New Website

I put up a website with Wordpress:  pamstebbins.wordpress.com where you can buy my book through paypal. Wordpress is easy to use--they say. And it would be if I didn't have to translate terms from computer nerd to real-person-got-a-life speak. Remember in computerland the start button shuts off the computer. Now I will not say my age, but I didn't grow up chasing Mario. Back then computers existed in Asimov's books and in big basement rooms doing things only the computer whizzes understood. My college computer class for English majors was a bust as it met in a big lecture  hall on late afternoon M,W, F. Friday afternoons you could hear a pin drop. But if we did the labs which meant attempting to program computers with logic and math type thinking, they gave us fuzzy-thinking, storytelling people a B. Personally, I have enough trouble with with the English language. Talking to computers is way beyond me. I really do appreciate all the ready-made programs we work with today, only there still is that divide between the programmers and us (okay, me). It's the left side of the  brain versus the right. I'm in the group that carries a book for when I get lost.

Writing is an all the time occupation. Even on vacation, asleep, and while waiting in line you're working on your latest project. A stray conversation, an odd dream, a meeting with an interesting person can give you the element you're missing in your novel. Waiting in line or at the doctor's office allows you time to live inside your novel. Personally I don't know how other people behave so well without escaping to another world. Do the old magazines telling about a celebrity marriage that has already ended in divorce really grab their attention? Didn't they notice the couple fighting in the bar? How about that woman wearing the big orange hat?

I'm afraid I'm a writer first. While I want you to buy and to read my book, "JustMe:" I have to write the next novel. The real world is not enough for someone who straddles the world they live in and the one they have create through their writing.

High heels and writing are not for the timid.

Writing means exposing your thoughts, past embarrassments, faults--whatever it takes to make your characters come alive. Saying this, I'm not admitting to everything that is true in my book. You can guess.

The next hurtle--editing--means chipping and shaping your raw story into a diamond. Or so you think until your friends and fellow writers find more carbon than carats. With a deep breath and courage--found somewhere near the base of your spine--you polish the manuscript until it's ready for general viewing.

Then you send it out to agents who "regret to say", "it's not for us", "I just didn't love it." Your name is now "Dear Author". Your courage slips and it's like you've falling off your high heels.

Luckily there's a secret to dancing in high heeled shoes--- two glasses of wine.

Back to Writing

When a writer doesn't write, well, a writer isn't a writer.

It's back to writing for me. (Yes, I'm still selling my book "JustMe:".) 

The Anit-Valentine

I can't say I love Valentine's Day. If you have no one -you feel bad. If your sweetie doesn't live up to the romantic ideal as advertised on television - you feel bad. And why would anyone buy chocolates at full price when one day later they are fifty per cent off? And what is it about stuffed animals as gifts to women? If you have a sweetie you don't need a teddy bear to hug. And where does a grown woman put a stuffed animal-- does a pink bear match your decor? Fight against this card company induced holiday, ignore the the florists' sales pitch, and have fun with your sweetie anyway you want. If you haven't got anyone at the moment, treat yourself. May I suggest JustMe:. No one has more difficulty than Elizabeth in snagging a sweetie. So know you're in good company. Fight against Valentine's Day, treat yourself, and buy your chocolates at half price. You're a sweetie just the way you are.

Stray Thoughts

Don't check the date on your hot fudge sauce after you've poured it on your sundae.

What an Eizabeth thing to think. Writing JustMe: and being in Elizabeth's head was great fun. I wrote every funny stray thought that came to me without worrying about being polite, politically correct, or hurtful. Then I published JustMe: and started to worry. Elizabeth isn't all sweetness. Would readers like her? Would they get her sense of humor?

According to Elizabeth:

"I've learned I can't get by with my charm. My father would probably charge me rent."
"Women talk to think. it's how we understand what we're thinking-- we have to hear it said."
"My mother has been complaining of her so-called invisibility for years, if she was quieter Dad and I might have chance at ignoring her into nonexistence."
"Civility is easier to achieve if you eat first."

Why read JustMe:?

For the characters.
While JustMe: is Elizabeth's story, she is surrounded by people as quirky (and more so) than your own friends and family. So who do readers like best?
No surprise to Melanie and me, Jessie is getting the majority of the votes. We love Jessie too. Jessie, a hermaphrodite, is first a work acquantance of Elizabeth's and then a friend and for a short time, an apartment mate. Like Elizabeth she tries to fit in by being what people expect her to be, but this means hiding who she is. She tries on different guises -- a woman, a lesbian, an homosexual, a cross-dresser, a man. But as she says she doesn't belong to any team.  Like Elizabeth, she is searching for who she is. Jessie's caring and sensitive nature has won readers's hearts. And we root for her.

By the way, the picture is from the 2010 Blobfest.