Six Years Later, We Can Finally Snoopy Dance!

In the spring of 2006, I started on a long and incredible personal journey. Vehicle of choice? Pen and paper to start, which was soon upgraded to keyboard and monitor.

For the first couple of years, the journey was filled with bumps, potholes, detours and right turns taken at Albuquerque. In 2008, a good cyber friend of mine suggested that I try my hand at blogging, and thus, a blogger was born.

For the next two years ('08-'10), I practiced my craft on this blog and tried to soak up the knowledge of my fellow writers as well as my fantastic readers, either on their blogs or here on my bog, that they were gracious enough to give to me. In 2009, I had reached the first milestone in this journey of mine, when David Cranmer, editor-in-chief of the fantastic e-zine Beat To A Pulp, took a gamble and published a short story of mine (Cedar Mountain), which not only gave me that all important first writing credit but gave me a fantastic boost of my confidence as well.

Two years later, after diligently applying the tips that such diverse writers as David, Elaine Ash, David Barber,  Charles Gramlich, Jane Turley and Travis Erwin were gracious enough to give, I got my 2nd short story published (Red Stripe) at another fine e-zine.

In between having those two stories published, I was inspired to not only get serious with my writing, but to get published in the traditional sense of the word. Thus, Line 21 was born.

From February 2010 thru the spring of 2011, I wrote, polished, edited, re-wrote, and re-edited this novel until it shined. When it was ready (thanks in large part to my very good blogger friend M, who writes this fantastic blog and allowed me to pick her brain more times that I can possibly mention), I decided to pursue a two-pronged approach to the submission process, in that not only was I going to target agents, but I was going to target publishers as well. I also decided that I would chronicle this latest submission process with a page on my blog.

July 2011 found me at the doorstep of Solstice Publishing, which I had first learned about in 2010 from a blurb written by U.K. writer Jack Martin. I e-mailed my submission to them and by January 2012, I got a semi-rejection, which I wrote about here. I took the editor's feedback to heart and spent the next month revising and polishing, then resubmitted. For my efforts I received another round of fantastic feedback, which I took to heart and revised yet again.

That final revision produced three curious things: last week's cryptic post.

This video: 

And this announcement:

I DONE GOT MYSELF A PUBLISHING CONTRACT WITH SOLSTICE PUBLISHING!

Details to follow in the coming weeks, but for now, let's all celebrate the fact that for the first time in a very long while, I am again a somebody.

The Funkiest Headlines Of 1998

Time once again for yet another funky e-mail from yesteryear, this time from the late 20th century.

Include Your Children When Baking Cookies.

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Experts Say.

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

.

Drunks Get Nine Month in Violin Case.

Iraqi Head Seeks Arms.

Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?

Prostitutes Appeal to Pope.

Panda Mating Fails, Veterinatrian Takes Over.

British Left Waffles On Falkland Islands.

Teacher Strikes Idle Kids.

Clinton Wins Budget; More Lies Ahead.

Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told.

Miners Refuse to Work After Death.

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendants.

Stolen Painting Found by Tree.

Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter.

War Dims Hope for Peace.

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last a While.

Couple Slain; Police Suspect Homicide.

Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge.

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group.

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Space.

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks.

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half.

                    

Pre-Teen Book Talk!

Greetings and Salutations!

Since I really had nothing to write about for this blog's Friday installment, I thought I would turn today's post over to my 11 year-old skating/dancing/reader/daughter extraordinaire Jenelle. What you're about to read is 100% her and 0% me, and as such, I disclaim all knowledge of what it is that she's gonna write about. But I will try my very best to answer any and all comments that you might be gracious enough to leave.

Take it away, Jenelle!

The book I want to share is the book Warriors : Into The Wild. It's by Erin Hunter. The book is about this tom cat (when you say tom it means they weren't fixed yet) named Rusty decides one day to jump over his fence and sneak into the woods behind his house. (In this book, us humans are called Twolegs) Before he jumps, a white cat with black spots (who is not a tom cat) named Smudge warns him about another cat who went into the woods and came back terrified. That cat never went back. Well, Rusty decides to ignore Smudge. If you want to know more, look at my dad's blog next week. Thanks for reading! There is also a website for this series called Warrior Cats. Check it out!

Is There An Upside To Writing?

We interrupt this post for a late breaking news story:

Happy Birthday to the young lady who is now 11 years old today! And, I might add, is someone who doesn't like Justin Bieber!

We now gladly return you to the beginning of this post, which really wasn't interrupted, but in G's world, anytime I can focus this blog on other people in my life is always a good thing.

There are a lot of upsides to writing: recognition, appreciation, the opportunity to show people that there's a reason why you're randomly shouting out nonsensical word and phrases like "Yes! That'll work! No, it won't work!" and "Why did I write that?", and most importantly, proving your critics WRONG!

Whoops, did I say WRONG? Ummm...just ignore that particular word for now. Pretend that you didn't read the other three words that proceeded that last word either. It's just a figment of your Imagination!

So.

Believe it or not, writing isn't all peaches and cream, or strawberries and cream, or even Ben & Jerry's. Sometimes, writing can be a big pain in the gluteous maximus.

How? Take editing (please, take it away) for example. The other day I decided to take out a few old short stories and tighten them up a little.

Why?

Faux Reason #1: I decided to explore the Duotrope newsletter again, so I figured it would behoove me to have a few stories at the ready.

Faux Reason #2: I wasn't quite ready to pick up where I had left off with my novella, simply because the muse wasn't ready. Without my muse, I'm kind of dead in the water.

Faux Reason #3: My brain was sozzled from trying to write something that someone had suggested that I write, so I needed a break from doing that particular something.

Faux Reason #4: Got aggravated from the work week, so when I get aggravated, no original writing takes place.

So I spent the past holiday weekend working on a couple of short stories, you know, tightening the sentence structure, having the paragraphs actually make sense, having the plot actually make sense. You know, editing. Didn't really do much of anything else writing wise.

Well, maybe I did.

In any event, if this post seems somewhat disjointed and vague, you're absolutely right.

Let me tell you something, and you'll probably agree with on this particular point: it is damn near impossible to purposely screw something up. If you're good at what you do, trying to mess up what you do so well on purpose simply can't be done.

I pride myself on writing blog posts that contain two indisputable certainties: they make sense and they have a point. Trying to write a post that doesn't make sense or have a point is pretty damn near impossible.

So my friends, I promise that next Tuesday's writing update not only will make up for the vagueness of this post, but it will make your jaw drop.

Until then, have fun in trying to read between the lines.

Understanding Job Advertisements

Before you rush to apply for that too-good-to-be true job, here's some advice on translating corporate ad-speak into practical English.

1} Must have an eye for detail

Translation: "We have no quality control."

2} Seeking candidates with a wide variety of experience

Translation: "You'll need it to replace three people who just left."

3} No phone calls please

Translation: "We've filled the job, our call for resumes is just a legal formality."

4} Problem solving skills a must

Translation: "You're walking into a company in perpetual chaos."

5} Requires team leadership skills

Translation: "You'll have the responsibilities of a manager, without the pay or respect."

6} Good communications skills

Translation: "Management communicates, you listen and figure out what they want."

7} Must be deadline oriented

Translation: "You'll be six months behind schedule on your first day."

8} Flexible hours

Translation: "Work 40 hours, get paid for 25."

9} Duties will vary

Translation: "Anyone in the office can boss you around."

10} Ability to handle a heavy workload

Translation: "You whine, you're fired."

Pop Culture? YouTube!

Back in those pre-Internet days, the only way to effectively do any kind of research was to trip down to your local library and pester the reference librarian for help in finding some moldy-oldy book about a moldy-oldy topic that you were interested in learning about.

Fast forward to the present.

In the present, the Internet is so part of our psyche, that we now turn to it to help us with our research. Almost everyone, including yours truly, has used Wikipedia as a starting point for any and all things known and unknown that we may be interested in. But after having a casual conversation with the wife and reading a thoughtful response to a comment of mine this past week, I've come to realize that the best place to research anything known or unknown is not Wikipedia.

It's YouTube.

Yup, that great all purpose video website where everyone and anyone uploads their videos in the vain hope of becoming the next Fred, but realistically, just hoping for a least a thousand hits to their video, is the ultimate research site.

Why?

Because anything that was originally put to video/VHS/BETA/celluloid/small screen/vinyl eventually makes it way to YouTube. And to use YouTube is so ridiculously easy that you don't even need a complete title of something to search for it, just a random snippet.

Like for instance, while I was with my with this past Monday celebrating her b'day by taking her out to lunch at a local restaurant and waiting for a friend to show up, a song called "A Brimful Of Asha" popped up on the radio. I mentioned to the wife that I love the song but I wish I knew the name of the band. She said why don't I look it up on YouTube. I did (by using the title of the song) and found out the name of the band was Cornershop.

Another time, I was having a conversation with a co-worker about the local sports scene, and one point we got to talking about minor league hockey. I happened to mention that the local team the Hartford Wolfpack (now the Connecticut Whale) did a commercial for Norelco, which at the end featured one of the players punching out the mascot. Now I didn't know the name of the player at the time, but by using YouTube as a starting point, I was able to find out what that particular player's name was: P.J. Stock.

And finally, about the comment that I'd left at a blog. I have a history of spouting off all kinds of pop culture minutia and more often than not, it makes the receiver of the minutia curious enough to do a search and destroy for the origin of said minutia. And usually the first place that they go for to find this pop culture minutia is YouTube.

Basically, if you can think of a snippet or anything longer than a snippet, chances are that you can find it on YouTube.

YouTube.

Because sometimes, you just need to find the answer to the question, "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."