I'm trying to laugh at myself right now.
Usually it's just my kids laughing at me, but now I'm bound and determined to laugh while I chalk up my impulsive and oopsish behavior to my yet-to-be diagnosed ADD. Here's the scoop: I self-published three of my books in July. yeah, cheer, cheer, yay - but all is not well in publishing land... Mistake #1 - 'self-publish' Enough said. It costs around $1,300.00 per book to have it professionally edited so I will continue to 'self-publish' until I make my first million - which will not be anytime soon due to Mistake #2. Mistake #2 - uploaded wrong book Long story short. I was too lazy to get my hard drive, so I edited my third book on my computer without backing it up. When I uploaded the book, I sent the old version into the internet stratosphere forgetting that it was the version littered with grammatical errors and several gaping plot holes. [imagine scary face emoji here] Mistake #3 - advertised wrong book The only books I've sold were those to friends and family (basically courtesy purchases), so a friend suggested that I have a 'free' promotion for a week in order to get the word out. I happily put the book on the 'Free Book Promotion' sacrificial table and let nature do its worst. Unfortunately, I accidentally clicked on the third book (with errors) instead of the first one. 1 + 2 + 3 = please say it isn't so It took me about five hours to realize my mistakes. Don't ask me how I figured it out, but it all came to me as I was sitting in church. Thank you Lord, not only for bringing my errors to light, but for giving me the sense not to freak out in the middle of the sermon. (Don't tell my husband that I broke a few laws driving the five miles back to my house after church.) I immediately jumped on the computer to fix everything but the damage had already been done. Twenty books were purchased. I'm now just waiting for the awful reviews to pour in... - This woman should not be writing. - Was this written by a four year old? - LOL - joke, right? - Do you have an English version of the book? - Best book I've ever read! The last one, of course, would be Mom's review. Sooo... my sincere apologies go out to the readers that had to trudge through the unedited version of my third book. I will certainly not be making that mistake again. Though I'm sure I have about a thousand more just waiting to jump out and scare me during the sermon at church. C'mon and get me mistakes! I'm ready. You'll find me sitting here laughing at myself... along with my teenagers.
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The reason my first few novelettes are going to be sufficiently incorrect will be mainly due to the fact that I'm too cheap and lazy to perform any decent research.
Where does one even begin to research these things anyway? I am surely a googling professional by now but oft find myself drifting from researching scholarly articles describing predictive analytics to perusing Ryan Gosling 'Hey Girl' memes. Yes, I'm an addict. I've also been known to spend senseless hours tittering over my biggest downfall - stupid autocorrects. Hence, once again I find myself asking this question: To whom can I go for an easy answer to a difficult question about predictive behavioral analytics without paying, bribing, blackmailing or generally actually talking to anyone? Or emailing. Or texting for that matter because I've partied with statisticians before and I don't think I could run with that crowd again. Therefore, I certainly can't raise myself to a level in which I'd feel confident enough to hand over my cell number. If you are a giving person, you work with data models and are interested in pursuing an non-paid, non-communicative, non-partying, relationship with a non-published, non-communicative, non-statistician-level-partier then you're the one that can save the day! You'll even have an opportunity to read my first three novelettes for FREE! Now how's that for a bribe? If you have to ask what a data model is and you're thinking Christie Brinkley with a Vizio this is not the job for you. Well, actually... it may be... You sound like someone that could actually believe the less than fully researched data analytics and would be willing to skim over a few pages to get to the exciting stuff giving me at least four stars on Amazon. Yeah. On the other hand, get me a Starbucks barista. They usually seem too smart for their britches. I'll ask them my pertinent questions and hope for sufficient answers. Answers that will make me sound like I know what I'm talking about without coming off like those partying statisticians I used to hang out with in the early nineties. Yes Mr. TaeWan Impress-me-with-your-processing-skills. I'm talking to you. (Heh heh. I can say this because I'm mighty sure he'll never, ever, ever let's hope ever read a goofy blog like this). Anyway, back to the laziness and cheapness factor. I'm just going to hope the people reading my books will be either too drunk in the beauty of the story or too far removed from knowledge of data models (far removed as in growing up in an aboriginal walkabout camp) to care that the facts are inaccurate. Wish me luck! I have no shame. I'm stealing a friends identity. No, not for myself. I could never reach the heights of this glorious individual. I'm stealing her identity for my next book. I've already warned her of the kidnapping and she doesn't seem to mind. I guess her identity is something she is willing to surrender willingly. I, however, would be less likely to accept such an offer.
For one, my life is quite boring. So anyone that would want to use my identity for a new book would have my deepest sympathies because they will surely only sell four copies of the book. One for myself, one for the author to place on his or her bookshelf, one for the author's mother and one for my mother (who loves pretty much any book). I'm not going to use my friend's name. OK, maybe just her first name. It really is a fabulous name. But NO HINTS. I'm not going to use her full name. I won't even tempt you with her actual employer. I will only tease you with the fact that she is very adventurous, fun, glamorous, and unlikely to make fun of me when, scratch that, IF my book flops. For my next nail biting novel I am trekking through he beautiful and overwhelming streets of Nepal. I had the idea of writing this story before the terrible earthquakes hit, so I'm teetering on thoughts of including the disaster. I'm eighty percent sure I will avoid any mention of the catastrophe because it's just too hard for me to fathom in real life. I can't imagine trying to tackle it in a book with any semblance of understanding. I can barely watch the news of the event. It's heart-breaking to see what the people have gone through. So the book will be taking place prior to April 2015. I'm still not finished with the third book of my last series so I may be flip flopping back and forth between novels. Hopefully I'll be able to keep all the characters straight. I found myself mired in writers block with the last book because I made the plot line too difficult to sort out, so I'm going to have to do some serious cutting on that one. I figured that starting with a fresh little novelette would give me a pleasant enough break. Enough of a break that would bring life back to my addled mind. So here I go, diving into a Nepalese mystery that will hopefully excite readers and make my friend-of-stolen-identity very happy. Today is a selfish day, so here I will begin.
I took a selfish "sick" day off work. I will selfishly barely clean the house. I will selfishly read until my eyes are blurry. I will selfishly read books that I like (not just things that look acceptable on GoodReads) I will selfishly sit on the back patio most of the day breathing in the beauty of the towering southern pines, the shimmering lake ( I will selfishly refuse to call it a retention pond), the dancing dragonflies, overly-caffeinated hummingbirds, judgmental cardinals, diving ospreys, jumping fish (when they're not being carried off by the ospreys), but most especially the endearing anoles. I don't know if they're brown anoles or green anoles. (It seems kind of racist to judge.) They have been very kind about keeping the bugs at bay. Though I did have to have a talk with them last week about their lax in treating the worm situation on my husbands cucumber plants. And I think the anoles have avoided eating the spiders since they're kind of on the same team (ready to tackle any bug that gets in my way). I sure hope they invest some time in lapping up my nemesis, the great ant. Even as I type an anole stands guard next to the water pitcher showing off his pectorals with his cute lizard push ups. If that doesn't impress the ladies the raunchy display of his bright red dewlap will certainly turn them on. I will selfishly digress into writing about anole mating rituals in my first blog. I will selfishly not eat today because I don't want to mess up the kitchen. I will selfishly drink a cup of coffee, a cup of hot tea, then another cup of coffee, then hot tea, hot tea, hot tea, hot tea. Because one can never be too hot. I will selfishly pound out four more chapters of Book #3 which will probably never get published because I'm too chicken and too cheap and too selfish to get it edited by anyone besides my mom and close friends. I will selfishly end this blog without a decent close because I will probably be the only one that reads it. Because today - I'm going to be selfish. |