A Year in Self-Publishing and A Year in Age 30…Wicked Combo!

As bestselling author Jodi Picoult was quoted as saying in an article last week: “DO NOT SELF-PUBLISH.”

As my mother was quoted as saying right after my birthday last year: “DO NOT WAIT PAST THIRTY TO FIND A BOY.”

I would like to clarify that my mother does not encourage pedophilia, she is merely referring to the menu of grown Indian men, one of which should become my husband. They are not underage men by any means, but you see,  unmarried Indian adults are always referred to as “boys” and “girls” by matchmaking Indian ladies far and wide. I believe this title helps fuel the precious lie that unmarried Indian adults are like untouched innocent babes, until their hands first meet in that awkward first dance at their wedding reception.

Mmmkay.

Back to my original statement: I broke Jodi Picoult’s rule in these past twelve months, and, unless I get engaged in these final four hours before my birthday (anyone?…anyone?) , I broke my mother’s age-ist rule as well.

Here’s what happened this year instead:

-First I said goodbye to my twenties, not long after I’d said goodbye to the greatest inspiration, muse, and romantic adventure of my life. There was no death involved in this goodbye (unless you count the dying of a soul—emo!), but it was more the eventual return to reality, and all that society expects. I was not in agreement with this ”convenient path” cop-out, but would I spend age thirty keeled over from the loss of something? Or would I stand up straight and have the best year ever? Let’s see…

-A week after saying hello to age thirty, I self-published. This was a month after saying “bye bye!” to my  literary agent. It wasn’t the original book I’d submitted to her that I published, but instead a crazy parody, because…I’m crazy. This is the thing about self-publishing. You can publish crazy parodies that a “Random House” or any other publisher would never even sniff at, because…it’s crazy. Yet still you can carve out your own little space in “reader world” and find an audience, as long as you’re tough enough to know that for all the people who love it, some people will truly despise it. I am tough enough, and so finding an audience was and is…a glorious feeling. And to sell over a thousand copies of this title alone? Entirely unexpected and a bonus, since writing humorous essays is actually my side-note to the novelist dream.

-Two weeks after I self-published, I went to Florida and got a wicked tan. This was a true act of rebellion, when Indian mothers raise you to stay out of the sun so you can look as white as possible (but you’re not allowed to date white dudes…irony?). Once I returned all toasty and brown, my value on the marriageable market plummeted to almost zero. I was pleased.

-In an effort to avoid the burning of my glorious tan, I spent the next few weeks indoors, reading free screenplays online, as well as a couple of very helpful how-to books (Your Screenplay Sucks! and Coffee Break Screenwriter). A few short weeks after that, I’d written my very first screenplay, because sometimes, when something  pretty epic happens in your life…you simply have to make a story out of it (spoken like a true melodramatic artist). Over the next eight months, this screenplay would advance to the semi-finals or higher in eight screenplay competitions. I did this for no other reason than to say “haha, I can,” and the results that followed proved “check it out, I did.“

Feeling rather confident after the initial screenplay results, I dusted off the first novel I ever wrote, the one that had been rejected by all the major publishers. To me it was a blessing in disguise to wait a year and a half before reviewing this novel once again. A blessing because…anyone who studies the craft of writing understands that you only get better with time and practice, so to revise that novel with fresh eyes after all the things I’d learned was the right approach. This book, “Year of the Chick” has been out now for over five months, and as it slowly finds its audience, the response has been incredible. It never gets old to read a new person’s reaction on my Facebook author page, and every time that happens, I think about how that NEVER would’ve happened, if I’d kept on waiting and hoping for a  traditional publisher to pick me. And THAT…is glorious feeling number two .

-In January I was in-between projects, so I thought I should write a short story, a prequel to “Year of the Chick.” I published that story on Valentine’s Day, and to have readers buy it and enjoy it before or after picking up my full-length book has been…glorious (this is the post of the over-used adjective). In a world without self-publishing, how on earth would we be able to sell 10,000-word short stories for 99 cents, that readers could enjoy on various devices during a coffee break or commute ride home? We are in the midst of a revolution, and I’m sorry Jodi Picoult, but you should not be telling authors not to do something in ALL-CAPS without the logic to back it up, because that only means we will do it harder.

-In March, after almost a year of self-publishing, I didn’t want to lose my thunder, so I needed to buckle down and write a sequel to “Year of the Chick.” So…I took a week off work and wrote 58,000 words in six days. That was a crazy experience that I wrote about here, and because I focused everything on making that draft, I am now in the comfortable first-revision mode, and right on track with my deadline to release the sequel (June 7th! ).

-Also in March, I got hit on by a young barista at Starbucks,  to the tune of an extra shot of espresso free of charge, proving that I may be thirty, but I’ve stilllll got it.

-As the first year of self-publishing draws to a close, I can easily say it was the best year ever. Each individual thing builds upon the other, and if not for that first scary step of self-publishing last April, I would have never followed it with a full-length novel, a crazy poetry collection, a short story, and an upcoming sequel. And all with a full-time job. People think I’m nuts when I describe this, and yes, I actually am.  

-As for age thirty almost drawing to a close, earlier today, after my father yet again asked to put my ad in the “arranged marriage classifeds,” I, for the first time ever, stated that I don’t believe in arranged marriage, and that I’m never going to take this approach. I have never seen both my parents look so disappointed and disgusted in me….ever. Something tells me I won’t be getting a birthday card tomorrow, but that’s okay, because my biggest goal of age thirty was to stop living a lie, and like a true procrastinator, I waited until eight hours before the deadline  to do it…but I finally did.

-So… how am I going to make the next year even more epic? Well here’s a short summary of my to-do list: release the sequel of “Year of the Chick on June 7th, have another blog tour, have another book-release party in the fall (Grey Goose and books, anyone?), learn how the eff one does audiobooks, record audiobooks, learn about podcasting (would you guys like to hear a podcast done by crazy me?), and have some more adventures that can inspire my future writing.

If there’s a final note I can add to any writers who stumble upon this: self-publishing is amazing but if you do go that route,  be amazing to IT in return. What I mean is, the only way to silence people like Jodi Picoult or to get new readers to support you, is to write the best damn books possible with the best damn editing possible. Otherwise, we’re screwing readers over, and they’ll screw us back by telling everyone we suck and with good reason. Think about it.   And ahem…that doesn’t mean you still won’t get bad reviews or be called a “bitch” in a review (yes, it happened to me…what fun!), but it means you can fix all the non-subjective reasons for people disliking your book.

Write on… 

PS: I’m trying to bring back the word “wicked” (used it once in the title and once in the post). Is it working?…

YEAR OF THE CHICK SEQUEL: Free Excerpt Including: Pimp Reference, Dead-Body Smell…

What romantic comedy WOULDN’T talk about pimp commissions from ho’s working overtime and dead-body smell that seeps from a corpse’s apartment?

Well…maybe all of them wouldn’t. But I don’t write typical rom-com’s, as loyal readers have by now gathered. Besides, AS IF I could post the normal, lovey-dovey, will-definitely-make-you-cry excerpts from the book on my borderline-insane blog? For that romance stuff you’ll have to pay, when the sequel comes out in June.

Meanwhile, after giving away over 13,000 free digital copies of “Year of the Chick” on Amazon last week (who needs money after all? Food stamps all the way), I figured I should probably post some progress from the editing I’ve been doing on the sequel.

Each of the free excerpts I post in the months leading up to the release (June!) will be ambiguous enough to avoid any true spoilers, but interesting enough to fondle the nerve-endings of your giant brain. Or so I hope.

Here, I give you an excerpt from Chapter One of the “Year of the Chick” sequel (and clearly I have yet to come up with a title for the book).

Setting: museum

Coolness factor of main character: low to non-existent

Sexual references: one

Decomposing bodies references: two

Enjoy.

R

***

When I opened the door to the Royal Ontario Museum’s foyer, street sounds were replaced with the excited chatter of museum revelers. The area was packed with school children wrapping up their field trips, and tourists just now piling in. I pushed past all of them, heading straight to the VIP queue.

A middle-aged woman with a long-forgotten grown-out perm (she’s obviously not getting bi-annual perms from her daughter like my mom), an oversized navy museum blazer, and a thin-lipped smile waited patiently, as I fumbled through my bulging wallet. Having a bulging wallet always made me feel important, like a pimp who couldn’t clip his stack of cash in a tidy bank roll, since his ho’s had been working so much overtime. Unlike a pimp’s commission though, my wallet was empty on cash and full of useless “points cards” instead, ones that would earn me a trip to Paris in approximately eighty years. I eventually filtered through the plastic, finding my membership card and handing it to the blazer-wearing lady.

“Most of our year-round members are seniors,” she mused, as her gaze switched from my photo to my not-so-senior face.

She handed back the card and nodded in approval.

Or pity.

It was unclear.

I shrugged my shoulders and smiled as I took in the possibilities. Dinosaurs to my left, South East Asia to my right, and my personal favourites up above (Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt).

I decided to skip the elevator, opting for a curvy stone staircase with a totem pole in the middle. I stared at each face on the totem pole as I climbed the steps, with the full curiosity of the history-book-reading nerd I used to be. At home I had a bookcase stacked with everything from an entire giant book on Van Gogh, to about twenty different books on Ancient Egypt. Meanwhile I’d completely forgotten they existed for the whole of last year, so obsessed I’d become with finding a man. Now that the man-search was kinda-sorta-over (let’s hope), I was finally getting back to my roots. Which apparently made me the only Torontonian under seventy with a museum membership.

I made it to the third floor and entered the hall of Ancient History. Everything smelled a bit dead, but it wasn’t the kind of “dead smell” that would emanate from the apartment of a single person who hadn’t been heard from in days. Instead it was a “dusty mummy linens” and “disintegrating ancient bones” kind of dead. It was basically my aphrodisiac, right up there with a medium-ripe mango.

Diary of a First Draft (Insanity) and Sequel Teasers!

These are the real-life accounts of a chick who tried writing 50,000 words in 5 days, a goal that could only be accomplished by sinking into the dark recesses of one’s mind, often bordering on the edges of: madness, sadness, and occasional maniacal laughter.

Enjoy.

Sunday March 4^th

6pm: I just washed my hair. Only the writing gods know when the follow-up washing will occur. It’s frightening and exhilarating all at once.

11pm: Since my writing week technically doesn’t start until tomorrow, I’m writing out plot points as I watch the “The Walking Dead” (this is how my writing voice sounds when I’m making excuses for myself out of laziness. Umm.)

Monday March 5^th

10am: I just opened my writing document. As Borat would say, “Big success!”

10:45am: Writing the first few pages is always the hardest. I only wrote 400 words in 45 minutes, when I should be writing 1,500 words an hour to meet my goal. I don’t even know where 1,500 words an hour came from, do people even write that much?

I’m going to the gym.

1:30pm: The gym was packed, and silver hair was abundant. My observation: when you go to the gym on weeknights (like me and my demographic usually do), they play hip hop songs about guys jizzing on girls in night clubs and girls finding it amazing (‘cause yes, that’s every girl’s dream). When you go to the gym in the daytime however, they play songs like “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain. My conclusion: older women have more confidence.

PS: yes I showered after the gym, but no I did not wash my hair. Viva la resistance!

6:15pm: I’m at 5,000 words. My daily goal is 10,000 words so I’m halfway there, and it’s not like I have a bedtime. I may even watch an episode of “Smash” tonight AND still hit my goal. Who would’ve thought?!

12:35am: So I totally didn’t have time to watch “Smash.” Instead I distracted myself with doing laundry, then came to the conclusion that 1,000-calorie-meals would make me sleepy and inhibit my writing, so I had to end up eating THIS instead. So lame.

I also reached my goal of 10,000 words in the first day. I guess that’s kind of a big deal, but when you’re alone in a hermit writing-cave, there aren’t a lot of people to share it with.

Tuesday March 6th

3:00pm: I’ve written 3,500 words so far. At this point into the “Year of the Chick” sequel, I’m writing about the excitement and thrill of the discovery of yourself in another. That weird and crazy soul-mate thing. When I’m forced to write about less fun things later, like conflict and impossibilities, I will probably vomit (the price to pay for writing something that’s inspired by real life). But for now it’s fun.

Lyrics from my playlist: “I’m waiting, longing for you. One more, night and then I’m gone…I am your visitor, I’m on the other side of your wall.”—Head First by Goldfrapp

12:01am: Met the goal and surpassed it, with 11,000 words for the day. Things that helped: choosed meals with 30 seconds or less of prep time. Will I actually write 50,000 words this week? That would be a miracle…

Wednesday March 7^th

7:30pm: a good friend with the day off work convinced me to brush off the hermit life and try to write in Starbucks. That venue is where I wrote the majority of my screenplay, so it seemed like a good idea, plus it would give me the chance to talk to another human being, since I’ve literally been talking to myself as I write out the dialogue. (Example: “You’re wearing a Snuggie…at two p.m…in the middle of summer?!” Okay that’ll work, then I’ll add “If I ever have a son, I’m gonna make him my monkey-butler. Shirtless with a bow-tie all the way…” Yep, that’ll work great, okay, good job, self, now high-five! (It’s alarming how comfortable I’ve become with talking to myself)).

Why I was productive at Starbucks: an elderly man decided to sit beside me on the couch. He spilled his coffee everywhere, smelled of stale urine, and kept leaning on me after he fell asleep with his sunglasses on. This made me write faster than I’ve ever written in my life so I could get the hell out of there. 3,500 words in 2 hours. A new record. I’m considering kidnapping him…

1:10am: I finished my daily quota, which in total amounts to 31,000 words in 3 days. This would’ve seemed insane to me last week, but if I can do that, maybe I can truly reach my goal, of 50,000 words by Friday.

On the down side, sinking deeper into the plot has made me realize that here I am, dedicating hours and hours of my life to writing about someone (loosely) who probably hasn’t thought of me in ages. His perfect little “society and family approved” life hums along, while I re-hash the past for the sake of creating art. And there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that this art will never make it big. It can be borderline-depressing, but if my only alternative is to be a normally-functioning human who doesn’t dwell on things, then it’s inescapable. I will never be normal.

Also, I cried today. Something tells me it’s not the last I’ll see of “Sad-Bags McGee”…

Lyrics from my playlist: “And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd, ’cause these words are my diary screaming out loud, and I know that you’ll use them, however you want to.”—Breathe by Anna Nalick

Thursday March 8th

5:15pm: 5,000 words in the bag and we’re still on track. It’s amazing that I haven’t run into writer’s block yet, probably because I know how much I’ll hate myself if I waste a paid vacation day. Hooray for the fear of self-loathing!

I can’t go to the gym, I can’t go grocery shopping, I actually can’t be around anyone. I’m all alone and it has to stay that way, because I’m writing about the hardest thing a person can write about (besides child-trafficking or serial-killing ): falling in love. I’ll have to go back later and inject in some humour, because non-stop cheese-ball romance I simply will not do; besides, Nicholas Sparks already has it covered (not that I didn’t love “The Notebook”…*sniff*).  For now though, writing in the emotion is hard enough.

Oh, I washed my hair today. I don’t know if it makes me less “legit” as a writer to not stay greasy, but I have pretty long hair and it was getting to be ridiculous.

Lyrics from my playlist: “It must be your skin, I’m sinking in, it must be for real, ’cause now I can feel.”—Glycerine by Bush.

1:24am Another 11,000 words were written today, which means I only have to write 8,000 tomorrow to meet my goal of 50K in 5 days. On Sunday that goal seemed impossible, but now with burning eyeballs and crusted tears on my greasy face I’m almost there. 

Lyrics from my playlist: “Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again.”—Lovesong by The Cure

Friday March 9th:

6pm: I only needed 8,000 words to meet the goal, but I was in the zone and wrote 9,000. I hadn’t written 9,000 words by 6pm all week, so I guess this was the most productive day.

51,000 words in 5 days….oh writing gods, I did it! And all I had to temporarily sacrifice was my sanity, my eye-sight, and my finally-repaired heart which is now all shredded once again,…for the glory of stupid art.

I would’ve rather sacrificed a baby at the altar.

Whatever.

Lyrics from my playlist: “Here I am, lost in the ashes of time, but who wants tomorrow? In between, the longing to hold you again, I’m caught in your shadow…I’m losing control.”—Afterglow by INXS

Saturday March 10th

10:45pm: I wrote another 7,000 words today, with the help of my cat on this spinster-like Saturday night. There was no need to write today but I wanted to, I guess that’s how badly I want to share this story with the world.

Lyrics from my playlist: “To find a way, to open up again, and learn to take, all the beauty that’s inside.”—Ring the Bells by Satellite

I need a few more thousand words next week and I’ll reach the end, with more colour to be added in later.

I’m so ahead of the game in fact, that I’m going to bump up the release date of the “Year of the Chick” sequel from September to late June. I just decided this now from the comfort of my bed. That’s the fun part of doing everything yourself: total control.

As a teaser, below are twelve lines from the sequel. I’ll post more teasers along the way at my Facebook Author Page, along with updates about the release, and general awkward thoughts.

Toodles,

From the “Year of the Chick” sequel (due out in June 2012)

“Suddenly he dropped my hair like it was a used up condom from “Motel 6.””

“Apparently it was illegal to open people’s mail…? That was something I never would’ve learned in the plastic bubble of my family, considering all my mail was opened by my parents, read, and summarized by the time I got home.”

“I need a long-distance boyfriend like I need genital warts.”

“I waited for the tears to form in my eyes, followed by a trip to the women’s bathroom where I’d hide in the stall and weep, then pretend I was vomiting if anyone came inside. Been there, done that.”

“At that exact moment, I heard two eager halves of a mouth snap shut on a ginger molasses cookie. “

“My mother was busy calling one relative after the next, convincing them to skip the hotel and stay with us for the wedding. Her hard sell was the enormous number of cots that could fit in the basement. Good god.”

“”Who works out that much? Seriously, his upper body is shaped like a pizza slice.” She pretended not to hear but I pressed on. “So El, did he take off his shirt? And if so, does he have greasy pepperoni nipples?””

“This cow is not for sale so he’s not gonna get any milk. Or something. I mean he already has a cow back home in his barn. Or a girl. Whatever. “

““You think you can waste six more months sitting in your room to write…BOOKS?” She made it sound like a book was a Playboy magazine.”

““Don’t tell me I’m the first person who’s ever used Super Nintendo in a lady-part analogy!””

“”Everybody wants to find love, but nobody wants to get screwed over. Shit’s bound to happen when those two collide.”"

“This was something more. This was the grand gesture I’d been waiting my whole life to make…”

(That’s enough teasers for now, wait until June for the rest! In the meantime, the “Year of the Chick” short story prequel and book 1 are available now—book 1 is also available in print.)

Grateful Moment #6: No one’s made a toy of you!

Justin Bieber was always unsure of his success. His own worst critic, he tried out different gender-bending octaves, he tried out different angles for his wisps of hair, but nothing could settle his child-sized stomach, the prepubescent stress of never being enough.

Then one day it all changed, when a (probably creepy) marketing guru decided there should be a Bieber doll.

Mr. Bieber was heavily involved in the process. He inspected every ridge of plastic hair on the prototype, then every button and bobble on the rusted machines, not wanting the Taiwanese factory kids to screw it up. Once the eight-year-old foreman and his crew had jumped through each of Bieber’s hoops, the switch flipped on and the ejaculate of plastic Bieber was in flight. Thousands upon thousands of dolls in his honour, to light up children’s eyes and fill their poor-taste hearts by Christmas 2010.

So Bieber made it, but what ever happened to me?

There is no Mattel doll of an office girl drinking Starbucks and trying to stab herself in the eye when Microsoft Excel randomly freezes. A solemn reminder that I never reached my dream of epic status.

But…I didn’t always feel this way. When I was growing up celebrity dolls made me happy, even joyous. An army of New Kids on the Block to be my twelve-inch boyfriends, a Rick Astley replica who would never ever give me up (it was actually a Ken doll but close enough), and what about my older brother’s Han Solo action figure? That shiny plastic toy was the birth of what is now my most important “old man crush.”

But like with everything else, wide-eyed youth turned into bloodshot pools of adulthood. Each celebrity doll, each action figure likeness of Christian Bale is a comparative measure, reminding me there will never be toys of us regular folk.

And so…how could we possibly be grateful that there isn’t a plastic “us”?

Enter my epiphany.

Continuing on with Justin Bieber as my case study, the doll will be a jacked-up likeness of the man-boy. But the man-boy has to grow. In fact with each passing minute Justin Bieber gets closer to death. Meanwhile his doll smiles on, its feathered hair immune to the troubles of dandruff and grease.

Even all those girls with Bieber-fever will notice. They’ll burst through security and hold up the doll to his face, only to find that there’s spinach in the real Bieber’s teeth. Plus heavily caked on make-up. Plus a pimple you can see through the heavily caked on make-up. Then of course, years later when the surplus dolls resurface as donations for African children, Bieber will have a run-in (during his Tanzanian trip of self-discovery). This time the comparison will destroy him. His Bieber beer gut, crusted lips, sad-man eyes and receding hair, right beside the perfect plastic manboy.

If I were Justin Bieber I would shoot myself in the face. If I was any celebrity with a perfect plastic version of me, a face shot…to the face.

Instead I can just be me, and no matter how I age or grossify with time, who will even know how shitty I look, when there’s no plastic miniature to point out my obvious decline?

Here’s to finally appreciating life below the radar…

The Evolution of Music…and Loincloths

I must be a prude or have a “grandma soul”, because the music of today makes me turn and run more times than not.  Usher’s fixated on “boobies like wow, oh wow”, Lady Gaga sings of “disco sticks” which are not an item from Toys ‘R Us as I’d originally thought, and Akon, a featured singer for bouncing bodies or sexy bitches songs, must be riding a wave of perpetual erectus (I hope someone will be kind enough to relieve him).  Of course, it gets way more detailed than that (please refer to all the songs where half the lyrics are bleeped out on the radio), but I’ll leave that to your own listening pleasure.

So..what’s the final frontier of music? I suppose the physical union of bodies has long been the topic of tunes, but it was so much cozier in the Frank Sinatra days. I mean a long embrace? Now that I can get behind! A long embrace does not require wowzer boobs and an ass shaped like an astronaut (my translation of modern lyrics may not be exact).

It’s not likely we’ll return to the graceful art of subtlety, and maybe “hook-up” music keeps the nightclub culture booming.

So FINE, let’s keep it slutty, but we still have to keep it fresh! I don’t know what’s left in this modern expression of “man hunts, man penetrates woman” (please re-write as needed for the Lady Gaga version), but what about a throwback to the past? I mean it happens with fashion all the time, almost everything is “old turned new again.”

Okay then…which era should we pick for the next generation of club tracks?

-Ancient Egypt!

I know, I know, I give preferential treatment to Ancient Egypt all the time. I’ll admit it’s my favourite era, but this time it really makes sense! Ancient Egyptians had beer and wine, so obviously they knew how to party. They also didn’t wear a lot of clothes due to heat. And let’s not forget that future pharaohs were being married off/crowned in their early teens, which means that “sexy time” amongst the young ones was the norm (take that, concerned parents, we’ve always been whores…)

So let’s set the stage, shall we?

***

It’s a sunny day in Lower Egypt, but heat still burns through your transparent linen gown (you are a woman, by the way). You and the girls are headed for a nearby oasis; trees and sparkling water all around…yippee! A few hours later you realize it was only a mirage. No trees, no water, you have sand in your eyes and your butt-cheeks are starting to sweat.

Night falls, and suddenly an army of man-boys appears from behind a sandy dune. They’re running towards you in all their loincloth glory. Normally you wouldn’t go for silly man-boys, especially not the lowly type confined to manual labour. On the other hand, carrying all that limestone to build the pyramids did a wonder on their forearms, which are veiny and bulbous (just the way you like ‘em).

The man-boys slow to a halt, setting down their bottles of wine, whilst smiling at you and your girlfriends all the time. You blush and look away, as your brown skin glistens through the barrier of linen.

Conversation flows at a stifling pace, but who even cares? Mental stimulation isn’t needed on this night.

You swig the wine, eat handfuls of sticky dates, dance underneath the stars, and then…and then…

Group sex.

The End.

***

I wouldn’t recommend a straight story-to-song conversion, but there is so much potential material:

-Transparent linen gowns, man-boys, bulbous forearms, sweaty butt-cheeks, sticky dates, starry night, heat, group sex

I’m no songwriter, but I think I smell a hit. I’ll let the experts build the actual track, but I would really like a credit when it hits the airwaves.

(saving the world again, but musically this time…)