The Marriage Pact

Anyone who loves Julia Roberts like I do, can probably give us a play by play of those opening few scenes of My Best Friend's Wedding, when Julianne nervously contemplates the possibility of Micheal trying to collect on a twenty year old promise. Laughable right? But most things in romance movies are dreamt up from some kernel of reality, aren't they?

I think they are.

I've heard of the marriage pact. How it starts can vary. Maybe a boy and girl have never even experienced love, sitting in a tree house, wondering if they'll end up like their quarreling parents. They get along great, so a brilliant plan is born. Or it happens later, after the fiftieth broken heart. In desperation they search for something that would atleast guarantee a happy ending, a light at the end of the tunnel. This is when it would seem it's a little more complicated. If you know love, would you really contemplate marrying someone, you didn't love, lust after, long for? So are you suggesting settling down with a friend when all hope is lost, OR do you actually have feelings for that friend you have never explored or admitted??

I know this may sound all hypothetical and crazy, but I have heard of marriage pacts between more than a few people. Being single again, I ran across a book with the same name and it got me thinking. I searched my Kindle a little more and found there were actually several ficticious, although believable stories or some variations of the convenient covenants. So, I decided to read them.

Coming soon, reviews of;
A Thousand Roses, by Numi Ash

The Marriage Pact, by M.J. Pullen

One Day, David Nicholls (also made into a movie, in theatres 8/19/11)

...followed by more discussion and maybe, I'll share my own story of a marriage pact. :)

Me? Falling For the E-Book?

I don't remember the class, the instructor, or the subject matter, but I heard once that a 10% return is a reasonable expectation when marketing a product. If you made 100 cold calls, 10 would bite...or something like that.

I've been investigating the idea of marketing my books online only, cut out queries and pitches, submissions and reading fees. The DIY of publishing. I had long abandoned this idea, preferring traditional publishing, until I read some recent stories in the New York Times and Salon.com. Of course few in the world of writing haven't heard about the 'million' made by selling a million e-books. But I also read about bookstores now charging admission to book signings and author meet and greets, because business is so bad and they need the money. They blame this, for the most part, on the e-book.

I'm rethinking everything.

There are on average 62.4 million avid book readers in the United States. Mind you, e-books can be purchased from anywhere in the world, with one click, but I'm thinking small. Let's cut that in half to be even more modest. Then taking my ten percent, since the other ninety may have no interest in my genre, style or story... 3.12 million dollars, if I sold an e-book for a buck.

Coming soon, to a Kindle near you....

Abusing Books & Writing In Bed

This morning I lay in my bed, pondering life's losses, thinking I needed to be writing. I've been trying to write for a greeting card company and they recommend speaking from the heart, as if you were writing to someone you cared about. Something came to me, and as usual I had too much written in my head when it occurred to me I would never remember it all. I rolled over to my nightstand, where there is a cup of pens, but no paper. What kind of writer am I? No paper? The kind with a laptop downstairs I suppose, but there was a reason I was still in bed and I wasn't ready to abandon it. Next to the pens and picture frame and nail polish, was the book I was reading before bed; Trading Up, by Candace Bushnell. Yes, I do dream of Central Park and the MOMA, who doesn't?

Anyway, I thought of writing my mind's scribbles in those two or three blank pages that every book has and immediately remembered one of my closest friends critiquing a book of mine a long time ago. Maybe it was Two Sides of Wilde? The character, Amelia Hiller, (yes, it was Wilde)who owned a bookstore, had folded over the corner in a page of her book, to mark it, as she got up to do something or other. My friend, a writer, had scolded me, insisting "no true book lover would ever dog ear a page like that." It made me sad as I considered myself a 'true' book lover and I dog ear all the time, or at least I did. My shame has since caused me to collect bookmarks.

I always thought the more rough a book looked, the more loved it had been. I mean what are headers and margins for anyway? I imagined dog ears and notes in the margins and God forbid coffee stained pages! That's a book that's been around, shared...read. I know, a first edition of Wuthering Heights is a different story, but we live in the day of mass publication and paperback.

So I did it. I wrote my greeting card snippet before the title page of Trading Up. I wonder if my friend, or Candace, or Carrie would approve? :)


p.s.

I wrote half of this blog in my phone, before finally rummaging around the room to find a tiny notebook. At least I didn't have to go downstairs. When I write with one ear on the mattress, I can hear my penstrokes and nothing else.

Ugh.

I'm blogging about blogger, because I'm grumpy.

When I find a blog on blogger that I like, via google or some other miracle, I am just a nameless shmo and the 'sign in' button laughs at me. The 'follow' button is AWOL. Once I sign in, that blog I wanted to follow, is gone.

I also cannot search for blogs, by topic, author, or any other logical means. If I click 'next blog' for fun, I find a blog in Japanese on how to raise goats. Clearly not a TIVO.

If I go back, I am again in stranger status, I log in, the blog is gone. Ugh.

Did I mention I am grumpy?

I know... how is it that I DO have blogs that I am currently following? Well sometimes it works better. Sometimes? No. Computers and internet are absolutes. There are no emotions, there are not supposed to be maybes. Black and white!!! If I wanted maybe and sometimes I would go stand in front of the refrigerator.

Why Do Teenagers Have Babies?

A friend recently forwarded me an article from www.alternet.org, "Why Do We Shame Teen Moms?"

It read the typical statistics, scare tactics that have been less than successful at moving teenager girls to postpone motherhood. It included some mention of the high school senior that faked a pregnancy as a social experiment at her school, documenting how her peers responded to her predicament.

My friend forwarded the article to me, because I was pregnant at seventeen, seventeen years ago. She wanted me to weigh in. So here I go.

The fact is, I believe most teenage girls who get pregnant, want to. It doesn't matter if they have access to birth control, church, etc... they are missing something so they get it. The sexual irresponsibility is a choice. The fact that all of these girls have such a void is what should be addressed. Especially since, as much as I love my daughter, she did not fill the void... so then I am a young mother, without a supportive family and still with the void!

I will say this once, I am not talking about every teen mother under the sun. There, I said it.

When I see a girl who has found out she is pregnant, she is worried about her boyfriend, her parents, money. Rarely isn she really upset about the baby! Yes, there are abortions and yes there are true accidents. I just do not think they are the norm.

Birth control is easy to get! Condoms are easy to get! Boys are usually never wanting a baby, subconscious or otherwise, so they will find the money, etc. Yet the babies keep coming.

When I was pregnant with my daughter, my best friend was pregnant with her second son. We were smart girls from middle class families. We had blind, strict parents who had no idea who we were. We were also pregnant by the same boy. We wanted those babies.

Now that I am thirty-five, I of course have a lifetime of knowledge and I can look at things differently. I still would never see any pregnancy as a bad thing. I am pro-life. Every baby is a miracle...yada yada. My daughter is seventeen, she has had sex, but I don't necessarily consider her 'active' and I don't encourage it, but I am realistic. She has condoms. I have found them in her room more than once. Despite my opinion on the sex and despite the fact that I love babies. She has condoms.

That is awesome. Somewhere inside, she is not trying to fill a void.

So my point is that teen pregnancy is not the problem. Pregnancy is the result of a problem that is already there.

I know there will be some people who disagree with me. This is ok. Just my opinion. :)

I Try ~ After the Banana

After my banana hair fiasco, I had an idea. I've decided to include a series in my blog, every week or so, entitled "I Try."

It's pretty self explanatory, but I'll explain it anyway. :)

Ever week I will try something; something I read in a magazine, something suggested by a follower, something I hear in line at the grocery store... you get the idea.

I like to think of it as a Mythbusters for women! Topics may include, recipes, skin care, household ideas, book reviews, new product trials, who knows!

I'm hoping we have some fun and we learn a little.

When I wonder about something, will it work, is it true? I try.~

Going Bananas!~

I read in a popular women's magazine, a recipe for homemade conditioning treatment for your hair, supposed to leave it shiny and wonderful, etc.

I have long thick hair which is near and dear to me, always looking for ways to take care of it on a budget.

The recipe was sooooo simple!

1 banana
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp honey

All three common items to find in my kitchen, so I was excited!

I did some more research and found that even Dr.Oz recommends the fruity mask, siting elasticity, shine, nourishment! All good things!

The instructions simply stated, mix until creamy, thoroughly saturate hair, cover with saran wrap for an hour, rinse well.

It didn't say anything about whether your hair should be clean or dirty, wet or dry, so I asked a cosmetology friend of mine and she confirmed my assumption that it is supposed to be 'conditioning' so put on shampooed, damp hair, then rinse as instructed. Great! Easy right??! :/

All went well, until the 'rinse.' Banana is not exactly a fan of the exit.

I mixed the ingredients, a lot! It was very creamy, the consistency of shampoo! I rinsed as instructed, but seriously, there was still a lot of banana! So I rinsed some more... and some more.... still Chiquita!

I finally took an entire shower, shampooed and all. When I took the towel off my head, I could still see banana!! I combed, I brushed, I washed and rinsed some more. Ugh.

So now that my hair was washed twice after the banana mask, I styled the next morning as usual. I do not notice any abundance of shine or anything else impressive, but maybe I washed the improvements away??!!

Yes, there is still some banana in my hair. I don't recommend. :(