I Want to Self-Publish Because of the Cerulean Sweater

I have not read The Devil Wear Prada but I've read Everyone Worth Knowing by Laura Wesiburger. I tried recently to get through Last Night at Chateau Marmont, but it wasn't a good time for me reading-wise, I was more focused on writing energies. Okay, I have no idea if this scene is in the book, but I loved it in the movie version with Meryl Streep. The famous cerulean sweater.

In the movie scene, Meryl Streep's character as the editor-in-chief of New York's hottest fashion magazine, nay, bible, informs Anne Hathaway's character that she didn't choose that sweater, but a fashion line two seasons ago featured cerulean as a color. Then the next season other designers featured cerulean in their collections and that made it's way down the fashion lines to the bargain-bin sweater she was now wearing. 


Here's why I'm self-publishing: I want to be the person putting out the new cerulean line two seasons before everyone else wears it. Come again? Elizabeth, you're writing a book not designing clothes. I know that. My point is that I know my story isn't typical. I don't want to be typical. Craft wise, yes we should all be well-read in our genre and know the rules. Then break them. If you are writing a book just like another story already published, you're not going to make it out of the bargain bin. 


I know there will be readers who are annoyed my ending isn't perfect and I follow the hero's trip down Cupid's Path, and not his fiancée or the mother of his baby. And I do get flashes of scenes from the women's point-of-views. Such as Alexis calling her sorority sister from undergrad and talking about wedding dresses. You want to know what Johnathan's concerns about the wedding dress is? Is it in budget? Yes? Okay, then I can't wait to see you in it on our wedding day. That's it. He doesn't care about the fabrics used, the length, the line of the skirt. But if this was a traditional chick-lit, I would absolutely throw in a gushy, trying on the wedding dress scene. Shoot, chick-lit Hall-of-Famer Becky Bloomwood (Kinsella's Shopaholic) has TWO wedding dresses, and the drama of choosing between the two lasted nearly the entire novel! 


But so much about the publishing world is about what other books is your book like? As if your book must be similar in details, with just minor permutations or the silly, ignorant reader won't know what to do. In my opinion, there is wearable couture, and then there is the ready-to-wear lines. Wearable couture? Dan Brown's conspiracy thriller making secret societies cool and stuffy academia suddenly equips the hero physically and mentally for a life-or-death chase across countries, with no military involved. A spy type thriller with no military? And you're replacing the Establishment with the Vatican? Stephenie Meyer's vegetarian vampires. Vegetarian vampires? Whoever heard of a friendly vampire? Even Rice's Louis killed. 


With indie publishing, there aren't editors deciding which plot lines and story constructs are hot at the moment. I'm not arguing we don't need editors, we most certainly do. In fact, I am not proud of the way book releases are handled by many self-published novelists, with first drafts going to print. Editors welcome there! What the book world doesn't need is the bandwagon approach to publishing. Don't chase a reader trend, make one. Write to make people pause and decide if they like it. Be prepared to hear more from the people who don't like it than from the people who do. 


Forgive my constant pep-talk posts. They help me get excited all over again about my book as I'm currently stuck in the middle doldrums. Here's an excerpt from what I wrote yesterday in the dentist's waiting room and finished this morning, there's 1,000 words total to this scene:

     “Didn't you wear that same tie yesterday?” Eric gestured to the slate blue accessory with a satin geometric design around Johnathan's neck. Johnathan grabbed the tale and looked at it. 
     “A gray one like it.” Of course it was the same tie. He forgot to pack a different tie in his overnight bag. Yesterday's became today's recycling after he and Alex woke up at her place that morning. The last two weeks were a blur of dinning out, sleeping over, and alternating who packed an overnight bag.

    “No, I don't believe so. I believe that is exactly the same tie you wore yesterday.” Eric thumbed screens on his smart phone and showed the impromptu pictures from yesterday with the Claw, the mechanical hand at the end of the Hedis armature. It wasn't operational yet. He zipped through the scenes of showing what most men would do with a sudden third hand. Finally, he found Johnathan's poses. There was the CEO, struggling against the inactive Claw around his neck, and a slate blue tie with a satin geometric design dangling underneath.

    Johnathan hung his head. The cement floor of the work cave was a piece of abstract art. Various oil and lubrication stains made a random pattern of darkened splotches. Rainbow bits of electrical wire hid here and there, temporary visitors until their heavily modified Roomba was released. Neon drops of epoxy and other unidentifiable materials held permanent positions. At least until a good floor scraping.

     “And I also believe...” Eric held his pointer finger in the air, as if testing the wind, then brought it down and pointed it back to his best friend.  “You are in love with Alex.”

     No shock. No shame. Johnathan faced his oldest friend with a sheepish smile and eyes full of defiance. “She loves me back. I was going to tell you, but she had all of these rules at the beginning and I just tried...it was a miracle I didn't screw things up.”

     Eric played with an actuator on the work bench in front of them. He flicked the toggle switch back and forth. Click. Click. Click. Johnathan waited.

    “I'm not stupid. You two sucked at hiding.”

"Cancelled" arriving Late Summer 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Day 13: Got My Tough Skin On!!!

I do know better than to expect logic, humor, and rational thought to rule an internet forum. So in my first experience of approaching a reader forum, some vital lessons learned.

• Most people won't agree with you, and aren't inclined to do so.
• A handful of members feel a need to swing a big you-know-what around online.

But I am surprised, at myself. I had some very irrational insults slung at me. How dare I challenge the sacred happily ever after by suggesting a romance novel can end with just a happy ending that shows the reader the characters will still have to push to maintain that happiness? Anyway, it didn't upset me. Not in the least. How could I be upset at someone who said "I didn't even read your entire post and I don't like you already?" Wow. What was really funny, from an illogical stance, is one person stating that my book is not in this genre and he or she will never read it. Well which is it? If is a romance book, then I would be worried about you threatening to never read it because you only read romance novels. But if it isn't a romance novel, then you wouldn't read it anyway, so I didn't lose anything.


It amazes me the people who will say things online that they wouldn't say in real life. Could you imagine being in a conversation with someone and they hold up a hand and say "Let me stop you right there, I don't like you so :shrug: just go away now." But I pulled out my Southern upbringing and killed them with kindness. I thanked them for their advice, even the mean spirited, and believe me, I *am* learning from it, and moved on. Now the will power will be to not respond to any replies. But I can do it, I'm too busy! :)


UPDATE: Proof that you must always respond with kindness, the responses are now somewhat apologetic for labeling me a spammer, and more reasonable towards the idea of a degree to the happily ever after ending.


Speaking of busy, this morning I wrote 932 words in about an hour and a half. This scene is near the end of the novel, and I cried my eyes out writing it. I loved when I read it aloud to my stepson, he sucked in a loud breath "Heeeeehhhhhhh" right the moment I wanted. I figure if he gets it, my readers will too. It was painful. I had to write about a mother who gave birth 12 hours earlier and wasn't allowed to ever hold her baby. Yeah, talk about some serious pain! 

The closest I can come to that heartache is how I felt after I woke up from my own C-section. I was groggy and still coming to, when my husband dashed into the door frame. I remember concentrating to focus on him and he was antsy. Why was he antsy? I asked how is our baby and he said "I don't know, I haven't seen her yet." I pushed myself up, while the nurse fixing my IVs urged me to lay back down. "What? Why not?" And then the nurse's face blanched. She had forgotten to tell my husband he could go to the nursery and see our daughter when my surgery was done. My daughter laid, parentless, for the first hour and a half of her life under a warmer. 

Writing about giving birth from the emotional side of things is fun, even if it is exhausting and impacts your tissue supply. Not the classic "Push, push, push" scenes, which I never experienced first-hand, but the million, billion questions and concerns that fly through your head and heart in the first few hours of the baby's arrival. Before you're too sleep-deprived and dirty to even care about the outside world.


Here's a little sample of what I wrote this morning, it's the end of the scene.



Returning his phone to his pocket, Johnathan finally made good on his initial intention to return to his daughter. Scrubbing his hands and forearms in the sink between the nursery's double door entry, he smiled. Once inside, Anna handed Charlotte to her father and he eased himself into the rocking chair next to her plastic bin.
“Daddy has everything under control,” he cooed. Charlotte squinted her little eyes open in recognition of her father's voice before making a newborn yawn and turning her head further into his chest. Johnathan's mouth remained fixed in a smile. He kissed his daughter's forehead and relaxed his own head back to rest.



"Imperfect Timing" arriving Fall 2011. Johnathan Michaels, a robotics engineer, jeopardizes his engagement with his business partner when a previous one-night stand surfaces, carrying his child.

Day 9 - Self-Published Covers and Crazy Characters Taking Control

I'll change things up tonight and handle the publishing side first. On your right is the cutesy blueprint of a baby I made in GIMP following a Youtube tutorial. It has dawned on me that putting a baby on the cover is just too difficult. First, babies while cute, are awkward photographs. Second, my story is really about the cancelled wedding because of the baby. But the baby by itself would be no big deal. 


This leaves me with what is the nuts and bolts of my story? A cancelled wedding. And that leads me to what I think will be the final cover design: a glossy, snazzy wedding invitation for Johnathan and Alexis with a big, fat CANCELLED across the front! That is a front cover image that I would pick up. A blue print baby? Upon seeing it, no, honestly, I wouldn't pick it up and read the back. Cancelled wedding invitation? Oh give me the dirt! And that plays into my trainwreck romance brand! 

Day 6: I Hate Narrative, Can I Still Be a Writer?

Available for purchase in HD at Dreamstime.com,
used as part of free images licensing.

Maybe it's the impatient reader in me, but I can't stand narrative. Not even remarkably, well-written narrative. It bores me. I skip over it. Seriously. Even when I read other works, over and over again, I always find new bits I missed, guess where? The narrative. 


I wrote Chapter 4 today, the rough version. 3,750 words. Only 2500-3000 will make the final cut. Why are my chapters so short? Because I am fulfilling the request of one my biggest supporters and best friends (she writes the blog I follow called Daily Devotionals) who as a busy Mom only has time to read 10-15 pages of a book before conking out for the night. She prefers books that let her finish a chapter in that time span. As at least one guaranteed reader, her wish is my command.