Years ago, I bought two tickets for my Dad and I to see his first Broadway play. It was non-musical and history based, right up his ally. After exploring New York City all day, we lined up at the small theaters side entrance. I was so excited! I mean, how could you not be, it's Broadway! As we waited in line, I told my Dad that we should silence and put away our phones, and stash our sunglasses, I have always been a stickler for proper theater etiquette. I put my regular glasses on, then placed my silenced phone and sunglasses into my tiny purse and zipped it up. My Dad and I started to chat. Seconds later, a yellow taxi pulled up and a tall man with a shoulder bag and sunglasses jumped out of the backseat, yelling his thanks as he closed the cab door and rushed onto the sidewalk. My mouth sprang open, my lower jaw dangerously close to hitting the pavement. The man dashed over to the theater door, accidentally bumped into my left shoulder, tilted his head i...
I know my novel is good and I know people would read it. I know it's an important story that's contemporary and multi-layered. I know it can be cross-marketed as literary, book club, and romance. I've been querying my debut novel for 42 days. I've sent out 41 queries. I have heard back from 8 agents, all rejections. Honestly though, I feel like some of these responses are from places that don't actually read the query, but who knows. I know that I am more likely to be struck by lightning and win the lottery than to have overnight success with my novel. I know that it's important to get used to hearing 'no' and to never give up. With all that said, I keep thinking of the Ted Lasso quote, "it's the hope that kills you." I have so much hope for my book, for publication, and my dream to read my novel at my local Barnes and Noble. But sometimes that hope hurts, physically hurts, because it's 'just' hope and not reality. To make my...
It's so simple, really. I took the kids that I nanny to the library to sign them up for the summer reading program, thrilled that both have a love of reading and honored to foster the joy of reading. The way their program works is the child gets rewarded for time spent reading. To mark this, you get to put different beads onto a necklace. The beads represent units of time, and each bead gets bigger and better with each increment. The 15-minute beads are small and basic; the 4-hour beads are large and animal shaped, etc. I took this to mean, for example, you could choose 4, 15-minute beads or 1, 1-hour bead, and that was that. However, the librarian explained to the kids that if they decided they wanted to trade in, say, 4 small beads for the one-hour bead, that was fine. All summer long, they could trade beads as their minds and tastes changed. As this trivial information hit me, I reflexively flinched, thinking about how this whole scenario would have gone in my...
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