Becky Clark's Blog, page 23

My Funny T-Shirt Store Launch

Today is the official launch day of my new Zazzle store, Lazy Squirrel Designs!

I put funny sayings, quips, bon mots, and my particular brand of snark on t-shirts, baby clothes, aprons, mugs, and all kinds of great products.

If you’ve never had the Zazzle shopping experience, it’s fun and a bit addictive because many of the products you find there can be customized. In fact, ALL of my designs can be customized so you get exactly what you want. It’s easy and I’ve explained it all here.

There’s a ton of colors, sizes and products, so I am confident you’ll find something you love. If not at Lazy Squirrel Designs, then from some other Zazzler.

Remember, funny is as funny wears. Go forth and make everyone jealous by your good taste, your impeccable sense of style, and your delightful sense of humor!

Six Things You Don’t Know About Me

If you’ve ever wanted to know which cartoon characters I channel, then you should read this cute little Q&A interview of me from the fine folks at Pikes Peak Writers.

I’m looking forward to speaking at their April 2014 conference. It’s a fantastic conference — educational, fun, and incredibly friendly. I’ve been to a dozen of them, both as an attendee and as a speaker,  and never fail to meet fantastic people who nurture my career as well as give me personal joy. I come home after four days, drunk with information and new ideas to move my writing and my writing business forward. If you’re not going this year, start making plans to go next year. It’s in a gorgeous setting, nestled at the base of Pikes Peak, always in the perfectly delightful month of April.

This year I’ll be doing a 3-hour workshop with the always charming DeAnna Knippling called THE FIVE Ws OF INDIE PUBLISHING: Who, What, When, Where, Why and WTH?! 

The second workshop I’m doing is Support Your Fiction Addiction – How NOT To Be a Starving Artist

Looking forward to both! Also looking forward to meeting bestselling authors and new BFFs Chuck Wendig, Gail Carriger, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Jim C. Hines. (Just don’t tell them. Wouldn’t want to spook ‘em.)

If you’re there, let’s hang out in the bar or have a meal together! Be forewarned, though. I really love the Marriott’s cheesecake and am not above stealing yours.

My Unlikely Pilgrimage

You’ve probably guessed that I’m a reader, even though I don’t get to read for pleasure or discuss books with smart people nearly as often as I’d like. So about a year ago I begged a friend of mine to allow me to join her long-standing book club.

I like to imagine the vetting process was fierce, involving all sorts of surreptitious background checks, clandestine googling and phone calls to my mother.

I suspect it was less rigorous.

The group works as most book clubs work — we sign up for the month we’d like to host, we choose the book for that month then call the caterer to organize a feast related to the theme of the book. I kid. But the host does make a special trip to the liquor store and the bakery.

Members of the group can choose to read the book or not. Attendance at the party, er, meeting, does not hinge upon that decision. Thanks to these marvelous ladies I’ve read many books in the past year I would never have stumbled upon, thoroughly enjoying all but one. [I'm looking at you, BEAUTIFUL RUINS.]

Yesterday I finished the book chosen for April, THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY.

I may never recover.

It’s a very British novel with quirky sweetness and universal truths flowing like so much Earl Grey. The story involves a sad, retired Harold who learns that Queenie, a friend from many years ago, is dying from cancer in a hospice 600 miles away. He writes a letter to her, but knows it’s inadequate. As he’s walking to the mailbox, he decides he must deliver it in person. He keeps on walking, leaving his angry and distant wife, Maureen, behind.

I started dog-earing favorite passages, but soon realized that meant dog-earing almost every page.

• “He watched the squares of buttery light inside the houses, and people going about their business. He thought of how they would settle in their beds and try to sleep through their dreams. It struck him again how much he cared, and how relieved he was that they were somehow safe and warm, while he was free to keep walking.”

• “Maureen gave a shrill laugh that sounded as if she had just emptied it out of a packet.”

• “He understood that in walking to atone for the mistakes he had made, it was also his journey to accept the strangeness of others.”

• “Maureen felt afresh the shame of not getting it. She longed to show him all her colors, and here she was, a suburban shade of gray.”

• “As they pulled away, she saw Harold, this stranger who had been her husband for so many years, with a dog trotting at his side, and a group of followers she didn’t know — but she didn’t throw a wave, or toot the horn.”

The writing, as you can see, is gorgeous, and I despair of ever turning a phrase like Rachel Joyce does. But there was so much more for me in this book.

You see, I am Harold. And Queenie. And Maureen. And their next door neighbor Rex. And the characters he meets in his travels.

Like Harold, I have an inexplicable, completely misunderstood friendship, the loss of which I mourn. Like Queenie, I’ve performed extraordinary kindnesses which have gone unnoticed and unmentioned. Like Maureen, I don’t “get” some of the very people I’m closest to, nor am I “got.” I have friends for whom — if I thought it would help — I’d walk across England.

I doubt I’ll ever be called upon to do that, but wherever I am, whoever I meet, I hope I can accept their strangeness, throw a wave, and toot the horn.

Book Launch Day for Banana Bamboozle!

If you signed up on my mailing list, you’ve already heard that today is National Goof Off Day which is the perfect day to launch a fun, easy read like Banana Bamboozle. You’ve also heard all the merriment we have planned around the launch for the next few days.

And if you didn’t sign up on my mailing list, you’ve done gone and broke my heart! (But you can always redeem yourself by doing it now!)

I can’t tell you all the Super Secret Stuff since you didn’t want to join the club (sob), but I can tell you that we’re having a Comment Contest on Facebook tomorrow, (Sunday March 23) and Monday (March 24). I’ll ask a question, you answer with your funniest, most delightful answer, and votes will be cast by complete strangers* pushing the ‘like’ button. Winners get signed books.

[*Not that you'd be so crass as to manipulate your friends into voting for you or anything, but the most 'shares' over the two days wins a prize too. Just sayin.]

If you’re not following me over at Facebook, just click the blue icon that says “Follow” in my sidebar, over thataway→→→→→→→ and probably ↓↓↓ too.

Okay, since you twisted my arm and said ‘purty please’, I’ll tell you one more thing. The electronic version of Banana Bamboozle will be free today, tomorrow and Monday. Click here to download it. All I ask in return is that if you like it, you post a quick review on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

The print edition is available here, but if you’d prefer to buy it from your local bookstore or request that your library carry it, just give them the ISBN: 978-1-4944-9471-1 and they can order it easy peasy.

Happy Bamboozling … and thanks for helping make the BANANA BAMBOOZLE Book Launch so much fun!

PS — Take a picture of how you spent National Goof Off Day (or any of your personal Goof Off Days) with your copy of Banana Bamboozle. When I get some good ones, I’ll post on my blog. Email jpgs to Becky (at) Becky Clark Books (dot) com … do I need to tell you there are no spaces? I’m never sure.

Bodacious Blurbs for Banana Bamboozle

I’ve been deep in the throes of the launch for my new novel BANANA BAMBOOZLE. I swear, it’s taking longer than birthin’ a baby!

But all the moving parts are beginning to clang together so I’m getting happy and antsy. Happsy.

One of the coolest things about writing books — besides having complete strangers tell you how much they like them — is having peers, people you respect, tell you they like your writing.

I stuck my neck out and asked three writers if they’d be so kind as to blurb my book, for the back cover. These are writers whose books and talent I respect, so I was thrilled when they all immediately said yes. They sent back such perfect responses I wanted to share them here first. Here’s the back cover …

I want to give them each a shout-out because if you haven’t read any of their books yet, you really should!

Jeff Shelby writes the bestselling Noah Braddock mysteries (Killer Swell, Wicked Break, Liquid Smoke and Drift Away), which are fabulous. If you like Robert Crais and Robert B. Parker, these are right up your alley. But I love his funny cozy mysteries, Stay At Home Dead and Popped Off, written under Jeffrey Allen, his pen name.

 

I’m reading Peg Brantley‘s newest mystery The Sacrifice right now. Well, not right now, but you know what I mean. It’s terrific. Suspense with a soupçon of heart. Lots of twists, interesting characters and tight writing.

 

My favorite book by Mario Acevedo is The Nymphos of Rocky Flats, because it was my first introduction to the weird way his mind works. I mean, seriously, what kind of person writes so lovingly about a vampire private investigator? It’s hilarious, sexy, unique, and undeniably entertaining. And guess what? It’s a series!

So, thank you Jeff Shelby, Peg Brantley, and Mario Acevedo for saying nice things about Banana Bamboozle. You didn’t have to, but it makes me ridiculously happsy that you did!

Is The Fault Really In Our Stars?

There’s been a conversation in one of my book marketing groups that I’ve been finding interesting. Authors have been discussing their Amazon reviews.

They’ve told some ridiculous, hilarious, and infuriating stories about getting 1-star reviews. Things like, “I bought this book by mistake so I’m giving it 1 star.” Or “I don’t like thrillers” even though the description clearly said it was a thriller. I even heard of one outrageously negative review because the author’s name was similar to her ex-husband’s. Not the same, just similar. The entire review was an ex-husband rant.

My favorite ballsy review starts, “I didn’t read this book, but …”

I wouldn’t be surprised if some poor schlub got a 1-star review on his masterpiece because a cranky reader “missed the bus today.”

Scuttlebutt is that Amazon is clamping down on egregious reviews like these. Hope so. But that’s a topic for another day.

The conversation the last few days swirled around 3-star reviews. Some authors hated getting 3-star reviews, others didn’t much mind. And it led to the question of how authors rated books. Some are brutally honest and will give 1 star to a BFF. Others never review books at all. Ever.

But most of us fall into that hand-wringing middle ground. Much of what we read is written by people we know and we want to love everything with the white-hot intensity of ten thousand suns. But sometimes we don’t. Then what do we do? Many of us, myself included, fall into the ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all’ category. Plus, just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean that you won’t. It doesn’t even mean there’s anything wrong with it.

Personally, I don’t think a 3-star review means it’s a bad book. It entertained me for most of the allotted time, didn’t require heaving it against the wall, perfectly solied. Fine. Okay. Average.

But I never give 3-star reviews to people I know.

First, because it will probably bring down their average. No way, no how do I want that on my conscience. It’s hard enough to be a writer without your friends sticking their foot out when you’re lugging packages up a steep hill. Or some writing metaphor.

And second, I don’t know how they view a 3-star review. Everyone knows that five stars means spectacular and one star means craptacular, but what about those pesky middle numbers?

I read the restaurant reviews in the newspaper and am flummuxed. They only have a 4 star system and much of the time the restaurants only earn a one or a two, so I don’t think the food is very good. But when I look closer, one star means it’s good. Two = very good, three = great, four = exceptional.

The nuance is as subtle as their house Chardonnay.

But the book review discussion roused my curiosity. My world revolves around books, authors, reviews, and Amazon in a million different ways. Yours probably doesn’t. So, I want to know …

What are YOUR definitions of the five stars in an Amazon book review? Do you even read book reviews? Do you assume all 5-star reviews are written by the author’s besties and family members? If you were contemplating buying or reading a book and you saw it had a 3-star average, what would you think? Would it be different if it had a lot of reviews and a 3-star average, or just a few reviews and a 3-star average?

That reminds me … must go see if I have new reviews!

How Prolific Are You?

I read the obituary of Janet Dailey, a best-selling romance writer. I didn’t know her or her work, but this line caught my eye:

“According to various estimates, she enforced a writing quota of 10 pages per day to produce novels at a rate of about one per month, with an occasional work knocked out in just over a week and others taking longer.”

My, my, my. I feel quite slug-like.

The article went on to say that in 1986 her books sold in 90 countries at a rate of about 43,000 per day.

Can you imagine? Hmm. I can. Unfortunately, it probably also takes actual prioritizing and work ethic.

 

The Great Facebook Push of 2013

Okay … Facebookland. This is your last chance before I go have a Guinness.

Poetry Is Where You Find It

Whenever the subject of poetry comes up — and I’m a bit surprised how often that is — I’m the first to say I don’t much like it. But you know what I LOVE? Lyrics. I know. Tomato, tomahto.

There’s been a Facebook thingy going around asking what your favorite Christmas song is. I didn’t answer it because, well, it seems too hard to choose and I’m tired of doing hard things lately. But while I was eating breakfast this morning, I finally pulled out all our holiday CDs.

I’m getting a late start this year because I’m in the final, agonizing stages of birthing a new novel and it’s requiring all my focus and grey matter. Not even fudge or egg nog could tear me away—aw, who am I kidding? If I had fudge or egg nog, I’d be as distracted as a Golden Retriever at a tennis ball factory run by squirrels.

But while I was listening to carols this morning, I tried to determine which was my favorite. And it WAS hard! So I did what I always do when something is hard … I cheated. Instead of just one song, I separated my choices into categories.

The first category is SECULAR. And for this I chose “The Christmas Waltz,” elegant and jazzy when Nancy Wilson does it. And isn’t that album cover cool? So retro.

Second is CHURCHY. For this I chose “Once in Royal David’s City.” This version by the Chieftains and the Renaissance Singers simply can’t be beat.

The third category is DANCABLE and I can’t believe there are any choices but “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Argue if you must, but I’m ignoring you.

Fourth is FAVORITE TO SING. Don’t get me wrong; I sing all of them. Even the ones without lyrics. (I do a fabulous “Linus and Lucy.”) But my Very Favorite to Sing is “Do You Hear What I Hear.” If you were here, you would hear me, singing not only Johnny Mathis’ part, but all the choral parts too. Not to brag, but it’s quite spectacular and exhausting. It’s also a lot of fun, you should try it.

And the last category is GUARANTEED TO MAKE ME CRY. Those who know me, know that just about everything falls into this category, but there’s one I wanted to single out this year; the song that got me to thinking about my favorites today.

I haven’t been in the holiday spirit lately, yes, because I’m crazybusy, but also because we are empty nesters and don’t have any kids coming home this year. Both Navy boys will be here in February, though, and we saw our Oregon daughter in September, so don’t feel bad for me.

But this song — “Home on Christmas Day” — made me sob through my scrambled eggs this morning.

The lyrics spoke to me, like good poetry should.

“Home On Christmas Day”

And now that winter’s here soon it will be Christmas

I see your face so clear though you’re far away

Your home is in my heart, it’s everywhere I go

And I’ll be waiting here ’til you’re home to stay

I think of winters past we were all together

The sweetest memories all come into play

Your voice rings in my ear just to let me know

That you’ll be here with me home on Christmas Day

Angels calling from up high will bring a starry sky

To light the frosted ground below

So you will know your way back home tonight

A candle burns so bright to show the way

I’ll make a silent wish just for you this Christmas

To keep you safe and warm never led astray

That everywhere you go you’re sheltered from the storm

And that my Christmas wish is with you every day

Angels calling down to say they’ll always know the way

To lift you ’til you soar so high

That I will see you in the sky above

My Christmas gift of love will guide you back

And now I promise you with all my heart this Christmas

That all the love we shared will never go away

Your spirit’s everywhere and I hope you know

That you are always here home on Christmas Day

Home on Christmas Day

I’ll make a silent wish that you enjoy the poetry of the season, wherever you find it.

 

What Shouldn’t Make You Happy

I clipped this out of a magazine because I thought it was funny, thought-provoking, and crumpled at the edges, much like myself.

Of course, it made me wonder what would be on my list. You too? Well, what a coincidence.

What Should Make Me Happy But Doesn’t
• poetry
• nutritional yeast
• Whole Foods stores
• movie theaters
What Shouldn’t Make Me Happy But Does
• sore muscles from a killer workout
• potato chips on a peanut butter and honey sandwich
• cheap wine
• Barry Manilow

 

Okay. Your turn.