Since TOMORROW! Is THE OBVIOUS GAME's technical publication date (meaning you can finally buy it on NOOK and Kindle tomorrow on major booksellers' sites), I have been typing my damn fingers off for the past few months to spread the love around the blogosphere. (I am fully aware the entire Internet doesn't read my blog. Thank God. Some people on the Internet are super mean.)
Here are some guests posts and interviews that are already up, if you are interested.
I've been reading one of my very favorite books with my daughter this past week. THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. I still remember going to get it at a book warehouse before there were big box bookstores, the boxed set, with my special blue group or whatever they called the gifted class in the mid-eighties. I kept that boxed set my entire life, because it was the only boxed set I owned in childhood (that I recall or that I kept track of), and it has sat on my bookshelf until now, when I finally was able to interest my daughter in hearing the story of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.
Initially, it didn't move fast enough for her, but by the time the Beavers appeared, she was hooked. Then when we got to the part in which Aslan gives the kids their weapons and tells the girls they were really just for back-up because girls shouldn't fight, my girl -- who had been lying down with her back to me, practically asleep -- actually rolled over and said, "When was this WRITTEN?"
And that, my friends, is how quickly culture changes.
The very lovely Neysa at B.O.O.K.L.I.F.E. let me guest post on her blog about making a character believable.
Here's an excerpt:
In the early drafts of THE OBVIOUS GAME, my main character, Diana, was too unlikable.Shewas all rough edges and whining. People would tell me that, and I wouldstruggle with that, because I wanted her to be realistic and goingthrough some really tough stuff, which in many cases does lead to pityparties.
Duringthe publisher querying process, my agent told me he thought the bookneeded to be funnier. I thought it ironic he wanted my anorexia novel tobe funnier, that it in fact might not get published because my anorexianovel wasn't funny enough.
Read the rest at B.O.O.K.L.I.F.E.!
Beloved may have helped with the basketball net.
Since we went through that unemployment thing this fall and winter, I haven't bought the little angel any new clothes since the beginning of the school year. She has a penchant for wearing the same thing over and over, and lately she's been looking like Little Orphan Annie with holes in her leggings. All this forced me to do what I loathe doing, which is digging through all her clothes figuring out what to donate, what to give away and what to toss before I go buy her some leggings that don't look like they belong to the cast of Les Misérables.
While she was in the shower the other night, I attacked her dresser and closet. She walked in just as I was putting a purple shirt in the paper grocery sack filled with hand-me-down play clothes for the littler neighbor girl.
And she burst into tears.
???
"You can't give away the purple shirt," she wailed.
"But why not?"
"It's what I was wearing the day Petunia died."
And then I felt tears spring to my eyes, too.
"Well, then, of course we can't give it away. But it doesn't fit. Hmm."
Today I have a post up over at She Writes, which is a great community site for authors and writers. Here's an excerpt:
I am a writer who doesn't write every day.
There are very few of us, the writers who will admit publicly to notvaluing daily writing. Not just not doing it or scheduling it, but notseeing the point at all.
Let me back up. I know plenty of successful writers who are much moredisciplined than I am. They get up early or stay up late or tap awaywhile their kids leap around them. They have word counts and timelimits, and they produce good books -- even if they have day jobs-- at afairly consistent pace.
I won't do it.
Every weekday morning that I manage to make it through my email before noon, I do a thing on Twitter/Facebook that I call #morningstumble. Basically I go to StumbleUpon and hit the button until I find something that makes me smile or makes me think, then I share it with that hashtag. It's one way of ensuring I'm not talking about my damn self all the time.
However, it often exposes my dirty little secret: there are huge swaths of culture that in my thirty-eight years I have missed. This morning, I tweeted this picture with the caption "I have no idea what is going on here, but the cats look pissed."
I happened to be on a conference call with my co-workers when I tweeted it, and no sooner had my fingers left the keyboard (I am not kidding, it was that fast), Stacy said, "Oh, Rita, you're JOKING! Right? RIGHT? You know what that picture is that you just tweeted?"
(crickets)
I could hear the panic creeping into her voice, something akin to when one sees one's friend drop ice cubes into a wine glass in front of their connoisseur other friend.
At this point, I realized it was something important I should know but clearly did not, so I just sat there to make it all worse. Sometimes when you're busted, you just have to own it.
"RITA! YOU KNOW THAT'S A VERY FAMOUS SELF-PORTRAIT BY SALVADOR DALI!"
Nope! And I just proved it very publicly!
I think it worried her more than it did me, because I'm currently in grips of an ongoing anxiety attack about something else, which I'm sure will pass in a few weeks. The fact that all I saw when I looked at that picture were some wet fucking cats should probably be more horrifying than it is.
And I actually felt comforted by the fact that though Stacy was taken aback by my unwashedness, she loves me enough to click on my links. REFRAMING! Look at me go!
Hi everyone-
There are a few giveaways running right now for THE OBVIOUS GAME. I thought I should tell you about them before they expire! I will most likely do another giveaway on Goodreads in a month or so.
Giveaway ends February 05, 2013.
See the giveaway detailsat Goodreads.
