The Curse of the Twelfth Month

Writers beware. It isn't wise to publish a book in December unless it's a Christmas story. Why?

1. It will be swamped by holiday-themed fiction.
2. A December publication date means you won't make "lists" for that year, because your book came out too late, yet you won't make "lists" for the following year, because your book wasn't published in that year. So keep in mind that a December non-holiday release will likely be consigned to a black hole.

In the Grand Scheme of Things, this certainly doesn't matter. But it can be a bit depressing.

Just sayin'.

What I Learned in 2012

FIAT LUX

• It's waaaaaaaay too easy to shop online.
• I need to take up knitting if I want more fans.
• Computer experts predict the Internet will soon be unable to accommodate all the blog tours going on. I'm getting nervous about people showing up at my house, demanding books and chocolate.
• Kindle with wifi off is far preferable to Kindle with wifi on.
• My underarm hair has mysteriously disappeared. I think it's now in JLA's ears.
• I still don't understand contests -- primarily, how they're judged and why writers shell out good money to to enter them (when, that is, the shelling out of money is required).
• Now that I have my own sanctum sanctorum in the house, my fondest dream is to have an unlimited movie-buying budget. I absolutely love whiling away the weekends watching movies!
• Dogs keep me sane.
• Maintaining gardens during a drought is hard work and often depressing.
• I'm a sucker for vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements, even though I have no concrete evidence they do any kind of good whatsoever.
• I suspect I'd earn more as an editor than a writer.
• My aversion to m/f romance has passed the point of no return.
• M/m romance saved me money by keeping me from buying Season 5 of "Queer as Folk." I couldn't stand watching an ending that wasn't a HEA or HFN.
• Readers can be weird.
• Writers can be weirder.
• Only Lanyon's Jake Riordan can get away with calling his sweetheart -- Adrien, of course -- "baby." (WTF is that about?)
• I can make money on Craigslist . . . and not by being an escort. (Yeah, had to give that up.)
• I'm going to chew the baseboards if Bart Yates doesn't release another book pretty soon.
• Crap rises to the top more easily than cream.
• I can live without a cell phone.
• My tolerance for small talk, ill-behaved children, homophobic bullshit, Internet wankery, and people without a sense of humor has reached an all-time low.
• Twitter is no longer a mystery to me.
• Facebook remains a mystery to me.
• Pinterest has no discernible reason for being.
• The Green Bay Packers aren't the worst team in the NFL, but they're far from the best.
• There's no longer any excuse for bad cover art.
• Goodreads is only good for me when I avoid my books' pages as well as the M/M Romance group.
• I'll never again be as prolific a writer as I once was.
• Now that I'm addicted to Gorton's tilapia, Marie Callender's Parmesan chicken pot pies, Progresso soups, Arby's roast beef sandwiches, Southern Comfort egg nog, and Heath candy bars, I no longer need to cook.
• I can keep my clothing budget to $12 a year by taking advantage of my local resale shop's bag sales.
• I'm sick to death of politics and politicians.
• Gun worship gone mad, schools turning out idiots, Christian fundamentalism, and the lack of universal heath care are our biggest national embarrassments.
• Only if I'm extraordinarily lucky will Merman have any readers once it's published.
• I'd like to write another YA novel, maybe set in the 1950s or '60s.