So. You came by to visit with my crazy friends from Riverview, USA. I know how it is. You’re addicted to them every bit as much as I am. Unfortunately, the twin stresses that prompted last week’s Thursday Thirteen haven’t been resolved (Mom, I love you, but you said some very hurtful things at a time when the focus should have been on #2’s school dilemma, not either of us), and now there’s more! 1. I caught #1’s cold and it’s doing its best to turn into bronchitis. 2. I’ve been tagged for a meme by Lori. 3. I’ve been tagged for a meme by Red. 4. I’ve been tagged for a meme by Thomma Lyn. 5. I’ve been tagged for a meme by Wylie. 6. Plus, Aline and L^2 have also tagged me in the past, and I’ve had to let those balls drop. 7. #2 has her first dance recital next week. I am not nearly so silly as you think because I’m stressed over having to put her hair into a bun. 8. #1 is home from school and all he wants to do is play with friends. And play with friends. And play with friends. I don’t mind being his chauffeur (so long as he doesn’t call me Jeeves), but it’d be nice if some of these friends were home to play with! 9. I’m tickled pink by everyone’s responses to my story poem (scroll down if you missed it). I can’t decide if I’m glad no one wanted me to tell them more about our nameless roadie, though. Eventually, I’d like to do a book about a roadie. 10. The way you guys reacted to last week’s Thursday Thirteen touched me. Not just because you caught on that I’m stressed, but because you love Trevor so much. It just makes me all the more eager to bring you Trevor’s Song. I hope you’ll stick with me and help me build my fan base as we progress through this process called publication. 11. The summer reading contest is coming. Can you feel it? Are you one of the many people who’ve stuffed my inbox with prizes and suggestions, only to not get a response? Apologies for that. I’ve been so focused on #2’s school dilemma that I’ve answered only the barest of mails. 12. I’m not ready to launch the Summer Reading Contest and dammit, I want to be. You guys are going to dig it; it’ll be the same format as Debut a Debut, only with some improvements. Fortunately, Erica at Writing Aspirations is on board with me again. And Karen at Morsie Reads. And hopefully lots of you guys, too. Yes, if the criteria fits, you can overlap this contest with any of your other reading challenges or contests. I’m easy like that! 13. I really want to spend time with Trevor and company. As you guys have noticed, I love my characters. I wish I had more, more, more time to write (I know, don’t we all?), but what struck me last night was that one of my least favorite solutions to #2’s school dilemma is sending her to a program that would give me more time to write. Can YOU figure that one out without invoking the phrase, “You’re putting your daughter first, you good mom, you!”??? And edited to add a bonus: it seems that the Tour Manager found this week’s header picture… in the home of our own TTer Babe King. Be sure to tell her you saw her here and to thank her for the picture — and be sure to get her new release from Freya’s Bower this month, too!!!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Hey, guys. It’s my turn to be a Working Stiff. Go on over and please try to not laugh too hard…

Leave comments here or there; whatever makes you happier. (I do respond faster here, though)

And thanks for the virtual hugs and kind words. I may or may not talk about it later on, but I might have found a solution to at least one of the two problems that sprang up on Tuesday. We shall see if The Tour Manager and I can pull it off.

Thirteen things ShapeShifter loves to do in the summer: 1. Tour. 2. Play those day-long festivals that are popular. 3. Hang out with the other bands playing the day-long festivals. 4. Find someone in charge who can cough up a grill and some dogs, burgers, and bird. (Bodacious Sauce is a plus but not a requirement) And beer. Don’t forget the beer. That is a requirement. 5. Jam with the cooler members of the bands playing the day-long festivals. 6. Learn the music of the cooler bands. 7. Wear the t-shirts of the cooler bands during the ShapeShifter set. Pimp the bands from the stage. 8. Storm the stage when said cooler bands are on. 9. Invite them to do the same. 10. When boredom sets in, swap out band members without telling the crowd what’s happening. Make like it’s normal for Howard the Hammer to play in Bitterness. 11. When crowd starts to expect that, stop doing it. 12. Throw new songs — written during the above-mentioned jam sessions — into the concert set. Watch crowd react. 13. Lather, rinse, repeat until fall and time to head into the studio to record a new album. By the way, that’s not ShapeShifter in the header picture; please don’t confuse my fictional band for a real one!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I’m a pretty polarizing woman. It seems you either love me or hate me (or: you get me or you’re scared of me). I’m a strong woman, and I’m proud of that.

I would need you guys to tell me how much of that shines through in my fiction and the rest of this blog. But that’s not the point today. I don’t need the strokes I seem to be asking for.

Rather, I want you guys to read this.

Think about what it means to be a strong woman. Think about people you know who are threatened by us strong women, and think about the ways in which we can do MORE for ourselves and our fellow sisters.

Since this is Memorial Day in the States, maybe take a minute and think about the women brave enough to die in combat, too. A lot of my friends have told me I’m brave, but I’m nothing compared to the men and women who enlist and defend this country.

When I was twelve, my mom bought me copies of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonflight and Dragonquest at a flea market. They were stripped copies but this was twenty years ago; what did we know?

I may not have known the first thing about the book business back then — hey, I was only twelve — but I knew good characters, and it didn’t take long before I’d fallen in love with F’lar and Lessa. They were as real to me as the friend who lived three houses down, who I’d get together with almost every day that same summer.

I wanted to be part of F’lar and Lessa’s lives; they seemed so real, so easy to envision. I knew they were fiction, but oh, how I wished I could be fiction, too, and have a place in the Weyr with them. I wanted to live a dangerous, exciting life. I wanted to be among the group of heroes who made a difference.

Eventually, I grew up. Found other things to read. You know how it goes. But every now and then, I’d return to those Pern books, particularly when my life was in tumult. I remember staying up all night after I was married, looking for solace. The Tour Manager’s ex-roommate had blamed me for his wife’s insecurities, and he hadn’t exactly been kind about it.

I read, and I read, looking for the way to cope with what felt like a neutron bomb that had gone off inside my life. I was looking for wisdom, for guidance, for escapism. I found it all.

A year and a half ago, or so, a friend pointed me to Miss Snark. I needed to read her, she said.

At first glance, I was put off. But then, I laughed. And finally, I was hooked.

It wasn’t just the things I was learning from her. I mean, heck. I’d been around the publishing block once already. I’d had an agent. I knew that glitter and neon pink paper weren’t such great ideas. I knew about twelve-point font and SASEs and to follow the damn directions.

Of course, there was plenty to learn. After all, I’ve only been around the block once. Maybe I didn’t get the whole way around, since my wonderful agent didn’t make me a sale.

What hooked me wasn’t the content; it was the writing. Snark didn’t just dish out her own advice, she took it and whoever created her did so pretty completely. She was her own person, a work of fiction who was as well-rounded and clearly drawn as any of the best fictional characters out there. She had a voice. She had inside jokes. She had a love for shoes and a disdain for cats. In some ways, I knew Miss Snark better than I knew my own best friends.

She wasn’t real. I knew that even as I exchanged e-mails with her and tried not to get excited that someone who could afford Jimmy Choos would actually deign to speak to me. There was room in Snark’s world for all of us, so long as we weren’t total nitwits — or could laugh at ourselves if we were. We took that risk by e-mailing her questions for the blog or submissions for her writing contests. We knew that, but we risked it anyway.

Part of the reason was that she was trustworthy. The one time when I had a situation on my hands that I truly didn’t know how best to handle, she came to my rescue. Didn’t even call for the cluegun, either, but then, I know I’m not a nitwit. Every now and then.

That’s the part of Snark I’ll miss the most. Yes, I’ll miss the jokes and the occasional times when I’d scream with laughter or put my water glass down before clicking on her name in my feedburner. For me, the power of Miss Snark was knowing that I always had someone I could turn to when I needed it. The only expectation either of us could have was a thank you; there were no obligations of sending gifts or making sure you followed the proper etiquette. The only etiquette was to have a clue, and the longer you hung around, the bigger your clues got.

She’s gone now, as pretty much the whole world knows. I have no idea what I’ll do if I land a contract with an independent publisher and need a referral to an agent, just for the purpose of the contract. And my feed reader will probably never again threaten to explode with the 100-plus Crapometer entries.

In a way, it’s like closing the cover on my bedraggled copy of The White Dragon, knowing it was a great ride and I’m a better person for having spent time here. The site remains in case I have to dig through the archives yet again. Just as the books sit on the same shelf with my stuffed bison and Animal the muppet.

I am one of those people who is always looking forward, toward the next adventure and the next person who’ll touch my life. I pretend I don’t look back, but I do. In those quiet times, when I can’t sleep or am driving somewhere and the music lulls me into letting my guard down. I’ll look back on it all with a bittersweet laugh.

Just as it was eventually time to leave my beloved Dragonriders on the shelf, now it’s time to move through the publishing world without my tart-tongued guide. Always grateful for the interesting things I’ve found thus far, but always ready to check out — if cautiously — the next thing that comes along. Certainly, because of Miss Snark, I’ll be the savvier for it.

To the men and/or women who created her, thanks. I hope I never find out who you really are. If I do, I’m afraid I might look at you the same way I look at Casey Kasem now that I know he voiced Shaggy on Scooby Doo.

Some things, I’m better off not knowing.

Let Miss Snark remain her perfectly imperfect fictional self.

I’m sure George Clooney will sleep better for it.

Check out what my friend Breeni is up to!

Click HERE.

Other odds and ends:
1. The promised outtake featuring Val and her kitchen, to tie into this week’s Thursday Thirteen, is still forthcoming. But you all need to see the interview before I bury it under fiction. *grin*

2. Details on the summer reading contest are starting to come together. Be prepared to join in by the end of June.

3. I’m up to more than just a summer reading contest. Stay tuned; we’ll make a small difference in the world together.

4. I did a good peanut gallery impersonation the other day and won the “most creative” award for it. Check it out.

5. It’s a really cool feeling when you’re standing with a small group of people and before you can break into the conversation to introduce yourself, literary agent Jenny Rappaport reads your name tag and says, “Oh, Susan! Hi!” You’d think we’re old friends. Given how much we have in common, separated at birth might be more like it.

There it is, folks. The power of blogging at work.

Recipe for Susan’s now-famous Dark Chocolate Brownies
(in easy-to-follow steps)

1. Go to bank.

2. Ask for three five-dollar bills. They must be brand new. The serial numbers must not be sequential.

3. Trade the bank teller something of equal worth for those three five-dollar bills. You’re not the thief in this scenario!

4. Go home.

5. Get notebook.

6. Get pen.

7. Choose previously blank sheet of paper.

8. Write: Dear Susan. Please send me a batch of dark chocolate brownies.

9. Sign your name to the note.

10. Include an address for me to mail brownies to.

11. Rip sheet of paper out of notebook.

12. Fold sheet of paper neatly into thirds.

13. Carefully place the three brand new, non-sequentially numbered five dollar bills into the middle of the note. Do not fold the five dollar bills. If you must, repeat steps 6 through 13 on a standard size sheet of notebook paper.

14. Place packet into #10 envelope.

15. Seal envelope.

16. Address to Susan Helene Gottfried at West of Mars.

17. Place Forever Stamp in upper right-hand corner.

18. Deliver to postal worker, dependable mailbox, or best friend who is headed to the post office.

19. Mail.

20. Sit back and wait. Brownies will arrive within a week, unless postal workers between here and there open box and partake.

Failure to adhere to any of these directions will cause your brownies to mysteriously vanish into the gut of one Tour Manager, who will then have to bike many miles to be thin again. Please, if you’re not going to follow the directions (okay, you can ask for my real address), just make a cash donation here instead.

Okay, now that you’re laughing, go to the Bloggers Choice Awards and vote for me. I’m too lazy to cut and paste the code yet again. Must be post-brownie syndrome.

Now, I’m TOTALLY not complaining that I seem to get tagged in spurts like this. It makes it much easier to answer these tags and still have room for fiction.

Therefore… let’s get on with the meme…

Both Erica and Red tagged me for the eight random things meme, but Erica explicitly asked for a band member’s eight things, or eight things about the official ShapeShifter band mom, Sonya Voss.

It took awhile before anyone fully stepped up to the plate. Kerri is Sonya’s daughter-in-law and was afraid she’d be seen as being a kiss-up if she said too much. Trevor didn’t want to say anything nice in public, of course. Amy‘s busy with a patient. So that left… Good Old Dependable Mitchell.

Or, as Trevor calls him — for good reason — The Big Idiot.

Eight things about Ma:

1. She knows I only call her Ma to get under her skin. And since she knows that, she’s always ignoring it. But I do it anyway ’cause now I’m stuck doing it.

2. She used to send us care packages on the road. She’d even fill the boxes with rubbers and underwear, especially on that last tour before I met Kerri, when the girls we’d let into the dressing room decided it was fun to steal our underwear when we dropped them.

3. She let us practice in the basement. We’re a loud band, but she never complained, even when we weren’t around. She’d just tell people she was glad she knew where we were.

4. Sometimes, she’d complain. If we were working on a song that sucked, she’d tell us. Every now and then, she had suggestions to make the song better. Not enough to turn herself into a pain in the ass, but when she said something, we’d listen and follow. It usually worked, too.

5. When I conned Kerri into meeting her, Ma treated Kerri like she was already a member of the family. Kerri was the first girl I ever did more than sleep with; that was probably all the tip-off Ma needed.

6. Ma and Dad used to come to all our shows. I mean ALL. They never missed a damn show. Sometimes, they were the only people in there. Now that we’re big, they still come whenever we’re in town. Even when we play Wolf Whistle shows. We have to save them two spots, even when we don’t want to.

7. No one’ll talk about it, but I think it was Ma’s idea to let Trevor come live with us. She was always fast to tell anyone that she always wanted a second boy and that Trevor was better than a baby ’cause she didn’t have to deal with his diapers. Trev hates it when she says that; he thinks he’s too cool to have ever needed diapers. Amy says he probably didn’t get out of them until he was seven. She might be right.

8. This is how cool Ma is: whenever she has the family over, she makes sure the entire band comes. With steady girls, if we’ve got ’em. And when I’m on the road but Kerri’s at home, Ma makes sure Kerri comes to dinner a few times. She’s sorta like Val; she likes to cook for the people she loves. Val’s the better cook, of course, but don’t tell Ma that. She might get a complex, but for a cook who didn’t go to cook’s school, she’s damn good.

As for who to tag, here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Hey, notice how you don’t have to link back to anyone? Well, let’s fix that. Feel free to link back to me, okay? I love new groupies!

And next to share… Karen, Milan, Dewey, she, Claire, Breeni, Nimrodiel, and littlebirdblue. Yep, a lot of book friends you may not be familiar with. Why aren’t you?

I only get to hound you for ten more days with this. Aren’t you glad? I am.

And if you’ve missed it somehow, Just a reminder… go vote for me!

Yes, I’m totally going to torture you with this until the voting closes on May 22. So go vote, will ya? If you’ve already voted, why not register under another e-mail address? You’ll get to vote again that way!

(PS — I’ve got my first sunburn of the year. I’m not happy about that. *sniff*)

Come hang with me at Working Stiffs today. Or just leave your comments here. I’ll keep an eye on both spots.

It seems I can’t turn around and write some fiction without you guys tagging me for things. I’m flattered by this; it’s a good feeling to be important. Just remember to bring your friends around for a visit or two — whatever it takes until they get hooked.

So, first off, Andrew tagged me with a new (to me) one: the goals meme.

I can’t say that I have between five and ten crazy goals or dreams I want to achieve in my lifetime. I only have one: to be a successfully published author of Trevor and his friends. (What? You thought I was done with these guys once Trevor’s Song gets published?)

Therefore, let’s turn things over to Trevor…

Five goals, Trevor Style
1. World Domination by ShapeShifter, of course. I mean, why else form a band? I didn’t need those wankers to get girls.

2. Get Rusty permanently out of Mitchell‘s life. Not to mention mine. Not in that order, though.

3. To love back every woman who already loves me. Maybe I’ll love her front, too. And sides; why stop when you’re on a roll?

Rolling’s fun, too.

4. To be called “Mr. Wolff” when I check in at some hoity-toity hotel, and not get eyed up ’cause they think I’ll trash the place. Why does everyone expect me to do the cliched shit?

5. Respect.

Ahh, poor Trevor. Above and beyond all else, he only wants one thing in life. Just like me; it’s our goals that are different, though.

Which brings me to meme #2. The way cool Amy Ruttan tagged me with my third Thinking Blogger Award. Wow! Three of them!

Here are the rules, for you newly tagged folk…

How participation works:

If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.

Optional: Display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

Okay, time to tag some new friends…

Ready?

This is loooooooooonnnnnnngggggg overdue, but it’s time to tag a few of my book blog friends:
Karen
Breeni
and
Janelle

Have fun, guys!

Oh, and lest you think the kudos have stopped there, just a reminder again… go vote…

And because the voting’s not closed yet…
And if you’ve missed it somehow, Just a reminder… go vote for me!

Yes, I’m totally going to torture you with this until the voting closes on May 22. So go vote, will ya? If you’ve already voted, why not register under another e-mail address? You’ll get to vote again that way!

(So when do literary agents and publishers catch on to what you guys already know and give me THEIR awards in the form of contracts and advances against royalties?)

Whoa. Sophisticated Writer tagged me for probably the scariest meme that’s ever been invented. Even worse, the meme originator, Urban Monk, is going to donate up to $500 to charity for each link back to him.

Here’s the concept:

Bloggers: The blogosphere is coming to an end.

You have one last post. What is it going to be?

What is the final summary of your blog?

What is the one last gem that you want to leave with your readers?

I’ve been having a hard time with this one. Yeah, there needs to be a TON of thanks to all you guys for all your support, especially you guys with the pom-poms and strong belief that I’ll find myself a major publisher who’ll help get Trevor the attention he craves.

However, I don’t like endings. And I’m the woman who created Trevor Wolff, a rebel sort. I’m also the woman who created Kerri Voss, the woman who manages to move across the country and find a way to finance an art school education. Add in Mitchell Voss, whose dedication to his dream had him working his rear off.

Put all that together and I think my final post would be something along the lines of a Trevorish, saucy wink and the words, “Meet you over at West of Mars.”

Just because blogs are ending doesn’t mean the fun has to. I’m not done yet.

(note: I’m not tagging anyone directly ’cause this is a scary concept and no one needs this kind of stress and panic. So I’m handing down the challenge to all of you: Are you tough enough to face this? If so, make sure you tell me so I can come visit.)

And because the voting’s not closed yet…
And if you’ve missed it somehow, Just a reminder… go vote for me!

Yes, I’m totally going to torture you with this until the voting closes on May 22. So go vote, will ya? If you’ve already voted, why not register under another e-mail address? You’ll get to vote again that way!

It’s all Wylie’s fault.

If you’ve been following the Walter saga, you understand the history here, such as it is. The short version goes like this: Wylie was musing about names.

Now, she’s got me doing it, too.

Only, where she was wrestling with first names, my issues lie with last names. This has always been a thing with me, a detail I never overly cared about. I kid you not; I dated guys whose last name remained a total mystery to me even after we broke up. Makes you understand why none of them lasted more than three weeks (although the Tour Manager’s early intrusion into my life deserves most of the blame for that).

Surnames are something we’re born into, maybe even more than a first name. After all, our parents sometimes anguish over first names. They fight. Hopefully, they don’t come to blows and hopefully, they don’t name their child after the first thing they see (Plexiglass, anyone? Know who was named for Plexiglass?) But a surname… forget it. We girls are sometimes lucky, in that if we like our husband’s name, we can take it and shuck off our old name. But the guys, by and large, are stuck. As are we all, at least until we’re 18 and can face a judge and explain why Heffenshitzel isn’t such a great surname.

(This is where I point out the irony that the band ShapeShifter was named for Trevor’s surname — Wolff. And that I named Trevor before a friend, whose maiden name was Wolfe, named her son Trevor.)

So, of course, when Wylie asked about rock stars named Walter, I went with what she’d given me — a rock star named Walter. It didn’t dawn on me until after I’d posted the first Thursday Thirteen list that Walter had no surname.

Fortunately for me, this realization came at one of my favorite times for letting my mind wander: 4:30 in the morning, which seems to be my latest time to wake up for a potty break during the night. And which seems to be when I’ve been doing some really cool envisioning of scenes that get written out over the following few days.

Even more fortunately, Walter’s surname popped into my head immediately. Cicewski. Pronounced “Chi-Chev-ski.” You can tell a bit about the area in which I live if that name and pronunciation came together so easily.

So Walter’s got a surname. He’s got an outtake featuring a few familiar faces, too, but not for a few days yet. Sheesh. I’m still trying to get you guys more Pam, who didn’t have a surname for years.

She was just fine. Never got cranky about it. So why did Walter?

It’s all about character, huh?

And if you’ve missed it somehow, Just a reminder… go vote for me!

Yes, I’m totally going to torture you with this until the voting closes on May 22. So go vote, will ya? If you’ve already voted, why not register under another e-mail address?

Wow. Every time I check in at the Blogger’s Choice Awards, I see that some smartass has nominated me for more. Best blog design? Hottest Mommy Blogger?

Well, *I* may not think I belong there, but you guys apparently do, and I’m not going to argue. No way, nuh-uh, for-get it.

Instead, I’m going to say thanks and to let you in on a secret: I’m working on something that I think you guys will really dig. Yeah, okay, there’s an outtake in the works that’ll have you Mitchell lovers going nuts. Anyone who laughs until they cries will get a special award from me, even.

But there’s more. So stay tuned. Tell your friends to stop by and visit. And most of all, keep voting! I’ll admit it: if I can’t win, I at least want to be on the first page, for maximum exposure. Let’s flood this joint with groupies.

Trevor will be a very happy boy.

And a big thanks to our blogging/author goddess, Colleen Gleason. I won a copy of The Rest Falls Away and not only did it arrive yesterday, Colleen’s got a way with an inscription. Wow!