A Grand March Into Random Thoughts

You caught me again in a scattered moment. I can't pin my thoughts into one cohesive, philosophical waxing, so I won't even try. Maybe after this brain purge, I can get back to focusing on my novel's final read-through.

Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Contest is streaking an excited path through all the listservs and blogs, the second-round promise of that paved highway to publication leaving all the unpubs atwitter. I know. I was an entrant last year. Any contest of that magnitude the year of its inception was destined to have problems. I hope they've worked them out. Most who read this know I'm a glass half-full kinda person; and, far be it from me to advise anyone considering entering the contest, but I aim to shoot it straight. I met some wonderfully talented writers in the same boat as me. You'll find all kinds in your peer group of entrants. The cutthroats. The ones spewing peace and moments of zen that would put the 60's to shame. The "expert" unpubs who deem it their job to comment on everyone's work. Although Amazon will ask you to label your entry a specific genre, I don't believe the hugely talented panel of judges is looking for genre fiction, certainly not romance. It is free; it is a shot. I do preach writers must get their stuff out there. I'm just sure the there is not where I want to be. To read a post I wrote in the thick of the competition, click here, or visit Maureen McGowan's blog and do a keyword search for Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. Her novel made the one hundred cut last year, which is a huge accomplishment. Yeah, Maureen!

Wal-Mart on a Sunday is some kind of cosmic punishment for something I haven't fully realized yet. Snark, maybe, or putting a half-moon up for a post last week, which inspired almost no one to speak up. Anyway, I found the perfect way to pass the time while subjected to this counter-culture shopping event. Wal-Mart bingo!

Crazy electrical things keep happening around me this weekend. Not that I'm self-important enough to think a huge grid of power is based on me, but a peep told me Friday night that it's easy for spirits to manipulate electrical things. Suspicious activity has increased here at Casa Mitchell. Of course, the incidents have been firmly relegated to my I'm-delirious-from-edits part of my left brain. Did I just see what I thought I saw-twice?? Na.

I participated in my first Grand March this past weekend. Nothing says bonding like a hundred strangers bouncing up and down to polka music, exploring the limitations of their Right Guard. I smiled so much that day, my cheeks ached. Now that is a day of life well spent.

If you haven't played Loaded Questions, get it. Not only will it teach you things you never imagined about the people you surround yourself with, it's like every writer's perfect fantasy of "what if". Now my critique group knows I think about Eric Estrada on occasion, believe the dirtiest job in the world is airplane bathroom cleaner and look in the mirror X number of times per day. I'm SO not revealing that one. My favorite question? I'll leave it with you here:

If you could be invisible for one day, what would you do?

Read...and Exercise Your Right to Comment

I'm over at my alter-blog today, SparkleThis. Be sure to read the other four installments in the round-robin story, starting with January 6th, before you read my post. And, yes, they will probably kill me for the direction I took the story, 12-gauge piercings and all.

If you're up for reading an awesome sample of women's fiction, head over to Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Competition. Maureen McGowan's The Miseducation of April Hillson is a story that utilizes a non-linear structure and a raw, honest first person narration to bring the reader close to the strong protagonist heroine. Leave a review and you'll be entered to win prize packages from Amazon up to $2,000.

The Waiting Room

Since I entered the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest last month, I've become entrenched in this alternate reality of authors pacing in a cyber-waiting room. Some, who stress about margins and word count and punctuation and dozens of other things they're powerless to change at this point are the equivalent of the hopeful squeezing their Styrofoam cups charged with espresso. Some profess free love and dance around the forum spouting mantras about how we are all artists on the same canvas. Some burst through the door wielding previous publishing credits--more of a divide and conquer mentality.

With such a broad contest, the diversity of manuscripts is staggering. Religious. Aliens. Coming of age. Epic war-torn tragedies. Self-indulgent literary works. It begs the question: How will the judges receive genre fiction when pitted against more mainstream "literature"? The word "breakthrough" brings to mind popular fiction, but what about the closet sleepers brushed with magical Oprah dust? The final judges are accomplished in the distinctive literary fiction realm, but before a manuscript reaches that point, customers and reviewers en masse will crawl through these manuscripts. Will the demographic of book buyers reflect the end result?

Meanwhile, the countdown clock on Amazon's site reads 64 days until customer voting begins. 18 hours. 5 minutes. 11 seconds. What is it about a precision readout revolving backward that sends people into the most urgent display of human emotion? As if the supply of snark will run out long before the coffee and cigarettes.

Who am I in this waiting room? The one with a laptop clicking thoughtfully on my next project. No spoken words to add to the din. Just the words that count.