Why You Should ALWAYS Clean Out Your Car Before an Oil Change

Quote of the Week:
Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.
~Edwin Land

Currently on my IPOD:
Get Out of my Dreams (and into my car)
~Billy Ocean

Local Weather:
Unexpected snow showers followed by
fits of unexplained, non-drug induced giddiness.

Dear Friends Egg Hunters and Easter Bunnies,

In light of the coming holiday, I must promote the Bunny Blogs (There’s murder! Mayhem and general Insanity all Around!) I saw a piece on the RAW site, (aka Random Acts of Writing) and since I didn’t live near the magazine, I couldn’t contribute or submit. Well, I submit to everywhere. This would be no exception. I decided to respond to the story on the blog where it was promoted. Next thing I know, the writer of the story replied, in character. We kept it going for months. At this point there are 52 threads to the story. It was all completely off the cuff, every thread was in response to the last. In my opinion this was some of the most fun I have ever had writing. PLEASE go check it out. I am not sure what happened to the editors of this cute site, but the blog and story thread are still up.

Moving on...This week has been interesting. I have started the total re-write of the MS. I am taking it from third person POV to first person. A challenge to say the least. But I have to agree with my readers, the story is much better in this voice. We’ll see if I can keep it up for the next several hundred pages.

As the title of my blog says, this is often times, a blog about you. I like to catch people in their embarassing moments or when they aren’t watching and observe, write it down and laugh later along with you. So, I decided to write about one of my most embarassing moments today. Life in Colorado Springs has been more dull than usual as far as observances. The story I have to tell you has two parts.

The week before this incident Ryan and I got married. Traditionally, after a wedding, the bridesmaids and groomsmen go out and decorate the get away car. Ryan and I rented a limo for after the wedding to take us to a hotel, The Ritz, to be exact...Was beautiful there. Three steps into the room, Ryan walked after me and stepped on the back of my dress, ripping the bustle out. Yeah, explaining that to my mother was difficult. She didn’t believe me. Anyway, we didn’t even get a chance to see the damage to our car, which we were driving to Michigan the next day, until the morning after the wedding. My poor father, had to drive the car for about twenty miles. So here’s this middle aged man, by himself in a decorated "just married" car. And of course there’s no gas...He stops at a gas station and the whole world was staring, at least that’s what he said it seemed like to him.

The next morning we stop for brunch with our families and then head up to Michigan. The car? Trashed. There is a gummy tongue stuck to the outside of the gas cap, a few billion condoms blown up all over the car, including the ones hanging from the antenna. Inside the car? Worse. Condom wrappers, bottles of lube in every compartment, I think there might have even been a book on sexual positions tucked away somewhere too. Front windshield had big circles drawn in paint saying bride and groom. The back, said: Just doing it since 10-28-2000.

Your friends are your life line, right? Yeah, I laughed, but then called them all later that week and said...Alright, next time...And we have an exact estimation of how many friends were in on the act. The photographer took a picture of everyone at the wedding afterwards and there were key guests that were missing. Uh-huh..Caught you with your hands in your pants, didn’t I.

Ryan and I survived the drive from Georgia to Michigan, including all the weird glances, stares and honks. And like all married couples, soon enough we settled into our lives.

About a week after the drive, I realized it was time to get my oil changed. Yes, we had the car cleaned out for the most part. The gummy tongue had been extracted (never stick gummy candy to the outside of someone’s car! Its damn near impossible to get off after a few hundred miles of driving with it on), the paint had been removed, and it started to look like a perfectly normal piece of shit car. (1996 Toyota Tercel) Before I started my new job as a nurse, I had to run a few errands, changing my name at the DMV, Social Security Office...and later that afternoon I had to get my oil changed.

I dropped it off to one of those Oil-O-Rama Drive through type places and then sat in the waiting room for about twenty minutes while the men worked. I was sitting right next to the glass window facing the oil bays and everyonce in a while, I got a curious look from some of the guys. Then one would point...and another guy would walk over etc.. This continued the whole time. Twenty minutes or so later a nice guy whose name I have forgotten walked into the smelly room and proceeded to tell me the car was ready. What was so weird? Well, couldn’t have been the shit-eating grin plastered around his face.

I must say that my wedding ring wasn’t on, I believe I either had to have it sized or something of that nature. But for whatever reason, it wasn’t on that day. He then started making small talk. All I wanted to do was get out of there and on with my life. So, where you from? What’s your name? You new around here? Hold on, my buddy Fred (or whatever his name was) wants to meet you. Yeah, we go down to the bar on Fridays...etc...

I quickly paid and despite their overly friendly nature, I left without offering any information. I had never really been to Holland Michigan before, and I thought that maybe these people were just really nice. I had heard the mid-west could be very accommodating.....Shaking it off as just some young guys hitting on a young gal, I got into the car and didn’t think another thing about it until...

The mats in the front driver side seat were kind of jostled around. I went to straighten them up and what do I find? Condom wrappers. EMPTY CONDOM WRAPPERS...AND LOTS OF THEM. Oh-no. Double oh-no. I continue to look around the car. There are wrappers under every single car mat.

I’m sure these guys were under the impression that I was the one woman red-light district in Holland. Fantastic. As I pulled out of the oil change station, mortified, ALL of the men working that day, stopped what they were doing and waved. Very politely, they smiled and I can only imagine what was going through their heads.

Lesson to be learned: ALWAYS CLEAN YOUR CAR OUT BEFORE AN OIL CHANGE OR ANY OTHER SERVICE IS DONE ON IT. Oh, and wear clean undies at all times in case you are in an accident and have to be stripped naked at the side of the road. I’ll give you the reason for that piece of advice next week. Stay Tuned for more Weird Car Tales from Cicily...

Have a great week and an even better Easter. Start thawing out your ham’s now my friends. Anyone that wants my Bourbon Pecan Tart or Key Lime Pound Cake Recipe for Easter dessert, feel free to email me.

Yours in Condoms, Condoning Dirty Cars and Covering My Face in Light of Utter Humiliation,

Cicily

In Need of Repair

Quote of the week:
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses,
just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
~Oscar Wilde

Currently on my IPOD:
"It's My Life"
~Bon Jovi

Local Weather:
Humidity dropping around 2pm giving way to an
inevitable and unseasonable cold front
with occasional, late afternoon feelings
of total inadequacy

Dear friends, family and everyone else,

Right now, I am eating marshmallows out of the Lucky Charm cereal box. Just as I told my kids not to do, but their in school, so no one but you and me and the world around us will ever know. I think I am stress eating. I know I am stress eating. I must stop this plague of stress and weight gain. And stop it right now.

I consider myself in repair at the moment. After a rough few years and hurricanes of medical crap, MS crap and re-writing my life story, I am repairing the damage. I have started to exercise, which as my accupuncturist says, will give more life and blood to my brain, which makes me feel fantastic. I have been running, on average, a 5K every other day. Its like I’m addicted. Can’t stop. And even though it burns through my core, I don’t stop until the treadmill says I have to. My heart rate soars close to 180. But it is a type of high. A natural high. Endorphin, knock me down on the ground and kick me kinda high.

What else am I doing? I am trying to get rid of the doctors. All of them. I know, out of necessity, I have to see at least one to get my very necessary meds refilled from time to time, but I have decided that I don’t need them anymore than that. I have gone all natural. I have supplements for my gut, for the mind and everything else in between. I am seeing an accupuncturist and I feel great. She has me focusing on the whole body, seeing myself as whole and not just parts that don’t fit in the puzzle. And the accupuncture feels fantastic.

But in need of more serious repair is the manuscript and I’m not going to whine about it. I’m just going to keep swimming on it until I either drown or finish, which ever comes first. I have the feeling that the finished product will come way before I drown, I’m just pessimistic because I’m having a hard time breathing when I’m in its presence.

But the blank page, the characters, the ones whose story has yet to be told calls out. Including me. My blank page, my story, my inner character is coming out slowly but surely. For now, just ignore the big orange sign telling you that the road is closed for repairs ahead in the road. I shall repair, rejoice and re-do what has been undone. Just a minor transformation taking place, never mind me.

See you guys next week!

Yours in Repair, Recycling Old Material to Make Way for New and Refining,

Cicily

Tibet and the Free the Goat Rally and other things about Setting

Quote of the Week:

Invention, my dear friends, is ninety-three percent perspiration,
six percent electricity, four percent evaporation,
and two percent butterscotch ripple.
~Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
(Not the new movie...the older, better one)
~Roald Dahl

Currently on my IPOD:
Strange Meadowlark:
Dave Brubeck

Current Weather:
Spring like weather followed by disappointing
transgressions of multi-system manuscript failure.

Dear Friends, Family and My Family of Friends and Pretty Much Everyone Else,

I've decided two things. First, California is beautiful, but WAY too expensive. Second, I really think that the Burger King and Starbucks and every other restaurant in the airport system needs to get a serious reality check on their pricing. Not that I was going to eat the Burger King. It always has the power to land mein the hospital with serious gut problems when I eat there. But a whopper with cheese meal, not super-sized or open heart surgery portions, 10.75 in LAX Int'l Airport. One espresso triple shot mocha, with no whip, grande size...6.50. Come on people...don't be ridiculous. So, I had a small cup of water and waited patiently for the plane to arrive.

Okay, onto the story. You're done with the backstory. As in you've placed it in a different file for later, right. Of course. I know you don't want a lecture on it...As a matter of fact, we talked about openings last week, this week, we're going to delve into setting. The scene. The Where of the Who, What and Why...and of course, When. Without a scene, or shall I say, proper scene what do you have? Nothing. Jack crap. Nadda, Zip, Zilch.

Let's take Moby Dick. There would be absolutely nothing. For without the scene you would have a whale and a man and a boat, actually, not the boat, unless you are of the school of thought that the vessel itself was a character, and then I believe that it wouldn't be Melville writing the story, but maybe Kafka. Call me Ishmael, I am a whale... Hey that rhymes. Kudo's to me..

Anyway, your scene is of the utmost importance. It gives your reader something to grab onto. Somewhere they may or may not know. Which can have the power of transporting the reader into a wonderful place or a place like Hell.

Think about what a movie does for you. Take the opening scene in The Hours. We have Virginia Woolfe in post WWI England Countryside. Probably Spring, most definitely wonderful. Sets up the whole story. Well, until you get past the opening credits. Then the setting is jarringly moved to New York City Present Day. And after another few minutes, we have post WWII Southern California suburbs. Now we've really got the big picture. Not only does each of these settings provoke a whole different set of moral values in society, but it also gives light into the characters education backgrounds, their upbringing, their personal histories and their reactions to events that take place in the story which will also bring out the theme of the story. In turn, this makes setting an utmost necessary part of the plot and our characters. Now take this movie device of setting up the scene while introducing characters and apply it to your novel. Have a running movie version of your book in your head. Seriously, it works. This is why I like to write to movie soundtracks.

Regardless, your setting should create a world of its own, but in the most accurate way possible. Even if you are writing about Napoleon, you should be describing France to the detail when he reigned and not the France that we know now. If you are creating a novel that is Sci-fi or Fantasy, then your world doesn't have to be accurate to history, but it needs to be accurate to its own history.

Otherwise...it needs to be accurate and consistent throughout the story. If you have the story taking place in post WWIII Cleveland, please do not have tropical plants sprouting up from the ground in one chapter and then the next chapter have it barren and with no vegetation for the last century. Yeah, we're on to you...

Also your setting should evoke emotion. The setting of any place has emotion. Your mom's kitchen as she made brownies when you got home from school. Your college roomate's kitchen as he was making brownies for the party later that night. The first time you burnt eggs and bacon in your apartment, the first time you went to the beach and experienced the ocean, the first time you smelled sulfur after you visited the seventh level of hell...Get it? Each smell, sound, sight, taste, it all evokes some kind of emotion and memory and it is ALL a part of the setting and characterization and plot... Do this the right way in your story and you have drawn the reader in by giving them something to hold onto. Some kind of memory that they can take from their own and make the book all the more personal is a good thing, a very good thing.

Also the setting should provoke understanding in the reader. If you start out with, It was a dark and stormy night and then proceed to write the remake of The Sound of Music, then you've lost your reader. But if you start out with a naive' young woman, dancing among the top of some kind of mountain, waving her arms and singing as she strolls through the freshly bloomed flowers, then you got something entirely different.

The Setting can also give away what kind of character you are dealing with without saying a thing. You're writing about a widowed man with four kids...enter in the house. As a matter of fact, I might describe the house first. Are there pictures on the fridge from his daughter in Kindergarten, are there dustbunnies around every single corner, or is everything neat and tidy to a fault? What do the kids rooms look like? Are they neat and tidy or in the boys room is there porn posters plastered all over the walls and the eldest girl's room has scantily clad posters of New Kids on the Block? Or do the brother and sister say their prayers every night, while kneeling at the bedside where their mother used to kneel?

There are lots of different settings/scenes that could come from this scenario. But it is up to you as the writer to make it vivid, memorable and real to the reader. And don't get me wrong, this is no easy task. Make your setting a character, give it life, and as much importance as you do all of your characters. Your story will be stronger for it, I promise.

As the quote at the top of my page relays, genuis and inventiveness is hard work. And in order for you to pull off your story properly, you must work very hard at it. Take every line, every thought from your characters and every scene and apply the proper setting everytime and your story will come into its own...

I hope each of you have a great week. Don't forget to check out the writers retreat I am hosting in Vail this coming October. It will be held from the 17th-21rst. And this is a self guided retreat with MS consultation. Not a conference, just somewhere to be with like minded souls, in beautiful surroundings and working on your project. Space is limited. You can check out the site here: Writing Away Retreats.

Thanks, as always, for reading!

Yours in Settings, Showing--Not Telling and Some Other Place,

Cicily

He Turned Off the Alarm Clock and Looked in the Mirror and Other Advice on Beginnings

Mood:
Up and Around

Currently on my IPOD:
"Oh, What a Beautiful Morning"
~Ray Charles Version...Check it out!

Quote of the week:
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
An Ideal Husband
~Oscar Wilde

Current Weather:
Light wispy clouds of hope followed by
afternoon thunderstorms with possible
lightening strikes consisting of hard work.

My Dear Friends,

How are you this week? Me? I'm fine. Just dandy. I am currently in Santa Barbara visiting with my editor to start the revision process. I flew into LAX yesterday evening and the bus ride from there to S.B. was quite beautiful. The pics from the sunset will be up in my myspace slideshow and under places I've been for viewing if you are interested in seeing them.

So, the revisions have begun. But first things first. Go through your MS and highlight all the adverbs, seems to's, as if's and other sins of manuscript transgression. Then after you are done with that, check the opening scene. Did your character hit his alarm clock snooze button for the tenth time and get out of bed? And then what...did he look at himself longingly in the mirror, rub his day old stubble and then reflect about his sunken cheeks, pale blue eyes and the big hairy birthmark in the shape of Iraq on the top of his forehead and then ruminate about how he was going to become the next Gorbachev. And then after this long mirror ego stroking session maybe he'll manage to go to the bathroom, look in the mirror again and then take a shower after he has decided to shave his birthmark before announcing his plans to take over a country....

Hmmm...one of the best exercises I have been taught is to go to the bookstore, library or whatever and read the openings to as many books as possible. One of the bigger sins in writing is to open a book with this typical newbie opening. So Cicily, where the hell are you going with this...

Well, after removing the opening scene of my book and moving it towards the end of the book where it properly belonged, I realized that I was now starting the book out with my MC waking up, getting out of bed and beginning his morning routine. I then felt like the book needed the words, but little did he know that today would change his life... Yeah, don't do that one either. Unless you add to the story some dark and impending doom theme music as the reader goes along. So,what this means for me, is that its time for a new opening to the story. I can keep this scene in there, somewhere, somehow, because I feel its important to the story and to the MC characterization, but means its time for a new opening.

The opening scene in your book needs to be stellar, exciting and nail bitingly good. What is going to make your book different than other books? What can make it stand out to that editor, agent or grandmother in the nursing home down the street?

As a reader, would you give a shit about what's going on if the only thing the character does in the opening scene is turn off the damn alarm or look in the mirror and reflect upon his good looks? Now, here's the exception. If your MC turns off the alarm, the clock explodes and giant demonic looking Care Bears drop from the sky, screaming Tally Ho as they leap into his bedroom through his roof and he immediately ensures himself and the beautiful woman sleeping next to him that he WILL save the world, then that is a whole different story. And let me know if you do write this story, I would love to read it.

You need to start off with some kind of action or something that gives you the beginning of the history of the MC. (And no, turning off an alarm clock is not action and backstory doesn't count either.) If you are writing a fantasy novel or sci-fi novel, beware of your backstory. I know you have spent countless hours creating this world and that you feel you HAVE TO, explain what happened before you can get on with the story, but what the reader inherently wants from you is not the history of the world you created in a 100 page introduction. The reader wants to see your hero or heroine in the action of defending his home planet, cyborg or concubine from the evil whatever. Show us what happened in the past in little doses throughout the book. Trust me, give your reader some credit and open up with a bang of a scene.

Opening lines can vary. But as I said with the first scene..do not have it start with someone doing something mundane like getting out of bed. Opening lines must beg a question, or tell me just enough of the story to get me into the action.

Let's look at some examples of good opening lines:

Dances with Wolves by: Michael Blake: "Leuitenant Dunbar wasn't really swallowed."

This line has me hooked. Already I want to know who this guy is and why someone thought he was swallowed in the first place and what really happened to him. Result, I kept reading.

The Color Purple by: Alice Walker: "You better not never tell nobody but God."

Same kind of thing. I want to know who the character is talking to, why she is telling this person to keep a secret and what her background is because of her speech.

Slaughterhouse Five by: Kurt Vonnegut: "All this happened, more or less."

This line is perfect. What the hell is he talking about? More or less? Is there a lie to be told, is there a partial truth that begs to come out?...You bet. And what do you have to do with this opening line? You have to keep reading.

The same principle applies to short fiction. Let's take a look at some opening lines from the latest issue of McSweeney.

"The Strange Career of Doctor Raju Gopalarajan" by: Rajesh Parameswaran
"None of us were surprised when we heard Gopi Kumar had been fired from his job at CompUSA."

Who the hell is Gopi Kumar and how on earth does someone get fired from CompUSA? And why weren't they surprised?

"Rough Cut" by: Christian Winn: "The Mormon has fought before."

This begs the same question. Who is the Mormon and why was he fighting and what is he doing now?

You should strive to ask these same questions and pull in your reader. The opening line to my second book, which is now officially in progress, is: The three men with whom this started would all be dead by the end.

We'll see how it fits with the rest of the story when it is finished. But for now, I think its sufficiently average.

Overall, your opening scene and lines need to be some of the best lines in your book, no matter what genre, form or whatever the story is. Short, long, novella, novel, flash, it all has to start the same. Give me something to hold onto as I keep reading. First impressions, not only as a writer, but your characters and their story need to be precise and evocative. You wouldn't walk into a meeting with a NY literary agent wearing a T-shirt you've held onto since the sixth grade and a pair of jeans that one would consider flood-waters and a pair of flip-flops would you? So your story shouldn't leave that bad aftertaste in your mouth either. Write something that will change someone's mind about the story and make them keep reading from the first word to the last.

So, for now, I am off. Having said all this, I realize more and more that I need to go work on my own damn opening... Have a wonderful day and of course, I'll see you next week, same time, same place, more or less same topic.

Yours in Openings, Owning Your Story and Oily Fingertips from too Much Popcorn,

Cicily

What Not to do When You're Finished

Mood: Moody as hell...

Currently on my IPOD: Love Song: Sara Bareilles

Quote of the Week:

If a fear cannot be articulated, then it can't be conquered.

Salem's Lot
~Stephen King

Weather in Colorado Springs today: Scared shitless clouds lingering above my forehead causing wind gusts that take away my ability to reason.

Dear Family, Friends and Whatnots,

I'm going to start today out with another quote. This one happens to come from my current IPOD song and the song on my profile, Love Song. I am mildly obsessed with this gal, her voice is so refreshing and calming. Here it goes,
I've learned the hard way that they all say the things you want to hear...Your twisted words, your help just hurts and you're not who I thought you were, hello to high and dry....I'm trying to let you hear me as I am...

No, I'm not talking about anyone in my life except for me. The change that has taken place in me since I started this process has been enormous. If you haven't written a word in your life, or if you've been wanting to and you don't want to change as a person in the process, then don't start writing. Leave the dream behind, because it will change you.

As you may have guessed by the title of the blog, I've finished the first draft. Word Count: 112,579. Translated into pages: Around 400-ish depending on your font. Translated into time spent on the draft: A whole shitload of time. Mike Neff, upon hearing of my intent on what I want to accomplish in this novel before I even put the first words on the page, looked at me with very serious eyes and politely patted my head and then said, this is going to be the absolute hardest thing you will ever do. And Mike, if you're reading this, I can say with complete honesty that YOU WERE RIGHT!

What is that Mastercard commercial? Oh yeah...

One reem of gleeming, untainted paper at Office Max: 22.75
Printer Ink Cartridge: 29.50
Having your grandiose idea come to life as a shitty first draft (thank you Anne Lamott for the phrase) over the period of a year and a quarter: Priceless

Or is it?

Sanity status: Not good. I'm completely spent and now I find myself out of coupons for the excuse of insanity. So, I have decided to host the world's largest pity party. Come on over and join me in the post-shitty-draft let down. We will drink, eat VERY fattening food (including boxes upon boxes upon boxes of Thin Mints) and read the most awful writing ever to grace dead tree rubbish. Sounds like fun, eh?

After having killed numerous men on paper, wrecked a few dozen lives and letting my house go to utter hell, I am done. You might be telling yourself, Cicily, so get on with it, get over it, deal with it and keep going. People do this every friggin day! Or you might be saying, shut the hell up already.

But, as per my usual, I am going to bestow my writerly wisdom (unfounded) upon you because I love you and I don't want you to inflict this kind of emotional wreckage upon yourself or anyone else in your life during your writing process. Or if you do or already have done this, then you can say, hey, Cicily warned me about this and maybe I should have listened. And that is, only if you can find the source inside of you that gives you the ability to reason. Which is something I don't quite have at the moment. So forgive, listen up and pass the Lemon Drop Martini Mix my way, please...

In Letterman fashion:

Top ten things NOT to do when you finish your first draft.
(These are in order of worst sin to weaker sin)

10. Submit it. I guarantee that if you submit your first draft now, you will get a rejection. Especially if you wrote it over any amount of time that was more than one day. The stuff in the beginning is going to be worse than the stuff at the end, right? So, leave it in your drawer, hard drive or package of Moth Balls for now.

9. Jump off a bridge. First off, the whole thing about having a MS being worth more money after you are dead only applies if you are someone like Richard Russo, John Irving, Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates etc...A manuscript by me, you or some other no name is just going to provide more evidence as to your insanity and probably cause the Life Insurance company to withhold the money they would have given your family. So, please, stay alive until you can pull either your death or the book off properly and believably and evocatively.

8. Delete the manuscript. Unless you have it for-sure backed up on a flash drive or in your editor's inbox, DO NOT DELETE THE MS. Sure, it may be the worst writing since that book about everyone pooping that you have to read your children at night while potty training, but for now, that is not your problem. Step away from the delete button. ***Clause: If it is backed up sufficiently and you know this for a fact, and it will make you feel better to hit that damn button at the top right hand corner of your keyboard, then by all means go ahead and do it.***

7. Eat WAY too many boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and take up alcoholism as a hobby. This will only make you fat and even more depressed than you already are. Now, if during the process, you have already taken up Alcoholism and carb-consumption as a hobby, then that is an entirely different matter. Come on over to Cicily's ten step program... I hold meetings twice a week at the local bar and I buy all the drinks and fried Twinkies you can manage to put down your digestive tract. Who am I to stop you from killing your liver and giving the Mayo Clinic and John's Hopkins more patients to study the effects of fried foods and Alcohol on mood and liver? I'm all for funding and supporting medical research. Oh, and on the bit about Girl Scout Cookies...They only come once a year, so stock up.

6. Read your manuscript from cover to cover. Yeah, not a good idea. This is what started this pity party in the first place. My editor, Ian, told me to take a break from it no matter what. Don't even touch it. Leave it the hell alone. Don't worry it won't change or starve without you, just leave it alone. I didn't listen. I started to read over it today and realized that it was going to take an act of God or Buddha to straighten it out to be the story I intended for it to be. I crumbled into an oblivion. If you can write a first draft, you can re-write a first draft. That is, unless you have your spouse, friend, or neighbor, run over your hands with their car. Don't do that either.

5. Put it away for good. It's okay and even necessary to put it down for a short amount of time to breathe and re-think some things, but putting it away for good, is not the right thing to do. Even if it means you don't touch it again until the year 2020, when you might have better vision on what's going on...that's okay. Just don't give up. Who knows, during the revision process, you might actually realize that YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING WORTH SALVAGING. It may be that you have to re-write the story in a completely different POV, but that's okay. What's your rush anyway? The world has waited this long to hear what you have to say, so a few more billion years won't hurt a damn thing.

4. Post the entire draft on your website or some public site like Edit Red or Writers Cafe. Guess what, you do this and you can consider it published. Which means that even if the MS is absolutely the most brilliant set of words ever written and the Pulitzer and Publisher's Clearing House gang is driving to your house anytime now, a publisher won't consider it. Not even for a second. Plus, its different than publishing a part of the draft on a closed, password locked internet workshop where the public doesn't have access, but pubbing the whole draft and especially if it is particularly brilliant, you run the risk of having someone claim it as their own. Small risk, but why take the chance?

3. Send it to your mother. The only thing she is going to do is give you false hope that it is perfect just the way it is. I'll save you the postage, email time and phone call: Your mother: " My little Johnny, you make me so proud. You're the most brilliant writer ever...and good looking too. Don't worry sweetie, you'll not only find a real princess to marry, but you'll be the most famous writer that has ever lived." You'll thank me for that later. ***Disclaimer: Unless your mother is a literary agent in NY or an editor at Random House, I suggest you follow this bit of advice.*** Instead, promise her the first edition copy in hardback after its been published and get her opinion at that point in time.

2. Destroy your laptop or computer. This is for the same reason you shouldn't delete the manuscript. Plus, how would you gain access to my blog to read it?

1. Consider it done. Your work has only just begun...Wait, I hear a Carpenter's song coming on...We've only just begun..to love... Okay, I'll stop singing out loud my favorite seventies love songs and save the karaoke blog for youtube. Revision is in order, possibly a rewrite, and then its your job or your editors job to make sure you rinse and repeat as necessary until desired results are achieved. Right? Right.

I appreciate all of your support, your love and your cheers and jeers throughout my process. I know its all been done before, but this is the first time I've really done it. And no, I am not the same person as before this project, but after all of this self doubt begins to head south, hopefully, I will be better than myself.

Have a wonderful weekend and comment if you want.

Yours in Self-Doubt, Shitty First Drafts and Serving No Purpose with this Attitude,

Cicily