Remember when I made all kinds of exciting announcements about me and my blog?

No? Don’t feel bad, I forget a lot of things, too. It’s actually good that you don’t remember because one of the things I told you isn’t even true any more.

I know! If I hadn’t almost forgotten about it, I’d be upset about it, too.

Okay, let’s start again, now that you’re really confused and I’ve got your attention.

My Career As A Contributing Blog Writer

Perhaps I should hire a Public Relations Manager.  Or a Handler. It was a conference in Boston, there was an open bar… Need I say more?

My career as a contributing writer on The Dark Globe, which has been renamed Legends Undying, had an expiration date about the length of unpasteurized milk. I introduced myself in one post and wrote another post about student bloopers. Then the site closed down. I don’t think it was my fault. I keep repeating, “I am not omnipotent, thus I don’t control everything that happens around me.” But it’s hard not to blame myself when things fall apart so soon after I touch them. Just in case, I’ve hired someone to pet Scrappy for me…

This probably is especially bad news for Phil, our Phil versus my Phil, who just invited me to be his first official contributing writer on his blog, Random Thoughts. I just posted my first post, Parents, This Could be Your Son or Daughter, over at his place. It’s about my experiences as a college professor. Go check out his blog. It’s great even without me.

If his blog closes down soon, I swear I’ll stop accepting invitations to be a contributing writer on people’s blogs.

My Career As An Aspiring Author

I hope my book signing has at least as many people.

Lot’s of news on this front. Work is going well with my professional editor. She knows how to smooth out sentences and make me sound better than I am.

I was wavering about how to get my book to the public: self-publishing, traditional publishing, pony express after photo-copying it… So many options. I decided to save myself the time and ego-stabbing experience of waiting for rejection letters from agents and/or publishers (plus the daunting task of writing a knock-their-knickers-off query letter) and try self-publishing. My Phil is a computer genius and promised to help me all the technical conversion blah-bliddity-blah-bleck.

My younger sister and her daughter are both artistically gifted and agreed to do my cover art. For free. Lest you’re thinking, “Whoo, boy, family and free.  That book cover art is gonna  be bad.” Fear not! Here’s what my sister can do.

A still life done in oils.

A charcoal sketch of me done 30 years ago. I seem a bit pensive, but you can tell it’s me, right?

I want print versions of my book, so I don’t have to figure out how to autograph Kindles, which might be defined as “defacing.”  I’ll figure that out when the time comes.

I’ve already started my next book. It’s based on the true story of my parents and their parents–mostly my mom and her mother. It’s fiction, though, because I have to fill in so many gaps with what might have happened.

Sneaking a Peek…

Are you sure it’s okay to take a look?
I hope so because this is just  too tempting.

A little while ago, Diana Douglas, from a blog of the same name, tagged me for a rather unusual challenge. It’s for authors who are writing or who have written books and is a way to let others sneak a peek at their work. It’s called The Look Challenge. Here’s how it works. You search your manuscript for the word “look” and copy the surrounding paragraphs into a post to let other bloggers read. Then you tag five blogger/authors, like Diana tagged me.

To keep this post short (something I’m committed to doing from now on), I’ll save the excerpt for my next post, but I want to tag the following bloggers, hoping that you’ll find their sneak peaks so tantalizing that you’ll just have to read the whole book! The following bloggers, you’ve been tagged for The Look Challenge!

Casey Clifford

Suzanne Rodgers

James Mahoney

Victoria Sotto

Sylvia Morris

Stay tuned for an excerpt from my upcoming memoir, How Was I Supposed to Know? Adventures of a Girl Whose Name Mean “Lost.”

Yes, that’s the girl whose name means “lost.” That was 54 years ago, but you can tell it’s me, right?