August 17, 2007: Are We There Yet?

I’m Anglican/Episcopalian. Trust me; it’s relevant to this blog entry.

Ever since I’d gotten confirmed at eleven years old, I could count on one hand the number of light bulb moments I’ve had in while sitting in Mass. Last week, people, I had one of those moments.

The sermon was entitled “Are We There Yet?” Now anyone who’s either been a kid or driven kids on long trips is ultimately familiar with that question… the excitement, the impatience, the urgency with which one awaits getting to the end of one’s journey wrapped up in those four little words. In this instance, the priest went on to extrapolate this question into our lives, how we spend an interminable amount of time waiting. I immediately thought about waiting for my mainstream book deal.

But back to Father David and his sermon... He said that the one constant that gets you through the wait is your faith that you will get to the end of the journey, get “there.” He said – get this – that some people have such strong faith that they don’t even ask the question anymore, that their belief on its own is enough to get them “there.” As a matter of fact, even asking the question – Are we there yet? – connotes a lack of faith in itself. My mind was officially blown.

Upon reflection, I extrapolated this question – Are we there yet? – to my writing career, which I have been actively pursuing for almost a decade now, sacrificing relationships with friends, family, lovers, and potential life partners. On this writing journey, I’ve been forced to change my concept of “there” quite a few times. “There” used to mean getting the book deal. Then it meant making my existence mean something by sharing stories that resonate with others, to commune with my fellow human beings, if you will. Kind of like the literary equivalent of buying the world a Coke and keeping it company. After years of being Clark Kent in the workplace and Superman in front of the computer at home, for me, “there” has evolved to mean doing what sustains me – which would necessitate me being a full time writer. By this present measure of “there,” I most definitely am not there yet.

And, unlike my fellow Anglican/Episcopalians with whom I shared a pew that Sunday, my faith has been shaken by recent developments. Rejections of a manuscript that I’d written with so much love have rained down on me in torrents. My agent and I have recently parted ways. I remain in limbo, cleaving to nothing special as I ride the train with the other nameless, faceless people with magnetized tags on lanyards around our necks, going off to till someone else’s field.

Unlike the faithful, I keep asking the question. I feel compelled to ask the question. Because I can never, will never accept that, in my presence circumstance, the answer to the question – Are we there yet? – is yes, you are.

August 17, 2007: What's Next on the Book Squad -- Manly Men Day!

It's Manly Men Day on The Book Squad, and we've got two authors whose pursuits and life experiences have ensured -- in spades -- that they, indeed, qualify to be present.


Anthony Swofford is first up to introduce us to his next literary gem, Exit A. Unless your address is under a rock, you must know that Swofford is also the author of Jarhead, his memoir detailing his life as a Marine sniper during Desert Storm -- a book which later became a film starring Jake Gyllenhaal.




Speaking of authors who have a film connection, The Book Squad welcomes back Eric Van Lustbader. Again, unless you're living under that same rock mentioned above, you also know that Van Lustbader has taken over Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne franchise. This time, he discusses his own non-Bourne-related work called The Testament, which is, according to The Barnes and Noble Review, "a pedal-to-the-metal thriller."




Kevin Johnson is the featured Author Spotlight.


Plus there's an extended Wendy's World!


I know -- way too much excitement for one Friday. But join us on wmet1160.com tomorrow and MAN UP!

August 9, 2007: What's Next on The Book Squad

Karyn's down in Florida trying to be The Ultimate Author. Wendy's in D.C. with her ultimate family. So they've selected their two favorite interviews for rebroadcast.

Karyn chose Walter Mosley, author of This Year You Write Your Novel, for his amazing writing chops.


Wendy chose Steve Santagati, author of The Manual: A True Bad Boy Explains How Men Think, Date, and Mate -- and What Women Can Do to Come Out on Top because he gave her helpful tips on the care and feeding of men... and because he made her laugh hysterically.



If you missed these authors before, listen tomorrow at noon on wmet1160.com.

Like pizza, they're better the second time around...

August 2, 2003: What's Next on The Book Squad

We begin the dog days of August with an ecclectic mix of authors.

Nathan Englander joins us, sharing aspects of his first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, which was eight years in the making. Englander’s short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and numerous anthologies including The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Anthology, and the Pushcart Prize. Englander’s story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, became an international bestseller, and earned him a PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Washington D.C.-based novelist J. J. Michael is next to discuss her latest, It's Not Over Yet, a fictional exploration of the paranormal. Michael, a lifelong student and teacher of Metaphysics and healing principles, is the founder of Pathtotruth.com and publisher of Path2truth.com, an ezine that promotes spiritual awareness, self-development and world peace. Michael has appeared on the local Virginia Cable Television and has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR). A renowned numerologist, Ms. Michael appeared in CNN's segment, "A Wrinkle in Time."




Author Lauren Spicer joins us to dish about the last minute preparations for the taping of her reality show The Ultimate Author. The Book Squad's own Karyn Langhorne is part of the cast. Plus we'll also have your shot of Wendy's World.

Join us tomorrow on wmet1160.com, 'cause next week, we're having a compilation show, so you won't have us to kick around!


*CORRECTION: Last week, this blog incorrectly identified The Bracelet as romance author Karen Rose Smith's sixtieth book. It is actually her fifty-ninth. The fact that she has written so many that we could actually make that mistake remains impressive.

July 27, 2007: What's Next on The Book Squad: Revisiting Our Past

It's deja vu all over again on The Book Squad today. We're ending the month of Jult by checking in with past guests to see what they've been doing.

First up is John Callahan, from our Writing While Dead show. He returns to further discuss the process of resurrecting Ralph Ellison's novel Juneteenth -- from a manuscript allegedly destroyed by fire in 1967, to having it grace the world's bookshelves decades later. He'll also share with us his latest, A Man You Could Love, in which he poses the question: Can politics be an expression of love? Let's as the latest iteration of the Sharks and The Jets here in D.C.

Remember Jason Miccolo Johnson, the author of Soul Sanctuary, his photographic essay of the Black Church? He'd been a guest on our Spirituality show. A Washington DC resident, Miccolo Johnson has photographed the African Methodist Episcopal Church in an official capacity for a quarter of a century. He'll chat with us about what he's got percolating.

And you can't forget Karen Rose Smith from our Valentine's Day show. She has written fifty-nine romance novels. Her latest, The Bracelet, is #60. She'll be talking about the book and the miraculous feat of writing sixty romance novels.

Plus there's more Wendy's World.

So join us on wmet1160.com today at noon. Hey... haven't I seen you before?

July 20, 2007: What's Next on The Book Squad -- Potpourri!

Which is French for "Today's show has no central theme!"

Jamie Malanowski is first up to fill us in on his latest, The Coup, his delicious new satire about a conspiracy to execute a power grab for the White House. Yes, it's fiction. He's the managing editor Playboy magazine. A member of the original staff of Spy, where he worked seven years, he has also been an editor at Time and Esquire, and has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Washington Monthly, and many other publications.

Those still recovering from the fatty July 4th meal will appreciate the next guest. Medical journalist and heat attack survivor Robert E. Kowalski joins us to discuss his latest health book The Blood Pressure Cure: 8 Weeks to Lower Blood Pressure without Prescription Drugs. In addition to having written several bestselling books, he has published The Diet-Heart Newsletter for twenty years, maintains his Web site thehealthyheart.net, averages twelve media interviews monthly, and is launching an alliance with iamplify.com to be their provider of heart health information.

Friend of The Book Squad (FOTBS) and Borders District Manager Juliana Wood tells us what Borders stores in the region are doing to celebrate the arrival of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Plus there's Wendy's World!

Come join us at wmet1160.com. As always, we're keeping your seat warm for you.

July 17, 2007: OMG! I’m Totally Hooked on MySpace!

The title of this missive might seem, as Hilary Duff might say, “So yesterday,” but I’m a chronic late adopter. Hang on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen – I STILL don’t have an iPod. Not even the starter cheaper Nano. This is why I’m so surprised that I have a monkey on my back. Its name? MySpace.

I became aware of the whole MySpace phenomenon in the summer of 2005 as a blip on my radar screen, when I’d read that acquisitive media Pac Man Rupert Murdoch had bought the company. Then I’d heard about the viruses and child safety issues. But that still didn’t stop the young ‘uns in my life from raving about this thing called MySpace. So I went up to www.myspace.com late on Friday, May 19, 2006, and at 12:15 am on Saturday, May 20, posted my first (and only, as it turns out) blog entry.

There it sat. For months and months. I think I had five friends at first, one being the ubiquitous Tom (Who is that guy, and why did he want to be my first friend?).

Suddenly, though, as time passed, I started getting all of these friend requests in my e-mail inbox. I was intrigued. I think the first author who’d sent me a friend request and a comment was Yasmin Shiraz. This opened the portal into my desire to become friends with my fellow authors and other sojourners through publishing.

Leaping from page to page, I discovered a wealth of people on MySpace that I’d always wanted to meet but had no idea of how to go about it. Like, for instance, my idols Jennifer Weiner and Rebecca Walker. Next, a host of authors on the Black Expressions list serve (blackexpressions2005@yahoogroups.com) sent out a blanket request for friends. I picked some up there. Along the way, I learned how to post and send comments, how to IM people, how to add new friends, and how to put music on my page. I still don’t have a cool layout or video, though. I may need the hand puppets to explain that. If any of you know how, please, by all means, hook a sistah up.

So, I’ve been on MySpace for a little over a year now. I’ve shot out friend requests and got a surprising number of them back. Oprah, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and Margaret Cho are friends. So are Russell Simmons and John Legend. I won’t delude myself that they’re really “friends,” that they’re dying for my bulletins on who’s appearing next on The Book Squad. However, some of you, my Black Bloggers are friends with whom I’ve had actual interaction – like Gwyneth Bolton, a.Kai, and Monica Jackson. I go in the Pending Requests folder and see who’s agreed to be my friend. I’m still waiting on Mariah and LL, among others, to accept my invitation. Of course, you have the odd horny toad who wants to hook up, who didn’t read the Here For: Networking, Friends part of Wendy Coakley-Thompson’s Details. But I remain undeterred. The anticipation is like Christmas. No wonder Dave Itzkoff, in a June 2006 Playboy article, in discussing his experiences on MySpace, called it “cybercrack” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace#Criticism).

To date, I have 183 friends, and I’m looking for more. If you’re on MySpace and would like to be my friend, here’s the link to my profile: www.myspace.com/wendycoakleythompson
I’ll be waiting…

On Today's Book Squad

This week, The Book Squad features authors of debut novels.

First up, Savannah J. Frierson joins us to discuss her first born Being Plumville, a story of interracial love and friendship down south. Frierson is a recent graduate of Harvard University who concentrated in African and African-American Studies and English. Frierson won the Dorothy Hicks Lee Prize for her creative thesis on African-American literature. She is originally from Blythewood, South Carolina, and now lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Local D.C.-area author Shauna Seliy is also in the house with us. Her novel When We Get There, which received a starred review from Booklist (that's a good thing, people) explores one boy's coming-of-age over the course of a long, eventful, brutally cold winter.

There's also Wendy's World, Around Town, and Karyn chats her experiences with reality TV on The Ultimate Author.

So join us on today at noon on http://www.wmet1160.com/. If it's your first time, we'll be gentle...

What's Next on The Book Squad: Ending June With an Explosion!

We're ending the month of June like fireworks -- with a big bang!

We'll be in the presence of greatness when literary icon Walter Mosley shows up as our guest this Friday. We could go on ad infinitum about the twenty-eight best selling and critically acclaimed novels he's written. So few are as well-equipped as he to talk about developing an idea into a manuscript, as he does in his latest, This Year You Write Your Novel, a primer on the writing process.

Next, joining us to discuss her long-awaited memoir is actress, talk show host, and now author Robin Givens. She talks about, among other things, marriage to Mike Tyson, mistreatment from a voracious press corps, and motherhood on her road to self-actualization in Grace Will Lead Me Home.

For our mothers of tweens in our audience, Junie B. Jones enlightens us about her new book, Aloha-Ha-Ha, and about The Stupid, Smelly Bus Tour, appearing here in the DC area on July 2nd.

Come join us on wmet1160.com. Think of us as the appetizer before your Fourth of July meal of burgers and dogs!

June 22, 2007: What's New on The Book Squad: WWD!

Welcome to our WWD show. "WWD?" you may ask. It's Writing While Dead, and it's not as sinister as you might think.

Today, The Book Squad showcases already-successful authors who have taken on the mantle of writing in the style of their deceased contemporaries. We'll delve into what it entails to inhabit the literary skins of the creators of some of this era's most recognizable fiction.

Eric Van Lustbader is the author of numerous best selling novels, including The Testament and The Ninja. He's been commisioned to continue Robert Ludlum's legacy as the author of the Jason Bourne novels, including The Bourne Legacy and the latest, The Bourne Betrayal.

With Juneteenth occurring this week, it's only fitting that we'd have with us John Callahan, who discusses the process of resurrecting Ralph Ellison's novel of the same name -- Juneteenth -- from a manuscript allegedly destroyed by fire in 1967, to having it grace the world's bookshelves decades later. He'll also share with us his latest, A Man You Could Love, in which he poses the question: Can politics be an expression of love? Probably not here in D.C...



Also on the agenda, Karyn regales us with stories from her travels to Florida last week week for The Ultimate Author casting call.

Join us on wmet1160.com this Friday at noon. Bring a pulse...

June 17, 2007: You Say You Want a Revolution? Yes, Please!

This is a statement of fact. My royalty check was late this accounting period. Not one or two days late. Try two weeks late. With no explanations, no apologies for having inconvenienced me, yadda yadda yadda. The check finally arrived via snail mail at the my agent’s on Friday. I, personally, still don’t have cash in hand yet.

As I cannot yet make a living as writer – shocking, I know! – I inhabit a land of civilians where a contract means something, as do the penalties of being in breach in said contract. Only in publishing is a contract a mere suggestion of ways to do business, that dates set forth are decorative… talking points around which to maneuver. For The House, that is. Authors, on the other hand, are held strictly to the letter of any and every contract.

In any other industry, as the aggrieved party, I would have my attorney on speed dial, and we would huddle and strategize as to how to be compensated. In the publishing industry, an author could, of course, do that. However, any author with a lick of sense and her ear to the ground quickly learns that exercising your right to counter The House’s actions would result in blacklisting, with one never getting another book deal ever again. Because editors talk and tag certain authors as “difficult.” In short, The House, like in Vegas, always seems to win.

What editors don’t seem to realize is that authors talk too. If you as informed authors do your homework, you’ll see the shifts that are occurring in the industry. You’ll see the emperors parading themselves at BEA and other industry-wide events and finally realize that yes, they are indeed naked. You’ll hear others tell you, as one person told me, that she’d set her manuscript on fire before she’d sign with a certain publisher. In short, authors aren’t as desperate as we once were to get to The Show. Some of our colleagues are laying in the cut, waiting for the complete paradigm shift, or they’re making one of their own.

I envision the same paradigm shift, a revolution within the publishing industry, a movement that will make this industry friendlier to us who provide the raw materials which The House uses to make almost a one-hundred percent profit off our backs. Think for a second what happened with the music industry. That industry’s moldy, outdated business model wasn’t working for consumers who wanted to enjoy music their way. This desire begat file sharing web sites like Napster and Kazaa, which enabled the consumer to share music they wanted, without having to get fleeced buying an entire CD at inflated prices. Finally, the music industry saw the light and changed. With inventions like iTunes and the like, consumers can now enjoy music the way they want to, and the industry and the artists get paid.

While the revolution in the music industry was consumer-driven, I predict that the publishing industry revolution will be fought by authors like us. I see it happening already. Print-on-demand is bigger than ever. iUniverse, coining the phrase “supported self-publishing,” has snagged heavy hitters like Alan Thicke and Barney Rosenzweig (creator of Cagney & Lacey), who’ve published best selling books with them. Both Margaret Johnson Hodge and Tina McElroy Ansa, successful authors in their own right, have started their own publishing houses. This revolution will make this industry more egalitarian and give a well-deserved systemic shock to self-styled power brokers who believe they’ve “made” authors in general and Black authors in particular. If you’re plugged in, you’ll hear others talking about that revolution too. My advice to authors and to The House alike? Listen up…

June 14, 2007: What's Next on Tomorrow's The Book Squad

It's June, and t'is the season to be wed. So, on The Book Squad, we'll be talking about weddings, whether you need ideas from a preeminent lifestyle guru, whether you want to run away to tie the knot, or whether your focus is on using the actual wedding ceremony as a tool to build your relationship as a couple.

The preeminent lifestyle guru in the house is Colin Cowie, discussing his eponymous Colin Cowie's Extraordinary Weddings: From a Glimmer of an Idea to a Legendary Event. You've seen Colin over the years on Oprah, Live with Regis and Kelly, Entertainment Tonight, CNN, and Extra! 'Nuff said.

For the couple wanting to chuck the familiar trappings of home in favor of a destination wedding, we have Carley Roney and JoAnn Gregoli, authors of The Knot Guide to Destination Weddings. Carley is the co-founder of TheKnot.com, the number one wedding brand worldwide. JoAnn, who has planned over one-hundred destination weddings, is the owner of Elegant Occasions, Inc.

Those into wedding preparation as a relationship builder can learn a thing or two from two PhDs: Judith Sherven and James Sniechowski, authors of The Smart Couple's Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams: Planning Together for Less Stress and More Joy. Judith and Jim, who are also a married couple, are two of the country's most respected and pioneering authorities on successful relationships.

Toria Wyrick is in the Author Spotlight. And toay's Man-spondent on the subject of love and marriage is David Kletzkin.

So join us on wmet1160.com. We don't require a lifetime commitment -- just one hour out of your day.

June 8, 2007: What's Next on The Book Squad

The June 8 installment of The Book Squad explores this question: What Do Men Really Want?

We ask Steve Santagati, the author of The Manual: A True Bad Boy Explains How Men Think, Date and Mate -- and What Women Can Do to Come Out on Top. Per Publishers Weekly: "Santagati, a former model and admitted bad boy who has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The View, has expanded on his relationship advice enterprise, AskSteveSantagati.com, to make this guidebook to dating and taming the wild male."

For balance, we talk to the couple that seems to have the answer to the question: 14-year NBA veteran Doug Christie and his wife Jackie. The pair, stars of BET-J's reality show Committed: The Christies, has written the relationship guide called No Ordinary Love: A True Story of Marriage and Basketball.

We also test drive our first "Manspondent," Chris King, who fills us in on how what men are reading reflects their interests. And Wendy presents her very own Book Expo America wrap-up.

Be there at wmet1160.com for our peek into the male psyche.

June 7, 2006: The Book Squad's Karyn Langhorne Drops "Unfinished Business"

Unfinished Business, by co-host of The Book Squad Karyn Langhorne, hit bookshelves on June 1. The novel, about the unwilling attraction of opposites, is Karyn's fourth. In a taped interview on The Book Squad, Karyn discussed this and her three other novels, her process, and what it's like to be both full-time mom and writer.


Harold Lee Wise, author of Inside the Danger Zone, was the live guest on the June 1st Book Squad. The novel, published by Naval Institute Press, explores the involvement of the United States military in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War.

May 17, 2007: When Characters Attack. Sort Of...: The Sequel

Hello, all:

Okay, about the title. I know you're asking yourselves the question, "How can this be a sequel when I never saw the initial post?"

I'll answer by way of explanation and by sharing. In this, my personal blog, I posted When Characters Attack. Sort of... on August 21, 2006. In that posting, I talked about a rather incensed gentleman named Bryan Livingston, who sent me an e-mail, because he happened to bear the name of the villain of my first book, Back to Life (Read the original post that follows for the outcome of the exchange).

Just when I thought the Bryan Livingston affair was a fluke... it happened again. On April 18 of this year, I opened my e-mail box and saw the name Marc Guerrieri. Again, I was like, "Okay..."

Here's what he had to say:

Log on to the May 17th posting at Blogging In Black to read the rest...

April 20, 2007: "Today, we are all Hokies..."

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine has declared today -- Friday, April 20, 2007 -- a statewide day of mourning for the victims of the April 16th tragedy on the Blacksburg campus Virginia Tech.

This hit me particularly hard. After all, I live in the state of Virginia. I'm wearing my maroon and orange today as a symbolic gesture and praying that, in these trying times, we will all find the strength to go on and to find meaning in the senselessness of thirty-three deaths.

April 17, 2007: Luck is Where the Book Nerd Meets the Radio

Allow me to channel my Inner Guy and tell you about The Book Squad. This is the back story of how I got on the radio.

It all started when poet extraordinaire Kwame Alexander invited me to speak at the 2006 Capital Bookfest. There, I met Karyn Langhorne, signing copies of her book Diary of an Ugly Duckling (hilarious and poignant; you should read it). I had lunch with her and her family after we’d done our bit at the Bookfest, and, as one tends to do at these things, promised we’d get together, as we were both local. Over the next few months, we’d exchanged autographed copies of each other’s books and corresponded via snail mail and e-mail. Nothing too eventful. So, imagine my surprise when, early this year, she asked if I’d like to join her in hosting something called The Book Squad, a show where we would, as the tagline says, “track down the hottest authors and bring them in for questioning.” Once we’d worked out the thorny details, I said yes.

I confess; my motives weren’t exactly pure...

To see the rest, go to Blogging in Black, where I now post on April 17th...

April 3, 2007: My Brush With Greatness

Okay, so I'm, like a Dancing With the Stars freak! And when I'd heard that Miss USA 2004 Shandi Finnessey was going to be one of the contestants this season, I almost crapped a brownie.

Here's why. I'd actually met Shandi at the Infinity Publishing Conference in October 2004, in Valley Forge, PA. I was a guest speaker, and she was there signing her book, The Furrtails, which Infinity published. The proceeds were going to help find a cure for muscular dystrophy, I believe. So, she was a nice lady.

Flash ahead to the present day and Shandi 2007. She got eliminated from Dancing With the Stars tonight... just about the time I remembered I'd had this snapshot somewhere:

Yes, she's as tall in person as she looks on TV. I'm 5' 7", lying to myself and in two-inch heels, and she STILL could've set her drink on my head.

Speaking of drinks, some conference attendees were at the bar one night, just before the drunken karaoke (I'm not posting those pix!) when Shandi breezed in. The guy I was standing next to wasn't impressed. "Who's that, Miss USA?" he asked.

"Yeah," I answered.

He looked Shandi over and scoffed. "Too skinny for me," he commented.

I, a resigned endomorph, could've kissed him on the mouth. Pennsy boys, God bless 'em!

But alas, to the rest of the world, Shandi is the picture of perfection.

And, Miss Shandi, even though you didn't make it to the finals of Dancing With the Stars, something tells me that you're gonna be all right...

March 26, 2007: Come Join Me on MySpace

I'm such a late adopter when it comes to technology. For someone who touts podcasts of her show The Book Squad, I don't even own an iPod. EGAD!!!! I can just feel my cool points decreasing right now.

I think I learned my lesson with a super-buggy version of Windows 95, spending my hard-earned money to beta-test Bill Gates' crappy product. So now, I just lay back in the cut and let all those other early adopters beta test stuff for me and separate the chaff from the wheat.

Take MySpace. Like a lemming, I joined last year and hadn't been the most diligent person on the planet with it. But now I've seen how so many of my writer friends have these tricked out pages and are working it. So, I decided to give it another chance.

If you're on MySpace, hit me up here and be my friend:

http://www.myspace.com/wendycoakleythompson

No pressure, though. Don't want to be that friend...

March 25, 2007: Why I'm Thankful They've Buried Anna Nicole Smith

I mean, don't get me wrong. It's tragic when anyone dies, especially someone as young as Anna Nicole Smith. I was less than a year old when she was born, so when, on February 8, I'd heard she'd died at 39, I was like, 'There but for the grace of God..."

Then the invariable media circus began. Now you know I'm notoriously of Bahamian descent. I spent a good chunk of my life there. The bulk of my family lives there. So, I was quite distressed by saw unfold on TV over the weeks that followed after Anna Nicole's death. I'd heard that someone in Nassau had expresed this sentiment: Thank God she died in Florida, because if she'd died in the Bahamas, we never would've heard the end. I can't help thinking that that person was right. People still haven't gotten over what happen in Abaco with Aaliyah in 2001 -- despite the fact that it was a coked-up pilot and an overweighted plane that killed her, and not her geographic location. Anyhu, I digress...

When I heard Entertainment Tonight correspondent and media whore Mark Steines say during Anna Nicole's funeral that she'd put the Bahamas on the map, I wanted to do an Elvis and shoot the TV! Had Steines not been giving himself his own colonoscopy for a good number of years, he'd have realized that the Bahamas, extra of a suicide blonde looking for love in all the wrong places, has been known for quite sometime to explorers, tourists, bankers, and sportsfishermen -- and to us! -- for centuries. It was even the place to which famously Nazi-loving Edward and his divorcee wife Wallis Simpson retreated after he'd abdicated the throne. The Royals, embarrased by his behavior and by that nasty Nazi-sympathizing business, threw him a bone and made him the Governor General of the Bahamas.

This is not to say that some of my people didn't play a role in the world thinking them idioits. There was the cheering and booing of people entering the funeral and the courthouse as she was buried and as folks tried to decide what conga line into Anna Nicole's vagina could've produced her unfortunate, now motherless daughter. Then seeing the very dark Bahamian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Shane Gibson, in bed with this aggressively white woman (i.e., Anna Nicole) made me cringe! I think in a previous blog entry, I'd mentioned that my agent, when pitching a story of mine, had been told that people don't know anything about "Jamaica." I wanted people to know more about a country that's only a forty-five-minute plane ride from Miami. But I sure didn't want them to come to know the Bahamas like this.

But the damage has already been done. I can only hope now that the rest of this drama -- the eviction of Howard K. Stern from a house that wasn't Anna's to begin with, the discovery of the Baby Daddy, etc. -- can be played out in a more dignified manner, in a manner that gets folks remembering that the Bahamas was the place of Christopher Columbus's first New World landfall on the island of San Salvador, not the place that Anna Nicole Smith used to wipe her ass with in the last days of her tragic life.

So, yes, I'm happy that Anna Nicole Smith has been laid to rest from a life that was rife with trouble and was way too short. But I'm also hoping that the ancestral home can get back to normal and recover from the klieg light of infamy that burned white hot on it for a moment in time.

Here's hoping...

February 26, 2007: What Martin Scorsese and Three 6 Mafia Have in Common

Remember last year's Oscars, when host Jon Stewart, who was keeping score, announced that in the Oscar tally, Three 6 Mafia had one; Martin Scorsese had zero? Well, all that changed last night when Martin Scorsese received a long-deserved Oscar as Best Director for The Departed -- a movie I didn't see, but hey, that's what DVDs are for, right?

With the exception of Borat, I hadn't seen ANY of the movies nominated this year. I remember the days when my sister, Chrissie, and I would take a fistful of dollars and spend the entire day at the movies. Flash ahead ten years. With responsibilities of The Plantation, trying to find time to write, and my duties as co-host of The Book Squad, I hardly have time to clean my house (which is a mess) or play with my dog (who, God bless him, is patient with his owner).

I thought Ellen DeGeneres was hilarious! When she came out with that vacuum and started cleaning up, I thought my hour had come. I also did think all the right folks won (Forest Whitaker, Helen Mirren, Al Gore, etc.). I thought that Eddie could've cancelled Christmas the moment that P.O.S. Norbit hit the screens. I was especially excited when Miss Jennifer Hudson got her Oscar. I could just hear her saying in her head, "F*ck you, Simon Cowell!" I want to have the year she's having. From discounted and down-and-out to Oscar winner. I wonder what the equivalent of that would be in the book world?

Now I'm bleary-eyed from a lack of sleep, because, typically, the shit ran over. They could've cut that crappy Road to the Oscars mess and started the show a half-hour earlier, so that those with us with jobs could still get our pop culture groove on and still been able to function on the J-O the next day.

Every year, I swear I won't be taken in by Awards season. Every year, I'm wrong. I think I keep watching, because it helps me keep my eye on my prize... and my focus squarely on my own dreams. There's no way I can look away from that!

Until next year...

February 14, 2007: The Grinch Who Stole Valentine's Day

I hate Valentine’s Day.

I know it’s strange for someone who writes relationship fiction to feel this way. But I do hate Valentine’s Day. And I’m cool with that. Life is filled with many contradictions that run deeper than my personal feelings for a manufactured holiday.

I’m past being envious when I see happy couples strolling around. I’m past wanting to smash them in the face. As I got older, I realized that there was nothing wrong with me because I didn’t get an arm full of flowers and a box of heart-clogging candy on the one day of the year that Hallmark or whomever designated was the day for it. Flowers and candy on February 14th seem to mitigate a multitude of sins that occur on the other three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year. Hey, I’m sure even O.J. bought Nicole flowers and candy on Valentine’s Day.

To read the entire blog entry, go to the February 14th posting at Blogging In Black...

February 8, 2007: Don't Forget...

Listen to Karyn Langhorne and me on The Book Squad, tomorrow at noon, at www.wmet1160.com.

Our guest include poet Kwame Alexander, prolific romance author Karen Rose Smith, and Sherry Argov, author of Why Men Marry Bitches: A Woman's Guide to Winning Her Man's Heart.

My kind of precursor to Valentine's Day.

Join us, won't you?

February 5, 2007: Trying to be the Queen of All Media!

Hey, folks.

One of my fellow bloggers on Blogging in Black spoke recently in her post about signs, about how she wondered whether Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith's historical SuperBowl first could be interpreted as a sign that we, as a people, would succeed this year.

I sure hope so. Because my good friend and fellow multi-culti author Karyn Langhorne presented me with a unique opportunity -- to host a radio show about books and publishing with her. I jumped at the chance. On Friday, February 2, Karyn and I hosted the inaugural broadcast of our radio show called The Book Squad on www.wmet1160.com.

In case you’re wondering, The Book Squad is a fast-paced, high impact hour in which Karyn and I interview authors and dish about trends within the publishing industry. There’s also the 12:15 pm segment on the show called "Buy it or Burn it." You can call in and give your own recommendations on what's hot and what's not. Our version of the radio deejays' Pump it or Dump it,' or 'Slam it or Jam it.'

That Friday, the mountains didn't crumble. The seas didn't roar. Nobody asked us to go to DisneyWorld. But we had the best time, dishing about books and Hollywood with Denise Nicholas, the author of Freshwater Road, a phenomenal book about a Black girl from Detroit going down to Mississippi to register voters during Freedom Summer. And we got people excited about talking about books -- I think.

So, I hope my fellow blogger is right, that, for Karyn and I, this is one of our Tony/Lovie moment. You can join us too, if you'd like. No pressure. We're on Fridays from 12 noon to 1 p.m. at www.wmet1160.com. You can also check out The Book Squad website and blog.

Come and join us.

P.S. Congrats to Tony Dungy and The Indianapolis Colts. Thanks for the inspiration!

February 5, 2007: Black History Month

Hello, all.

As you know, this is the month where America reflects on the achievements of its citizens of African descent. Even though I think this should happen year-round, having a month to raise consciousness is a good first step. I'm not going to be like Chris Rock as Nat X and complain that it's the shortest month of the year. I do believe the decision was made to honor Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays fall in February to honor their impact on us as a people.

So, celebrate and be mindful. Hopefully, one day, our accomplishments will be seen as part of the tapestry of American History. Call me a cock-eyed optimist! :-)

January 19, 2007: I'm a Fantastik Femme, Y'all!

I've been invited onto the 2007-2008 Femme Fantastik Tour, started by best-selling authors Lori Bryant-Woolridge (Hitts & Mrs.), Nina Foxx (Just Short of Crazy), and Carmen Green (What A Fool Believes).

They'll be on the tour, as well as Reshonda Tate-Billingsley (I Know I've Been Changed), Trisha Thomas (Nappily Ever After), and Yours Truly, aka, The Kid.

The tour visits military installations, in support of our brothers and sisters in uniform throughout the year. I come from an Air Force family, so I'm very excited about giving back in this fashion.

Watch this space for further tour details, like locations, dates, and times. Perhaps we'll be in your town sometime during the year.

More to follow...

January 14, 2007: Do Dreams Have a Sell-By Date?

In 1988, when I was in my serious Anglophile phase and deep in the music of the new British Invasion, Julia Fordham, one of my favorite British singers, released a self-titled CD (For Six Degrees of Separation trivia buffs, a young Caron Wheeler sang backup on this CD before she blew up with Soul II Soul, who sang – you guessed it – Back to Life.). One of the hits from the Julia Fordham CD was Where Does the Time Go.

Flash ahead fourteen years. January 2002, in my thirty-sixth year on earth, I’d had it with being an intellectual sharecropper, tilling everybody’s field but my own and swore that by the time I was forty, I would be living my life as a writer. In the interim, I diligently pursued the dream, got a book deal, and published two decent-selling books. So, I asked myself, at 12:01 am, on December 27, 2006, when I officially entered my fourth decade, why was I still working for The Man instead of being able to support myself as a writer like I’d wanted?

To read the rest, check out my January 14th post at Blogging in Black (ain't I a tease?)...

January 1, 2007: Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!

Don't hate. I'm still languishing down in the Bahamas, enjoying a beautiful sunny day. Actually, I wish I were languishing. I've been working feverishly on my NaNoWriMo entry, polishing it up so that I may share it with you(se) later this year. Since the book is set in Nassau, I'm using my surroundings as food for The Muse.

Sadly, I return to frigid D.C. on Wednesday. So, I must get all of my Vitamin B (a.k.a., Bacardi) in in two days. Pray for me! :-)

All the best to you and yours for this new year.

More to follow...

December 24, 2006: Happy Holidays to You From the Bahamas!

The announcement that I spend Christmas in the Bahamas is generally followed by a cavalcade of folks hatin' on a sistah. Yes, as I look out the window, I see palm trees swaying in a gentle breeze. I've traded in my winter coat for a deliciously brief --but not obscene -- sundress. Last night, I got re-acquainted with my friends Bacardi Anejo and Coke at a house party. So, on the surface, it seems like I've got it made in the shade.

However, I tell folks please, don't envy me. The holidays are the holidays. And you know what I mean. Small wonder that more Swedes tend to kill themselves during the holidays than at any other time throughout the year. Just one of those useless factoids you learn in college. Just how you go home to your folks and get grilled, trust me, the same thing happens to me. Only it's warmer here. My relatives still expect me to bring home "a nice boy" and give me "The Face" when I arrive empty-handed. I keep getting asked, "So Wendy, is this 'The Year.'" I know they don't mean The Year of Living Dangerously. Instinctively, I know they're asking if the new year is the year that I'd actually settle down. I'm getting it especially now that I turn forty in three days. Aunts tend to say, "Gyal, don't eat too much peas and rice. Man don't like woman who too fat." My mother tends to supervise the installation ofanything electronic that I bring home, not letting the fact that she is the least technical person on the planet to get in the way.

I say this to say that "The Family Coakley"and "The Family Thompson" is more or no less dysfunctional than The Family Stone, one of my recent favorite Christmas movies. The older I get, the more I come to love and appreciate my family's quirks and well-meaning comments. Because the truth of the matter is, I am unmarried. I do weigh more than I would like to. Invariably (as much as I hate to admit it sometimes), I do get something valuable out of my mother's seemingly endless critiques. And I'm sure if I died in the house, someone in my large-ass family would find me and mourn me. I don't really get that in America. America can be very big and sometimes rather impersonal for a single Black female.

So, as you guys make your way home for the holidays, believe me when I say that I know that, geography aside, your relatives are going to tax your patience. They're going to make you want to reach for that extra glass of hooch. But think, as I am now, of my friend Catherine, who lives in Denver, was in D.C. visiting, and, because of the blizzard, was only able to make it home yesterday. And love your family. Appreciate them. Because they're probably the only people with whom you can be your true, unguarded selves ... whether you want to be or not!

Merry Christmas. Happy Hanakkuh. Happy Kwanzaa. What ever you celebrate. Much love to you all.

December 19, 2006: Film Rights to "What You Won't Do for Love" Optioned

Being born on December 27, I've always been sensitive about getting my birthday gifts, along with those for Christmas. But those days are over, folks! Just I just got the best Christmas-slash-fortieth-birthday present ever.

Rainy Friday Films, Inc. of Chicago has optioned the film rights to What You Won’t Do For Love, my second child! As they say in Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Lunch, I stuck “a nice deal” with Detra D. Thibodeaux, Rainy Friday Films' President and CEO, to make the book into a cable television movie. Child, God is good -- all the time.

To say that I'm ecstatic isn't the word. This whole experience is clearly a case of luck being when opportunity meets preparation. You all know I've been going through some seismic career shifts. Here are the facts. Kensington Books, my publisher at the time, had decided to not offer me another book deal. Additionally, though Book Expo America (BEA) was held in D.C., and I'm a local author, my publisher decided not to have me sign in the Author's Pavilion, which would've provided invaluable visibility. Nonetheless, I attended BEA at my expense and took in many of the interesting events that were going on throughout the conference. One such event was a rather interesting luncheon featuring TV anchor Lynn Sher, former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, and political pundits Arianna Huffington, Pat Buchanan, and Andrew Sullivan. It just so happened that I took the seat next to Ms. Thibodeaux at that luncheon. We got to talking, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I am very hopeful at this point in my life as a writer. I do pray to see Chaney and Devin come to life. I also believe that this is just the beginning. It just goes to show the veracity of something JadeAlex, one of the commenters on Blogging in Black offered in response to my posting this month:

We are formidable and persistent. Our future is bright. This is a great time to be a writer!

Amen.

December 14, 2006: Black Unity, the Cultural Mulatto, and Jamaican Lite

Quite the interesting week we’ve had as a people! First of all, there was that Wall Street Journal article Dividing Lines: Why Book Industry Sees the World Split Still by Race, in which the author, Jeffrey A.Trachtenberg, raised the issue of whether or not the last bastion of racial segregation – bookshelves – would forever limit our earning potential as writers. I wasn’t even aware that we folks rated with the WSJ. Then, of course, there was John Ridley’s December Esquire magazine piece, The Manifesto of Ascendancy for the Modern American Nigger, that literally left me with my mouth hanging open in complete surprise. As I head to The Bahamas to spend the holidays with my family, I begin to extrapolate the themes raised in the two articles (i.e., stunted potential, black unity or the lack thereof, positive versus negative representations of us as a people, etc.) into my own life as a writer.

As you know, I’m famously of West Indian descent. I think it’s the law that you must be if you’re black and born in Brooklyn! My Bahamian parents moved to New York, had my sister and I, and, craving warmth, the beach, and possibly an endless supply of rum drinks, did the reverse migration thing and headed back to Nassau. Thus began my life as a cultural mulatto, straddling two worlds. When I moved back to the States – this time across the Hudson to Jersey – I was subject to some of the dumbest questions people could ask about a country that’s only a ninety-minute plane ride from Miami. Here’s a sample: “Do you wear grass skirts?” “You’ve actually been on a plane?” and my personal favorite, “Say something native.” Back in Nassau, I’d be accused of being too American, especially about how I “tawked” about my “dawg.” Nonetheless, as much as I do love America, the Bahamas is my ancestral home… the facilitator of my Muse. This is why multicultural characters predominate in my fiction. Unfortunately, this warrants me very little support from my fellow Bahamians.

You can read the rest at my December 14, 2006 posting at Blogging in Black.

December 5, 2006: What You Won't Do For Love in Mass Market Paperback TODAY!

Hey, y'all.

Just a shorty to kvell, which my Jewish friends tell me means to swell with pride. My second baby, What You Won't Do For Love, hits the stores today in mass market paperback. Sure, that cuts my royalties practically in half, but if all of you reading this go out and purchase a copy, then I'll be able to make the shortfall up in volume.

How's that for refreshingly honest? :-) Seriously, thanks for the love and support over the years. I sure do appreciate it.

More to follow...

December 1, 2006: NaNoWriMo - I WON!

Hey, my peoples!

I've resurfaced, after having much of the month of November on lock down, trying to finish my NaNoWriMo novel.

It was hard as all get out, and I'm sick as a dawg (a cold), but I did it. I hit 50,000 words about ten days before the end of the competition. I could've uploaded the novel and gotten credit for having written the 50 grand, but I wanted to finish. I started to get scared, though, that something would happen (just 'cause you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you), with computer crashes, cable service outtages, etc. So, on November 27, I uploaded the novel to the National Novel Writing Month website and won with a total of 73,652 words.

I was stoked, but for me the goal was not just to write 50,000, but to finish. Finish, I did on November 29 at 9:07 pm. I was hacking, and sneezing, and unable to breathe properly, but I did it!

I am very pleased with myself ("No shit!" I can hear you say). To finish a novel of that size in a month was just crazy! I was telling my friend, author Karyn Langhorne, who also won the competition, I have no excuse now to not get peddle to the metal and bring all of those ideas that I have to fruition.

My only regret is that I couldn't have fulfilled my promise to blog every day. If I was serious about my promise to eat a bug if I hadn't blogged daily, I guess I'd be having an interesting dinner this evening. But I figured, one challenge at a time. And finishing the novel was the more serious one. I'm off the hook. No mucking stables, or cleaing kitty litter boxes, or dog sitting, or watching small children.

Thank you, Lord! For everything...

November 15, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 15

This is the beginning of Week 3 of NaNoWri, and I have to ask myself, like the British singer Julia Fordham: Where does the time go? Next week will be Thanksgiving, and the following week, I -- hopefully -- will have a 50,000 word novel.

I'm well on the way. I have written 36,051 words. That means I only have 13,949 more words until I reach my goal. My fear is that there's more story than words I need to reach the deadline. But I'll worry about that later.

I'm soldiering on.

Wish me luck...

November 14, 2006: Review Ambivalence (Taking a Break From NaNoWriMo Posts)

I’m the original pop culture vulture. Give me music, movies, TV, and books, and I’m happier than your average plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills! Of course, in George W. Bush’s America, where a dollar is tighter than my Sergio Valentes from 1978, I sometimes need guidance on what movies and programs to see, and what CDs and books to buy. So, from time to time, I check out reviews in periodicals like People magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Of course I don’t follow the reviews like a sheep. After all, Chuck Arnold from People roundly panned Kanye West’s The College Dropout, which turned out to be, and continues to be, one of my favorite CDs of all time. I do, however, appreciate reviews as something of a roadmap. Until the reviewer takes on one of my books. Then I’m not so objective.

To read the rest, check out my November 14, 2006 posting at Blogging In Black...

November 13, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 13

I'm still soldiering on as I head into Week 3, which begins on Wednesday, the 15th. I still remain confident. My buddy, Karyn, who's doing NaNoWriMo along withe me, is doing spectacularly as well, with 21+ thousand words.

I just pray that both of us can maintain the momentum.

More to follow...

November 12, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 12

Not to gloat, but here goes:

25,785 words, baby! I'm a little more than halfway there! And we're only only twelve days in.

I remain overjoyed about my progress and hopeful about finishing within the allotted time frame. This is so awesome. Every day, I'm so happy that I signed up for this challenge. I'll reiterate: every writer needs to try this just once.

What a rush!

November 11, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 11

Again, real life intruded today, and I didn't have a chance to visit with Tim, Jonathan, and Ally today. I plan to make that up tonight and see if I can extend my word count even further.

I did, though, visit with Baltimore chapters of Delta Sigma Theta and Alpha Kappa Alpha for a Roses and Violets Literary Showcase. I hung out with sorors and those other Greek sisters -- just kidding; DST and AKA have a long-standing but gracious feud going on -- read from mt two babies, Back to Life and What You Won't Do For Love, and listened to readings from fellow Black Greek sisters. What a night!

Well, back to the grindstone.

Soldiering on...

November 10, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 10

21, 668 words... and counting.

No rest, even on a holiday! I'm hoping that I can finish the book in 50,000 words.

Which reminds me, Happy Veteran's Day to those who've served so that we can all be free and safer. You have my eternal thanks and gratitude.

November 9, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 9

I'm feeling guilty. I wasn't able to write anything today. And I feel it. Feels like I'm jonesing for a drug or a drink. It also feels like I missed catching up with old friends. My equilibrium is seriously upset. Thankfully, tomorrow's a holiday, so I'm hoping to get back on track and to continue to knock this thing out.

Speaking of people feeling like old friends, on a sad note, I was SHOCKED to hear that Ed Bradley died today. For as long as I can remember watching 60 Minutes, he's been a fixture on the show. The most recent story I saw him do was the one in which he questioned the veracity of the accuser's story in the Duke lacrosse rape case. My most recent favorite of his -- he has such an impressive body of work to choose from -- was the profile of Chris Rock. He played the clip from Never Scared of Chris Rock pretending to be Ed Bradley interviewing Michael Jackson. Nothing like immortality than to be interwoven into a joke! I'm going to miss Ed Bradley -- with his fine, articulate, earring-wearing self.

Well, no rest for the weary, and I sure am weary. Back to work on my baby.

See you tomorrow...

November 8, 2006: NaNoWriMo -- Day 8

I am so proud of myself. This process continues to amaze me. I go into the second week of NaNoWriMo with 18,654 words.

I don't know what it is that's making me soldier on. Maybe it's the characters, with whom I'm in love. Maybe it's the challenge. I don't know. I think every writer should try this. Seriously.

Keep watching this space. And check out the NaNoWriMo web site for more information.

Until tomorrow...

November 6, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 6

"Movin'?"

"Yeah!"

"Groovin'?"

"Yeah!"

I'd think Eddie Murphy was talking about The Kid here, not necessarily James Brown.

It's Day 6, and it's smooth sailing. I'm in love with my characters, and they're speaking to me so fast that it's hard for my typing hands to keep up. Hopefully, when this is all done, it'll be in good enough condition for me to share.

Well, this post, too, is going to be a shorty. More to follow...

P.S. This is a record! I don't think I've posted six days straight since I started blogging! Now I have no excuse to not keep it up when NaNoWriMo ends.

November 5, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 5

Not to gloat but...

Uh! Uh! 12,530 words! In yo' face!!!!

I'm cranking on, and I'm so proud of my accomplishment. I really love the characters of this book. The novel is called Triptych. Even though it's pronounced like the things that Triple A gives out when you're about to hit the road, a triptych is a three-paneled painting, in which the panel in the middle is the most crucial to the message that the artist is attempting to convey.

My novel, Triptych, is set in beautiful Nassau, Bahamas. It concerns a man, Jonathan, who has cancer, and his cousin, Tim, a recent widower. At the center is Ally. She used to date Tim eons ago, even lost her virginity to him. Now, though, she's married to Jonathan. To keep her happy, Jonathan has an interest request for Tim, whose loyalty to his cousin makes him fulfil this request, at the expense of his still-fragile heart.

And, to quote Frrest Gump, "That all I'm gonna say about that."

Oh, well, I'm off to novel. Watch this space for more developments...

November 4, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 4

It's like buttah, baby!

My fingers are flying over the keyboard.

Like Lloyd Banks, "I'm on fire. Up in here."

Okay, I'll stop with the similes and metaphors.

I'm proving Chris Baty's theory that the first week tends to be smooth sailing. I'd been stealing time here and there since this past Wednesday, November 1, when the contest started. But I hunkered down today and worked like a fiend. I did a word count, and I have 10,022 words so far. And they're strung along in coherent sentences and decent dialogue. And tomorrow's another FULL day.

I'm so excited and happy that I took on this challenge. I think that every writer should do it at least once.

Well, I'm going to go back to the drawing board. Pray for me...

November 3, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 3

Hey, y'all!

True to my promise, I am posting to tell of my progress in meeting the NaNoWriMo challenge. I'M SO LOVING THIS! It's so great to write for myself again. This takes me back to when I was writing Back to Life -- at my own leisure, no contracts, no editor (other than my own internal one), no one to please but myself. I know it's selfish, but hey, it's very good for me. I may have to have a cigarette afterwards!

And I know this may get my Black Girl Card revoked, because it is soooo dorky, but I go to the National Novel Writing Month site -- www.nanowrimo.org -- to check out my profile, check out how my two buddies are coming along on their journey, and update my word count. It's bizarre to see a bar graph of my daily progress, and to see the bars go up and up. I'm awake later than I usually am (writing, of course), and I arrive at the day gig bleary-eyed, but I'm having the best time. And of course, Starbucks is a friend of mine!

So, Day 3 and the challenge is still new and exciting. I hope this post will sustain me when I hit the inevitable wall -- which I'm told is guaranteed to happen.

By the way, I haven't received any comments or e-mails from anyone else with interesting tasks for me to complete if I don't end up with 50,000 words at 11:59 pm EST on November 30. But the way things are going now, I won't need them.

Until tomorrow...

November 2, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 2

Well, as promised, I'm reporting in on this, my second day, of the NaNoWriMo challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.

I have to say that I am having the best time. I went up to the website (i.e., www.nanowrimo.org) and put in my word count. My last count from yesterday's session was 2487 words. I haven't counted, but I'm sure I'll have a lot more than that by the end of today.

I have two buddies on my list. The first one is Dinah, with whom I work. We bring our laptops to a quiet, secluded part of the building complex and write. Chris Baty, the director of NaNoWriMo, says that just being in the company of other people can turn on the creative faucets. Writing has been such a solitary pursuit for me, so I couldn't understand how just sitting in someone's company would make me a more productive writer. But I think I could be wrong. We shall see. The other buddy is Karyn, a local writer who is three books in. We've planned to have an "I Finished NaNoWriMo" dinner when this is over. I'm up for that.

I think the difference for me from last year was that I made a detailed outline. I know you're shocked by this revelation, but I am very anal-retentive. :-) I think knowing where I am in the process is helping me tremendously, as opposed to flying by the seat of my pants, like last year. And I love my characters. I run them over in my head while I'm riding on the Metro to work. It's like, when I do finally sit down, they know what they're doing, and I'm just typing their actions into MS-Word.

Well, this is going to be a short one. After all, it is only Day 2. I'm sure on Day 30, I would have so much experience with this process, enough to fill two other blogs. So, for today, I am confident that I won't be cleaning any kitty litter boxes, mucking any horse stalls, or watching any hyperactive four-year-olds. But still, keep your dares coming in the from of e-mails (me@wendycoakley-thompson.com) or comments under these blog entries. If you're doing NaNoWriMo too, drop me a quick line. maybe we can swap words of encouragement.

Until tomorrow...

November 1, 2006: NaNoWriMo - Day 1

Hey, everyone.

In the vein of my mouth writing checks that my body can't cash, I have, again, signed up for the National Novel Writing Month challenge. For the uninitiated, the National Novel Writing Month extravaganza, or NaNoWriMo, is a month-long contest of wills to see if you can finish the month of November with a novel consisting of 50,000 words. Check it out at http://www.nanowrimo.org, if you are a glutton for punishment and cannot find anyone in your life to flagellate you.

I have decided again to bang my head against this particular wall, because a) I love to write, and b) I want to know the answer to the Al-Pacino-in-The-Devil's-Advocate question -- Can you summon your talent at will? I tried last year and failed miserably, and I'm like that kid in the playground who keeps confronting the bully on the off chance that this will be the day that he/she falls under the weight of my mighty fist. I have also committed myself to blogging EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER to chart my progress. You heard it here, folks. And if I don't keep that commitment, I'll eat a bug!

No, not really. But to make sure that I finish as one of the winners of NaNoWriMo (i.e., to complete the 50,000 word dare), I have promised to do some pretty heinous things if I don't. In his book, No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, Chris Baty, the director of NaNoWriMo, says that, to motivate myself, I should commit to doing the grossest, most unpleasant chores that I could that I could think of for friends and family. Quite a few friends of mine were only too happy to volunteer their basest tasks for me to complete. Here's a sampling (with friends like these, who needs enemas?):

• My friend Renee has two cats. If I fail at NaNoWriMo, I will be obligated to clean out her kitty litter box -- at the end of the week.
• My friend Marcia has a stable full of horses. If I fail at NaNoWriMo, I will be obligated to muck out the stalls of ALL of the horses.
• My friend Pam has a four-year-old son. She knows that little children give me hives. If I fail at NaNoWriMo, I will be obligated to watch her son on a Saturday after he's been fed a steady diet of cartoons and sugar.

Other "friends" are thinking up things for me to do. I'm like, "Bring it on!" This is what I need to write THREE x 50,000 this month. If you can think of something horrid that you'd want me to do if, by some off chance, I fail at NaNoWriMo (KEEP IT CLEAN AND INSIDE THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY, PLEASE!), send me an e-mail at me@wendycoakley-thompson.com or comment here under this post. If, God forbid, I fail, I will post a picture of me fulfilling your uncomfortable-but-in-good-fun task up on my photo site on http://www.wendycoakley-thompson.com. However, as I'm going to succeed spectaularly, the point is "mute," as one of my ex-coworkers used to say.

So, come with me on this journey. We'll laugh. We'll cry (I'm sure). We'll have fun. And most importantly, I'll have a novel consisting of 50,000 words by midnight on November 30.

As my agent says, more to follow...