Erika Mitchell's Blog, page 39

Throwback Deer

I just saw a proof of the printed version of my book and…It's awesome, you guys. They're getting it done so much faster than I thought they would, and it looks pretty freaking rad. I'm optimistic that those of you holding out for an honest-to-goodness printed book will have one in your hot little hands in less than a month.

W00t!

Book talk aside, things have been going swimmingly here at Casa de Mitchell. Wes is wrapping up a whole slew of year-end projects, Aidan is cutting some new molars (by golly, that looks painful) and I'm down to 175 pounds and feeling pretty happy about it. I can run for two miles without stopping, none of my clothes fit, and I feel light and springy like a deer.

Granted, I'm the kind of deer a hunter probably wouldn't shoot at what with my crazy eyes and unkempt hair, but still. A deer.

Let's see, what else is up? We started watching Better Off Ted recently and it's hilarious (and not just because Lindsay Bluth is in it). Aidan walked into a lake on Sunday and would have just kept on walking had I not saved him from drowning himself. Consequently, I've signed him up for swimming classes. Wes and I get to go to a shooting class in two weeks, after which we get to go on vacation. Alas, we probably won't shoot anything while we're on vacation.

Man, I'm out of practice blogging about stuff that isn't book-related. Let's see, how do I normally wrap things up? Mention gnomes or cupcakes, ask an inane rhetorical question, and then conclude with a nonsensical statement. So here goes:

I haven't eaten nearly enough cupcakes lately, what with my quest to not be rotund. But that's the thing with losing weight, isn't it? You become uncomfortably aware of how many opportunities you have each day to make poor decisions. Ignorance really is bliss when it comes to calories. But not when it comes to toilet paper on your shoe.

Bootstrappin'

Ok that's quite enough of all that whining, thankssomuch.

Today is a much better day. I ate a bowl of Life cereal just because, I tried the Stairclimber at the gym for the first time, and Aidan just learned where his belly is and will show you with great gusto, which I find endlessly adorable. Life is better.

Once I got over the initial shock of learning that the Internet is full of people who have strong opinions and little patience for tact, life got easier. You guys have spoiled me! My Internet (and real life) friends are so sweet to me, I guess I'd forgotten that not everyone is as kind.

No matter, though, because today is a new day. This is not the first time I've had to pull myself up by my bootstraps, and it won't be the last. It takes awhile to grow a thicker skin, but I figure if I can beat depression I can handle this too.

As for my future as a writer? I'll just keep on writing, obviously. I'll keep learning where and when I can, writing as much as possible, and with any luck my books will just keep getting better and better.

Theme song of the day? Kashmir by Led Zeppelin.

Also? The book trailer for PWNED is out! Wanna take a peek? (Please be kind, my budget for this trailer was approximately $0)

Floundering

Excuse me, but has anyone seen my kidney laying around somewhere? I'm getting eviscerated you see, and I always like to keep track of my pieces when I'm getting eviscerated so I can get myself back in order afterwards.

You know those scenes on 30 Rock where Jenna locks herself in her dressing room because her niece drew an unflattering picture of her or because her stalker forgot about her or somesuch nonsense? I have infinitely more sympathy for her now.

It turns out the old adage about never reading your own reviews is a good one. People are mean! Multiply that exponentially and then square it when those same people are on the Internet.

I bought some marketing space on a Starcraft 2 related site and at first the responses were encouraging. People were excited! I was excited! Hooray! Or so I thought.

As so often happens on Internet forums, the weather turned foul and I saw far more backhanded slaps than high fives. They insulted my writing. They mocked my plot. They even picked apart my character's name!

Yikes. I had no idea. No. Idea.

So now I'm…floundering, to be quite honest. As someone who's always been somewhat hesitant to let other people read my writing (not blogging writing, mind you. Obviously) to see it flayed to bits for fun is traumatizing in the worst way. I never set out to write the best book ever written. I just wanted to tell a story.

Apparently that's abhorrent to a lot of people.

The only thing keeping me from refusing to get out of bed is Wes, funny enough. He's made it his mission to provide proof that this is how it is for almost everyone who publishes something. Even respected, amazing writers. He won't let me wallow, and insists that the negative comments haven't shaken his faith in my writing at all.

I tell you, that kind of support is truly unique. If everyone had someone in their life who believed in them like Wes believes in me, I'd love to see how much could get accomplished.

As for me? Well, as badly as I want to burrow under the covers and lay there in an abject pile of misery and bad self esteem, I won't. I'll just keep putting one foot in front of the other and doing my darndest to ignore the comments of the faceless masses on the Internet who go after helpless books like heat-seeking missiles.

Who knows? I might even work up the courage to publish another book! Someday. Maybe when I'm 80 and senility and dementia have set in. Probably then.

Official

As of today, I'm a published author. As undeniably cool as it was to see my name on the covers people designed for me, it is even more mind-blowing to see my name on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. As an author. That is just so freaking cool!

I woke up at 11:55 last night because Aidan was up and all I could think was, "In five minutes it'll be June 20. And I'll be a published author," and then I went back to sleep because my tired brain couldn't process the enormity of that statement.

In my first day as a published author, so far I have worked out, done the breakfast thing, and changed a diaper. Pretty much life as usual. When I had Aidan on the changing table, I tried to tell him he was getting his diaper changed by a published author, and that that was a big deal. He was, and continues to be, unimpressed.

It's ok. I'm excited enough for the both of us.

Cribbing From Mr. Palahniuk

As a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (don't get excited, it doesn't mean I'm awesome. All it means is that I had enough spare change to cobble together the membership dues) I get to attend a seminar once per month. The seminars vary in topic. Sometimes they cover the mechanics of good writing  and at other times they instruct you in the mechanics of being a writer.

Last night's seminar was on conflict. Conflict, drama, and why you need these things (in this way, Jennifer Lancaster is correct in her assertion that the Real Housewives can be educational). As I sat there, I couldn't help but feel the way I always do at these things: Absolutely certain in my conviction that I still have so much to learn about writing.

There are tired old writing cliches that I still haven't even heard yet. Sometimes people edit my writing and tell me I'm doing stuff like "comma splices" and then I have to look up what those are so I know whether or not I should be doing them.

This is a good thing. It's a good thing to have room to learn and grow. If I am the best I'm ever going to be at age 26, that doesn't give me much to look forward to for the next sixty years, does it?

Of course, I can't help but think about how this applies to my imminently-published-book. When I first announced that PWNED was coming out, a friend of mine, in the interest of being a good friend, asked me if it was ready. If it was the best it could possibly be.

At the time I answered yes, because I thought (and still think) that it's a great story. Now, though, I'm inclined to think it's not the best it could possibly be.

The reason being that I'm not as good at writing as I will ever be. I could keep every book I write cloistered on my computer for decades, and just work through them with a fine-toothed comb every time I learn a new technique. I could spend my entire life re-writing and revising them, convinced they're not ready because of my fear of what I don't know.

I'm not interested in doing that.

This is me fully admitting that I'm a writing noob. PWNED is not the Great American Novel, and I fully admit to having room to learn and grow.

What I also fully admit to is loving the story, the characters, and the plot. I had so much fun writing this book, and it shows. I'm steeling myself for the inevitable bad reviews on the horizon (because trolls are everywhere and I'd be foolish to think they'll ignore me) but I'm also just really excited to share the story with whoever is interested in reading it.

Life is a dish best served with panache, and in the immortal words of Chuck Palahniuk, "I don't want to die without any scars." You'd be surprised by how many of my life's idioms I crib from Mr. Palahniuk.

Print Ready

Today is a good day. I mean, it's yet another day in this pre-published week which means it's a stressful day full of cupcake yearning, but it's a good day. Because I have good news.

My book will be available in print in two months!

I know a lot of you are down with e-books, which is cool because PWNED will be available as an e-book through Amazon and Barnes & Noble on Monday (iTunes is coming in a couple weeks, they're picky). For those of you who prefer printed books, however, PWNED is heading your way soon.

Man sakes alive though, laying out a book for printing is no joke. I tried doing it on my own and it's an artform that's not to be messed with. There are rules. And computer programs. And…um…Latin terms! Needless to say, I hired out for the layout because I just don't have time to teach myself what some people spend years in school learning.

This is also why I've decided not to try learning how to take my car's engine apart using only Internet tutorials.

Pointless tomfoolery aside, this is pretty darn cool in my opinion. I've been pondering the logistics of doing book signings with an e-book, and this makes that deliberation somewhat pointless. Now all I need to do is line up some book signing venues! And practice my signature. And work on not stammering in public.

Quick Notes

Two posts in a single day! I'll be perfectly honest with you: I'm going for extra credit this week.

Anyway, Parsing Nonsense veterans will notice that I have yet again changed the theme on my blog. Many apologies! I liked the other theme, but it didn't have the chutzpah I needed so it had to go. I hope you like this one. It has comments on the bottom of the post again, which many of you mentioned to me was a negative with the other theme, so hopefully everyone is happy now.

Also, I just wanted to point out the link to "My Books" at the top. If you click there, you'll go on a very speedy journey to my author website. There, you'll find the latest info on my books, bonus materials (if I ever find time to write them), and the first two chapters of PWNED. Head on over, check it out, and feel free to come back here and let me know what you think!

The Queen of Party Fouls

Way back in May, when I decided on June 20 as the release date for PWNED, I thought June seemed really, very, quite far away indeed. Then June 1 rolled around and I thought June 20 still seemed really far away.

And now it's June 13, and the release date of my first book is a week away, and I'm so excited that I'm vibrating like a toy poodle and it has nothing to do with how much coffee I've drunk this morning. I emailed the final version of the book to my publisher this morning, and in one week it'll be sitting out on virtual bookshelves.

I'll be a published author.

I feel like Neo from The Matrix. Whoa.

So what does a nearly-published author do the weekend before her book is released? Clean a whole heckuva lot of red wine off her white carpet. That's what.

Wes's parents came over for dinner on Saturday and I made the mistake of sitting on the floor with a glass of red wine while we were chatting. Aidan, the little monkey he is, came right up to me and, in that freakishly fast way only toddlers seem capable of, batted the glass of wine right out of my hand.

I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes as those red droplets of carpet mayhem went sailing down to the floor. I watched my abnormally large safety deposit never come back to me. I watched my landlord burst into flames of rage. But mostly I just saw Aidan, smiling at the delightful pattern he made on the floor.

Lucky for me, my mother-in-law and I are carpet-stain-removing ninjas. You can't even tell that a bottle of wine has ever even graced our house, that's how nice the carpet looks now. But it was a long, laborious road to get there.

We had to deforest an entire acre of pristine jungle in order to create the quantities of paper towels required to clean up a mess of that magnitude. We had to use enough carpet cleaner to remove a dalmatian's spots, and then keep the baby from rolling around in all that chemical-y goodness.

Needless to say, when you come over to our house, we know how to show you a good time. If you're lucky, you'll get to clean our carpets. If you're really lucky, we might just let you change a diaper.

So that was my glamorous weekend. Oh sure, there were steaks and burgers, I found out I lost a pound last week (huzzah!) and I baked a coffee cake so good it literally knocked Aidan's socks off. But what sticks out is the wine.

Because if you're going to perpetrate a party foul? Go big or go home. Don't just interrupt the party. Put your guests to work and then send them home!

Speaking of which, does anyone want to come over for dinner? There's some silverware that needs polishing…

In Which I'm Utterly Translucent

Thanks so much to everyone who voted for their favorite cover art, and congratulations to Daniel for designing the winning cover! It feels good to have a definite cover for the book, and now with an author photo to go with! Wait. What's that? You want to see the gorgeous picture my photography genius friend took for me?

Voila!

I absolutely, positively love it. I had no idea I looked like that! You should have seen me getting ready for this shoot, it was comical. I'd never applied foundation before and didn't think to practice beforehand so I was all, "Ack! Why do I look so fracking pale?!"

Honestly, the paleness. It is a problem. I'm so pasty that the makeup consultant had to reach for the palest foundation color, the name of which is "Translucent." If that doesn't say, "I live in Seattle" I don't know what will.

Anyway, I have a cover for my book, an author photo, I'm nearly through with edits…we might just pull this off! After this book comes out, I'm going to take an entire day and just sit around in sweatpants eating Oreos. And it will be glorious.

Between now and then, though? There is marketing. Marketing marketing marketing. And here I thought writing the book was the hard part, but it turns out that getting people to read the thing is just as much work.

Speaking of which, if you're on Facebook, would you consider "Liking" me? I've set up a page for my books, and if you wouldn't mind supporting me by "Liking" me I sure would appreciate it. Plus, then you'd get updates on Facebook in addition to the updates you get here. Updates for all!

Thanks again for the help in picking a cover. I can't wait to see it on a bookshelf!

Book Cover Contest!

The big day is here! I've had the pleasure of working with some extremely talented graphic designers, all of whom have brought different ideas to life. I would recommend working with every single one of these brilliant people because, as you can see from the designs below, they're excellent at what they do.

I'm excited about every single book cover design and, as such, have brought in my crew of intelligent, well-read blog readers to help me choose.

Without further ado, let's get to the contenders!

Option 1, design by Daniel Held:

Option 2, design by Kira Lehman of Stellamari

Option 3, design by Isaiah Townsend

Option 4, design by Wes Mitchell

Cast your vote for your favorite cover!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.