Updates:

New Examiner- My arguments against Sherman Alexie's arguments on the Colbert Report against eBooks (got it?). The eBook Argument (Hey, Future... sorry I missed your call).


Tonight on Book Chatter: Stacey Cochran, RJ Keller, Mark Coker, Sam Landstrom and Simon Wood. 11PM. Be there. And bring your squares.


New updates to Meet the Contestants for the Nametag Challenge! V.O.T.E. cause you don't wanna mess with me. Go vote. Hey Hey. Go vote. (high kick, followed by sheer pain, as I was a terrible cheerleader) The winners are announced tomorrow!

Also, remember all that jazz about me finding my spiritual center? Yeah. Well... all it took was one little man: The Closer. He enters the bank at 4:59. Takes two minutes to fill out his check. Bullshits for another two minutes. At 5:03, I asked him if he was finished.

"No. I want to talk to a banker."

Holly: (in head) "You BASTARD. You stupid, selfish old bastard. I hate you so much, and now you've made me lose my spiritual center."

Holly: (to banker, who was gathering stuff to LEAVE, as we close at 5) "The damned Closer is here." starts sobbing and throws temper tantrum in bank lobby.

Happy Friday!

When I say it, Spiritually Centered, I typically lift my arms over my head and make a wide circle around my upper body. My hands complete the circle and rest on my belly. Therefore, I assume that my soul rests in my belly.

I started thinking about retail and when I first became unhappy with it. Day one probably. More so, after I published The Nine Lives of Clemenza. I was nervous, yes, but also a bit proud. It felt good to see my words in print. It felt good to fan through the pages. My word. My word. My word. Someone else is reading this. I'm sharing a part of myself, this story that came from me, my head, my hands, my sweat, and now someone else can read it, possibly even enjoy it.

And then I went back to "work."

Sure, I use my hands (not really my mind at all... can you even imagine? I use a calculator for everything), I sweat when I see a line of people, but at the end of the day, I'm not proud. I feel filthy. I've waited on 300 customers and I'm not proud of that. It's easy for me to get caught up in the retail rants, because so much is wrong. But maybe it's not wrong. Maybe it's just wrong for me. Maybe this is someone else's job and I was accidentally dropped into it. It was a mistake, but now I'm lost in the crowd and a number that no one remembers and all that I'm left with is me.

I haven't written like I did this last weekend in months. It felt good, so good that I'm still high from the moment, running on fumes from the story in my head that never made sense until I started getting it down on paper. I'm centered, back to my belly, creating something that I hope I'll be proud of.

I have no idea where it came from. I was working on a kind of follow-up to The Nine Lives of Clemenza. Then I jumped back to a project I started years ago. And then this story... just kept sticking in my head. So I got up incredibly early Saturday and started writing. And I stopped last night. Yes. I'm that manic.

15,000 words stuck to the page and the hubby began to worry about me: "Why don't you eat something?" "Why don't you take a break and SHOWER?"

Sometimes, I read over my manic words and cringe. This seems just right. I can't wait to finish it and I'm thinking of naming it Tuesday Tells it Slant (obvious shout out to Emily Dickinson... total nerd alert).

Congrats to Claude on finding representation for Vigilante!
New Indie Book Review: Lethal People