Truths and A Lie with A Cautionary Tale

For my first post, I thought I'd help you all get to know me better by expanding on the truths and lies from my Mystery Blogger introduction.

Truths first:

• On her very first time volunteering at a regional SCBWI conference, Mystery Blogger introduced Well-Respected Editor without any verbal stumbles. And then as MB exited the stage, she promptly tripped over Well-Respected Editor’s purse and nearly faceplanted. There's more to this story--after my near-pratfall, I tried to recover with a "Ta-da!" Which might have worked, except that apparently no one had noticed me trip. So instead, they were wondering why I was ta-da-ing while Well-Respected Editor was trying to talk. Memorable for all the wrong reasons!

• The most cats that Mystery Blogger has ever had piled on her at one time is seven, distributed equally between her lap, feet, head, face, and shoulders. There were another five in the queue waiting for an opportunity. Or a fight to break out, which also clears the decks. I only have two cats (both reformed ferals and special needs) but I volunteer at a wonderful no-kill, cagefree cat sanctuary called Fat Kitty City.

There are over 100 cats, some adoptable but many permanent residents due to special needs. "Does this tie into writing at all, Angelica?" you may be asking. Yes, because last year I started up an online auction called Pens for Paws to raise money for FKC and it is chock full of critique opportunities for writers. If you're one of those, you might want to bid (starting March 12).

• While recording a video pitch for a PitchFest, Mystery Blogger misspoke “sets a ship afire” with a bad word that rhymes with ship. And then couldn’t stop laughing for the next twenty takes. Now whenever she talks about that book, most of her brain cells are devoted to screaming, “make sure you say ship!” This works approximately none of the time.

• Mystery Blogger once scared an agent on Twitter by trying to make a joke. Agent had tweeted something along the lines of “you don’t ever want to send me a query so bad it ends up on my Special List” and Mystery Blogger responded with “Challenge Accepted!” Agent tweeted back that the Special List was not meant to be aspired to and Mystery Blogger apologized profusely. They shared a laugh and became the best of friends. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I ended up on that list without even querying. So the moral of this cautionary tale is not to assume that agents can spot sarcasm in a 140-character tweet. Unless . . . she was being sarcastic and I've worried for nothing all this time???

On another note, in my "hello" paragraph I failed to mention exactly what kind of writing I do. I started out freelancing, with articles published on gardening, family travel, local history, natural history, pets, green living, and recipes for special diets. These days, I mostly write poetry, picture books, short stories, and young adult novels. So you can expect to see my future posts populated with any of the above subjects.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you all back here in two weeks for my next post!