Dear friends and lurkers alike,

I just wanted to let you know that I did not advance to the Semifinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. Don’t worry, I’m not upset at all. I knew the second half of my book had some problems that I hadn’t fixed, so I was very happy just to get this far.

The best part of this whole thing for me has been the overwhelming support I got from you all. It really energized me at a time that I was feeling a little burnt out, and now I’m ready to get to work making the whole book just as good as the opening excerpt – or better!

So thank you very much for your kind words and encouragement. It’s the end of the Amazon line, but definitely not the end of my journey to publication. ;)

“Everybody in this league is successful,” Allen said. “Everybody in this league has made it to this level where they’re a flagship in their society and their community where they grew up. People look up to them. They’re outliers in their world.

“We’re not outliers among ballplayers, but we’re outliers amongst the people that we grew up around. I started analyzing why that is. What made me successful? I was successful because of the opportunities that I had, outside of the other opportunities that people had, the breaks, people pushing me forward. The communities I grew up in, people were always adding an extra five bucks to get me to camp. The same thing that Bill Gates went through with the computer access. I had access to a gym, just the same. Once I started going there, people started seeing my passion for it, they started helping me.

“That’s why I always tell people, no matter what sport you’re in, whether it’s team or individual, everybody has a team. There’s a crew that helped get you where you are, no matter how you see it, how you look at it. You start thinking about it, analyzing situations. Anybody in this locker room, people helped you achieve your goal.”

(From a great ESPN column by J.A. Adande. Emphasis added by me.)

I’m not religious, but Easter was one of my favorite holidays growing up. I mean, who doesn’t love yummy chocolate, baby chicks, and giant bunny rabbits? In fact, I was a lot more upset to learn that the Easter Bunny wasn’t real than Santa Claus. But maybe I always suspected Santa. His handwriting was too similar to my dad’s distinctive architect’s lettering.

This is me (age 10-ish), my friend Austin, some random girl I don’t know, and Mr. and Mrs. Easter Bunny. I’m not sure I knew there was a Mrs. Easter Bunny before that day, but hey, every-bunny needs some-bunny, right?

Wait a minute, I thought every Friday was good by default?

I know this one was:

From the Friday I spent in Florence with Mengfei (whose birthday was yesterday!) two many summers ago.

Any publicity is good publicity, right?

• Green Pasture Christian Bookstore – The Good Daughters (link gone)
• Intelligent Investor Club – The Good Daughters (link gone)

I’m neither a good Christian nor a good investor, so I’m not sure what to think…

Anyway, there’s just about a week left until I find out the fate of my novel The Good Daughters in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read, rate, and review it yet, I’d love for you to check it out before the 15th. After that, it will probably be taken off Amazon. Unless of course it makes it to the Semifinals (top 100 entries), but that’s highly unlikely.

(That’s not modesty, haha, that’s insider knowledge. The excerpt is WAY more polished than the rest of what I submitted. But I’m working on getting the rest up to par…)

For those who have already helped me rack up my ridiculous number of positive reviews, thank you so much!!

From a Houston Chronicle interview with Sandra Cisneros, author of the incomparable House on Mango Street:

Q: While your books are not directly autobiographical, you often take and remake people and incidents from your own life. Correct?

A: Yes, but I mix it up with people not myself. Sometimes I’ll take my story and mix it with a cousin or students. I feel like I’m this artist who uses whatever is at hand. It’s kind of like cooking with whatever is in the pantry. I don’t know any other way.