Sure, now it works! And Jolly Fish and Cereal

Blogger has been giving me the spinning wheel of death in the "compose" box for a couple of weeks. Finally it allows me to blog! My need to spew into the blogosphere has been great, and now that it allows me, I've pretty much drawn a blank.

Meanwhile, I'm getting excited about Big in Japan! I finished all the edits over spring break. Believe me, doing edits while riding for 37 hours in a 13 year-old Suburban filled with five kids, eleven drying out Happy Meals, and a neverending litany of books on CD is a little tricky. I wonder if anything I sent back to my publisher is even coherent.

It seems they still like me, however. I get encouraging emails from them at least once a week. How nice is that? Jolly Fish Press! They're pretty awesome. I wish every writer could find as great a group of people to work with as I've been lucky/blessed enough to find.



A lot of my writing friends, both published and yet-to-be-published have been asking me about this publisher. Seriously? I have no complaints at all whatsoever. I've always known I'd prefer to be with a small press, where the team knows the writers, where it's a smaller pond. (Not that I'm some big fish, just another jolly one.) I really like being part of a family-like operation. There are other writers who would prefer to be all New York, and that's great! I can see the merit in that. I'm just more of a small town girl, and a small press fits my personality. If that's you, I say go for it. Query these guys. You've got nothing to lose, and a great group of friends and cheerleaders to gain.

So. Cold cereal. It's still my nemesis. That darned Vanilla Almond Awake. Did I mention I'm running 15 miles a week now? Every week. And do I lose any weight? Nope. Back in the day, John Belushi said, "I owe it all to little chocolate doughnuts." Me? I owe it all to the delicious array of cold cereals that span my hall pantry. I think I need a handful of it now to get me through until it's time to go pick up the kids.

[Geez. Blogger. It won't let me upload the pic of my cereal. Imagine it HERE.]

More Evidence of Karma's Reality (and caramels' reality)

So, twice in the past few weeks, I've had guest bloggers on this site. Wellll, that "law of the harvest" has come to fruition, because guess who's the guest blogger now?

Jolly Fish Press asked me to write a post for their blog site, Jolly Fish Talk, on the topic of how to tell a love story using action and humor. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it!

Meanwhile, there are still about three bags of "neighbor gift" caramels languishing in my cupboard that I never got around to delivering to the neighbors. You know the idiom "burning a hole in his pocket?" Well, those caramels are burning a hole in my resolve. They're so fabulous. I can hear them calling to me in the middle of the night, like in that fairy tale about the Teensy Tiny Woman, who stole the bone from the teensy tiny graveyard and then kept hearing the voice saying, "Give me my bone!" only excepting I don't hear those words, I hear, "Eat me!" like in Alice in Wonderland instead.

Will I resist? Will I feed them to the company we're having tomorrow night? Or will I give in and devour them like the demon calls? ....

So Exciting--I feel like I ate too much candy

Got some grrrrreat news yesterday (yes, that's my Tony the Tiger impersonation. I have to include it because not only did I get grrrrreat news, I also ate three bowls of Frosted Flakes.) The book I've been slaving over for 2 years, *Big in Japan,* has been selected by a publisher, Jolly Fish Press, for their fall 2012 list!

Yeeehawww!

I started shopping it around in September, and found Jolly Fish shortly thereafter. The minute I read about them, I had a gut feeling this was going to be a great fit. They were my first choice.

Doing a jolly jig over here.

So, about the book. All these months I've been writing it, I've been asking myself this question: is the world really ready for a novel with a love story plot for a sumo wrestler?

I guess we'll see!

Big in Japan is the story of an overweight nobody guy from Texas who goes to Japan and accidentally becomes the first blond sumo wrestler. He has to defeat his biggest enemy and win the Emperor's Cup to get the girl.

I had a ton of fun researching and writing it. I loved finding out all about sumo--a sport we Americans have a tough time imagining as being as amazing as it is. I watched a LOT of youtube videos of sumo matches. The power, people! They are just enormous and strong! It was fun to get to troll through my fun memories of living in Japan and to get to use some of my Japanese language again (although I excised most of it as drafts progressed.) I spent a lot of time outlining it and using the tips I learned as I studied writing guides like Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and How to Write a Damn Good Novel, by James Frey. I holed up in my writing lair and did major rewrites while my kids watched waaay too much TV and decimated the blue carpet. Now, I'm so excited! So thrilled! It's so sweet, it almost feels like I just ate too much candy.

(If there is such a thing. I'm not sure.)