Good news! And a little complaining

I know it's been forever since I've posted a blog, but I have a good excuse...er, reason. I've been busy finishing the manuscript I wrote with my aunt. It's fun and exciting and officially in the hands of our editor. Hopefully we'll be signing books in no time!

Since I was so busy working on the book with my aunt, I've gone nowhere with my self-publishing efforts with the Abraxas series. Yes, I feel terrible about it, but now I've got some time so I'm diving back into it. Seriously. Don't roll your eyes. You'll see. Again, I'll be signing books in no time!

But while we're waiting, how about a little complaint about something that's been on my mind: Christmas music. I love Christmas time, but the one thing about it that makes me cringe every year is when they put Christmas music on the radio. There I am, bopping away to Lady Gaga or Led Zeppelin or White Stripes or whatever (depending on radio station) when all of a sudden, White Christmas starts coming at me. Or Little Drummer Boy. Or that song a bunch of celebrities got together to do in order to raise money for charity.

Look, I don't dislike any of these songs per se, but they have to be in context! I intentionally watch the movie White Christmas every year and love it. But when I'm listening to normal, non-holiday music on a normal, non-holiday radio station, that's what I want to hear. Not an unexpected version of Mariah Carey singing Silent Night. For instance, if I choose to listen to a classic rock station, I wouldn't want them to suddenly slip in a hip hop song or Dolly Parton. That's not what I want to listen to. So why's it OK to do that with Christmas music?

The good news is that the holidays are over and I don't have to worry about this problem for 11 more months. During that time maybe I should just buy myself some new CDs and I can listen to them in the car throughout the month of December. Have I just become a modern-day Scrooge? Bah-humbug!

Here's to a happy and safe 2012!

Kim

I'm not playing favorites

I feel horribly guilty. Over the summer my goal was to get my first two Abraxas books self-published. I failed. Miserably. Here it is mid-October and while the first one has been edited (about a dozen times) the second one is still on my clipboard. But it's been languishing there for weeks because I've been playing favorites. There's another manuscript that I've been working on - the nonfiction one that I've been writing with my aunt - and all my time is being spent on that. Of course, that one has an interested publisher so it makes sense to spend time on it. Still, I feel guilty about not devoting the time to Abraxas that it deserves.

The limited progress I've made lately on Abraxas consists mainly of deciding to form my own publishing company to publish the books myself rather than going through another company like Createspace or Smashwords. It will take a little more work, but the cool thing is that I'll be my own publisher and own my own ISBNs. So I've got to get on that by filling out the paperwork and paying the fees to create the company and get the ISBNs. Which I intend to do - just as soon as I finish my nonfiction manuscript.

So when those nagging feelings of guilt strike me every time I look at my Abraxas manuscripts, I tell myself, "It'll be just a little longer. Definitely by the end of the year. Or maybe spring. Summer's nice, too."

New Project

Do you ever get yourself involved in a totally unexpected project, then have it turn out to be more fun than you ever guessed? Well, lately I've been helping my aunt write a manuscript about her experiences working as a psychic, and it's a blast!

This is totally different from the stuff I usually write. It's kind of a memoir/self-help manuscript, which I've never done before. I'm more used to fiction, or even straight nonfiction like the books I wrote about Yugoslavia and Libya.

For this book, my aunt is sharing lots of stories about the years she's spent consulting with clients and how she learned her craft as a psychic advisor. Instead of telling one long story, like with a novel, in this manuscript we're telling a bunch of shorter stories. It's a different process, but it's also really fun. It's also fun to collaborate with a partner on a writing project like this. And the added bonus, of course, is that I get to spend time with my aunt who's hilarious.

It'll take us some time to finish this manuscript, but when we do, I can't wait to share it with the world. Stay tuned for details!

Kim

A good story

I love a good story. One with fun and action and likable characters and a happy ending. There's nothing like diving into a new movie or TV show or book and finding a unique story that just sucks you in and keeps you entertained from beginning to end. Some of my favorite examples include the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, the Firefly TV show, and the Hunger Games book. And this weekend I have high hopes for Cowboys and Aliens.

No, I haven't seen it yet since it's just opening today, but the reviews are good. I love the concept and as soon as I heard it, I wanted to kick myself for not thinking of it first. After all, why do you need high tech gadgets to fight aliens? Even in alien stories set in the future like Battlestar Galactica, we still get our butts handed to us by the aliens. But in the past, the stench coming from a bunch of grimy gold miners should be able to take out an alien fleet.

Of course, one problem with a lot of the entertainment I've run across lately is that it's just a bunch of sequels that re-hash the same story over again. Or when movies there's very little story at all and just a bunch of explosions or car crashes. I find myself leaving the theater wondering why they didn't spend a little more on a screenwriter and saved themselves millions on special effects.

So I'm hoping to see a unique story this weekend with an actual plot and dialogue, and if they just re-hash it for a sequel next summer, I'll guess I'll worry about that when it happens.

Happy summer movie going!
Kim

Formatting isn't for wimps

Stones of Abraxas is officially edited for the final time and ready for formatting in my self-publishing odyssey. I've been reading a lot about the formatting process at different self-publishers, and the consensus seems to be that it's a process for the anal retentive. Apparently if an author isn't prepared to be be obsessive-compulsive about it, then she should hire a professional to do the formatting.

After giving it some thought, I've decided that I should try my own formatting. While my house is messy and I'm far from a perfectionist when it comes to anything else I do, I'm actually very careful about following written rules with the things I write. Years ago when I was finishing my doctoral dissertation, most of the other students paid formatters to put their dissertations into the appropriate format demanded by my university. The university had a 100+ page handbook that we needed to follow to the letter when typing our dissertations. Any mistakes would delay approval of the research and possibly graduation.

Was I daunted by the school's obsessive requirements? No, it was a challenge, so I formatted my dissertation myself. Shortly after submitting it, I got a call from a lady in the dissertation office. She complained that I was supposed to have put the name of my formatter on my dissertation, but it wasn't there. I said I hadn't used one. She was stunned. She said that no one ever had such a clean copy after doing it themselves.

Because of this one success ten years ago, I've convinced myself that I can format my own self-published book. Am I deluded? Maybe. But I've got to give it a shot, and if I'm successful, then I'll save some cash and will never be intimidated by this again. And if I try and fail, then I'll have to admit that I'm not quite as obsessive-compulsive as I thought. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Next time you see me, my back will be sore from hunching over my keyboard. :)

Kim

What's a hobby?

Whenever you fill out the profile page at any of the online sites that I visit, like Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, etc., one of the questions is always about hobbies. This one leaves me scratching my head. What, exactly, qualifies as a hobby? Can I list my cats? I spend a lot of time feeding, caring for, cleaning up after, and sitting under my cats, but does that count as a hobby? It's not exactly the same as cross country skiing.

Speaking of cross country skiing, how much time every year does a person have to do something in order for it to count as a hobby? Here in Illinois, there are relatively few days every year when there's enough snow on the ground to cross country ski, and even fewer days when the temperature is above zero, the wind chill won't freeze your nose off your face, and there aren't chunks of ice falling from the sky. In other words, if you want to cross country ski here, you've got about 4.5 days per year when you can do it. Can that qualify as a hobby?

How about completely non-active pastimes that I enjoy and spend a lot of time doing? Like watching TV. Is that a hobby or a bad habit? Same thing with drinking wine or eating chocolate or oversleeping. At what point does one cross the line from being a wine connoisseur (hobby) to being a drunk (bad habit)? And how about comfy clothes? I actually spend time and money looking for comfortable clothing to wear, so shouldn't that count as a hobby?

Here's another one: What about writing? Sure, I spend a lot of time writing, but since the goal there is to make money, does that exclude it from hobby status? But what if I'm writing something that's not designed to make money? You know, like a blog. Or something that I wish would make money but doesn't sell. Does that make me a hobbyist or just a failure?

And how about people who call themselves "buffs" or "aficionados"? At what point does someone go from simply having a hobby of going to see foreign films to becoming a film buff? Is there some particular moment in a person's life when they wake up and realize they have achieved buff status? It reminds me of George Costanza from Seinfeld when he once lamented that he'd like to be a Civil War buff, but he had no concept how to go about it. As it so often happens, George speaks for a whole generation of people, including me.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, it's time to put on my sweatpants and kick back to watch a TV show about nothing.

Too clueless to order coffee

I hate feeling like an idiot just because I want a cup of coffee, but somehow that's exactly what happens every time I go to a coffee shop. I don't go out for coffee very often, and on the rare occasions when I do go, I don't always visit the same chain, so whatever one place calls a particular drink, it's sure to have a different name somewhere else.

Today I decided a frozen coffee drink sounded good, so I stopped into a coffee shop. And that's when the odyssey began. My first problem was figuring out which one is the frozen drink. Not just iced coffee, but the frozen one, like a pina colada.

Next, I wanted the lower fat and calorie version. But I've found that if you order some of the fancy drinks at some restaurants, they might not be available in a "light" version because they use a pre-made mix or flavorings or something. The only way to know what's available is to ask, which means you have to get to the front of the line and block the whole procedure for everyone behind you while you quiz the cashier. Since everyone else in line is in that coffee shop at least twice a day, they think you're a moron.

Then, I wanted decaf, but again not all drinks at all restaurants are available in decaf because of the pre-made mix situation. So you have to ask again.

Today, the coffee shop I was in was busy, so I decided to make things easy for everyone. I got to the front of the line and proudly said (without having to ask any questions), "Light Frappuccino, decaf, medium." I figured that covered it, right?

The cashier said, "What kind?'

That stumped me. I thought I'd made it clear. So I tried again. "Light Frappuccino. Decaf. Medium."

"What kind?" he asked again.

Huh? So I started throwing the words at him again, hoping to hit on the one that would satisfy him.

"Decaf."

"Medium."

"Light, you know, with skim milk."

"Frappuccino. That's the frozen one, right?"

The whole time this is going on, I'm searching the menu board, hoping for some clue as to what he wants. No help there.

When he asked "What kind?" again, I looked away from the menu and just stared at him. I was out of ideas; I had nothing.

He clarified. "What kind? Caramel? Mocha?'

Ahah! "No, just plain," I said.

"Plain? Coffee flavor?" he asked.

I had thought that was self-evident. If I had wanted something besides coffee flavor, wouldn't I have asked? Ironically, I had specifically attempted to order plain coffee flavor because I thought that would be easiest. I didn't have to ask if caramel or mocha or coconut or whatever was available in decaf or light or any other specialty. But instead of trying to explain this to the cashier, I just said, "Yes, plain coffee flavor."

So despite my best intentions of not annoying the people in line behind me or irritating the cashier or making every other person in the restaurant think I'd just rolled off a turnip truck, I made a fool of myself in a coffee shop. Again. I can't remember a time when this didn't happen.

After considerable thought, I've figured out how to solve this problem. Coffee shops should have special lines for clueless people who don't go there very often. Maybe the cashiers in those lines could be trained preschool teachers who speak slowly, soothingly, and in small words. Everyone in the line would be prepared for long delays while each customer tries to figure out what's available and what they want and how to read a menu and what "vendi" means. I'd be willing to wait. In fact, I'd probably learn a lot just by being in that line.

BTW: Despite my embarrassment during the ordering process today, my drink was exactly what I wanted. I should write this order down so I can just hand it to the cashier next time I'm there. Of course, with my luck, he won't be able to read my writing and wackiness will ensue anyway.