Deborah Woehr

I’ve just finished formatting the last submission. At first, I wanted to create hyperlinks to all the commenters and started doing that late yesterday afternoon. Then the process got very tiring, and I wasn’t sure if this was necessary.

Another thing I did was cut out the back-and-forth conversations, which cut the page count in half in one case. I gave every submission this treatment (except for one because the post was so short), but have decided to reconsider my plan for the discussions that might interest the reader.

As it stands right now, the anthology contains approximately 112 pages, without the title page, introduction and TOC.

I gave up on writing forums long before I started blogging. Melly’s Truman Capote and Fred’s 10 Things I’ve Learned Since Starting This Blog reminded me of why. The biggest reason I stopped going to these forums was the ego factor.

Some of these writers were way over the top when they had no real reason to be. I’m not referring to the egocentrics who have a published book or two under their belt, but the wannabes who took their frustrations out on those who succeeded. Although it’s human nature to feel jealous, it’s what you do with your emotions that defines you in the eyes of your colleagues.

In the five years I spent on various forums, I’ve come to the conclusion that writing forums can be a life-sucking waste of time. They certainly won’t help you reach your prospective readers.

Blogging, on the other hand, has proven to be very beneficial. Not only does it help me warm up for my writing, but it has been a great networking tool. Like Fred, I’ve met some great people through blogging. The only downside I’ve experienced is the time that evaporates while I’m posting and/or reading the blogs on my list.

I don’t mind this because I’m reading posts that make me think and whose writing makes me re-evaluate my own writing. I’ve discovered opportunities that I never would have thought of while lurking in a writer’s forum. Need I say more?

I woke up with a creative itch this morning, and this is what I came up with for the title page. Let me know what you think.

Anthology Title Page

The submission deadline passed. Now comes the fun part: compiling and editing this book into something useful and entertaining. When I first started gathering the submissions, I had a format in place. I was going to categorize each by genre–fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc.

Last month, I’d compiled the submissions I had into a draft (minus the reader comments) in order to see how many pages I would have. This was before I received double and triple-submissions, some of them in more than one category. I’ve run into a redundancy issue as far as the formatting. With the present format I have:

1. Title of the blog/Author
2. Thumbnail graphic of the blog
3. Author Profile (byline)
4. Post
5. Reader comments to Post

The redundancy I’m thinking about is not so much the graphic but the author profile showing up in more than one place inside the book. This might not be a big issue, but it’s got me thinking about whether or not my original concept is going to work.

Plan B

At the moment, I’m considering separating this book by author instead of genres, indicating what genre the post is if it’s not obvious. Plan B was conceived due to the milblog section, as I have only one author for that.

That’s where I’m at right now. Once I get each section formatted and edited, I’m going to compile it into a PDF for the contributing authors to review. If you would like to receive a copy, please contact me by email.

I summoned enough bravery to climb most of the way up that step ladder to get the cat down. Coaxing him down proved to be another challenge. Fortunately for me, the ladder didn’t tip over or collapse, and the cat wasn’t a biter. In fact, he was very sweet and friendly.

Somehow I managed to scoop him up and carry him down with me. He loved the attention I gave him. Another cat (a black shorthair) had gotten curious about all the hullabaloo but wasn’t about to get to close to me or my oldest.

My son managed to read the address on the cat’s collar, which was a good thing because I don’t want a pet. The children are enough, trust me! At any rate, he read off the address, which turned out to be the corner house across the street.

I walked the kitty home and met his master who said, “Oh, Georgie likes to play lame.”

By this time, Georgie had escaped to the bushes and was sitting there like a regal prince, ignoring his master’s call like only a cat would.

The cat population is growing in our neighborhood, largely because the coyotes that threatened them last summer have moved on . . . I hope. Over the past six months, I’ve watched four cats roaming around our front and back yards.

This morning, I was sitting in my garage, having a smoke with my husband, when I kept hearing a cat meowing. It wasn’t the normal meow or the “I’m horny” meow, but a cry for help. I kept looking at my husband’s Willys, thinking it had somehow got trapped inside there because the sound was muffled.

I asked the hubby if he heard the noise, but he just shrugged. We’ve been hearing something running across our roof since the week before the SuperBowl. That cat kept meowing, and I kept listening. It wasn’t inside the garage.

The hubby eventually went to work. I returned to my computer, still hearing the cat’s crying. After a minute, I decided to go outside and investigate. It took all of a second for the cat to notice me and start howling from his position on my roof.

He’s a big fluffy black cat that I’d never seen before. I immediately called for the boys to open the garage door so I could get the step ladder. Once they opened it, I found the ladder wedged between the Willys and a bunch of other crap.

I gave up on the ladder for the time being and went to search for some alternatives. My husband never reinstalled the shutters he’d taken down when he redid the windows. So I tried to use one as a ramp. But I couldn’t get it sturdy enough so the cat would trust it and come down.

I tried using my dining room chairs, to no avail. My hands could touch the top of the gutter, but I wasn’t tall enough to reach over them to grab the cat. The kids managed to wrestle the step ladder out of its cramped space.

We set it up for the cat to jump on. No go, he said through his howling. He’s still up there right now, and I’m not about to climb up to the roof to go get him. I don’t do heights, period.

The cat has three options, the way I see it:

1. Wait for the mailman (who has a few inches on me) to help in a couple of hours.
2. Figure out that the step ladder is safe enough to jump on.
3. Wait 8+ hours before my husband gets home from work.

I’ll keep you posted. Boy, this has been an exciting week!

“Valentine’s Day is gay!” Little Brother proclaimed before we walked out the door.

He hates this holiday because it’s too sappy and frilly. Big Brother sees the perfect chance to jump in and rib him. Surprisingly, there is no bloodshed before we leave for school.

Little Brother is always the first to get dropped off because he starts earlier. As he’s walking toward the playground entrance, Big Brother starts giggling wildly. Then he informs me of the trick he played on LB.

Sure enough, I catch sight of the heart stickers lining the bottom portion of LB’s backpack. Pink stands out great against black, even from 20 feet away. I watched my youngest walk with the other kids, having no clue to what his brother had done and envisioning flying fists and feet when I go to pick them up.

Meanwhile, Big Brother is still giggling as I pull away from the curb, relishing his practical joke.

Update:

The war began before we got through the front door. Little Brother managed to lock Big Brother out of the house. I was in the kitchen, cleaning it up before I prepared dinner, when my oldest knocked on the back door. A mini-war ensued, where clothes and shoes were thrown about.

Big Brother was smart enough to lock himself in his room until I calmed his brother down. Soon, they were distracted by homework. Then Grandma came over. Grandma went home about 30 minutes ago. Now all three of my children (hubby and the boys) are sitting on the couch, watching Sponge Bob.

The hubby dragged this old movie out, which he had recorded on a cheap VHS shortly after we got married. I’m surprised the tape was still good, but it won’t be for long.

This movie is about a nuclear war, which was started by extremists. The villian isn’t the extremists, but a corrupt politician who is set on “winning the war” against the Ruskies. Although the movie is dated, I still enjoy it because it reminds me of the era I grew up in.

My Dunce Cap was extra tall and pointy yesterday because I forgot all about my instructions for upgrading to WP 2.01. I didn’t make a backup, and I forgot to disable everything before I used Fantastico to hit the upgrade link. You can guess the result.

I’d posted a while back about letting The Buzz die because it wasn’t the community blog that I wanted it to be. Mainly, I was the only one posting on that site. So when disaster struck yesterday, I didn’t beat myself up.

It was time to decide whether to keep this blog or cancel my account with my hosting provider. In the end, I decided to keep it and do away with the community feature since I already have that going at the Writer’s Blog Alliance. From this point on, The Writers Buzz is going to be a newsletter, where I will continue to post book announcements, author interviews, and articles about writing and book marketing.

There is a great discussion going on over at Fred’s Sentenced to Write, where he talks about how people perceive famous actors, writers, and musicians. When I first started writing, all I could think about was becoming a best selling novelist. While I still have that ambition, there is the price to consider.