Let the Frog Kissing Begin

Let your eyes rove on over to the right of this post and you'll see the official Confessions of a Frog Kisser cover. I designed it myself, and I must admit I'm proud of it.

By tomorrow night I'll have chapter 1 posted for your reading pleasure. I hope that if you like what you see, you'll buy the book as soon as it's available. (Don't worry...I'll provide an easy link to Booklocker.com!)

On a totally unrelated note, I bought myself a juicer and have been making fresh juices all week. I do believe I'm going to become a juicing evangalist. The little energy zing I get every time I drink one is amazing. I can feel the enzymes doing their thing. It's great. I'm hoping this new energy will make me more productive. I've had a heavy week of work-related meetings and functions, so haven't been able to focus on the writing too much. Sigh.

Stay tuned for more on the book and the juice revolution.

Something to Report

Confessions of a Frog Kisser will be available in about six weeks courtesy of Booklocker.com! I'm very excited to finally have it at this stage, and I can't wait to see what it looks like in print.

Booklocker.com is a wonderful POD publisher. They are very pro-author, and work hard to make sure the self publishing experience is a positive one. Unlike most POD/self publishers, they do not print everything submitted. My little book had to go through an editorial review before they accepted it. I was a little nervous about that, spelling not being my strong suit and all. But I did it, and now the book is in process.

I encourage you to visit Booklocker.com. It's a great place to find books by people like me who didn't want to slog through the traditional route of finding an agent who'd then find a publisher, etc. (That's a great process, it's just time consuming and frustrating and I'd rather be writing than doing it.)

When it's ready, the book will be available via the Booklocker.com site. You'll also be able to get it from Amazaon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, and a few others. However, it will faster (and more financially beneficial to me and Booklocker.com) to buy it directly.

Thanks to my brother-in-law Dan and my dear college roommate Beverly who both suggested the title. I love it, and I figured if two people who don't know each other suggested it, it must be a good one.

Language Today!

I got another belated gift recently (this one was a belated X-mas gift): a copy of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It is that rare combination of tragedy and comedy, a book that makes me choke on my coffee one moment and tear up the next.

It's a book about grammar.

Precisely, it's a look at how people use, or don't use, punctuation properly. I find myself laughing because I encounter crazy grammar every day in my job (example: Our chef's make, the most beautiful cakes to you're liking). When I helpfully correct the mistakes (which is what the clients pay me for, after all), they often try to put the random apostrophes and commas back in. It's as if they were taught there has to be a word to comma ratio of 10 to 4 in every sentence. It's maddening and frustrating.

Alas, this epidemic confusion about how to use commas keeps me employed. So, wait, maybe I shouldn’t encourage every one to read the book…

P.S. Stay tuned for a bona fide tirade on hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes. I have to figure out how to actually format them in html, otherwise I probably won't be able to make my point.

Happy, Healthy New Year

Do you know what the best thing about getting sick is? Getting better.

I get one bad cold every year, usually in January. The cold typically lasts ten days. There is always a point when I can no longer remember what it feels like to feel good, and can't imagine ever having energy again. It's a horrible, futile feeling.

Then, one day I wake up and want to get out of bed. And I want to get dressed and do things. And I realize that I feel good. The joy spreads from my heart down to my toes and I just want to shout out to the world that life is great.

That moment is what is good about being sick.

I got to experience that feeling this week, and it was just as great as it always is. I've been madly making up for the ten days of my life I lost to this cold, working on putting changes into the novel, doing the writing exercises from The Sound of Paper, and checking out a fun writing contest that I'm going to enter (more on that later). It feels so great to feel good.

Belated Happy New Year. I hope 2006 finds you healthy and feeling good.