Book Sex and Cleaning House

First order of business: House Cleaning

I'm really sorry both for the lack of updates and the lack of Burn Notice updates/live blogs. People who I know in real life will tell you that I have been really, really sick for the last couple of weeks. I swear to you, during a week of that time I ate nothing but chicken noodle soup and Lucky Charms. Don't get me wrong, I love both but not under those circumstances.

What little I can say about the last two weeks of BN is I loved them. I don't really have the time to go back and write up recaps and things so I'm sorry but I promise to live blog it tomorrow. :D

Book Sex - Marrying your book and going to bed with it.

The other day, after I started to feel like a human being again, I met my good friend (who works for a publisher) at Panera for food and "coffee." She will hereto be referred to as "MGF." Time permitting, she and I get together about once every two weeks - when we're not obsessively texting each other during episodes of the Bachelor. Yes we're completely aware how nerdy this is.

Anyway, after talking about love and all its wonders we started chatting about my book. Well, actually, if I can be technical, I started ranting about my book. I started by telling the story on how a few days before I had come across the second book being published in the next year/year-and-a-half with the same original title as I had wanted to title mine.

When I found out about the first one going to market, I FREAKED OUT wanted to scratch the whole thing and cry myself a million tears. However, after a few days of thinking it out, I came up with a new, better title and have been moving wonderfully forward since -- UNTIL....

I found out about the NEW, NEW one. That book is being written by a fairly successful YA author (who I will admit, I haven't read yet...but I'm heading to the Library tonight). That book scares me because a) it's the same genera as mine and b) I have no idea if the title is metaphorical or if it's tapping into the same universe as I am hence c) I have no idea how similar, if at all, it is to the book I'm working on.

The only reason I found out about the newest one is because I was Googling agents I'd want to query when I am done and adding them to my Agent Query Spread Sheet. Yes. I do know how nerdy that sounds. Yes. I really do have a spread sheet.

Thus the FREAK OUT #2! I was explaining to MGF and trying to get advice from her on whether or not I should keep writing this book. MGF isn't the only person I've FREAKED OUT to -- and they all keep saying the same thing: "YES! Keep writing your book." Apparently, the only person who can write my book is me.

MGF said, "SERIOUSLY! The concept of Harry Potter wasn't "original" and how many vampire books are there to choose from?" The issue of course is how well can you write a book that people will want to read? And this is when MGF said something I hadn't realized yet, "Writing your book is like being in a relationship."

My brain stopped. "What?"

She cocked her head to the side and gave me that sly smile she always does, "You're starting to shop for agents! That's like shopping for rings." She continued with her clever little metaphor, "you have to go to bed with your book."


Then we both erupted into an obnoxious laughter that made one of the Panera kids standing at a table near ours raise his eyebrow at our weirdness.


The reality is that MGF is right. Yes, my ego is writing this book because I want to be the next Stephanie Meyers, sell a ton of books, and have Stephen King talk crassly about me in interviews. That's why my ego is writing my book. That's not the reason I started writing it, or more importantly, the reason why I will finish it.

I started writing the book because I had an idea. I will finish the book because I believe in the idea. I think people will enjoy reading the book because I believe they can relate to the idea.

I'm sure MGF and all the other people I know in real life who've heard me FREAK OUT will have to endure many more FREAK OUTS. But, they'll endure them because they believe in me.