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My husband says I am a politician’s worst nightmare. Not because I don’t vote or because I campaign blindly for the opposing party, but because after careful consideration of each candidate, I choose the one I agree with most or the one I think will do the most good in office and vote for them. I don’t care about political parties or any of that other crap, I vote for who I choose and I vote from my heart.
And with the election for president coming up I’d pretty much decided this time I would do something very rare for me and vote Republican. It was a hard decision because I admit, about 95% of the time, the candidates I choose to support are Democrat and after Bush…well, enough said.
So, I was going to grit my teeth and vote for McCain, but after today when I found out who he chose to run with him, all I can say is I’m looking at Obama again. I had originally decided against him because he makes me uncomfortable and I just don’t think he’s the right man for the job, but since McCain chose Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate, the choice has been taken out of my hands.
Why? Well, I belong to several environmental groups who send out numerous emails to their members every month to keep us posted on what’s going on. Last month, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund sent an email titled, “14 Wolf Pups Executed in Alaska”.
First, the picture:
And in the body of the email, this appalling news:
Here’s what happened: State wildlife agency personnel staked out a known wolf denning site — a practice that is illegal under Alaska law – and, using helicopters, they gunned down 14 adult wolves from the air, part of an effort to boost caribou populations in Southwest Alaska.
When they landed, they found the 14 helpless pups in the nearby dens — just weeks old — and methodically shot each one in the head. 28 wolves gunned down in all.
Now I’m all for boosting the caribou population, but not at the expense of another species. Especially not like this. This senseless killing of animals just turned my stomach and if it doesn’t turn yours, I don’t know what will.
Then, another couple of paragraphs down, you come across this nasty little tidbit:
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has even signed off on a $400,000 state-funded propaganda campaign to justify the state’s barbaric wolf slaughter from the skies.
Yes, that’s right, the woman McCain chose to run with him is, in my eyes, a supporter of cold-blooded mass murder. Doesn’t matter that, as I’m sure some people will say, it was only a bunch of animals. What matters, IMO, is the fact that it should never have happened and they should have done everything possible to find a better, more humane solution. And Governor Palin should have been at the forefront, leading the charge to find that solution. Instead, she sided with the murderers and is even giving them money so they can attempt to justify what they did.
Nope, I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’ll ever vote for someone with that degree of disregard for our environment and its species.
So, unless he does something incredibly stupid over the next couple of months, I’m going to take my chances with Obama. He may not have been my first choice, but hopefully, this kind of mass slaughter of innocent animals bothers him just as much as it does me.
I haven’t written much about baseball lately–well, okay, I admit I haven’t written much about anything at all lately, still busy with the move and all–but with less than 30 games left in the regular season, to quote John Fogerty, we’re “rounding third and heading for home”! Tampa Bay is in first place in the AL East–kudos to the Rays!–and Boston is clinging to the lead in the Wildcard race with um…Minnesota(?) close behind. I’m pretty sure Tampa’s all but sewn up the AL East, but I haven’t given up my team and am currently driving my husband bananas singing Tessie at every opportunity! Hey, it worked last year, who’s to say it won’t work this year?
My favorite player is no longer a part of the Boston Red Sox but has packed his bags and headed for La-la Land. Too bad. I’ll miss you, Manny. Probably the only Red Sox fan who will, especially after the questionable behavior of your last few days with Boston, but well, you know those rabid fangirl crushes, they’re not the easiest thing to get over. And while I no longer love you, I still like you. Fair warning though, if you cut your hair as Joe Torre reportedly asked you to do, it’s all over with for me.
Okay, enough of baseball. At this point the only thing I can do is follow the games and hope while I sing my heart out. Moving on to my life as an author. I’ve been doing a little bit of promotion and plan to step it up next week, when all the reviews should be in and posted on the different sites. Mostly I’ve been concentrating on researching and have found some interesting places to either promote my book or learn about the best way to promote. Top among these is this little gem: AdaptiveBlue’s Book Widgets. If you have a book out, send them an email and they’ll make a widget which contains all the info about your book, including the all-important buy sites, that you can place on your website, MySpace, etc. And it’s free! Can’t beat that! I haven’t emailed them yet, but I’ve heard some good things about their work and it’s at the top of my list. Thanks to fellow L&L Dreamspell author, Denise Robbins for the tip! She also sent along the URL for SpringWidgets, a site where you can get a widget for your blog. Yep, that one’s on my list too!
I’m to the point where I’m ordering curtains for the house, hanging what pictures I can hang before I put up curtains, and wading through the last items I unpacked as I try to get everything organized. Bleh! I never want to move again. And I do mean NEVER!
In the middle of all this, I’ve been working with a cover artist from Red Rose Publishing on the cover for my upcoming ebook, Unwilling Angel, which should be released in early September. Had to go with a CGI cover for this one–the first time I’ve ever had one of those! I don’t really like CGI covers, but the cover artist did a really good job and did her best to follow my suggestions and give me everything I wanted. Still, I had a nightmare last night where the cover was picked up by a couple of blogs, primarily Judge a Book by its Cover, and snarked unmercifully. JaBbyC is a blog written by a fellow North Carolinian, who’s a librarian in Asheville, and I love her blog because it’s always good for a chuckle or two. Anyway, I know my nightmare probably won’t happen and I fully admit to being an idiot and a Nervous Nellie when it comes to my covers, but really, this one has me biting my nails–a habit I gave up back in high school!–and I fully expect the hair-pulling, screaming heebie-jeebies to hit soon. So, I’m going to post the cover here on this blog and I invite all you snarkers to have a go!
Okay, I’ll start. The guy standing up? What the hell happened to his feet? And why does he look like he’s backlit by a spotlight? *raising hand high and waving* He’s actually an angel, hence the backlighting which gives him a nice halo-effect–my favorite part of the cover, actually–and his feet are either buried in the snow or he’s in the process of fading away back to Heaven, feet first!
*snerk* Okay, got that out of my system and I just want to say thanks to Marteeka, the cover artist, who was a real joy to work with and even with my inexplicable–and often unjustifiable–hatred of CGI covers, I really like this one. You are, in my eyes, a fabulous cover artist, not to mention a really patient and nice person!
And finally, with Snow Shadows already out and the unexpected early release of Unwilling Angel, I’ve been trying to come up with promotion ideas which include both of them. Not an easy thing to do, especially when you can’t decide what genre Unwilling Angel falls under. When I sent it to the publisher, I submitted it as a sweet paranormal romance.
The thing is…it’s one of those books, well, a novella actually, that doesn’t slip neatly into one recognized genre. I mean, sure, it’s a romance, but just barely. Emma doesn’t meet her “man” until the next to last chapter and she only kisses him once, at the very end of the story. It doesn’t have the traditional HEA, but more of a HFN. And as for the angel element in the story, I can’t find a definitive genre for that. I’ve seen books about angels listed as paranormal and fantasy, but I don’t know. Beyond the heroine’s limited psychic abilities which save the day in the end, there’s nothing paranormal about this book. As for fantasy…nope, doesn’t fit there either.
*sigh* Maybe I should just label it a sweet romance and leave it at that. I hate labels anyway.
Okay, so I’ve been playing around on Loldogs. Guilty as charged, but after reading this post by Lisa Alber on her blog, Lisa’s Words at Play, I started thinking about self-doubt and wondering why so many writers seem to suffer from it. Then yesterday, I spent a good part of the day reading through the final line edits on my novella, Unwilling Angel, which will be published as an e-book soon and ugh! Self-doubt reared its ugly snout and took a huge bite out of my ass!
A little back story here, the main character in Unwillling Angel is an aspiring writer who’s struggling with writer’s block. She’s been working on a YA book since the death of her husband two years before and she’s convinced she has to finish it. She’s riddled with self-doubt and thinking about suicide when she sees the ghost of her favorite author, Mac McBride. Only Mac’s not a ghost, he’s an Apprentice Angel sent by the Archangels to help her get her life straightened out.
So, in addition to Lisa’s blog entry, this book has a heroine who is filled with self-doubt, and as I was reading through the final line edits file, I found myself…questioning, deliberating, and thinking of ways I could have written it better, tighter, or even funnier. In a word, doubting. And even though I know it’s too late to make any major changes, that doesn’t keep me from wanting to do just that.
The thing is…I think I could read this book, or actually, any one of the things I’ve written, a million times or more, polishing it with every read-through, and still find things I think need to be changed. Which got me to thinking, do multi-published authors do the same thing? Do they suffer from the self-doubt demon? Does Stephen King? Nora Roberts? John Grisham? Did Shakespeare? Charles Dickens? Mark Twain? What about poets like Emily Dickinson? e. e. cummings? Shel Silverstein?
I can’t say for sure because this is only my fourth book–well, really my third since this one was published very briefly before and I guess I shouldn’t count it twice. It’ll probably be a while before I know the answer to that one, if I ever do, but I have to say, I think maybe they do. I think, like DeAnna said in the comments on Lisa’s blog, it’s probably hardwired into all authors. One thing I do know for sure is that right now self-doubt is pretty much a constant companion for me…and I can’t imagine it will ever go away completely.
But that’s okay, I can live with that. Especially when the self-doubt demon might just work in my favor by making me a better writer.
BTW, my book cover is up on Amazon. Woo-hoo! Here’s the link if you haven’t seen it yet. Gorgeous, isn’t it? Why not buy a copy and beat the dog-days of summer by frolicking in the Snow Shadows on Eternity Mountain with Matt and Ellen?
<Sorry, couldn’t resist that little bit of BSP!>
First, I apologize in advance for any typos or mistakes in this post, as well as any tangents I may go off on, but I’m tremendously excited because yesterday after waiting for eternity–or what seemed like it!–my book, Snow Shadows showed up on Amazon and on Barnes & Noble. Woo-hoo! At long last! I spent a good hour just staring at the cover on B&N and probably would’ve spent another hour on Amazon, but the cover hasn’t shown up there yet. Still, the book is there and I’ve already gotten one 5-star review–okay, the review is by my sister, who was the first person to read the book and I admit, she might be just a tad biased, but hey, a good review is always appreciated! And since I value her opinion more than anyone else’s, especially when it comes to my writing, this one means more than I can say.
During my hour-long staring contest with the screen of my laptop, I got this…feeling. I didn’t know what it was at first, but it kept growing stronger. Then while I was still trying to figure it out, I received two more reviews from a couple of the review sites I had sent the book to. Every review I’ve gotten so far on this book, from the one on ParaNormal Romance to the one from my sister on Amazon has been really great, but these two, well, they blew me away.
From Amelia at eCataRomance:
With her thorough historical research evident all through the book, Caitlyn Hunter has crafted a touchingly spellbinding love story with convincing paranormal elements.
Caitlyn Hunter has a poetic writing voice, and her talent for expressing scenes in a romantic way is exceedingly evident in SNOW SHADOWS.
With graphic images, engaging characters and the perfect blending of humor and suspense, SNOW SHADOWS is a memorable story of fated love.
And from Long and Short of It Reviews:
Snow Shadows has a heady mix of romance, the paranormal, Native American folklore and a wonderful cast of characters which drew me in and kept me.
Snow Shadows is the start of the Eternal Shadows series and is one worth keeping a space on your bookshelf for.
Click on the links if you want to read the full reviews–that is if they still work, I think I’ve just about worn them both out!
Anyway, after numerous Snoopy dances and shouts of glee, the feeling was still there. I admit, it did fade a bit when I realized now comes the nail-biting, hair-tearing, and for me, the totally squicky part of being a writer–promotions, sales, and waiting for the reviews from the people who really matter, the readers.
The thing is…I’m bound to get a few bad reviews, but I can handle that. I know that it’s an impossibility to please all of the readers and though I may feel like biting back at some of them, I won’t. Let’s just say I’ve seen a few authors do some pretty horrible things over bad reviews recently and I’ve learned from their mistakes. At least I hope I have!
Anyway–I warned you about tangents, didn’t I?–even with the threat of bad reviews or if the sales of my book don’t live up to what I’d like, I’ll hold on to that feeling I first felt yesterday. I’ll keep doing Snoopy dances and shouting for glee because while Snow Shadows isn’t my first book, it is my first print book, and the feeling I have is that I am not just a writer now, I am an author…
At long last!
Sorry, I love that cover and couldn’t resist posting it again!
I’ve been AWOL for quite a few weeks now as my husband and I closed on our house and we’ve been busy moving. I have numerous emails to answer, some comments here on my blog I need to approve and respond to, quite a few more boxes to unpack and when I finish with that, I need to go back and organize each room so I don’t find myself stumbling around looking for something that should be “here” but is actually way over “there”! I also have the second round of edits on my upcoming e-book, Unwilling Angel, to read through, the book finished right before we closed, Storm Shadows, to polish, and my baby girl–well, okay, she’s not mine really, but she’s my niece, my namesake and my Godchild, so she feels like mine!–is getting married this weekend. Which means I’ll be out of town for a few days and I need to pack, but I keep putting that little chore off since it seems a little…contradictory. I’m supposed to be focusing on unpacking now, so how can I pack more things that will only have to be unpacked again.
Anyway, I wasn’t going to get back to blogging until next week but my sister just sent me an email with an incredibly moving You Tube video which is, according to the email, currently taking the Internet and Fox News by storm. It is, to say the least, a video every single person in America needs to see and take to heart!
Here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/v/ervaMPt4Ha0&autoplay=1
Watch it and tonight when you’re praying to whatever God you pray to, or counting your blessings for all that you have, or just living your life, I hope you’ll remember to thank all those brave men and women who not only guard our freedom, but often give their lives to ensure that we can continue to enjoy ours. It’s not enough, won’t ever be enough, but if I learned anything growing up as part of the baby boomer generation, it was to be thankful for those courageous enough to fight for me, for my freedom, for my country and not treat them as if they are some lower form of life for doing what they do. I may not agree with the people who sent them to do this job, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t respect the ones carrying out that job or the efforts they put forth on my behalf.
And before I forget, a huge thank you to fifteen-year-old Lizzie Palmer who created the video and not only touched my heart, but gave me hope that all the creativity, reverence, and love hasn’t been leached out of our youth–a very hard thing for a teacher to remember sometimes!
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