Apparently I Must Have Vision

Because about 3 days after I wrote my post called If The Voice Existed for Writers what would we call it? I discovered that a brand new contest akin to The Voice (or American Idol as the case may be) is on, and geared toward Writers of fiction.

How much more can fate intervene before I finally take it seriously? A real reality contest for Writers? I mean, I have a story within the word requirements (2500-5000) that’s fiction. I’m ready to rock and roll! Holy crap, sign me up!

Well…hold on just a second Miss Quick-on-the-Draw; maybe read the rules first?

So I did. And here’s something I’m not very sure about:

“…You also grant us the right to edit the formatting and display of your Entry, and to create literary or any other types of effects in respect to your Entry without compensation or approval…”

 

Formatting and display edits I can certainly understand. The entries should all have similar structure and style in order to remain vanilla enough for the voting public to not adopt any sort of bias toward one story or another. But that bit about creating literary effects without approval? Yeah, what does that even mean?

Literary by definition means: pertaining to or of the nature of books and writings, especially those classed as literature

Now perhaps I’m just being paranoid here but to me this reads like the content could be altered without my prior approval. That’s not okay. Anyone in law care to weigh in on this?

I kept reading and couldn’t seem to find the words ‘Author will retain all rights to their work’ anywhere in the first three-quarters of the lengthy rules. Another thing that’s a bit unsettling to say the least. But I kept reading anyway. And then I came across this:

“13. GOVERNING LAW/DISPUTES. This Contest is governed by the laws of Curaçao. As a condition of participating in this Contest, you agree, to the extent permitted by law, that any and all disputes which cannot be resolved between the parties, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with this Contest, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, exclusively before a court located in Curaçao.”

 

Wait, what? Curaçao? Where the hell is that?

So I did a little digging and it turns out it is an island located off the coast of Venezuela and is a Netherland/Dutch nation. And Hofstra Law School has an entire course dedicated to the study of International Law in this nation.

Impressive. But equally unsettling.

I’m not entirely sure how comfortable I am entering a contest where the governing law over the subsequent use of my intellectual property is located in International waters. I would have a leg to stand on if the contest originated out of the United States because that’s where I’m from and where my copyright is held. But I know nothing about anything related to the laws in Curaçao and frankly I don’t want to have to earn a degree from Hofstra just to find out if I’d be protected should someone steal my work and make millions of dollars or defame my name, etc.

It does make me a little sad because I felt as if I almost dreamed this contest into life after pretty much asking for it to be hand delivered to my door. But you know how they say to be careful what you wish for? I never understood just why you should protect yourself from those wishes or why it's important to clarify the specifics of the wish in question until this very moment.

Hopefully this shows I’m smarter than I look and not that I blew a golden opportunity at fame and fortune ($5000 grand prize). But like I always say, I live with no regrets so unless my lawyer type friends weigh in and tell me I shouldn’t be afraid, I think this is one contest I’m letting pass by after all.

Broken Thought Thursday

Been a while since I’ve put one of these little Broken Thought Process gems together. Hold onto something and prepare for the barrage of random topics about to hit you like a heat wave in Phoenix in August. Wait…never mind.

Hockey

Even the very mention of this tiny six letter word makes me sad right now because a ten letter word has stomped on it and kicked it to the side with blatant disregard for the little guy who suffers due to the inactivity. That ten letter word is management. Sort of.

Failing to agree that the players are right…cough, I mean, um…move at all on the talks over player's split means that all games up to the end of September are now cancelled. That’s pretty much all of preseason.

And with players like Seguin and Crosby hauling-ass over to Europe somewhere, it’s not all that encouraging that we’ll see the guys back on US soil, er, ice, anytime soon.

At least Dish got their heads out of their butts and didn’t charge us for the Center Ice package (like they said they were going to do regardless) so that’s great but Dish Network isn’t the one who suffers. The people who suffer are the ones no one thinks about.

A dude sells you a pretzel. That person has a job that helps pay their bills and they’re probably making minimum wage. Now maybe they work every event the arena sponsors so they have full time work. Knockout 3 games a week and Peter Pretzel Guy just went to part time. And he probably lost his benefits in the process.

It isn’t just Peter – Jack the Janitor, Zelda the Zamboni driver, the Ice Girls, mascot, security guards, ticket takers – EVERYone suffers from a loss of revenue. And for what? A measly 10-ish percent of the revenue split? Please.

For teams like the Coyotes a lockout could be the difference between sticking around or leaving the desert. They just started to build fan momentum, don’t kill that now. Not to mention I don't have the benefit of other levels of hockey anywhere nearby other than the ASU Sundevils (season opener is tonight at Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe, game starts at 8:30 and is against Texas A&M).

And while college hockey is nice (because it is hockey after all) I didn't go to ASU so I can't really get behind supporting them. Not to mention my sister would probably kick my ass for not rooting for the UofA Wildcats (who open their season tomorrow night against NAU up in Flagstaff).

There's no minor league team in Phoenix, the Sundogs moved to Prescott. So what's a fan to do but hope these NHL big-wigs can get it together sooner rather than later?

Health

Despite the fact that I want to be lazy I’m doing pretty good about sticking to a 3-4 day a week workout routine. I do what I feel like doing with no pressure. Some weeks I might do nothing but yoga, others straight up cardio and sometimes it’s a mix of the two. But I’m feeling better and even though it’s only been about a month I’ve lost around 4 pounds. Baby steps but I’ll take it.

Work

I think most of you know that I abandoned my second manuscript about the divorced 40 something who experienced more dating disasters than any one person should ever have to go through. When I shelved it I did so because I had an itch to write something with more punch, something adventurous.

So I did. I just finished the first draft of my very first Romantic Adventure. Think Romancing the Stone as an example of what I mean. But my story is nothing like that one; they’re just in the same basic genre.

The first draft was completed at the beginning of September, edits just wrapped last week. And now I’m supposed to be doing re-writes but I can’t seem to get myself to sit and work on it. But it has nothing to do with a lack of motivation or disinterest in the story. My issue is that I think I need to stop working from home.

I spend countless hours by myself clicking away on a keyboard or scribbling furiously with my red pen but this time around I think I need to inject the pace of the world into the book.

My main character is a Writer, a novelist, and a pretty successful one at that. She’s not the type to sit all day long inside writing without any other human contact. I need to find a place I like and start going there a few times a week to work on completing this novella. Because in the late fall I’m going to have to start working on the next MS – the first full-length book in the series about this character.

Oh and I’ve changed the title of the novella. Work In Progress sounded too youthful and not adventurous enough a title. Now I do admit it’s still “me” in that there won’t be too much blood or guts and you know it’s going to have a mostly upbeat ending too. But the title wasn’t working for me at all.

I hope to reveal the actual title within the next few weeks along with the cover art.

My goal was to get this out in October as an eBook with print copies available for purchase online but it looks like it might be sometime in November. Oh well, I don’t have an Agent yet so it is what it is. That’s the beauty of being a self-pub, you get to renig on deadlines that weren’t there in the first place. I guess you could say it’s the plus/minus of my work.

Now why did I have to go and say plus/minus?

I miss you already hockey…

“As Soon as I Settle I Bet I’ll Be Able to Move On”

It probably will come as no shock to anyone who knows me to hear that I’m feeling restless right now. I just bought a house and started my career so of course I’m ready to get a move on and go try my hand at something new. But in the spirit of truth, that’s not even the issue this time. That’s not the real thing I’m struggling with in my head.

The real issue is that I know, this time, I’m not going to change a damn thing. I know that I’ve found a place I can be happy for a long while, as well as a career that I actually enjoy, for the first time in my life. Under former circumstances I’d be ready to bail right about this point because I’d have started to get bored. Disinterested with the predictable nature of everyday life.

When I get to the moment where I’ve taken it all in, absorbed as much as I can from the job/place/lesson at hand, I start feeling antsy. Anxious. Skittish. Ready to flee at a moment’s notice.

But not this time.

The feeling is a leftover; its cold and moldy like that last piece of meatloaf you forgot about, shoved to the back of the fridge. It used to be trapped somewhere in the back of my head convincing me I should stay the scared little girl who never accomplishes anything because she isn’t really worth enough to try. Broke, only moderately attractive, no big show-and-tell story to share with the drama-obsessed world. Kind of a middle of the road nobody if I’m being honest.

I was the one who didn’t finish college and never had a “real” job. The self-proclaimed slacker, lazy, procrastinator type who never seems to get what she wants because she’s too fucking scared to tell anyone what that is.

Always living in fear that I might get exactly what I want out of life if I just pursue it with reckless abandon because then where would I be? I’ve been “chasing the dream” for so long maybe I felt I couldn’t function without a dream. Maybe I felt if I got it then I wouldn’t have a need to continue on. There wouldn’t be any more dreams.

But of course we all know that’s complete bullshit.

So then why am I antsy if I’m comfortable with the discomfort of setting down some roots in these areas of my life?

Because it’s a new feeling. The feeling of knowing I could go back on my heels and haul-ass out of this whole writing life but wanting to stick it out is uncomfortable because of the newness. I’ve never done it before.

After close to forty years of programming myself to believe that I have to keep moving forward – where “forward” used to describe moving on – I’m not entirely sure how to handle moving forward while remaining satisfied with what I’m doing.

Scary? You bet. Necessary? More than I could explain.

The best advice would be to just keep doing it, of course. So I am. Every single day.

Instead of going out and starting in another dead-end job situation, or moving again, I’m doing other things to keep that freshness. Entering writing contests, getting up and speaking at my writer’s group, connecting with new people, giving interviews, asking people to review my book after they’ve read it. Essentially, going after what I want. Boom.

But most of all – asking for what I want, knowing that I deserve to have it, and then going out and getting it. Because life’s too short to stop talking altogether because I sit around worrying if I offended someone with something I said once. It’s too short to sit back and constantly observe what others are doing while never doing anything of any substance myself.

Life’s too short not to make it exactly what I want it to be.

I mean, hell, everyone else is doing it and they don’t give a damn if I approve so I think it’s high time to start living for me. Fuck em if they can’t appreciate that.

I owe it to Indie Authors everywhere to kick ass and take names (of Agents preferably, though with all these adverbs…). I owe it to Matt to do my best to get this thing off the ground after so much support these past couple years.

Most of all I owe it to myself because this twenty-five year dream got clouded with the needs and desires of everyone else coming before my own somewhere along the way. But this is my life and it’s time to clear that fog. Time to open my eyes and see my own life path. Time to take it.

Title of this post is a quote from a Fiona Apple lyric in “The Way things Are”

If The Voice Existed for Writers what would we call it?

My husband and I are big television fans. I don’t really care what they say about it being an awful medium. That it’s dumb and watching too much of it is the sign of a lazy person, or whatever because I try not to listen to “they” most of the time if you know what I mean.

I think you do.

With our love for television we’re bound to have at least one or two reality shows on the list. “Don’t judge me monkey”, I’m not going to apologize for enjoying them. And I do enjoy them with limited commercial interruptions due to the beauty of DVR.

Guilty pleasures abound from Project Runway (Are you serious, you idiots got rid of Gunner? Ugh. I hope all the judges are wearing flowers next week in honor of the boring as hell one trick pony they held onto instead of the guy who actually seemed to want to be there. Whatevs.) to America’s Got Talent (However, yeah, Sharon, it’s our last show too because really “America”? You gave the $1,000,000 to flipping dogs over Tom Cotter – the most hilarious comic I’ve seen to grace a stage since Carlin. You just robbed that guy of what he was rightfully due. Consider yourself Idoled AGT - two fewer viewers next season.) Bath Crashers, Biggest Loser and the list goes on and on.

But the thing about those shows that draws me in isn’t the drama or backstabbing, what I love about them are the final products we get to see. Rooms that delight all the senses, models in the making, everyday dudes who develop into superstars, people who transform their entire lives starting with losing weight, the coolest couture, and comics that I now plan to internet stalk until he’s in my area and I can see the guy live. Yeah I’m lookin’ at you Cotter. Freaking robbed I tell ya.

But I digress…

My real question and/or point in all of this is that just about anything and everything has a reality show these days – clothes, voices, odd-balls, roller derby – but there’s nothing for Writers. WTF? How is that fair? Even actors get shows just for existing as an Actor. I’m lookin’ at you Matt LeBlanc. So where’s reality for Writers?

It could have a kick ass tag line like “Will she love him or kill him?” and feature newbies, Indies, seasoned pros or whoever else wants to guest star to whip up controversy. We’d get a quick and easy theme song like the one The Voice has – “This is The Voice!” – but with a twist tailored specifically to us – “This is the Prose!”

Perfect!

Yeah, yeah I know.

Truth is that the concept is pretty silly. I mean who wants to sit around watching a bunch of Writers click away on their keyboard in silence? Doesn’t exactly make for compelling television I guess.

At least on a show like Project Runway the designers can stand around chatting with each other while they sew or fit their garments. The drama builds through scenes when designers are chatting. But have you ever tried to have a conversation and write at the same time? Not easy.

So I guess Writers will need to continue to apply the tried and true method for instant fame after all – work your ass off for years and possibly still never become a household name or twitter hash tag.

Because, really? Instant fame? Pfft. Writers know what everyone on reality television knows. There is no such thing as overnight success regardless if you make it to television or not. Winning it all comes from decades of hard work and dedication to perfecting what you do.

Just ask Tom Cotter.

Because as far as I’m concerned, he won.

Bostonese for the Tourist

Sure I may live in the middle of nowhere now (yes that’s a joke) but at one time, for many years of my life, I grew in the city of Boston. We don’t get the distinction of being called “The City” as any New Yorker knows, but as any Townie knows, we’re “The” Town.

We’re so much “The” Town that we still call it Town if we grew up with Grandparents who were first generation.

No, Ma (Nomar!) I’m goin’ inta’ Town. Get Bobby ta help ya.

They’re a dying breed as more and more people flood The Town as newbies every year. And who could blame them? I mean, talk about per capita number of insanely great schools. But only the wicked hardy folk can make it through a wintah in Winter Hill if ya know what I mean. Yeah, I mean the literal season of winter. That shit is rough.

We’re the ones with the accent. I mean, too many famous people live in New York so there’s really no accent anymore. Right? I really have no clue if that’s true at all because I don’t live there now, nor have I ever lived there. Not to mention, nor do I ever plan to. Ugh, shudder, no. Way too much ‘overwhelming-ness of everything’ in Manhattan for me to handle. Even Boston was too much at times.

So last summer I guess you could say I put that “whole town in my reAH view” when Matt and I moved to Phoenix.

Yeah, I like metro Phoenix. You get all of the New York food, attitude, nightlife, fashion, sports (though the Coyotes are much more Boston in the loyalty style of the fan base and YES there is a fan base for hockey in the desert). But you don’t have to deal with any of the drama of the subways, smell of trash wafting to the sky, honking/ambulance sirens at all times, number of people crammed together in such a small space.

But not too many people came here from Boston. At least not that I’ve found just yet. I guess all us Irish think the sun will melt us or something. Well I haven’t fallen into a puddle of goo yet. Plus, I know it might be a big secret we transplant types aren’t supposed to reveal but my skin has never looked better and I’ve never felt healthier since I’ve lived here. Especially mentally. We get sky here. And sunshine. And just like the northeast we have 3 months of really extreme weather.

Only difference is we need cooling as opposed to heat. And the good news there is that cooling is way cheaper to pay for than heat. Plus there are pools to cool off in. Plus, there are lakes to cool off in too. And mountains. And the coast is only three hours away if you go to Mexico.

So anyway, because I’m one of very few Boston newbies in Phoenix of course I’m going to tell everyone how wicked pissa The Town is right? Because I want them to go and check it out if they haven’t already. See the sights, meet the Townies, eat the food, get a hug from Gramma on the way out the door. Oh & honey, grab her a beer on the way past the fridge before you go, would ya’?

You’re a doll.