character rules do you follow?

Five Days of Writing- Or Things I've Learned about Writing

Day One- Mechanics
I aced English. Loved it. Played with it, memorized it.
When I me an agent in a writer's group and she took out her quick, red pen, I realized just how much I didn't know about English. Or maybe I just didn't remember as much as I thought I did.

Punctuation-commas go before the word "but", but only in certain places. They connect two thoughts within a sentence. Sometimes they don't.  You use them in a series and belong before the word "and" as in: He had meat, potatoes, string beans, and salad. However, somewhere along the line one of the news lines wanted to save space and decided to wipe out that last comma to read: He had meat, potatoes, string beans and salad. I learned this when writing for one of the info sites on the net. I got tagged for putting the comma in by one editor and tagged for not putting it in by another editor for the same site. (That's a whole different post! If you wrote for them, you know who they are.) I went and looked it up and discovered it was a space saving thing done by a big news site. I think it was app but don't quote me.
And let's not forget that commas saved grandma.
Let's eat grandma!
Let's eat, grandma!
Oscar Wilde once said he spent most of the day putting in commas and the rest of the day taking them out.
Since I write fiction, let's talk quotes and the connected tag line.
"I love puppies," Jane said as she scooped a warm ball of fur into her arms. Since Jane uttered a complete sentence I'd think the period should go after puppies, but I'd be wrong.  The entire thought is about Jane's words and actions so they are connected with a comma. Weirdly correct.
However if the sentence continues after the tag we use another comma.
"I've loved puppies, Jane said as she scooped up a warm ball of fur, "ever since I was a child."
After this and more I've decided I hate punctuation. Blah. And don't get me started on Its and It's...they hurt my brain.
Punctuation is essential in good writing, but sometimes fiction bends the rules. Setting something apart so the reader will hear the voice of the character or mood of the story can be done with correctly placed punctuation. It can add dynamic expression.
If.
Done.
Right.
Which are incomplete subjects/thoughts and completely wrong, but work so well in some places.
It can also get grandma eaten by cannibals so be careful with your commas, quotes and periods.
Tomorrow we'll talk about character dos and don't s and if any of them can be write or wrong.
:)

SOUL MATES (A different kind of Love Story)

Soul Mates (A different kind of Love Story) is now fixed up and available at Amazon.com for Kindle.
I'm done with this one. Finally. My daughter told me that at some point I have to stop editing the editing and just let it fly.
So it's flying. Good or bad, weak or strong. I have to let go.
Whew!
In a way letting go feels good. Like a burden--- No, I don't like that word. It was never a burden. It was a journey. Sometimes fun, sometimes stressful, sometimes confusing. Letting go is like having a heavy weight that is lifted off your shoulders. Not a bad weight, but a weight just the same.
Letting go also begets a moment or ten of panic.
I'M NOT READY!
It's not ready.
Panic is ugly.
But this is it. Soul Mates is ready to meet an audience. I hope they enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It was a good trip
Ciao for now. 

Re-do!

Ok, went through the Kindle copy of Soul Mates and found all the bugs. (some typos too...I'm so embarrassed!) Everything should be fixed by tomorrow if I can get my partner in this crime to move on it. Little things, nothing big, but for some reason undetectable before uploading.
I don't know if some of this was just stuff I missed or if the conversion to Kindle warped somethings. I did see some weird stuff like a few "o's" that went thought to become "0's". Now really, a zero? This was definitely s0mething that w0uld have glared 0ut from the page. Besides, numbers are s0mething I have to reach for and not the easiest thing to type repeatedly in several words without n0ticing.
A few wrong line breaks too but those were few and far between.
Whew!
This is quite a journey for one little novella. I haven't really done any advertising or blasted it out to more than a few close people. One already asked me for a print copy since he doesn't have Kindle.
Now I have to consider the other options. Nook? Create Space? What do you do? Where do you find the most success?
After trying to advertise a bit I'm back to working on the next book. It's written but needs some desperate editing.

Formatting glitch!

I downloaded Soul Mates on my Kindle and for some weird reason some of the "o"s are coming up as 0 (zeros). Very weird. I found one word that was correct in my document and come out as a different word on the downloaded Kindle version. Close but not right.
Now we're going back to figure out if it was just weird on my Kindle or will it download incorrectly on all of them. Probably, right? So I can't blast it out to the universe right now. :( >sigh<
And I was so excited to get this up on Amazon. I did email the link to a few close friends/family as sort of a test market. One of them was my brother, an editor for a major newspaper, who already grabbed it up. In a panic, I shot him an email right away about the formatting issues because I didn't want him to think I was that stupid! or that bad a typist.
Anyone else have these formatting issues? Could it be the font? What font do you use? Tips? Hints? Aside from these issues everything else looks okay. Paragraphs are working, chapter breaks, etc. all look good.

Soul Mates is on Kingle

My novella, Soul Mates (A different kind of love story), is up for sale on Kindle! After a tragic death on mean city streets, a woman meets God and begs him to let her reincarnate to bring the heavenly message of unconditional love to the world. Follow the adventure when she is tossed back to earth as one of the smallest dogs on the planet.

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Mates-ebook/dp/B007KLDXF6/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1331838726&sr=1-1
How can this be exciting and frightening at the same time? It's a good thing, it's what I wanted, I really like this story but sharing it with the world scares the heck out of me. I can see the cover is a little pixeled and I have to fix that ASAP. I bought it for my own kindle so I can check it. Problem: I've read this book 8 million times so am I really going to know a problem when I see one? Now I get the second and third thoughts. Does the story flow, is it too wordy, did I stay in character, does it all make sense? Did I price it right, What about the title page? Was I suppose to do something else? Okay, Universe! Do with it what you will. I'm going to go channel all this worry energy into my next book....I need to bang on the keyboard for a bit. Happy Reading!

Smashwords?

I'm hoping to have my novella up on Amazon soon. I've thought about doing it somewhere in print form but not sure if it's worth it. Should I watch and see how it does as an ebook first? I'm not even sure how to do it in print yet. Smashwords? What is that other one? I forget.
I know some people who don't have kindle or nook and I'm wondering if I should do paperback or since it's a novella and only 156 pages, is it worth it?
And what about Nook? If you Kindle, do you Nook, too? I like the writing part of this business better. All this ebook publishing and paperback issues are sooo confusing. It's like a whole new world. I guess this is how the agents earn their money. All these details make my head spin.

And people think all this writing and publishing is easy. If you mention that you write people always have a book they want me to write for them, a story idea they want me to turn into a book or a genius remake of something already out there. And they'll split the profits with me. Isn't that nice? I write the book, do all the editing and stuff and they will be nice and split the cash. They don't even know if I can write or what type of books I write, but they'll make the deal with me to write their book.
Ha!
They have no idea of the crap shoot writing is. If you can get the book actually written, edited, edited and edited, and sent out a ga-jillion times to publishing houses and agents you might just get a bite. And a year from now, if you're lucky, it might see print.
Now we have indy ebooking. Much better but still not a sure thing. You can get your book up but then you have to sell, sell, sell.
When people ask me to write their book I tell them to give me a complete outline and character sketch of all main characters. So far no one's gotten back to me. hmmmmm...

Book Covers

Book covers are important, they draw people in, make them want to read and tell something about whats inside. And getting one designed for an ebook can be expensive.
But that's not why I did my own.
I like completing a project. The cover is part of the whole book and I do have some things I want to show. And I love art. I paint, draw and do other kind of brochure, design work on the side so the book cover is something I want to do.
In Soul Mates the main character goes to heaven; see sky and clouds. She comes back to earth as a dog; see paw prints.
Now I worry that this cover is a bit simplistic. I worry if people will get the right message. I want the readers who like dogs and maybe a bit of the heaven-god story peeps too.
The only thing I don't have is the actual dog and I vacillated quite a bit over finding a dog to put on the cover. Then I wondered if this wasn't your kind of dog would you turn away because it wasn't the dog sitting at your feet. So dog came off the cover and now I wonder if THAT was the right move. Decisions, decisions, decisions.... So? Opinions?

Next Project

As I wait for Soul Mates to go up on the Kindle store I'm contemplating my next project. I have several books finished in first draft but need to think about genre. Blurb for Soul Mates: After a tragic death on mean city streets, a woman meets God and begs him to let her reincarnate to bring the heavenly message of unconditional love to the world. Follow the adventure when she is tossed back to earth as one of the smallest dogs on the planet.
So should I stay in the same genre. I mean if I want to create a name for myself? What if my next book is a tad darker? Serial killers, demons, darkness...would I blow my chance at forming a readership? I'm guessing people who like animals and feel good stories should like this story.
Or should I come up with something softer, more in line with Soul Mates? I do have a few ideas. I also have a Vampire story I'm having fun writing but that is so far out of left field that I'm thinking it wouldn't make good next book for the Kindle store. So now I spend my writing times rocking back and forth on which to work on, what should I be aiming for and playing with my T-shirt designs. Crazy Painter T's

It's close...almost ready to upload to Amazon's Kindle store. Editing, editing and more editing, cover work, formatting problems, formatting solutions and now...soon...up it goes.
This is scary as hell.
It's like telling the world to take your talent, ego, and hopes of success and tie them up in a big knot and stomp on them. Fold, spindle, mutilate. And this is only a novela. Something small and cute. Not the giant wordy thrillers I've been trying to pare down. I'm putting this up as a test. Can I really do this? Be the writer I see in my heart? Actually sell a book?
Scary
Exciting
Scary
Exciting
>insert deep heartfelt sigh here<
In the mean time I'm working on another book. A more serious book far away from the genre of the first. (that worries me--that my writing spans several genres and how am I ever going to develop a following?)
And I'm making T-shirt designs. Crazy Painter T's
It's what I do when I'm not writing or painting because sitting still isn't an option. If I sit still I think about these the scary prospect of strangers reading and critiquing my work. I know you can't please everyone. I'm really not interested in trying. But still...
Scary
Exciting
How do you guys shove your work out there and still stay sane? Does it get easier with the next book? Does the anxiety ever go away?

Spacey Kindle Issues

In formatting for Kindle, uploading the manuscript on Kindle to see how it looked wasn't helpful. It went up with all these weird sentence breaks. So now I don't know if when I put it up on Amazon for download, if it will have these same weird line breaks. Frustration. The Amazon publishing guide didn't answer this issue. This book, Soul Mates, isn't even on of my favorite things I've written. I like it well enough but I wrote it on a dare and then kind of liked the story. It's more of a novella and I'm putting it up as an experiment so I'm trying not to obsess over this stuff. But I still want it to be perfect. Maybe its the Virgo in me. Then yesterday I downloaded a free preview of a book and it has the same weird line breaks. Like you're tolling along and suddenly in the middle of the sentence the words drop down on a different line. Why? Did this guy format the manuscript wrong? Was there some other conversion issue I'm missing here? Anyone else experience this issue?

Where to Hide the Bodies...

In trying to make room in my creative cave for a futon (I do need somewhere to do my thinking) I took to cleaning out stuff I hadn't seen in a long time. First I dumped the old or even semi-old paint, cleared out the misfit brushes, stained water cans, and all those things I cut out of magazines, printed off the net and random sketches of what I wanted to paint someday. Then I turned to that big bin under my work bench and found it was packed with pages of some really old stories. Some 400 pages or better, some shorts and some stuff I still have on my computer and work on occasionally. And even some written on a typewriter (am I dating myself here?) and in the computer paper with the holes on the side. There were a couple of note books with a hand written story that encompassed 3 books. I barely remember writing it. It was real hard to keep cleaning and not stop and read it all though. There were some poems I must have written at a really angry time, old love poems and then the usual weird stuff that pops out of my brain if I'm not on alert. It was really hard to let this stuff go. I know there's a few boxes in the attic and maybe one or two of those under the bed storage boxes under my bed with pages and pages of stories and that, realistically, I'll never do anything with. I'll never polish, publish or even read them but for some reason it's comforting to have them here. I think of them as a legacy of sorts. Maybe someday when I'm gone my kids will read these things and know a little bit more about what made me tick. That the woman who took care of them, raised them and set them loose on the world was a bit more than chief cook and bottle washer. But then again...maybe they shouldn't see too far into my mind...it might make them wonder about my sanity. So where do you keep your bodies? And why do you keep them?

Kindle Tips?

In formatting a book from word for the kindle the information out there seems confusing. Different websites seem to say different things. I think the writing is easy compared to all this detail stuff. Anyone know of a good website that's easy to understand about formatting for Kindle? Did you format and upload your own book or pay someone? One good thing about going the traditional publishing route is that someone else does all this grunt work for you. After watching more and more new and established authors go Indy I wonder how the publishing houses feel? I once went to a conference where they had this machine that would print on demand. Put the instructions in one end and a fully binded book pops out the other end. They hoped to sell this machine to schools, stores and anyone who wanted an instant book. This was supposed to be the new thing in publishing. this was a few years before Kindle hit the market.

Now that Amazon and all the Indy epub opportunities are here I wonder what the future of traditional publishing will bring.

Responsibility & Life

So much of life is about taking responsibility. Responsibility for a job, car/house payment, kids, pets and so on and so on and so on. Sometimes it's scary and sometimes its exciting. I finished my book, Soul Mates and its in final edits (at least I hope they're final!) and soon it will be up on Amazon. It excites me, it scares the hell out of me. And its a responsibility too. When this goes out with any mistakes, typos or story line glitches its out there for the world to see. Scary. Sink or swim. No take backs. Sometimes I think the only way people succeed is if they drop the fear, take the responsibility and just go for it. Was Thomas Edison afraid to flip the switch and let them see his new toy? Did he wonder if he'd be laughed at or just figure his toy was so awesome of course they would love it. Maybe Thomas' experience isn't quite the right one to bring forth. But as for writers? The traditional writers wouldn't be a comparison because they had editors, professional designers, and a whole crew at a publishing house. I forgo all that to jump in as an Indy. Somedays I want to shout; TELL ME I'M NOT CRAZY! Going it alone is scary and thrilling. And with great power comes great responsibility. Soon. What's that dog got to so with all this responsibility stuff? She's my foster dog Daisy. Came up from Tennessee before Christmas and I think her situation might have been abusive. She sometimes flinches when I raise my hand. She didn't play or even look at the toys until she was here over two weeks. She came a fragile little ball of fur and is slowly coming to trust. Finding a home for a dog like this is a great responsibility. I want the home to be loving and kind and most of all gentle with this lost little soul. I want to make the best choice when I match her to a forever family. See, it's the "R" word again. It follows our lives like ...well i was going to say the stars above and be nice and poetic but the vision that hits me is like gum stuck to your shoe or too much peanut butter in the roof of your mouth. It's there, it's sticky and you can't get rid of it. So I guess I'll embrace it.