The day I wasn't me

I was tickled pink by the wide range of guesses you offered in yesterday’s Guess what’s weird contest.

Though the tickling made me feel warm and tingly and strangely eager to lick your neck, I’m sorry to say there was no true winner.

Some of you came close to guessing what was weird about yesterday’s post, but none of you flat out suggested the possibility that I didn't write the post at all.

The real author was regular blog commenter Simon C. Larter, who I must say, did a damn fine job impersonating me.

Confused yet?

It started with Simon pondering whether he could mimic my voice convincingly enough that blog readers wouldn’t notice the switch. I was game, and also intrigued by the experiment.

The subject of an author's voice is something near and dear to my heart. During the long, bumpy path to my current three-book deal, my agent often forwarded me comments from editors. The #1 thing they'd praise was the uniqueness of my voice.

In my first conversation with Deb Werksman (who would later become my editor at Sourcebooks) she offered the same praise.

The she slugged me in the gut. "But I can't sell voice," she pointed out.

It was the first time I'd ever heard someone suggest that, and I'll admit, I was annoyed. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized she's right. You can't sell a no-name debut author based solely on voice. How do you put that on a book cover? How do you explain it to the average book buyer?

You don't. At least not without telling instead of showing, and we all know that isn't effective in writing.

That's why I started this blog. Here, I can sell voice. I'm not saying you should mail me a stack of unmarked bills (though if you have the urge, I'll give you my address). The reason I'm committed to blogging every single weekday is that it gives me a chance to show my voice. To offer free samples. If you happen to like it, there's a good chance you'll buy my books.

Oh, and lest you think Sourcebooks has no strategy for selling me, don't fret. That's why we all worked hard to refine my marketing hook – the idea that "normal is nice, but weird can be wonderful." It's at the core of all three books in my contract, and it's a lot easier to pitch from a marketing standpoint. Sourcebooks can sell that, I can sell voice, and if we happen to fail, we can sell my books out of the back of a van while a guy with a pipe-wrench stands there looking menacing.

But back to the contest. I've gotta hand it to several of you for picking up on the general idea of what was weird about yesterday's post. Sarah W pointed out the oddness of the suggestion that I might voluntarily clean, the presence of a LOLbunny, and the fact that there was no plan to choose winners based on creative random associations. All excellent observations from someone who's clearly been reading this blog closely.

Shakespeare noticed the LOLcat thing, too – for the record, I'm not really a LOLcat (or LOLbunny) kinda girl.

CKHB made another excellent observation with this: "It's the first time I think I've seen you mention a BAD consequence to drinking wine. I can't remember you previously writing about drinking to ease depression - usually you seem to drink in joy and celebration!"

Also a valid observation. In fact, I've gotten on my soapbox about not drinking when you're bummed. All jokes aside, it's something I take seriously.

Nate Wilson and Plamena Schmidt both picked up on the parenthetical heh (I'm partial to the parenthetical snicker).

I've gotta hand it to Laurie Lamb for this observation: "Is it weird how you talk about Zinfandel in this post and link to a post where Jennifer Paris (a.k.a. Jeffe Kennedy) picked Zinfandel #28 in the Petal and Thorns giveaway AND it's EXACTLY 28 weeks until your book release?"

Woah. That's a trip.

And I had to laugh about lora96's comment, "What struck me was the lack of naughtiness in the post title. I can usually count on the name of the post for a giggle."

Ironically, the headline is the only part I did write.

Those of you I just singled out for getting close, drop me an email with your address. You certainly earned the booty bag.

And can we get a round of applause for Simon? I think he did a tremendous job impersonating me for the day. Mimicking another author's voice is crazy difficult, and it's actually a great exercise for fine-tuning your own voice. Have you tried it? It's a whole lot harder than it looks.

I explained this to Pythagoras last night, pointing out what an amazing job Simon did with the impersonation.

"He really nailed me," I said.

Pythagoras looked pained. “Why do I have a feeling you’re going to use that line on the blog?”

I just did, honey. I just did.