Resolution update: August 2009

In January of this year, I established a list of twelve New Year’s resolutions.  At the end of each month, I report on my progress as a means of holding myself accountable.  Being the end of August, I thought I’d post my progress here as well. 

1. Finish my second novel before my birthday in mid February.

Done since mid-February, and sold in June. This week, I finished my first round of revisions. Back to work on book #3, which I would like to have finished in 2009.

2. Live a healthier lifestyle. Specifically:

· At least thirty minutes of aerobic exercise three times a week.

· Strength training at least three times a week.

· Three servings of fruits or vegetables a day.

· Lower my cholesterol so that it is no longer in the borderline high range.

· Continue to seek out opportunities to participate in organized sports

I exercised for at least thirty minutes on 25 of the 31 days of July, including two games of basketball, more than a dozen rounds of golf, and many, many hours on the elliptical. I joined a new gym and therefore have access to a wider variety of cardio-machines, which has worked out nicely. I also managed 20 days of strength training as well.

I ate three servings of fruits and vegetables on just 10 of the 31 days. You’d think that I could find a way to eat a piece of fruit every day.

Last month my cholesterol results came back and I dropped 40 points from my total cholesterol since the beginning of the year, down to 205. I’m shooting for a sub-200 score by the end of the year.

3. Rid Elysha and myself of all education debt before the end of the year.

Funds to achieve this goal will likely become available soon.

4. Beat Jeff or Tom in one round of golf.

No victories as of yet, though I have begun to play better thanks to advice from my friend, Scott. I wasted an opportunity a week ago when Jeff shot a 52 and I shot a 57, miserable rounds for both of us. But I’m finally beginning to hit my new irons and had some of the best tee shots of my life this past weekend, and my putting continues to be off the charts, so things are looking up.

5. Floss every day.

Still haven’t missed a day since December of 2007.

6. Go to at least twelve movies this year, thus debunking the myth that the parents of newborns are no longer able to go out to the movies.

Done. Last month Elysha and I saw our eleventh and twelfth movies of the year, finishing with The Time Traveler’s Wife, a Mommy and Me movie in which mothers (and one lone Daddy) can bring their babies to an afternoon showing of a movie, complete with baby changing tables and employees assigned to take food and drink orders so that parents do not have to leave the theater. There was a lot of sleeping babies and breast-feeding taking place, but I kept my eyes on the screen, content with the fulfillment of this goal.

Even though I’ve reached twelve movies, I have no intention of avoiding the theater for the rest of the year. The drive-in remains open through October, and we will spring for a babysitter if the movie is good enough.

7. Replace the twelve ancient windows on the first and second floor of the house with more energy efficient ones.

Funds for this project are not yet available and might not be available this year. Pray for a movie deal.

8. Cook at least one meal a week for Elysha.

I didn’t cook a single meal for Elysha last month, but she feels that I should abandon this goal. With my teaching, my writing and my DJ company, she has said that I do enough. But I still think that one meal a week isn’t asking much.

9. Eat at least three bowls of oatmeal a week in order to lower my cholesterol.

Still no oatmeal, but I lowered my cholesterol anyway!  So perhaps this one isn’t as important either!

10. Write for at least two hours every day without exception.

Done with ease.

11. Make one mortgage payment from poker profits

Poker profits are now approaching the $500 mark, well short of a mortgage payment. I just don’t have the time to play as much as I’d like, but one good month could put this goal within reach.

12. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

More attention for SOMETHING MISSING

NEWSDAY is picking up the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's highly favorable review of SOMETHING MISSING to run on Sunday, September 6!  My father-in-law informs me that NEWSDAY has the seventeenth largest circulation in the country.

Not only is the review favorable, but it’s my favorite review thus far.  The writer just seems to understand the book like no other reviewer.

Admittedly, I may be slightly biased. 

Unfortunate mistaken identity

I’m standing in line at D’Angelo’s, waiting to place my order. Directly in front of me is a husband and wife who look remarkably alike.  Both about five feet tall, shaped like eggplants, and wearing brown and olive green.  But most surprising is their eyeglasses, distinctive in that they match their wardrobe and seem more suited for three generations ago in terms of styling.

And even more notable than the glasses considerable nod to the 1970s is that they are identical.  Spot-on perfect matches.  In fact, it was the identical eyeglasses that first drew my attention away from my iPhone and onto to them.  You don’t often see a man and woman wearing identical eyeglasses. 

The two placed their order and then the woman went to sit down while the man waited for their order to be called.  A couple minutes later, a middle aged sandwich-maker called out, “Number 114!  114!” 

She waited a moment, scanned the area in front of the counter, saw the brown and olive eggplant, and said, “Sir, aren’t you and your wife #114?”

“Wife?” he asked.  “That’s my mom.”

I then watched the sandwich-maker begin to back-pedal like it was an Olympic event, throwing out every excuse in the book to cover her faux-pas.  As she attempted to extricate her from her embarrassment, I took another look at this man and realized that he could very well have been fifteen years old.  Or thirty years old.  There was no way to tell.

He had a large ring of keys hanging from his belt, seeming to imply ownership of a car, a house, a shed and several safe deposit boxes.  But his forehead was also spotted with pimples, indicating an ongoing battle with puberty.  He was wearing loafers, making him look old, but he was also donning a cheap digital watch, making me wonder.  One minute I was convinced he was a kid, and the next I was sure that he was an adult.

How rotten it must be to appear both fifteen and thirty at the same time, at least to me and one sandwich-maker, who I laughed at once the poor kid had returned to his mom.   

And how rotten it must to look so much like your short, frumpy, identical-eyeglass-wearing mother.

What a great character for me to develop someday.

Does the multiple-author format make more sense?

Last night’s appearance at the Wilton Library was delightful, and many thanks to the staff at the library for putting this event together.  I sat on a panel of first time authors, and we spent the evening talking about our books, the process by which each of us was published, and answering lots of interesting and insightful questions.  There was a very large and engaging audience, and despite not seeing my wife and daughter for most of the day, the experience couldn’t have been more enjoyable. 

Sitting on the panel with me were authors Jessica Bram and Margot Berwin.  Jessica is the author of HAPPILY EVER AFTER DIVORCE: NOTES OF A JOYFUL JOURNEY, a nonfiction string of interconnected essays dealing with her experiences with divorce.  She also served as moderator for the discussion and teaches writing classes through the Westport Writer’s Workshop.  The book sounds interesting and somewhat unique in that it captures the positive side that a divorce can sometimes offer, a fact to which I can heartily attest as well. 

Mergot Berwin is the author of HOTHOUSE FLOWER AND THE NINE PLANTS OF DESIRE, and it turns out that she and I are a lot alike in terms of our writing process and thoughts on the publishing world.  Like me, she does not outline her plots ahead of time, and as a result, her first drafts tend to meander a bit, as do mine.  Her road to becoming a published author is an entertaining and inspiring story, and most impressively, HOTHOUSE FLOWER is the third novel that she has written but the first that has been sold.  I give her a great deal of credit for her tenacity and persistence.  While I like to think that I would have continued to write even if SOMETHING MISSING had not been published (and I did begin UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO on the same day that I finished writing SOMETHING MISSING, long before an offer on the book was ever made), I’m not sure about the degree of enthusiasm and diligence that I could have mustered knowing that there were two other manuscripts sitting in a drawer somewhere, unsold.

As the night wrapped up, I couldn’t help but think that perhaps the multiple author appearance could be a better way for authors and booksellers to guarantee larger, more engaging audiences at events like these.  Unless you are a bestselling author or well known personality, there’s always the chance that you’ll arrive at a bookstore or a library and find two people waiting to hear you speak, one who nods off during your talk and the other who realizes halfway through the reading that they are in the wrong place.  While this has thankfully not happened to me (yet), it’s always something I dread.  But in partnering up with another author, as I will be doing with appearances in October in MA and NH, you increase your chances at larger, more enthusiastic audiences, and while you may sacrifice a little face time in the process, the interest and chemistry that two or more authors can create may outweigh a slightly shorter time in which to speak.          

Right?

Along this vein, I will be partnering up with local authors in MA and NH, some who are working with very small, independent publishers and who will most certainly bring in a sizable audience of family and friends to these appearances.  Guaranteed warm bodies right off the bat.  And while a large percentage of the audience will be there to specifically listen to and support my partnering author, I will have the opportunity to introduce myself and my book to an entirely new set of potential readers.

It makes a lot of sense to me.  Am I missing anything?

Appearing at the Wilton Library

Tomorrow night I will be sitting on a panel of new authors at the Wilton Library in Wilton, CT. 

If you’d like to attend, you can find details here. 

Though we will be discussing our books, the focus of the night will be on our journey to being published.  There will be writers in the audience in need of convincing that our success can be duplicated  with the right about of persistence, hard work and tenacity.     

AJ O’Connell’s article about the upcoming event and the authors (including me) was published in The Hour today. 

My bee sting

Since some of you have asked, yes, it’s true.  I was stung by a bee on Friday.  This tends to be a bigger deal for me than most people, since I have required CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on more than one occasion as a result of a bee sting.  I am highly allergic to bees and was once brought back from the dead by paramedics after being stung, but only certain kinds of bees are dangerous to me.  Wasps and similar ground bees for the most part.  The kind that live underground and can sting repeatedly.

So I was sitting on my front stoop with my dog on Friday afternoon when a bee flew onto my bicep, stung me, and flew away.  A storm was approaching, and I was once told that thunder and lightning can make bees act erratically and unpredictably, so I should have been more careful.  This was the first time that I had been stung in almost twenty years, and knowing that I might not be able to breathe in about five minutes, I was a little nervous.

I went inside the house and told my wife that I had been stung.  Her immediate reaction was to gather all the epi-pens in the house and then pester me for the next thirty minutes, oscillating between a desire to pump me with adrenaline, call 911 and drive over to the nearby walk-in clinic, just in case I started to react. 

I explained that we should wait and see if I actually experienced a reaction.  Getting jammed in the thigh with an epi-pen is no fun, and there are side effects to contend with if it is used unnecessarily, including shortness of breath, elevated heart rate, and vomiting, just to name a few.  Calling the paramedics would have led to an instant trip to the hospital, which could have been unnecessary and would’ve wasted a lot of time.  And while driving to the walk-in clinic wasn’t a bad idea, it had started raining cats and dogs, so I chose to wait it out at home.

It’s essential for me to remain calm when I am stung,  Despite the prospect of an obstructed windpipe and hands the size of catcher’s mitts, I need to be able to monitor myself for possible reaction signs, which are unfortunately similar to the symptoms that one experiences when panicked.  So I sat down at my computer, updated my Twitter and Facebook feeds to reflect my predicament,  and calmly resumed the revisions of my novel while my wife glared at me in a vicious combination of fear, anger and disgust. 

I know she was worried about me, and it couldn’t have been easy to sit there with your daughter, wondering if your husband might stop breathing, but she didn’t make the waiting easy.  After all, I was frightened, too. 

Thirty minutes later, I was pretty certain that I was safe.  No sign of reaction whatsoever. The bee was clearly not of the deadly variety, though I must say that the sting hurt like hell.  Once we felt sure that I was out of the woods, my wife told me that she was mad at me for ignoring her requests, and that if I were to die, it would be more difficult on her than me. 

I understand the logic behind this argument, but I think that my logic is better: If I die, I don’t get to see my daughter grow up.  She does, even if it’s without me.  I lose, whether I’m aware of the loss or not.

Death always sucks more than life.  The sentiment that “it’s hardest on those who are left behind” is always made by those fortunate enough to be left behind.

Is there value in publishing a first draft?

Print Magazine has a terrific look at the cover art on a handful of books, along with some explanation from the designers.  It’s a fascinating look into the world of cover design.

Along a related line of thinking, I’ve often wondered about the value of an author’s first draft.  For example, I have about a dozen different versions of SOMETHING MISSING, beginning with the first draft that I submitted to my agent almost three years ago.  I haven’t looked at that draft since then, but is there any value in posting this initial draft online for public dissemination?

Could a fledgling novelist garner any valuable insights in comparing the first draft with the final version of the book?

Are there book geeks and bibliophiles who would be curious to see the original version of a story or the development of the protagonist or some of the secondary characters from first to final draft?

Would anyone even care to read the first draft of a book like SOMETHING MISSING, as opposed to a classic like THE GREAT GATSBY or SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE?

Or would an author risk embarrassment or mortification in making a first draft available for public consumption? 

Would reading a first draft ruin the story by revealing its skeleton, its internal organs, and its previously-excised warts?  Would it undo the perceived reality of the story and make the process more clinical than magical?    

I’ve had the pleasure of examining the first drafts of some of Robert Frost’s poetry, but is there other material like this out there to be had?

Thoughts?  Because clearly I don’t have any.  Only unanswered questions.

Twitter friends

I recently told someone that over the past several months, I have made several friends through Twitter, even though many of us have never met in person.

“Friends through 140 characters?” this person asked dubiously.  “Can you really call them friends?”

Well, let’s see…

I speak to my Twitter friends several times a day.  We share photos and stories about our lives, and we often make one another laugh.  I receive a great deal of my daily news through the connections that I have with these people.   

We keep track of the big events in one another’s lives.  When I was stung by a bee earlier this week (a dangerous situation, considering how allergic I am to some species), my Twitter friends knew within an hour that I had been stung and was sitting in my house, awaiting a reaction.  Some of my best friends still don’t know that I was stung and might never know. 

My Twitter friends have been extremely supportive of my work.  Thanks to them, I have landed speaking engagements, become friendly with best-selling authors, sold more books than I could have ever done so without their help, and was featured (along with SOMETHING MISSING) in USA Today a few months back.

Can I say all these things about my real-life friends? 

Not really.  My real-life friends are wonderful in their own way, but I don’t think I have a single real-life friend to whom I speak every day or share as much data as I do with my Twitter friends. 

The Twitter friend is a special breed.     

So the answer is yes.  I really can call my Twitter friends real friends.

A change in style

I contacted my editor last week, inquiring about the current view in the publishing world on the number of spaces after a mark of punctuation.  Like The Chicago Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, and the Modern Language Association, she informed me that the industry is moving to one space as opposed to two, and in most cases has already adopted this style. 

On her recent podcast, Grammar Girl explains that computers use proportional fonts, meaning that the space that the letter “i” occupies is smaller than the space that the letter “m” takes up, therefore a single space after the period is adequate.

“Most typewriter fonts are what are called monospaced fonts. That means every character takes up the same amount of space. An "i" takes up as much space as an "m," for example. When using a monospaced font, where everything is the same width, it makes sense to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence to create a visual break. For that reason, people who learned to type on a typewriter were taught to put two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence.”  

I’ve never been one resistant to change, but this adjustment in the way that I type will be a difficult one to make, particularly because the two spaces have become the  automatic and unconscious way that I construct sentences. 

Fortunately, my editor also informed me that my entire manuscript is re-typed upon submission, for reasons even she doesn’t understand, so if I double space between sentences, some poor, probably overworked and incredibly bored typist will correct this.

What I would like to see in terms of spacing is for Microsoft Word to adopt the iPhone software feature that inserts and period and a space after a word if I double space, thus indicating the end of a sentence.  I use this feature so often on my phone, while emailing and texting, that I sometimes fall into the habit of doing it on my laptop as well, resulting in scores of missed punctuation on a page.

Like I said, I may not resist change, but that doesn't make it easy.

Five year plan?

I played golf last week with a guy who is works in the corporate world.  He’s got a degree in math and an MBA but he also ha a newborn son at home and wants to find a way to spend more time with his family.  He’s fed up with the corporate culture and has done well enough to make a career change without having to worry about finances for a while.   

Teaching, he has decided, is the way to go.  Once he discovered that I was a teacher, he immediately began asking question after question about the profession, including the fastest way to earn a teaching certificate.  I explained Connecticut’s ARC program to him, a three month process by which college graduates can become teachers in specific areas of need throughout the state, including math.  “You could start the program in June and be teaching in September,” I said.  “One of my best friends did exactly that.  He left the corporate world in June and was teaching math in Hartford in September.”

The man was enthusiastic about the process and asked about a dozen follow-up questions as we walked the course together.  With each step, his enthusiasm seemed to increase.  As we made our final putts of the afternoon and headed back to the clubhouse, he thanked me for the information and said, “That program sounds great.  It’s still a little pie in the sky for me, but I think it’ll make it part of my five year plan.”

Five year plan?  Really?  1,825 days to achieve a goal?   I don’t understand people who talk about five year plans.  Five years ago, I was single, not dating my wife, and I had yet to start writing my novel.  I had never written a blog entry, never played even a single round of golf, and would have never predicted that an African-American would be President.  Can you imagine me making a five year plan, not knowing about my future wife, my future daughter, and my future success in the publishing industry? 

How ridiculous.  In today’s every-changing world, five years is impossible to predict.   

Instead of a five year plan, how about a six month plan?  Or a three month plan?  In five years, this guy’s son will be entering kindergarten.  He may have more children, planned or otherwise.  His company could declare bankruptcy.  The United States could be at war with Canada.

Five years is a lot of time.  If he’s serious about wanting to make a change in his life, spend more time with his family, and find a way to make a difference in the world, why wait five years?  Having an intimate and personal understanding as to how short life can be, I wanted to tell this guy to ditch the stupid five year plan, go home, and sign up for the damn program.         

I didn’t.  In the end, this guy seemed too invested in this five year plan to deter him with my few nuggets of wisdom, but I am left wondering where he will be in five years.

Will he be the teacher that he wants to be?

Will he be spending more time with his family?

Will he have left the corporate culture that he so despises in his wake?

Who knows?  It’s five years away, for goodness sake!  But I can guarantee that none of these things will come to pass in this year or the next.  That’s the thing about a five year plan.  It allows you to do nothing for a long time.

Well-timed and welcomed!

It’s after midnight. It’s still incredibly hot and humid, even though I’m on the Connecticut shoreline and the sun has been down for hours.  I’ve just finished loading two tons of DJ equipment into the truck and am preparing for an hour drive back home after spending the last seven hours entertaining at a wedding.  Getting this small, older crowd to dance was like pulling teeth.  I still can’t shake a cold that has plagued me for almost two weeks.  I’m tired, and I haven’t seen my wife and daughter for more than twelve hours. 

Then I receive a message through Twitter that a new review of SOMETHING MISSING has appeared in The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, a paper that my DJ partner tells me that he reads almost daily, being a Packer fan. 

It’s a great review.  Possibly my favorite so far.  Most definitely my favorite paragraph of praise so far:

"Something Missing" is the kind of book that will make you miss your next bus, class or bedtime. Compulsive behavior can make for great comedy, and Dicks makes the most of it. I don't know if the author has watched any Harold Lloyd movies, but he certainly brings the dangling-man-in-peril feel to some of Martin's second-story adventures. Yet he never reduces Martin to a cartoon of an obsessive-compulsive man. Martin is deeply plausible, and somehow noble within the straitjacket of his patterns and elaborate rationalizations.

Best of all, it came at just the right time.  Just when I needed a pick-me-up. 

A well-timed tweet.  Is there anything better?

Uncomfortable plot summaries

From postmodernbarney.com comes a list of Uncomfortable Plot Summaries.  Deconstructed and amusing summaries of film plots.  Here are a few of my favorites from a lengthy list:  

BATMAN: Wealthy man assaults the mentally ill.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: Peasant girl develops Stockholm Syndrome.

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF: Amoral narcissist makes world dance for his amusement.

RED DAWN: Despite shock-and-awe tactics, a superior occupying force is no match for a tenacious sect of terrorist insurgents.

SPIDER-MAN: Nerd gets bitten by spider, complains about how this ruins his life for years to come

STAR WARS: EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Boy is abused by alien, kisses sister, attempts patricide.

Yesterday I saw THE TIME TRAVELR’S WIFE: Genetic disorder leads to man slaughter.

I’d offer up an uncomfortable plot summary for SOMETHING MISSING, but I wouldn’t want to ruin the end for those of you who haven’t finished reading it yet.

.2%?

The Department of Labor surveyed American consumers to determine how they spend their annual paychecks. 

According to their fabulous pie chart, the average American consumer spends .2% of their annual income, or $118 on “reading.”

I’m not sure if I’m happy about this or not.  $118 per person?  Does it seem like a lot to you?

Subconscious naming of characters

Have I told the story of Martin’s name before?

Martin is the protagonist in SOMETHING MISSING, and my choice of his name has an interesting story behind it. 

As I was writing the book, I was in therapy for post traumatic stress disorder, the result of a violent robbery from about ten years prior, and in discussing the book with my therapist, he asked how I decided upon the name Martin.  I told him that "it just popped out.  No thought at all.”  And that was true.  The first word of the first sentence of the book is Martin, and that sentence, like most, just eased its way onto the page without much thought on my part. 

My therapist then pointed out that Martin's name couldn't have been any closer to my own name without actually being my name, and that Martin's penchant for careful planning and obsession for detail were also coping mechanisms that I have developed over the years to deal with my PTSD.  Fire extinguishers on every floor of my home, first aid kits in my car, detailed plans on how to deal with an intruder if one ever entered our house at night.  My planning was obsessive.  I would run through conversations in my head prior to speaking.  Whenever I entered a restaurant, auditorium, or similar public space, I would immediately take note of all the possible exits and would then place myself in a position to face the main door, in order to monitor all who entered.

In short, it turns out that I as writing about myself more than I ever realized.  I even had an evil step-father and a real father who I had not seen for about twenty years until last week, when the book, in part, finally brought us back together. 

But again, I was too stupid to notice these parallels as well.

So earlier this week, I was contacted by a man whose last name is Railsback, wondering where Martin got his last name.  Apparently, Railsback is a fairly uncommon last name, so he and his family were curious about my choice.  Sadly, all I could say is that it also popped into my head, but thus far without any obvious psychological underpinning.  In fact, I did not even know that Martin had a last name until his father appeared in the novel, and when he did, the name came along with it. 

Perhaps someday a therapist will analyze the meaning of Martin's last name as well and explain why it popped into my head, but for now, sadly, all I have to report is that it just came along with the character without any discernible reason. 

Real-life burglars

I read this article on burglary and immediately thought of Martin.

In terms of the thirteen secrets that these professional burglars share, Martin follows four of them. #3, 5, 9 and 10.

A bunch of them are more appropriate for smash-and-grabbers, and so not as applicable to Martin’s line of work.

Instant communication

USA Today did a piece on authors using Twitter to communicate with their readers, something I have been doing for quite some time, and while the 140-character limit can be frustrating for someone who normally tells a story in about 100,000 words, Twitter has clearly done an effective job of bringing me into contact with readers and booksellers. 

I dare say that I have even made friends through Twitter. 

This got me thinking about what a different world it must be for someone like me, who is just getting started on his writing career, and a more established author like Richard Russo.  Based upon Russo’s comments at a reading I recently attended, I am certain that he does not use Twitter, nor does he read  or write a blog.  He probably receives letters from readers and fans through the mail, and perhaps there is an email address for him somewhere, though my search for one proved to be fruitless, but otherwise he has no immediate or direct pipeline to his readers, except through his appearances. 

In contrast, I receive about two emails a day from readers who have accessed my blog and found my email address and am often contacted through Twitter or Facebook by readers who have questions about me or the book.  Thanks to my participation on the internet, readers can contact me immediately and directly, and they often do.

Yesterday, for example, I received three emails from readers who I have never met, an email from a magazine looking to do an interview, and two messages via Twitter (one from a reader and one from a bookseller).  All had questions about the novel and words of congratulation for me in relation to the book and its review in the Times, and all were hoping for relatively immediate responses. 

And as I was responding to these readers, answering their questions and thanking them for their kind words, I wondered what an author like Russo might think of all this.  How much email or tweets might someone as popular and well known as he receive if he had a stronger presence on the internet?  Would he enjoy the immediate feedback that the internet can provide, or would he lament the days when he could focus solely on his books, absent the online chatter, while occasionally sorting through a stack of fan mail?

Would he consider all this proliferation  of author-reader communication a waste of his time, or would he see it as a means of reaching out to the people who allow him to make a living by writing stories?

I often wonder about this myself.

Would my time be better served working on my book, or is the hour or so a day that I spend communicating with readers worth it?  Does it make a difference in terms of book sales?  Do readers really appreciate the time spent writing back to them?  Am I establishing a precedent that I might someday regret? 

I’m not sure.  But I’m no Richard Russo, either, so I think I’ll keep answering my readers questions, tweeting my thoughts and blogging my opinions on topics like this.  It takes some time to do so, but it’s not like it’s not fun. 

Come chat with me

I started a two week chat on Library Thing for anyone interested in participating.

A fine day

After a long day of fun and sun at Mystic Seaport on the Connecticut shoreline, including a stop in Bank Square Books, an independent book store where I was unable to purchase a copy of the New York Times (but saw their last copy of my book on the shelf), I stopped in at Borders Books just before closing, hoping that they might still have a copy or two.

Imagine being reviewed in the New York Times Sunday Book Review and failing to pick up a copy of the paper.  I was getting a little worried. 

But thankfully, Borders had plenty of copies left.  And though I was in a rush, I still took a moment to locate my book.  It doesn’t matter how many times I see SOMETHING MISSING in a store.  It’s still thrilling. 

There were three copies of the book on the New Fiction shelf, plus a handful of copies in the stacks, cover-side facing out. 

Two different and relatively prominent spots in the store.  I was feeling pretty good about myself. 

Then I saw this as I was standing in line, waiting to pay:

Wow.  The store is relatively local, but still…  

I also received a message today from a reader who told me that for a time, SOMETHING MISSING had cracked the top 1,000 on Amazon’s nearly indecipherable ranking system of book sales, including hitting #15 in the humor category.  While the news was exciting, it’s more humbling to think that someone who has already read my book is taking the time to monitor how it’s doing for me.

Thanks to all who have been so kind and supportive.  You have helped to make nearly perfect days like today possible.

Interview at RJ Julia

In case you were busy on Thursday night and couldn’t attend, prior to my appearance at RJ Julia I filmed a short video interview with Karen, an RJ Julia, blogger and Twitter (@karencorvello) extraordinaire. 

Capping off a perfect day

In addition to the review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, a handful of other reviews of SOMETHING MISSING were published yesterday in a variety of locations, including:

A review by Lindsey Losnedahl, Las Vegas Review-Journal assistant features editor for the Las Vegas Review Journal

A review by John Mesjak, an independent sales rep in the publishing industry and author of the blog my3books.com

A review by Dorothy Sim-Broder, owner of Written Words Bookstore in Shelton, CT, on her Written Words Bookstore blog

While I’m still over the moon in terms of the review in the Times, these other, quite positive reviews, were like the icing on the cake that was yesterday.