Add my book, Somewhere Over the Sun to your to-read shelf! I realized that things have slowed down a lot with my promotion of the book, so I’m going to do a giveaway. I’ll give away three copies!
Details are through Goodreads.
(The giveaway is pending Goodreads approval, but should be up soon).
Melissa from the review site Spellbound By Books says, “Somewhere Over the Sun for me gives hope when life seems mundane and takes what little joys we all take for granted and creates magical experiences from them.”
Though she doesn’t do star-rated reviews on her site, she gave it 5/5 on Goodreads.
Earlier this week, as promised, I introduced you to some of the characters of my novel as well as gave you a fairly unfocused account on what my writing life was like in Monterey, CA. In this third installment of promised posts, I present to you my life now.
I love the details that comprise people’s lives. I love little snippets of the quotidian. Susan Orlean once magnificently wrote: “An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.”
So here’s my current ordinary life, examined. On weekdays, I set my alarm at 9:55 a.m., theoretically giving me enough time to start the coffee maker while I wait for Price is Right to start. My alarm alternates between manually recorded renditions of The Office theme song and the intro to the song “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” by Stars (Final Fantasy remix, looped approximately from 0:35 to 0:55). I usually open my laptop, check all the usual suspects (Gmail first, Facebook second, this site next, Twitter mentions after that, Google analytics somewhere in between), and finally start making coffee during the third commercial break or so.
Price is Right-time is also book-related Twitter, blogging and e-mail time. On most days, I don’t accomplish much. Every now and then there’s a day like today when I achieve some productivity. I secured future book reviews on a couple of sites, which is very helpful to the whole I-want-my-book-to-sell thing.
Being jobless aside from a quick volunteer gig with Autry Associates means I have a lot of free time and not a lot of money to spend during that time. So fellow college grad artist Chris Russell and I watch a lot of movies and TV, and quite often find ourselves yearning to live our lives. Another Susan Orlean gem: “The Fun imperative: the sensation that a Saturday night not devoted to having a good time is a major human failure and possible evidence of a character flaw.” Chris and I often feel flawed, but we get over it pretty quickly.
My second novel has stalled while I focus on promotional efforts for this first one. I’m reading two books, but not enough of them (add me on Goodreads). Predictably, I’m a fan of text messaging technology (communication via the written word? Human, please), and the people I often text are named Dawn (ex-lover, not dead), Edgar, Chris, Taly, Shay, maybe a Paul sneaks in there somewhere.
If this post failed to reveal me as exquisite, complicated, exceptional, somehow both heroic and plain, I assure you you are not looking closely enough.
