Finally back to the local Barnes and Noble after — well I’m not sure, weeks?  And I’d like to take a moment to give a major props to Starbucks for all of their yummy foods and desserts!

OK, back to Musing.  On the shevles I actually found a mixture of epic fantasy and contemporary science-fiction, and a lot less, “women-in-a-leather-jumpsuit” paranormal.  Also B&N has made more room in the fantasy section.  Good news for books and the genre in general?  Possibly.

As for my purchases, I have Susan Murray’s, The Waterborne Blade.  A brand new epic fantasy, which is always good to see!  The Thorn of Dentonhill, by Marshall Ryan Maresca and Prince of Fools by Mark Lawrence, who incidentally has a very well made site.

It’s still difficult for me to come here.  I see all of the new books coming out and I want to be there so badly.  It isn’t easy to keep going sometimes but I love writing and being an author.  I said to my Big Brother recently, “You know sometimes I wish I could get my hands on a time machine, go back to when I was fourteen and tell myself, don’t be a writer.  Be a ballerina or gymnast or something.”

But I suppose if I wanted to be either one of them I would have.

It’s just hard to figure out what I’m doing to stop it from happening.  I know I can write and I’ve sold e-books, some actually having a good run.  I’ve gotten requests for fulls and partials.  So what is it? One agent once told me, in her email that, “Although it [Tinderbox] had a good premise, I didn’t fall in love with the voice like I thought I would.”  I had no idea what that meant and others I asked didn’t seem to know as well.  I mentioned this to Paula Bernstein of The Writing Show fame during a LinkedIn conversation we were having, and here is what she said, “Voice is your writer’s personality, your style.  It’s a very individual thing.  It’s like meeting someone and them either liking the way you present yourself or not.Some voices are so strong that you either love them or hate them.  Some are mellower and more likely to appeal to a wider range of people.  Some are so boring they’re like dial tones.”

So the agent didn’t fall in love with my voice.  I just wish I knew why.  Was it too strong?  Mellow?  Boring?  What?  I have no idea what I need to change.  One thing I do know is that I’m so absolutely certain, that I have so much confidence in Tinderbox that I know if someone takes a chance they won’t be sorry.

Well, I’m still at it though.  I’ve pretty much finished my lesson for the week, so when I go home I’m going to work on a couple of things.  Tomorrow, my last day of stay-cation is for chilling only.

Peace~

CJ