BORING

Last week started my cavalcade of editing content and structure of my second manuscript.  Yea.  Can you feel the enthusiasm?  No?  Yeah well neither can I.  This is the part of the process where I hate my characters, hate my story, and I’ve considered using the 206 page piece of crap as kindling in my fireplace.  And yeah, it is July in Arizona.  So you know it has to be pretty bad.

Well, maybe not bad per se, just boring.  So very boring I would actually rather work out, vacuum, or format this post to have a different font every other word, than sit down to edit anything having to do with Donna or her pathetic life. 

Basically, fuck this manuscript.  The title is awful and doesn’t fit the content.  My characters are thin and no one is going to give a crap about their stupid little problems.  Geographically I’m being a fraud because I set it in Boston (of course) but I’m not set in Boston anymore.  Plot, scene, structure, character development – all crap.  Crap, crap, CRAP!

Then I remember to breathe.

Because I’ve been through this once before.

The problem isn’t necessarily with the writing; the problem is with my head.

I know I can write it to be a more fully developed story.  I also know it isn’t winning a Pulitzer but that the writing is better than Fifty Shades of Grey.  Or so I’ve been told.  I’m not intending on reading it to find out just how good or bad the grammar and spelling really are; I trust the horrified posts from my fellow writers and plan to stay clear.  But some rumors about it are likely to be true.  For example, the content.

Which means that single book is like a time bomb for writers like me.

Writers who celebrate the joys in subtle cuteness.

If you read Ripple the Twine you know I’m not one for sex scenes.  I mean I have Sara and Ben flirting mercilessly with each other, bantering, kissing, making out in public places, but the part where they jump in the sack?  Well let’s just say I appreciate the art of the ‘fade-into-the-flickering-candle-light’ device that most daytime soap operas use to cut away at that point.

I’m not all Victorian about it or anything but the chance you’ll see the following words in my books (when referring to something other than construction of course) is pretty slim:

-      Nail

-      Caulk

-      Hammer

-      Heaving

-      Throbbing

-      Nipple (Yes I’m serious, this is a plumbing term)

Wow, I could seriously write the sexual innuendo book if I felt like it.  Thing is though, I don’t feel like it.  I’ve been relying on my imagination to fill in blanks like that my whole life.  I really don’t get when fiction lost the ‘show not tell’ concept.  I don’t want to hear exactly how they did it.  Book porn (ahem, sorry, I mean the genre of Erotica) has never been my thing.  To write or read.  To me it’s so much hotter to imagine what the two of them might be doing.  So that’s how I write.

If I can show the tension sparking between them then your mind is going to do a better job of knowing what happens next.  Me telling you is kind of a letdown.  At least that’s how it works for me.  Because everyone’s idea of what happens after the kiss is so vastly different that I don’t want to read the version of it that someone else decides, these characters are living in my head (every time I open a book).

But now, with the emergence of the already mentioned Fifty, mark my words, sex is going to take a front seat in television, movies, books and any other media deemed appropriate to share a nipple or a caulk. 

And here I am writing cuteness.

But, and this is a huge but, I refuse to change what I embrace writing.  Because, even though being a sellout is something I can wrap my head around, I still have my limits as to just how far I’m willing to sell out.  Which means in the eyes of the larger public these days I’m bor-ing.  Go ahead, ask me if I care?  You’re right, I don’t.

So when I sit down to do rewrites on my cute little girlie story the only thing I’m reading for is if the writing is boring – did Donna seriously just try to tell us what she ate for breakfast?  Because, no.  Well, at least not in that much detail please.  That kind of stuff is fine for Facebook but not for a real book.  Because on Facebook it really holds no bearing if people ignore it.  In a real book situation being ignored is about as career-ending as it gets.

And I’m just in the infancy of mine, looking for an Agent and working on only my second MS, so ending it isn’t in the plans.  I’ll clean up and clear out all references of bacon and eggs that aren’t truly integral to showing what Donna is about.

I only hope I can connect with an Agent who understands that, when reading and writing, sometimes a girl likes her hammer to be nothing more than a hammer.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

by Jenn Flynn-Shon

Remember those papers we all had to write back in elementary school?  I didn’t have to write it for every class, every year, but sometimes it seemed that way.  The teacher was all but telling us that they might have partied a little too hard over their summer vacation and that’s why they came to school on day one with no real purpose or direction; without a real lesson plan.

But it was cool, none of us were all that happy about being there so our motivation level was just as low.  It didn’t even matter that we wore brand new outfits and snazzy new shoes for the occasion.  It was still school.  Was it just me or did no one want to go back to school at the end of summer?  Then right off the bat the teacher wants us to recount all the fun things we did and wanted to still be doing.  Hello, unfair tease…

Those days are gone now of course; lost to the past where responsibilities didn’t exist and all of us should have been smarter to open our eyes and relish it.  But that old “youth is wasted on the young” cliché is true.  For the most part, my only responsibilities included stuff relating to school.  Paying bills and other grown-up problems weren’t anything I had to deal with until high school.

Ah, yes.  Sometimes I miss those days of high school where I had to set myself free.  Skipping was a class I took regularly sophomore year and on.  And I was excellent at it; absolutely no doubt I got an A in that class.  There were times I spent entire days in that class, not just single class times.  Another true thing, said by Brian Setzer – “Can't learn nothin' in school they don’t teach you on the street.”

But now I’m all grown-up, most of the time, and this summer I would have all kinds of stuff to report back to the teacher.  It may have even got me to go to school to tell them – I moved into a new house, spent a bunch of money making it a better place to live, and splashed in the pool just about every day.  In other words – BORing.  No teacher enjoyed the boring papers, the ones where the kid recapped exactly what they did every day in full detail.  They wanted something they could enjoy reading.  Something more exciting.

So in the spirit of entertaining my teachers back in the old days, here’s my summer vacation recap.  And let me preface this by saying that my teachers back in the old days likely weren’t all that entertained by my stories because I hadn’t yet developed sarcasm and I never included pictures.  But as an adult now, you can all but count on me to try to rectify that problem.

Summer Isn’t Even Over, How Are You Writing Your Summer Vacation Essay Now?

Yes that’s a great question!  But for me summer ended as June came to a close.  July and August I’m spending writing (blogs, manuscript #2, guest posts, interviews, etc.) so my new school year started on July first.  That doesn’t matter though, there was plenty already packed into summer this year.  I have already:

Dealt with a mortgage closing on a short sale.

Painted 1500 square feet of walls, ceilings & cabinetry.

Moved in and set up my office (remember that, because I do…heehee).

Drained my bank account replacing broken pool equipment and buying tools.

And in reference to the tools, most of what we’ve bought so far has been for gardening and the like.  Matt is in heaven having an outdoor space to work in and I can’t wait to see how he brings the entire yard together.  One of the things that I practically insisted on though was a spot for our grill that didn’t interfere with the pool or wind up under the outdoor patio roof.

We found about 100 leftover bricks had been piled up over by the pool equipment and I knew they had to get used somewhere.  Now for those who have known me a long time you’ll recall we purchased another house, the Labor of Love, a long time ago.  Quick backstory to fully understand the brick debacle…

Right after we bought the house in Springfield we discovered the lot was just a wee bit improperly graded.  Like, about a foot below the neighbor’s backyard which was nothing more than a parking lot of asphalt.  Hey, they needed somewhere to conduct their chop shop duties so I can’t really fault them.  One day that summer it rained.  It rained like no one has ever seen rain before and our backyard turned into Niagra Falls.

Water flooded in at an alarming rate and next thing we knew it was overflowing right down our bulkhead and directly into the basement.  We had about four inches of water in our basement and a non-functioning sump pump.  Oh where was Mike Holmes when we needed him?  (Canada, yeah, I know)  The next morning, after Matt spent a healthy number of hours the night before bailing out the basement with a five gallon Home Depot Homer bucket, we went to the Depot and purchased a bunch of drainage stuff.

Back at the homestead our Saturday was spent digging out a twenty foot hand-dug trench that spanned from just under the deck out into the wooded area beside the house.  We installed a French drain type system, complete with sock over the drain pipe.  For the next handful of years that we “lived” there we never got another drop of water in our basement but we definitely didn’t install it correctly (no gravel surrounding the pipe, just dirt) so I’m sure that means at some point the thing will fail.  Sorry to whoever ended up in that place.

But you’re probably asking what all this drain digging and flooding have to do with left over bricks right?  Well, when we dug the trench we discovered, yup you guessed it, about 100 leftover bricks that were just buried in the backyard.  My guess is they were leftover after building the foundation and became part of the backfill.  After digging them all up they became my patio.

Now here’s the kicker of course, that was another thing I had no clue how to install.  Again, sorry about that.  But it sure looked good at the time.  Not that we ever put a chair out there.  Details…

It may have sloped a foot downward over a 13' run but damn it, the place was all ours and we were gonna grill!

These days however I’m a little savvy and have more time to figure out how to do it right.  Plus I can afford cable now so there’s a hell of a lot of DIY Network being watched in this place.  Again, Mike Holmes is like my personal hero.

So when I discovered the leftover bricks this time (without even having to dig a drainage ditch!) I knew just what to do and where I wanted to put them.

As you can kind of see behind the chairs and on the left there is a big patch of empty gravel space right next to the patio, garage and walkway.

So I grabbed Matt and between the 2 of us we collected the bricks then broke up the clay soil and dug out a level patch of gravel and dirt.  Not easy stuff to move and we started it on a day over 100 degrees.  Maybe not the smartest plan so we stopped early.  But yesterday we finally got rain here, the temperatures dipped into the upper seventies and we had a somewhat muggy but cloudy day for the whole day.  Our day started at Lowes picking up the tools we needed using our $10 off coupon (score!).

We dry fit the brick to decide on a pattern and to make sure we’d have enough.

We staked out the area with stakes meant for our beach shelter and ran a level line of string with some old present wrapping ribbon.  Sometimes you just use what’s on hand and wing it right?  This is the spot dug out, filed with gravel then topped with play sand and leveled so water slopes away from the walkway.

While Matt ran back to Home Depot for filler sand I laid in every single brick by hand, by feel, and gave them a little tap with the rubber mallet.  All 108 of them.  After every 6-8 bricks I tossed the level on just to ensure they were installing correctly.

Yes we went a little shy of the line all the way around, that was to accommodate for backfilling with dirt and bringing the gravel and sand right up to the edge of the patio.  Matt poured the sand and we both took turns sweeping in and tamping down to ensure all the cracks were filled to the top with no obvious gaps.  Then we brought back dirt and gravel and topped the edge bricks with sand.

We finished just as the sky was clearing out a little bit and the sun was setting into a beautiful sunset.  Most of the bricks dried out nicely overnight and I walked out to see this beautiful piece of effort this morning.

It is going to be the perfect spot to house our grill.  Just as soon as our budget allows us to go out and get one.

So this is how I spent my summer, capped off with the Fourth of July holiday and a bit of manual labor.

And just like those teachers who came to school exhausted and under motivated to get back to their jobs, I’m taking 2 Tylenol and lying down on the sofa to edit today.

Irony Upon Irony

Well folks, if I didn’t love irony so much I’d probably be pretty upset by this whole odd and twisted situation going on with marketing my book right now.  But I do love it; when I see it happen, read it, live it.  Anything.  It reminds me that life will do whatever it damn well wants to no matter how much we plan otherwise and that sometimes we’re supposed to laugh at the happenstance.  Sometimes we have to laugh at the fact that it’s so funny and unbelievable it has to be true.

As if our life were a thirty minute sitcom.

This week my sitcom would have a title like “Really?”

I told you on my other blog all about the irony of sending one of my books to a stop on my Blog Tour that just so happens to be in Montreal.  If you didn’t get a chance to read that post feel free to head on over now.  No, really go ahead.  I can wait.

~*~Musak ensues.  I dance in an elevator with a dorky smile on my face until the doors open.~*~

Okay, now that you’re back…

Is that weird or what?  I mean of all the blogs in all the cities in two different countries and my book goes off to one located smack dab in the middle of the home of the Habs?  Anyway, now that my latest challenge has presented itself I almost feel like that was nothing!

Yesterday I get an email from Samantha over at Chick Lit Plus, the gal handling my Ripple the Twine Blog Tour, indicating that one of the bloggers received an empty envelope!

I was mortified!  The glue on the envelopes I used seemed to be pretty strong.  But if one fell out, could more have taken a tumble into the Post Office abyss as well?  I kind of freaked out when I emailed her back so I barely took notice of what blogger she said got a bag full of nothing.  So I went back to Samantha’s message and scrolled down to see which blogger it was, half expecting to see it was one of the (more expensive) Canadian blogs.

I opened my spreadsheet to get the address.  My jaw almost hit the desk as it dropped.  It was just too good.  I had a literal LOL moment sitting here, looking at my monitor.

The book was supposed to be delivered to the owner of the blog Lost in Literature.

~*~Laughter ensues.  I nod my head with a sheepish grin on my face until you stop wiping away tears of hilarity.~*~

I mean, come on.  Are you kidding me?  Hello Post Office; its Lost in Literature.  A three word title.  Not Lost Literature.  IN.

The good news in all this lunacy though is that the situation gave me a little inspiration for the book outline I’m compiling for NaNo this fall (yup, doing it again!).  And I guess it is small comfort that at least nine of the ten reached their destinations safe and sound.

And the one to LiL?  Let’s just note the acronym isn’t LOL and hopefully this second shipped copy will be IN their mailbox within the next couple days.