Wheee ...!

A lot of people think writing is hard and it can be at times, but in my case writing is the easy part.

Writing is easier than finding the time to sit down and do it.
Writing is easier than researching agents to discover their like, dislikes, and track record of sales.
Writing a four hundred page novel is easier than a one page query, or synopsis.
Writing is easier than for a response to those queries.
Writing is easier than separating your emotions from the completed work.

Spend hour after hour nurturing something and see how attached you come to be. I don't care if it's tiny little tree you plant, water, and fertilize in your backyard, a blank canvas that you slowly bring to life with your pallet, or a stack of computer paper that you transform into a manuscript, when you pour yourself into it it becomes much more than an inanimate object.

All writers have taken their turn on the roller coaster, myself included. The ones that get published are the ones that can handle the stomach churning drops. Sure, they may step away from the ride , they may even hurl up their milk duds, but they are not afraid to get back on, time after time until they conquer that evil roller coaster.

That brings us to the point where I tell you about a couple of my friends. I've never met Stephen Parrish and Erica Orloff but I'm proud to call both friend. I've read their blogs for several years now. They also came to came to my family's rescue when we needed it most this past January. They organized the phenomenal fundraiser that so many of you contributed to. For that they will always have my gratitude, but it was their talent as writers that first drew me to become regulars on their blogs and it is that talent that makes me admire them most.

Erica has been riding the coaster a long time and her talent has shown through in the many books she has published over the years. This Friday her latest comes out and I for one will be hitting my local store to pick up a copy. Magickeepers is the first installment in her new young adult series and it is being released under the pen name of Erica Kirov.

Stephen has been battling for a while and this week he too conquered the beast. Stop by his blog and congratulate him that his first novel Adamant Stone has been bought by mystery/suspense imprint Midnight Ink.

Meanwhile I will keep battling. This past week I received my first ever review. For making the top 500 of the amazon contest I "won" a publishers weekly review/ Actually ti wasn't as bad as I feared it might. after all if the review had been all rainbows and glitter I would have made the top 100. Anyway, I thought I'd share it with y'all, warts and all.

ABNA Publishers Weekly Reviewer

With a single exception, men are louts in this fitfully comic saga of serial sexual harassment and one woman's revenge set in a small-town Oklahoma Ford dealership in the late 1990s. The good guy is 37-year-old top salesman Hank, who started washing cars on the lot when he was 16. Remaining loyal to his increasingly shrewish high school sweetheart, he opts out of a scurrilous scheme by new owner Junior -- the sleazy son of the deceased, revered founder -- to bet on who can first bed a succession of busty receptionists. Hank's disdain for the testosterone-powered shenanigans bonds him with strait-laced Fiona, who handles the dealership's finances and with whom he shares his fantasy of one day visiting the islands of the Caribbean, despite his wife’s preference to visit "the biggest mall in all of America." The novel's emphasis on bumptious men behaving badly eventually palls, but author's rendition of questionable car lot sales ploys plays into perceived car-salesman stereotypes with plausible humor, and the story's resolution is satisfying.

And then today I received a rejection on the full manuscript that said much the same thing but in a very different way. Sure I feel a bit nauseous, but I've been here before and already my mind is spinning. I have a few ideas for revision. For bolstering that palling plot and shoring up the sagging middle. I've also been making steady progress on the feedstore memoirs so it won't be long until I'm back on the ride, pulling down that lap bar and gearing up for one hell of a ride.