(a much better) Friday Five (than last week) (I hope)

Here are my thoughts today, in no particular order of importance.

1. I am concerned at my inability to sell stuff. I used to be an amazing salesperson. I could regale you with stories of selling a huge stack of $90-$120 silver and gold plated pen sets (from the 2002 Olympics) at a clearance market where people came with the intent to spend $5 tops. But I won't. The point of this thought is that my gift is gone. Or else, it must only work in person. You see, I have these "oldish" maternity clothes from my first pregnancy that I figure I'm never going to wear again, and I've tried to sell them on eBay with no success. Twice. I can't even sell stuff on eBay! What is wrong with me?

2. #1 intensified one of my fears quite a bit (I talked about overcoming fears in my last post, in case you missed it): What if I get a publishing deal, and then can't sell the book? What if NO ONE WANTS IT?? I know other authors/aspiring authors have this fear. But I think mine is more legitimate, based on my eBay experience. And let me tell you, failing to have my book sell will be almost worse than not being able to sell questionably ugly old maternity clothes on eBay. Okay, not really. The book thing would be WAAAAY worse. But I'm just sayin'...

3. I speak baby-gibberish fluently. It is a little known language, that most mothers learn and no one else seems to be able to decipher. My 1 1/2 year old is really talking a lot, and I can understand quite a bit of what he says. The great thing is that he understands even more of what I'm saying to him. He has a stinky bum right now, and being the great mother that I am, I asked him to go get my the wipes and a diaper to change him, so that I can keep writing this post in the meantime. He just came back over with a wipe, rubbing his face. (Since I do that a lot to clean food and other "stuff" off of him.) He grins at me and says, "I did it!" Except, to the person not fluent in baby-gibberish, it probably sounded like "Ah deedit." I praised him (he got the wipe part right anyway) and then I told him to please go throw it away in the garbage can. He came back rather quickly and said, "I did it!" again. I looked and saw that he'd put it on my older son's toy garbage truck. I said, "Oh you put it on the garbage truck instead of in the garbage?" and he nodded vigorously and said, "Ah (pause) huh!" (Which is how he says yes.) He's pretty bright, don't you think? Well, I do. (Funny side note: one word that people often don't understand he's saying is "sit." He wants to sit a lot. He's always asking to "sit." In fact, one might go so far as to say he has an obsession with sitting--on stools, chairs, couches, you name it. However, when he says "sit" the 's' sounds more like a 'sh' sound. So everyone probably thinks we cuss a lot at our house, especially at inanimate objects. We don't. I just wanted to let you all know that.)

4. The aforementioned baby, in whose language I am fluent as explained previously, just said a whole bunch of stuff to me that no one else would understand, but that I will now translate for you. He said (and I quote): "Everyone is going to buy your books, Mama! Everyone. And they are going to love them. Rave about them. Some may even build shrines to them, or put them on their untouchable shelves! However, you need to sell one of them to an editor first, okay?" I know, I told you he's bright. And hey, out of the mouth of babes, right? So, I'm going to believe him. Also, in case you were wondering, I explained that the reason why I spent so much time working on getting an agent was so that she could help me sell my book to an editor, and we're hoping for that to happen sooner than later, but these things can take time. He nodded and said, "ah (pause) huh."

5. My very good friend (who has helped me and supported me through much of my journey so far) started a book blog just over a year ago, with two other book-crazy co-authors. To celebrate their blogiversary, she designed a whole new layout, and is having majorly crazy giveaways all month long. Seriously, you don't want to miss this! The one she's doing now includes a signed ARC of PARANORMALCY (which I loved!) and a ton of other books and goodies. Go check it out and tell her I said "hi!" It's called My Pile Of Books - cute, huh?

See? Wasn't that better than last weeks? No? Oh well, I tried. And though I may have been totally kidding about my son's ability to predict the future, I'm totally NOT kidding about those giveaways, so go check it out. Happy Friday and for all of my friends and followers in the States I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!