Janette Rallison's Blog, page 62

Tucson Book Festival March 13-14

If any of you are in the area, I hope you'll stop by and see me at the Tucson Book Festival so it looks like I have fans. (I like to pretend, often bribing near strangers into filling this role.)

My schedule for Saturday, March 13:

1:00-2:00 - Workshop on writing
2:00-2:30, autographing
4:00-4:30 - Teen Author Lounge

You can find out about the other 400 authors attending by checking out the website:
http://tucsonfestivalofbooks.org/

Hope to see you there!

Career Day

Yesterday my daughter told me her school was having a dress-in-the-career-you're going-to-have day. She couldn't decide whether to go as an artist, a crazy cat lady, or an editor.

"What do editor's wear?" she asked.
"Bow ties," I said.
"What do the girl editors wear?" she asked.
"Probably business casual," I told her.
She wasn't thrilled with this answer. I have some of those outfits but she didn't want to go to school wearing my "old lady" clothes. "No one will know what I'm supposed to be," she ...

Random.org has chosen the winner

I love the Random.org website because it boasts that it is truly random. As opposed to all those other things in life that are only pseudo-random. (Like, say, certain people's editorial comments.) The first sentence on the site says:

Perhaps you have wondered how predictable machines like computers can generate randomness.

Actually, no, I have never wondered that. I generally take randomness for granted.

But not today when I need a number. And today the random number generator chose Brenda as t...

Another book give-away

Laura Lofgreen,one of my blogging friends, just did an interview with me that is up on her blog:

http://mydeartrash.blogspot.com/2010/...

I think all of my followers should read it, because I can actually be insightful and witty when given questions I can write out and then revise. In real life, not so much. In real life, I can never think of the word I want and half of my sentences end with the phrase, " . . . you know, that, um, thing . . .(insert wil...

And the winners are . . .

After my husband read my rejection contest blog, he stared at the screen and said, "Wow, those stories are really depressing."

Exactly. Welcome to my life. And yet at the same time I think we all have the right to congratulate ourselves, ladies--and you too Ms., I mean, Mr. Jensen. We're tough. We take this and keep trying. Really, you all deserve good things in life for pursuing your love of writing. I wish I could send you all books and boxes of chocolates and warm hugs.

The mighty Random Or...

Rejection Contest

My daughter worked at Putnam going through the slush pile a few summers back. She told people her official job title was: Dream Crusher.

A lot of agents could also put this on their business cards.

During my recent agent-quest, I only got one form rejection--which would seem pretty good until you realize that I had a manuscript an editor wanted (The sequel for My Fair Godmother) which was in need of a contract. In my query letters, I mentioned this fact. It's the equivalent of telling agents: H...

Rejection and the Would Be Author

My daughter worked at Putnam going through the slush pile a few summers back. She told people her official job title was: Dream Crusher.

You'd think agents would be gentler on writers. After all, they send stuff out to editors all the time, so they feel the sting of rejection firsthand too. But no, anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that many agents could also put: Dream Crusher on their business cards.

During this last agent search, I only got one form rejection--which would seem pretty good...

The writer and self-esteem

Since My Double Life is coming out in three months, I've written a lot of emails to my editor, Tim, AKA the bow-tied one, about marketing stuff. (I want to hold some sort of celebrity look-alike contest, but more about that later.)

The bow-tied one didn't answer my emails for like, two months straight.

I admit right off that I'm a worrier. When I was first married, I had to have many talks with my husband about unexpectedly coming home late from work. My imagination kicked in at twenty minutes....

The oddities of Amazon . . .

I admit there are a lot of things to love about Amazon. It's a great way to find all of those older books that your local book store doesn't carry. But I'm not a big fan of all the used & new books from other sellers that pop up any time you search for an author's books. If you buy one of the 53 used copies that show up on the book's release day, the author doesn't get any royalties from the sale. Plus I'm nearly positive that those copies that appear on the release day are review copies that...

In which Janette begs for romance--wait, will that title get me blocked in filters?

When I was a teenager I used to love to read romances. Seriously, I was a Harlequin addict. I thought men were supposed to be tall, dark, and brooding. Now I have stacks of YA books to read (have to keep current on the genre) and a stack of books my friends have written (because my friends are cool) and, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be writing books not reading them.

Still, I love romance. I miss romance. I don't read contemporary romances because most of them are hot enough that they singe your ...