Making Lemonade and a Comedy of Errors

Life has its share of challenges and disappointments, and they can either make you or break you. You may have lemons or you may make lemonade. You may stay inside grouching about the rain or you may choose to go dance in it.

Sure, those are hackneyed sayings, but they're used and used again for good reason. Turning something that seems like a frustration or unfortunate event into a benefit to you sets you apart from the pack - and you feel good about yourself afterwards.

I practiced what I'm preaching recently when the release of my novel, "The Starling God" was months behind schedule despite the publisher's best efforts. I knew people had preordered, and I'd been talking about the upcoming release date for a long time. I was frustrated and so were my potential readers.

To soothe my own nerves, I began a comic ad campaign on my Facebook page. I changed my Facebook cover image every day after spending a few evenings on faceinhole.com creating situations where my novel was being awaited with bated breath - by groups of humans, groups of penguins, a hungry goat - you name it. The title or cover image showed up in a variety of places that had my friends and fans giggling, commenting and wanting to know more while they (and I) had to wait.

Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right? Not a bad thing to remember.

If you'd like to giggle too, here's the link to my cover photos album!

https://www.facebook.com/tanya.sousa....