Blogging Announcement!

Hey sorry for the trickery but I used that exciting title to try to entice some of you to come read ... again.

I'm going to try something different this weekend, partly to make up for no guest blogger today and partly just to see how it works.

I do want to make a very serious point first. I LOVE LOVE LOVE all my blogging buddies. All the other novice writers and even agented but unpublished authors out there who show love and support are so cool ... I'm not even sure I know how to properly express my thanks. I'm not going to do links here because I'm on a iMac here at home and my keyboard is basically pretty effed up but ... there are some particular people I would like to thank:

Justine Dell. We met on NB's forums. She was one of the first to give my query an honest crit. She was my first guest poster. She is my FBFITB.

Cole Gibsen. Cole is the coolest writer/samurai/ninja/homegirl that you have never met. She was my second guest blogger and though she is not YET published her crazy awesome debut novel KATANA is due out in 2012. Right Cole?

Rachele Alpine. Rachele is an English Teacher AND an MFA student and she is also going to be published soon. Her debut novel CANARY is on submission and shall be published soon. She rules because she is very helpful with crits and has a wonderful positive attitude.

Bish Denham. I won't go into details but Bish was the first one to "show me the ropes" of blogging and what kind of behavior is acceptable, what is borderline, and how to respect your fellow bloggers. She was honest and real and I truly appreciate it.

The Alliterative Allomorph. Jessica is one of the best ever because she had the stones to email me and ask if I was ignoring her on purpose (I hope it's okay to share about this Jess! I love ya!). I wasn't but I WAS new to blogging and had never followed her even though she commented on like my whole second week's worth of posts. If she hadn't said something I would have missed out on one of the coolest, realest, most honest writers I now know.

Tahereh. TH Mafi is the most talented writer I know. Period. That would be enough to make her awesome but she is also a prolific commenter on my blog and a fiercely loyal friend. I want to compare her to Sam Gamgee/Sean Astin here but I'm concerend she may be insulted.

Candace. Candace did a guest post too for her ridiculously unique novel. Which is great, but what really strikes me about her is that she is the most like me of all the bloggers I know. She's street smart as hell but still optimistic and a dreamer. She's honest but still smart enough to know when NOT to tell the truth, but most of all she's ghetto fabulous, in a good way.

Katie the Creepy Query Girl. Katie is still a mystery to me, mostly. As an American living in France she pretty much has the life we all envy but her writing is very crisp and she has just about the most classic sounding novel I've heard of in years.

Shannon McMahon. Shannon was the first person EVER to ask me for advice about blogging. We met on NB's forums which is like an auto gold star for our friendship but seriously ... I was such a noob I didn't know what to say to her! The advice I DID give her she took to heart and now she has one of my very favorite blogs. My only complaint it that since she has her own domain she needs to set it up so that I can download her recipes. THIS CHICK CAN COOK Y'ALL!

Lindsay aka Isabella. Lindsay is another sort of shy friend just like me. She is one of my very top commentators but she is totally on top of keeping us all up with the blogoshpere on her blog.

Jen from Unedited. Can you believe this lovely lady isn't published, isn't agented and hasn't even started querying yet? I can't.

Slam Dunks. I believe this guy is an ex-cop. He may or may not even be writer (though his blogging rules, and as far as I'm concerned that counts). What I love is that he spreads the knowledge about stories that should not have yet been laid to rest. And he is a first class family man, like me (I hope).

Sheri from Graffiti Wall. Sheri, known to many as Salarsen is the hippest chick out there. She's a writer, a dancer, a mother and a lovely wife but she is down with the illest styles and spends her time doing her best to highlight other people's careers.

Lisa and Laura Roecker. I don't know quite what to say about these two but they are pretty much like rock stars. I call them Lady LiLa, which is just like Lady Gaga but with two heads and MORE style.

Elana Johnson. Elana is like the quarterback at your local high school except she's nice. The analogy only works because she's famous AND accessible but it doesn't really apply because she is so much more giving than your average Al Dallas (that was the QB's name on my Chattanooga TN HS football team. I was a tight end. I swear this is true.)

Suzette Saxton. Suzette was the first blogger to send me a Google friend connect request. Then she introduced me to several of the best blogs I've yet discovered. Her sister Bethany is pretty cool/nice too but it was Suzette who reached out to me.

And here we come to the point. This is where I want to make something crystal clear. I'm worried that I offended some people with what was taken as a complaint about Suzette. If you look at today's earlier post you'll see a comment by an anonymous poster in which I was taken to task a little for what I said about Suzette. I sincerely hope it was a misunderstanding because I have an inkling of a clue that that poster actually knows something about Suzette that I don't.

I just want it to be known that me in particular, but I suspect other novice writers feel the same, really really, REALLY appreciate that agented, soon to be published, and even sometimes published authors take the time to participate in our blogs and give of themselves selflessly, hoping to assist in others reaching their dreams as they have done.

As a contributing author on the Query Tracker blog, Suzette is one of the very few who give so much that many of us can't quite comprehend it. I'm essentially mortified that someone would think that I would say, let alone think, anything negative about her. I sincerely hope that if she finds the time to see these posts she discovers the truth at the heart of them.

I'm not the smartest guy around but I care a lot about writing, reading and publishing and I think that people like Suzette, who are willing to mentor others, even if just a little bit, should be considered gems of islands in this turbulent sea of hope toward becoming published.

That's all I have to say about this right now but I'll make a promise for the sake of posterity. If I get ten comments on this weekend post I'll do another and tell you guys a bit about my unique critique group.