Fame or What Passes For It

I had two book signings this last weekend.  I'm almost used to people asking for my signature.  I wonder if I'll ever just assume that people want my John Hancock.  I find it all so amusing.

Anyway, one of the book signings, the one at Costco, I took my mother with me.  She has been so funny throughout this whole process of getting published.  As soon as I told her (at Christmastime) that I had a book coming out, she has been beside herself with motherly pride.  She's asked every bookstore in town to buy my books and display them as a local author.  She's asked her gym if she can hang up a poster.  She has announced it in church several times, once even bringing her copy to show.  Show and tell.

In so many ways this embarrasses me, and I blush to even think it.  In other ways I am so grateful to have mother that loves me so much.

Back to Costco.  I was scheduled to be there a full seven hours.  Does that seem crazy long to anyone else?  So, my mother being my mother, she sat next to me in her pink pants suit, calling out to passersby, "Come buy this book!"  or "This book is great" or simply, "Buy it!"

I nobly resisted the urge to sink in my seat and sat there smiling away.

I never expected this to be a part of the writing process.  I never wanted the attention, that's one of the biggest reasons I like writing: it's out of the public eye.  It's a solitary activity that serves many of my introvert tendencies.

Anyone who knew me as a child is probably confused by this confession.  I can already hear my family's memories kicking in.  "Is this the same person who tried out for every play in school?  Who was on student government for three years of high school?  Is this the same person who invited a passel of strangers into a home with no furniture so she could sing ANNIE songs to them and charge them five cents admission while her sister passed out lemonade?  Is the Mandi we know?"

But somehow it has happened and I prefer life out of the spotlight.

So, to anyone who aspires to write and have those stories published, I want to give you a heads-up.  Bring your mother to book signings so you don't have to do any of the talking.

Love you, Mom.

Interview

I'd like to post a link to my first ever author interview.  Good, right?  Thank you to Dorine who set the whole thing up.

Inside Critic

This week as I was looking around my house wondering why I'm not a better decorator, my eyes landed on the bird my husband had drawn in high school using colored pencils.  Let me just mention that my husband is a brilliant, brilliant artist.  This bird, a robin, has one delicate foot resting on a cut orange.  The colors are vibrant, the shading delectable, and the proportions correct.  I LOVE this bird.  Which is why I framed it and hung it on the wall in the living room.  (Where it doesn't match, because I don't have anything black and orangey/red.  But there it hangs anyway.)  My husband, on the other hand cannot see anything in it but the flaws and is deeply embarrassed when anyone notices it.  He's especially embarrassed when I start gushing about it.  But it doesn't stop me.

That got me to thinking about that line in the movie "An Affair to Remember", the line where the grandmother says of Carey Grant's character "the critic destroys before the artist would create", or something to that effect.  That describes my husband to a tee.  He has all but stopped creating art because he's too critical of what may come out of his fingertips.

I think all of us suffer from our inner critic's voice at some point or another, whether it's when cake decorating, knitting, horseback riding, or whatever.  There are so many mornings when I look at my computer screen and what I had written the day before and think, "Am I even any good at this?"  The immortal Gail Carson Levine has been known to admit that every time she starts a new story she wonders if she has another book in her.  And that's a Newberry Honor Winner!

The only I can stop my inner critic from ripping everything I write, or think of writing, to shreds, is to remember the words of my BFF Shannon Hale.  (Just as a side not: is it stalking when my BFF doesn't know she's my BFF?)  BFF Shannon says that she doesn't worry so much about the quality of her writing on the first draft because there is always another draft in which to fix it.  There's always time to make it better.

Sweet, sweet words.  Always time.

That's assuming I CAN make it better, but that's where my inner little sister comes out and says, "I can do that too!"  Don't all little sisters try to keep up with their older siblings?  Well, that's all I'm doing, I guess.

Playing catchup.

Do you hear me family??

Stop being so stinking accomplished!

I think I've gotten off topic.

Signing Schedule

Thanks to Andrea for her blog post at Literary Time Out.  You can see it here.

I'm happy to report that I have a book signing schedule. It is:

June 15 - Costco in Orem, Utah from 11 AM till 6 PM (Long day.)
June 22 - Costco in Orem, Utah from 11 - 6 (another long day. So, come and make me happy.)
June 23 -BOOK LAUNCH at Eborn Books in the Provo Town Center in Provo, Utah from 1-4 PM.
June 29 - Back at Costco from 11-6.

I'd like to apologize to all those Wellingtonians for not doing a signing in their neck of the world.  I would love nothing better than to visit (even in the middle of winter), so please forgive me.  You're not forgotten.

Please note the new button on the sidebar (hopefully it's working).

I think that's all the business I have to discuss today.  Happy.  Happy.

Hard Copy

Wa-hoo!

Just got copies of "Uneasy Fortunes" on Friday.  They look gorgeous.  Seeing my name on the bottom is just as awesome as I thought it would be.  But I have to admit the best part of all was seeing my husband get excited about it.  He even said he showed his students.  *grin*

The dedication is to all my sisters (biological or otherwise) and I hadn't anticipated that my brothers would be upset by this.  It's a girly book.  How bizarre would it have been to dedicate it to a bunch of men who will probably never read it?

Also wanted to post a great review done by Aimee.  A post I appreciate very much.
http://gettingyourreadonaimeebrown.blogspot.com/2012/06/uneasy-fortunes-by-mandi-ellsworth.html

Check it out. It's awesome.

Just a reminder that the book will be available in Deseret Book, and online from B & N and Amazon.  Or you can buy it here.

Avenged

There are some people that are so quick-witted it leaves me in the dust and I sit there, licking my slow-moving mental wounds and think, "how did they come up with that?"

For example:  My brother-in-law (I won't use his name because he's a lawyer on top of being clever and I don't want to mess with him).  He comes up with some of the best one-liners.  The kinds of things that people remember years later and still laugh about.  The kinds of things that get re-told at parties.  I would tell you some, but right now the only ones I can think of might offend some people (one uses the word "crap".  I know. Gasp!)

Okay.  You talked me into it.  (Isn't it nice to be a writer?  I can imagine the responses of other people.  No need to wait for actual answers.)

Just after buying a house that my brother-in-law had to make repairs on, he was talking to the previous owner about it.  The previous owner said something to the effect of "If you'd just be willing to eat some money up front, you'll come out better in the long run."  To which my brother-in-law replied, "I've eaten so much money on this deal I'm crapping quarters."

He just comes up with that stuff!

Another person who has that kind of wit, in my opinion, is the actor Robert Downey, Jr.  (We just went to see "Avengers" and I'm not ashamed to say I loved it.)  RD,Jr. came up with so many one-liners that I was still laughing about what he'd said when he came up with something else to laugh about.

I've always wanted to be that funny.  Always wanted the kind of power to take a situation and see the humor, then get other people to see the funny.

I have only ever felt that way in one situation.  The kind of situation I control completely.  The kind I can take time to think through things.  I really only feel funny when I write for certain characters and manipulate their dialogue into ways I can giggle over.

Is that sad, or just pathetic?

I guess that's one of the beauties of writing fiction.  If I can think it, I can create it.  I can even make myself funny.

Just a Little Addiction

So on Saturday I started reading a book I picked up at random from a library shelf and before I had even finished the book I'd gone back to the library to get two more of that author's books.  Then I proceeded to read until 2:30 that night so I could finish the second book of the day.

I fully and freely admit I am pathetic and have no social life to speak of.

I justify these actions in two ways.

The first justification is that in every author's blog I've read, in every seminary I've attended as a reader of writers, in every bit of advice I've received in regards to being an author, everyone says that in order to write, one needs to read.  Often.  And in the genre you'd like to write in.

Personally, I like to read in two genres, generally.  The biggest and bestest is Young Adult Fantasy and that's what I usually write as well.  But then, sometimes I remember I'm a woman with a sex drive and a hyper-active romantic streak and I delve head first into the kind of books I blush about when other people see the covers.  (I must take a moment here and clarify:  I do not read books that talk about the act of what I consider sacred.  If a book begins to get too intimate, I close the book and don't open it again.  I'm talking about the kind of romance that begins with a touch of the hand and ends with a lengthy kiss.  Call me old fashioned, if you will.  At least I don't feel like a dirt bag at the end of a chaste book.  Instead, I close it with a contended sigh and go kiss my husband.  He doesn't mind.)  And with all that being said, I still hide the book covers.

And since, I have written a book in this toe curling genre, I should probably read as many as I can.  I'm only doing my duty, really.

My second justification:  last night when I lay my tired head on my feather pillow, I smiled the kind of smile that only comes from completing a guilty pleasure.

It was totally worth it.