Sherri Cornelius

You probably saw a new theme every time you visited in the past three days. I think I’m going to keep this one for a little while, see how I like the layout and what kind of tweaks I might need. It has no theme options available, and while I usually look for a theme with as many as possible, I spent a little time learning some more CSS last night. I love doing that stuff, when I take the time to do it. So actually, this theme not having options may be a good thing, as it’s forcing me to learn how to tweak things myself. That way, if I decide to keep it I will already know how to change the graphics into something more Sherri-flavored.

I’d been toying with the possibility of having a static front page, but I didn’t know what to put there. I like the way this one’s laid out. Of course, when I start promoting a book I’ll probably have to get a real website built based on that, but this will work for now.

So apparently this is a time to prepare my external persona for success. If you’re on Facebook, I have an author profile that will go active if I get a publishing contract. I expect it to be the easiest place to do news updates and such, and an easy way for people to connect to me. Log in to your Facebook account, click this link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sherri-Cornelius/#!/pages/Sherri-Cornelius/91241069662?ref=ts

and then click the “Like” button, and you’ll be all signed up. If you “like” my author page it will show up in your friends’ news streams, and that’ll spread the word.  Some of you are already on there, and I thank you. Also thanks to those who gave me notes on this theme. (Talking ’bout Soho Serenity.)

Time to go eat lunch with the hubs.

I find myself wanting to do bullets for every post. With easy separation of my different topics, I don’t have to put too much thought into those pesky segues, or too much work into cohesion. The separation is the key; I’m not married to the bullets. When I saw how Darcknyt separated his topics by bold headers for several posts, I thought that might work better for me, too.

Then I thought I could just separate the topics into their own blog posts like a normal person, but since my blog is a snapshot of my mood at any given time, I find it nearly impossible to write posts for the future. So far I’ve used blogging as a way of impressing my personality onto the Internet, quite unintentionally. I don’t see it as a place to showcase my stories or to write persuasive posts, and I don’t treat the posts like magazine articles the way some do. That’s probably why I don’t draw a lot of readers.

I think I’ll try separating my topics into new posts. I’m experimenting, right? So maybe you’ll get three or four posts this week instead of the usual point-five.

Well, I tried and tried to fix the comment form so it would show your line breaks, and I just can’t figure it out. Lots of times when I hit a wall like this, if I just give it a little time it’ll become clear, so that’s what I’ll try. I know it’s annoying, but one day I’ll have it fixed. I like having my own website, though at times like these I wish I had stayed at the free WordPress blog. Every tiny problem means hours on the Internet trying to find a solution. *sigh*

In one week, the Little Bubba got the car door slammed on his fingers, ripped his hand open with barbed wire, got dive-bombed by a kite, fell of the front porch, and a bunch of other little owies I can’t remember. That kid has a bullseye painted on his back and fate has the darts. It’s gotten so every time I hear a thud or a shout I run straight to him. Good news is his little 8-year-old self is still “going good, great, happy” with his girlfriend.

The hubs is looking for a pickup. The van is getting more and more difficult to drive, so thank goodness we had a pretty good tax refund. We had decided to pay cash for an older vehicle rather than take on a car payment (you may remember that I have enough trouble keeping the bills paid as it is), but this afternoon we went looking and there’s just not that much to choose from in the older pickup department. And let me just define “older” for you by saying the ’97 Saturn I bought last year is the latest model I’ve ever owned.

I guess people either trade in their pickups every couple of years or they just keep them till they fall apart. The guy at Automax almost talked us into a 2007 Nissan Frontier by telling us he could get the payment down to $150 a month. But man, I just don’t know. One-fifty a month when I was paying zero will be hard to swallow, especially when I figure in the insurance thing. So what are your thoughts on buying an older vehicle that may need more repairs, or making monthly payments on a newer one?

Imagine my surprise when visited my stats and saw a big bump in my hits over the weekend. It’s been a long time since that happened, so of course I thought it was a mistake or a persistent spammer.

I was glad to find out it was a legitimate bump! Woo! My blog was featured on this group I belong to on SheWrites. Welcome to all the new visitors! Feel free to comment or subscribe to my feed. New posts aren’t as frequent as they used to be due to my working my butt off to get this book done, but of course you wouldn’t know that if you’re new! Forget I said anything.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my boy’s story. I let him read the g-rated comments (lookin’ at you, Knyt ;) and he was just thrilled he was such a hit. It also fluffed his feathers when the SheWrites reviewer mentioned his story specifically, saying she laughed so hard she woke the dog. I can’t link to the review because it’s a private group, but the reviewer is mystery writer Lauren Carr.

Full disclosure: After I posted the story he told me the “I could use a wetnap” part came from Spongebob. *sigh*

I’ll admit I haven’t been very active on SheWrites, but I’ve always thought I should be. If anybody wants to connect on SheWrites (which accepts men, too!), click that badge in my sidebar and I’ll see you there.

[Reading over this, it seems like all these paragraphs should be in a different order, but I don't care enough to change it. Read them in any order you like.]

Maybe it’s a good thing I haven’t snagged a publisher yet. It’s an accepted fact that publishing is changing in ways we can’t foresee. It’s possible that when the dust settles the Kindle will be law and physical books will be a novelty item. Of course the dust may not settle for years, maybe decades. We are in transition, for sure.

I don’t want to wait till the dust settles completely, but I would like to debut in a more stable marketplace than we have now. My goal for a long time has been to sign with one of the big sff publishers, like Tor (whose parent MacMillan just had a tussle with Amazon), DAW, Baen, etc. in book form, with electronic publishing secondary. I think this is still a viable goal, but in a few years it may be the other way around. Some of these little eBook publishers like Damnation Books/Eternal Press may emerge as the brass ring eventually.

But really, there’s no reason for me to speculate because I can’t control how or when I get published. All I can control is the book I’m writing right now and let the rest take care of itself.

Don’t know if any of you noticed, but I haven’t been interacting online much. I’m bored with all my usual things, i.e. Twitter, Facebook, and blogging, plus there has been an unusual development in my psyche, whereby the need/desire to write outweighs the distraction factor of the Internet. I’m still keeping up with what everybody’s doing, but it’s more out of habit. Probably twenty times in the past few days, I’ve typed out a whole comment and decided not to share, because I didn’t want to be distracted by the ensuing discussion. What an antisocial a-hole I am!

Nah, not antisocial. I find myself wanting to email people instead of commenting with a mass of other people. I’m tired of the Internet with its constant barrage of other people’s opinions. I’d rather be discussing things with folks one-on-one. This blog is a comfortable space for me, with a small circle of commentators, but then I’m forcing y’all to come here, and that’s not fair.

Besides, I’m getting tired of the whole blogging scene. I’ve added very few new blogs in the past two years to replace the ones that folded, and my circle is shrinking. I’m in a rut. A rut I’ve seen before, no doubt, but a rut nonetheless. Anybody know what the next big thing is going to be? Because I’m ready to jump on it.

I’m not hiding and I’m not mad and nothing bad is going on in my life. I’m happy to get emails and comments and tweets from you, and I’m sure this isn’t my final post. I’ll still be around on Facebook, too, but I might stop announcing what I had for breakfast. Just slowing down on the info overload.

I’m thinking about starting a new blog. No, not in place of this one…in addition to it. You probably want to know what it’s about, seeing as how I’ve run out of things to say on this one. I mean, my hits have tanked, people. My blog used to be a hub of interesting discussion and information. A hub, I tells ya!

I don’t want to tell you, but I’ve already started, so… I want to start a spiritual writing advice blog. I see so much concrete advice for the nuts and bolts of writing, but hardly any for the writer like me who stumbles around in the dark. I believe in writing from one’s spirit, because that seems to be the only way I can do it. I can’t force things, because then I get all stopped up, in writing and in spirit, and I think a lot of other people are that way and don’t know it. Strange how there’s so much noise in such a solitary activity.

So the first question is, do I have the qualifications to write an advice blog? Probably not. But I’ll show you what I have.

• I’ve written almost two books
• and about twenty short stories, none of which have been published, although a couple were well-received in contests.
• A decade ago I wrote a popular newspaper column for a year, which was basically exactly like what I do on this blog
• I have an agent and am actively seeking publication
• I was an editor for a few months last year
• I think I’m good at reading people and a good advisor, and the baring of my soul on this blog seems to get a better response than any other topic
• I’ve done a TON of work on my own self in this area

So see, the list is long, but none of the items is that impressive. It’s not like I’m an industry professional, or a spiritual advisor, or anything solid. So why do I need to start another blog? Why can’t I just write posts like that here? Well, because this blog is me, online. It’s centered around me and what I think and what I do, and while you’re all a necessary part of my happiness, it’s still like you’re coming to my house, you know? I’d like the new blog to be about the reader, and it can’t be on this blog which is named after me. I thought about calling it The Writing Guru, but that’s already a popular phrase in Google. Two other choices are Your Writer’s Soul and Spirit of the Pen, both of which are not being used. Or maybe You Are the Muse.

Topics? Well, I’d have writing book reviews, guest columns, reader questions, maybe a week-long feature where I delve into the writing psyche of a willing victim participant, and my own journey.

It’s probably stupid. It’s probably been done before, and I probably don’t have the follow-through. But that’s what I’m thinking about this morning.

I didn’t want the angry post to be up all weekend, so here’s one about my new template. I lurve it! See that flower up there? Put your cursor over it, you should be able to change the picture. The old template was pretty, but the code was written for a much older version of WordPress, and I think that’s why I was having such trouble with my website not letting people comment, and losing my graphics and stuff. Since I’m not a code master, I decided to just look for another one. I think this one will do.

I was thinking about how I needed to update my sidebar, because I know there are people who link to me but to whom I haven’t added a link but I waited too long and now I don’t know who they are. I used to love tinkering with my site, but lately it’s just been a chore. So I thought I would ask for help on this one.

So here’s what we’ll do, if you’ll indulge me:

• If any of you would like to be on my sidebar and aren’t, please leave a comment and let me know
• If you have a favorite writing or publishing site that isn’t on my list, put that in a comment and I’ll check it out.
• If you are already on my sidebar, please take a moment and make sure your URL is correct and, if you have more than one, that I’m using the one you prefer.

Well I am really liking this template. I feel like I’ve seen it around, but I guess it’s not over-used. I usually choose cleaner blogs with simple lines and a focus on the content, but I realized I rarely post pictures anymore, and having a busy template seems doable, as the graphics won’t be competing with images and video and yadda yadda. I still have a couple of chores to do with the template before I can call it good enough, such as adding an RSS button up top somewhere. (There’s one at the bottom…don’t ask me why the designer put it down there.) I’m also writing a new front page to tell a little bit about me and probably include a picture (which I must take), and I have to figure out how to get all my pages to show up where I want them to, but that one can come later. Tell me if you have any problems.

I walked with my daughter’s kindergarten class this morning on the yearly trip to the Pumpkin Patch. It’s not a real pumpkin patch, but an empty lot where the local Methodist church sells their pumpkins, and which over the years has grown to be a bumpkin amusement park. There’s a train engine and tractors and a fire truck to climb on, roping and bean bag toss games, and a homemade kiddie train pulled by a lawnmower. It’s country fun at its finest, and the kids have a blast. I was happy to have a school activity for which I could actually volunteer–since we were outside the whole time, the fragrance was negligible, especially since I took it upon myself to be the caboose along the way, while the other parents stayed up toward the middle of the line. Not only was I helping myself, but I also provided a needed service, which was keeping the stragglers somewhat with the group.

Maggie Rose was delightful, as usual, and was proud to have me there. I befriended a couple of other kids whose parents couldn’t come. I wish I’d had more time to talk to those two boys, because they seemed to have things they wanted to get off their chest, like having an adult willing to listen was an opportunity to be jumped on. I remember what it was like to be a kid without a voice. We all need to be heard.

The boy’s home sick today, one of those borderline illnesses where he’s not feeling terrible, but he’s contagious too. Since today’s the last day befor Fall Break, I decided to keep him home. You’re welcome, classmates.

I’m working on bringing some maturity and professionalism to the blog. Not a lot, mind you, just enough so when editors come here they don’t shriek and click away. I think I need to re-do my “about”, including bio and contact info. I came across this post about author websites from the point of view of an unpaid intern, and it reminded me that professionals who visit my site looking for information about me as an author don’t want to wade through posts about my sinuses, nor do they want to read my sad attempts at political diatribe. They want to know about my books, my experience, how to contact me, and how to contact my agent (though if they’re here it’s probably because she contacted them first).

I thought about creating two pages, one for editors and one for regular folks, the thought being that the info relevant to a visiting professional wouldn’t be buried within the site, but visible on the front page. Under each page would be sub-pages, the editor page having the professional info–contact, book descriptions, links to relevant posts, etc–and the regular folks page having the talky traditional About Me, and all the social media contact stuff. There may be some overlap.

Another thought is to have one About Me that everyone would visit, and on that page have a link for editors to click if they want. The goal is to make it easy for everybody to find what they want.

What do you think? I haven’t seen much besides the single About Me, with a vague outline of the blogger’s interests and location. I’d be grateful for a link to examples of other types.