Wednesday, October 31, 2007

There's No Place Like Home...

Kevin dumped me a week before Halloween.

Did I mention that Halloween is my favorite holiday? I mean, how can you go wrong with a holiday that revolves around dressing up in cute clothes and eating chocolate?

That Halloween I didn't dress up. I spent the evening sitting on the carpet in flannel pjs watching The Wizard of Oz with my two dogs while my tweenage son pillaged the neighborhood with a plastic machine gun and a plaid pillowcase. I ate 17 mini Snickers and wished a house would fall on me.

In hindsight, I should have clicked my heels together and proclaimed, "Next!" Then donned a naughty nurse outfit. (Doesn't every woman have one of those?) And I should have gone to a fabulous costume party with my friends. I should have found a handsome vampire and made out with him in the coat closet--just because I could.

But I didn't.

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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are these excerpts from the book?

Annette said...

Well, yes and no. All the entries posted so far (and more to come) are the same events, and they happened on the same day as the journal entries in the book.

The posts aren't exact excerpts; they are paraphrased from the stories that are in the book, and additional commentary about my thoughts. The stories are true and are fleshed out in detail in the book.

This week, I'll try to catch up with all the things that happened in the book to-date--so I will have to back-date some posts until I'm current. =) But I’m only selecting some of the book's journal entries—the ones that I feel like writing more about. But, I am toying with the idea of adding stories to the blog that don’t appear in the book...

One of those stories is already on my *new* Break-Up Story Forum. It’s about my first step back into the dating pool after Kevin dumped me. It didn’t make it into the book, but I posted the mini-series version of it there. You can see it at www.mybreakupstory.com.

In case you were wondering, The Break-Up Story Forum is for all my heartbroken sisters to join me, sharing and dishing about past break-ups and the wonders and frustrations of dating and love. =) But I digress…

I wanted to design the blog to be a companion to the book. Once the book is out on Valentine's Day, the blog stories will correspond to my first Valentine's Day after the break-up with Kevin. That way, as the readers go through the book, they can comment on the blog about particular days they read about. Fun, huh? I think it will be!

You surprised me--or at least the email I received about your comment did. I haven't been getting notifications that anyone was commenting. And I didn’t really think anyone was reading the blog yet since I haven’t “put it out there” in directories or anything. And I haven't been posting regularly, so I just thought I was off the radar.

I've been busy getting the book ready to launch and have also been working on a women’s writing website that I am the Senior Editor for: www.wow-womenonwriting.com.

But I guess I actually have two people reading the blog now! Angela doesn’t count; she’s my friend and the graphic designer for the book cover. LOL So, I guess it’s just You = anonymous. And Jemima Joy. =) BTW, JJ, if you see this post, email me at annette@thebreak-updiet.com. When the first bulletin board needed to be updated, I had to harvest your break-up story so it wouldn’t get deleted. I saved it on my computer and I’d love to email it back to you so you can re-register for the new forum and post it back up there. It was a GREAT story and I’d hate to see all the work you put into typing it up go to waste! =(

Well, my two curious fans, thank you for showing up here! I’ll have to get busy now and give you something to read!

Anonymous said...

I'm actually waiting on a review copy that's coming to me of your book. So when I looked up your site, I was curious to see if these were excerpts from the book or not. :)

Enchanted by Books said...

Your book sounds great. I can't wait to read it.

Enchanted by Books said...

Oh ok it works now. Those anonymous comments were from me. For some reason my name wasn't working before when I tried to log in. Maybe I was putting in the wrong password. LOL

Enchanted by Books said...

I actually found your blog after the review site emailed offering your book, I googled you to see what it's about. I think it's a GREAT thing that you made a blog and site already because a lot of times when there's no info online about the book, I am less quick to review it. I like to know what it's about first. I saw the excerpt you had on here and thought it sounded great so I jumped at the chance to read it. :)

Sorry so many posts instead of just one.

Enchanted by Books said...

I just blogged about your book on my site if you want to see.

Annette said...

WOW! Thanks, Rachael! =) It's funny, I just got back home from the post office--I was mailing the book to you! LOL So, you should have it in a couple days--however long it takes to get from CA to NJ.

FYI, the tone of the book is very similar in places to the commentary I'm posting on the blog. But the book is the actual story of what happened. It's written in diary format because it was harvested from journal entries. But it "drops you into" he experience of each day, it's not a recap like an actual diary would be.

You'll see. ;-)

Now I'm off to check out your blog...

Enchanted by Books said...

Thanks Annette! I can't wait to read it!! Thanks for the info about the book. I'm sure I will love it. Sounds so good already. :)