I received a job alert in my inbox today. Not a big deal on the surface, but the request got my attention. Here is the first part of the request:
...a 300-500 word goal describing my professional goals.
Hum..if you can't write a 300-word essay about what you want to be when you grow up, then maybe, just maybe you need to pick another profession. Or move back in with your parents, if you ever moved out. For Pete's sake, I can write 300 words about what I had for dinner last night!
As if that was not annoying enough, I read the rest of the ad. Oh yeah, there was more:
I am applying to a master's program in Curriculum Devlopment and Supervision.
oh. Good. GRIEF!
Lemme get this straight: first this person needs someone else to write an essay about what he wants to be when he grows up. After the clueless wonder gets a schmuck (posing as a freelance writer) to write his essay and he gets in and then finishes grad school ( yeah, I know it's a stretch, but stay with me here!), he is going to develop the ways and means used to teach others? I can see his first completed curriculum already: Con Game 101 : Lesson One: How to get a schmuck with no common sense and even less ethics to do your work for you.
Hum..come to think of it, corporations would pay him big bucks for that cirruculum.
And I am sure there will be some schmuck freelancer that will write it for him. I guess that's where the "supervision" part comes in.
Well, I have to go now. I don't have as much time to blog as I used to. Wait, I know! I'll run an ad and get a schmuck freelancer to do it for me!


- posted by Kim @ 3:46 AM

 
You Gotta Love A Book Signing!

Okay, so I have been reading posts from the 40 or so writing groups I belong to, and I am noticing a trend. Many of the "published" authors on the site frown on book signings. They say they are a complete waste of time and that authors will not see a substantial increase in book sales.

Okay, I have no problem with that theory. I can see how selling 30-50 books at a book signing isn't really going to make a dent in the bottom line.

BUT A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME?

Explain how meeting your readers and having them tell you how much they enjoyed your book is a waste of time? Tell me how spending time with people who spent their hard-earned money to purchase your book, then spent their precious free-time reading it, and THEN spent more precious time coming to your book-signing and have you sign it is a waste of time?

I will be the first to admit that I want my book title on the NYT Best Seller list. I want media covereage, I want the big book deal and I want the private island and all the trappings that come with being a rich and famous author. But that includes a book tour. I want to do book signings and meet my readers. I want to hear how much Susie from Poughkipsie enjoyed my book. I want to know that Karen from Clarkston couldn't put it down. I want to scribble "To, (your name here), hope you enjoy the book!" Never will I view meeting my readers as a waste of time because it doesn't up my bottom line enough to be feasible. And spare me the lecture on the writing "business". I'm not new to business: I am more than aware that you need to make money for your publisher. If they don't make money, then neither do you. I get it. It still doesn't change my mind.

I think that these writers that have "made it" are so focused on their bottom lines that they have forgotten about the thrill of the sale and the enjoyment received from appreciative readers. I cannot wait for my first book signing. I don't care if only three people show up...it will still be a thrill. I know how much I enjoy getting emails from my readers, I cannot imagine how cool it would be to hear these people in person.

So to all you "made it" authors out there that think talking to your readers is a complete waste of your time: you should be ashamed of yourselves.
- posted by Kim @ 4:42 PM

 
Damn, I didn't realize it had been that long since the last time I blogged. I knew it had been a while, but geesh! What kind of blogger am I?

A lousy one, that's for sure.

Well, let me catch you up. I'm still working my job on a part-time basis. I am still writing books for my publisher. I am still trying to get a book deal for Moments of Clarity. Okay, yes I mean a print deal..I know I have an electronic deal..yeah yeah yeah...
I am also thinking of joining a novel writing challenge. Well, now I'm not sure I want to. I found out something about a book that I am working on that made my blood run cold.

I'm was looking at the categories for the novel challenge: Western, Crime, Adventure, Romance,
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, or Literary and trying to figure out where my novel fit. It's not a Western, it's not a Crime novel, it's not Horror, Adventure, Science Fiction or Fantasy, although it does have some of those elements. It's not fru fru, high brow, read while wearing a smoking jacket and sitting in a dark library material either, so skip Literary. The only category left is Romance.

"Oh for pete's sake, I don't write romance!" I announced to myself while re-reading the catergories. Still no luck.

"Dammit, this is not a romance. I don't do romance!" Like my yelling this to my computer monitor would magically make a new category appear.

Then I thought about the novel I am writing. I'm not going to go into details here, but let me just say that it's girl meets boy and another boy and another boy..then through the aforementioned sci-fi/fantasy elements she meets them all again. The book as I write it is turning out to be pretty funny. But the boy meets girl part...and then ending as I see it...

Son of a bitch! I am writing a romance!

How in the hell did *I* come up with a romantic comedy? There isn't a romantic bone in my body, ask my husband, he'll tell you! I wouldn't know a love triangle if two guys and a girl were sitting across from me professing their love for each other. And the thought of writing a love scene...any love scene..well, I can't even take my brain there!

How in the hell am I going to write a romance?

Dammit!

So now I have two choices: I can continue to write a story that has interested me like no other in a long time, or I can chuck it because I "don't "do" romance".

Crap. I know what I have to do. There really isn't a choice.

No! I will NOT tell you my penname.
- posted by Kim @ 3:49 AM