My love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day

It's with much surprise that I find myself looking forward to Valentine's Day this year. I'm going to come right out and say it: I don't like Valentine's Day and I'm not sure it likes me. My dear Husband has done his best to change this in the almost twelve years we've been together bad feelings remain between me and Valentine's Day. 


It's certainly not for lack of love, but instead due to a terrible string of bad luck around the Holiday starting nearly 20 years ago in my Junior year of high school. I'd met a boy that I really liked from a town about an hour away. He invited me to his Valentine's dance and I drove to visit for the weekend, carrying with me the joy and eagerness young love brings. To make a long story short he virtually ignored me, didn't dance a single song with me which left me a wallflower at a strange school and then broke up with me in his car in the pouring rain in front of his house.I had no choice but to stay the night at that hour and I tried to hold my tears back until I could flee the next morning. 


I woke up only to discover his parents expected me to go to Mass with them before I left where I watched him spend the service flirting with another girl. Ouch. But that's not all.   My clutch went out going back over the pass on the way home and it started to snow. I drove home at 20 miles per hour with the flakes blanketing the road. And then, when I got home, I learned my mom had just been taken to the hospital due to a bad case of mono. Pretty awful, huh?


That was just the first of the bad luck. Over the years I was dumped on or around Valentine's day twice more, put a dog to sleep on Valentine's Day and had another pass away unexpectedly the week before. One year I had the entire cooling system go out on my car leaving me with a $1200 bill. 


A classic Valentine's Day was the year I glued my eye shut with nail glue. I was in college and coordinating Model United Nations. I had to drive our group to a conference in Seattle and was down because my Dad and Step Mom had decided to elope that weekend and I had no way to get out attending to make the ceremony since I was the only member who could drive the college van. I assumed missing the wedding was my bad luck but after I glued on a nail that had come lose and instinctively rubbed my still sleepy eyes I quickly realized my eye wouldn't open. The glue had still been wet. 


Panic ensued and I grabbed an entire bottle of baby oil dumping it onto my lashes and hoping it would stop the adhesion. In the end I did manage to get my eyelid detached from my bottom lashes although I lost quite a few and spent the weekend with red, puffy skin around my eye and a fair amount of pain. If you look closely I still have a small section of lashes that won't grow back as a result of that fiasco. And I missed the wedding, something I regret to this very day.


I could provide more examples but I imagine you've gotten the idea. My Hubby has tried to remedy my ill will. He's surprised me with flowers including once writing I love you with roses on my bed, kiss kiss bears from Hallmark, and we even spent a romantic weekend once at Shangri La Resort on Grand Lake in Oklahoma before kids. But the resentment remains particularly when things still go wrong from time to time.


So why am I looking forward to it this year? Because I'll see my name in print for the first time in the WG2E Viva La Valentine anthology. It's ironic that something I've dreamed of for so long, seeing one of my stories in print, is Valentine themed and timed for release with Valentine's Day. Maybe if the folks at WG2E had known my history they would have put me in the Summer edition, or maybe not as my story fits perfectly with Valentine's Day. 


The cover was released this past week and the upload to all platforms may begin as soon as this weekend. The cover was designed by the awesome author and co-founder of the WG2E, D.D. Scott. Without further ado I present to you the WG2E All-For-Indies Anthologies Viva La Valentine Edition:

I've resolved this year to make my own luck and maybe this is part of me doing that, making my debut as a published author at the time of year I normally try to hide in bed and avoid. It's also the start of a series featuring Cupid, Cherubs and the Goddess of love herself, Venus - all creatures intertwined with Valentine's Day which I suppose is quite brave of me given my feelings about the holiday. Wish me luck? ;-)


Thanks for following!

Melanie


11:31 PM

Paying it forward

Self publishing feels both a daring and daunting at times. I've taken my dream into my own hands and stepped off the time worn query the publishers path. I always liked the idea of taken the road less traveled. Stepping off the well traveled path, however, means learning how to be my own publisher. As a relative newbie I would have been overwhelmed if not for connecting with some wonderful web resources and fellow indie writers through my writers' group and some special website. I've formed friendships that I'm certain will last a lifetime. 


Over the past year I've gone from clinging to a life raft to avoid drowning in the self-publishing sea to treading water and I hope soon swimming with the fish (or at least the minnows) with the publication of my first novella The Cherub's Choice and full length novels Venus Vexed and SPF. 


One of the resources that has been a personal flotation device to me is the Writer's Guide to E Publishing or WG2E. From their daily blog to their resources I learn something new and useful daily. Their contributors come from a variety of genres and backgrounds. I'm also honored to be a part of the WG2E Viva La Valentine Anthology which will be published before the end of the month with a great group of other indie authors. 


If anyone reading this hasn't visited their site or is interested in self publishing I'd encourage you to click on the button I've added to my blog for the WG2E or the link at the bottom of this page and take a peek at what it has to offer. I'm fortunate I did!


Thanks for following,


Melanie



http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/ 

Resolutions

For my first post of 2012 resolutions seemed like an appropriate topic. 
In December I read an article in a waiting room about a scientific study showing hat lucky people make their own luck. What stuck with me long after I forgot the name of the magazine was that lucky people are open to possibilities, make good decisions, seize chance opportunities and are not afraid to either change course or persevere depending on the situation. They trust their gut feeling and instincts. This may be based on Richard Wiseman's famous study published in 2003 which is what I kept coming up with this evening when I googled in an attempt to cite a source for my major resolution.  This leads me to resolution #1:


1. I'm going to make my own luck. I've already taken a leap of faith by a small change of course. I consider myself lucky to be a part of the WG2E Valentine's Anthology and have a 16,000 word novella entitled The Cherub's Choice being published in it 2/1/12. It was good luck that I read the WG2E blog post soliciting interested authors and responded quickly enough to be a part of their second anthology. When I wrote The Cherub's Choice it quickly became evident to me it would be the prequel to a fun new series about Cupid and his progeny. I had book one, which will be entitled Venus Vexed, plotted out before finishing the prequel. As such, I've decided to put my current young adult novel, SPF, aside for a short period of time  to write Venus Vexed in the hope that I'll make my own luck by drawing in readers from the anthology. My husband gave me an are you crazy? look when I announced my decision since SPF is sitting at 45,000 words and has been my major focus this past year but I repeated my mantra: Lucky people make their own luck. I'll finish up SPF after Venus Vexed is complete.


2. I'm going to update this blog at least twice per week, up from the current monthly plan and try to share more about my journey as a wife/mother/full time employee/author and my current projects.


3. I will finish both Venus Vexed and SPF and publish them by year end and start book two in The Cherub Series . I also retain the rights to The Cherub's Choice and will publish it as a stand alone novella.


4. I have met many wonderful authors through my writer's groups and I will read and review at least one book per month from group members as my way of supporting and saying thanks to my fellow authors. I will also endeavor to leave a positive review of every outstanding book I read. I'm great about reading but lax about reviewing. The first book I'll review for 2012 is S.L, Naeole's new release Dark Veil, which I was fortunate enough to win an ARC of and was blown away by it. Forget werewolves, I want more werepanthers!


What are your resolutions? I'd love to hear them, so feel free to comment! 


Thanks for following,


MG
11:11 PM