My Great American Rock Novel

Wow! I forgot to write about Boogie's! It was okay-no, it was just like last time. Friday was great, Saturday was dull until we were ready to finish. Noël, Jack, Roslyn, and Denny were there, so it was cool to have friends around.
Killeen was fun too. It was fun to hang by the pool all night Friday-down time on the road is cool. Saturday-not many people at the Festival, and there was only one sound guy doing everything by himself rather slowly...Tony didn't even have a drum monitor. That part was weird, but we played well. Randy Dennis(Tracy Byrd's former piano player) sat in with us and was awesome. He's got the whole stoner personality going on...he's sooo cool.
Duck Horn Tavern was the highlight of the weekend. People loved us. It was the first time "Workin For the Weekend" actually got a response. Some woman showed Don a dirty text message but I didn't see what it was. It was a real boost to his confidence that women were finding him attractive. I think a lot do anyway, he just wants to feel old and sorry for himself.
I had a blast once I sucked down a Choco-Tini and a couple of mudslides. It was just nice that people were actually being appreciative of the band, instead of the dead, confused looks we get when we play in Arkansas.
I still haven't sent any new queries out but I will as soon as school's out. I'm still targeting victims to read it locally. Three of my students are going to be reading via e-mail, and Karen Taylor has the first half of the hard copy. I do need to warn her-just in case she gets keyed up about sex, drugs, and rock & roll, but she's pretty raunchy herself so she probably won't mind. And she reads romances so it shouldn't be too much of a shocker.
It's Metal Month on Vh-1. They were showing "Rock Star" last night. Once I was over my tiff with my significant other, I was inspired to write, which I love to do when no one else is home so I can concentrate. I'm really going to enjoy writing this sequel. It's going to be really good. Noël has her own MySpace now and mentioned my "untitled" novel on her homepage. Hadn't expected that! Thanks, sistah!
This semester can't end soon enough. I'm so bored anymore and wish I could do other things. If I could just play music and write that would be cool. But alas...here I am...again on my own...going down...oops, Whitesnake moment!

Well, actually more.
StarDaze went very well. I even got to sign a bunch of autographs-mainly for kids. And some funny-looking drunk guys over fifty with only two teeth in their head. Okay, I shouldn't be mean. But why can't some really cool guys ask for my autograph???
Steve Azar's band was really good. His drummer was cool and hung out with us for a while. There weren't a lot of people there when we played, but everyone who was seemed to like it. The staff was really appreciative. Kirt stole some Girl Scout Cookies, Quentin was interested in the fourteen-year-old sunglass girl, and Leger survived his first major performance without throwing up from anxiety. Friday night we played really well. I started getting bored by the middle of Saturday's gig. It started to get hot and my feet were hurting. I was exhausted when I got home Sunday. The house was okay but Thor was gone. He was home when I left Friday but he got out somehow and hasn't come back, nor has Animal Control picked him up. I guess our little cockapoo is gone for good now. I haven't even had time to grieve.
I'm so bored at work. I did actually get work done this week-all my grading is caught up and my new online courses are almost ready. This semester can't end soon enough.
The sequel still rolls around in my brain. I've mostly been hand-writing everything. I've got two of the most dramatic parts going on at the same time: one near the middle and one near the end. I have tons of notes and started mapping out the timeline on an Excel document. I stare at pictures of Cherif for inspiration. It's scary to look at a real person who looks exactly like the one you created in your head. Noël and I look at him and ache!!
I've completely reprinted the manuscript(it still fits in two binders!) and have zeroed in on my next victims-three students in the Spanish class who are the same age as I and lived through the rocker years also. We'll see what they think...April and Jane skimmed through the Prologue and were already interested.
I'll probably start sending out query letters again once school is out. I've pretty much heard from the few I'd already sent. I'm almost ready to look into self-publishing. Sunni Thibodeau told me though-You're not a writer until you can wallpaper your office with rejection letters. I've thrown mine away, especially those that just say "Dear Writer, Your stuff basically sucks, although we don't really know that because we didn't even read your query letter."
I did send in my Karaoke story to the Writer's Digest competition. I still think it's pretty good-as did Heather and Noël, my two biggest fans.
We play Boogie's in Hot Springs tonight and tomorrow. I hope it's as fun as last time. We've added some new tunes. I just hope when I have to sing "Redneck Woman" no one thinks that it's my personal anthem. I almost want to announce a disclaimer before I have to perform it. It will be popular in the club, but...redneck and me don't even belong in the same sentence.
Okay, I guess I'm outta here. I'm just killing time until I can leave the campus!!!

Let's see. It's the last day of Spring Break and I've enjoyed it far too much: sleeping late and doing nothing constructive. I did get the bathroom and bedroom clean, and caught up the laundry. I did some grocery shopping, too. And actually cooked a meal Sunday. I did have fun at the Double L Ranch opening-doing tequila shots with the Bethanys and dogging the rather dismal band. The Hurricanes are actually better than these guys. Sad, really. I did some miscellaneous shopping and bought some "housewife porn." (Romance novels...ha, ha.) I also glanced through some books at Hastings-my stuff's on par with what I saw, so...
The Artists & Artisans agent e-mailed today, saying the book is more like watching Vh-1, the prose needs to be more raw and edgy...something like that. It bummed me out some, but oh well. It's just schmalzty commercial fiction...I'm not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize, or move the earth with my prose...it's just my hair metal love story that I'm very proud of, and thought maybe some other people might like to read it because it's a decent story. A long-haired guy who falls in love and goes crazy.
The first chapter is done, and I sent it to Noel. I feel the need to get the sequel written before it drives me nuts because I can't shut it off in my head. I bought a little notebook to carry around so I can write ideas down and it's filling up quick. With voodoo love rituals, Chinese character tattoos, strip clubs, sex while listening to Led Zeppelin II...I still think it's a cool story, even if it is about a "has-been." We all start to feel like "has-beens" as we push forty...
The original manuscript is ready though. I managed to shave off eighty pages, but it's still over 300,000 words. That's a lot I know, but it still reads quick, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's still funny, and sexy, and...okay, I'll shut up now. They can look down their noses at me, but pop culture is life. (Insert laughter here.)
Meanwhile, Noel and I are looking for men to model for the book cover, and I think we've found him. He's a romance cover model, and he's HOT. Too short, too much body hair, but he'll do. There's also this guy I found on the Penthouse website...dressed like an Indian, all this long, dark hair...where are these men in REAL life?
Okay, okay, I'm rambling. But we went out to the country club, Raymond bought our Coronas for us, as well as a shot of tequila, and I was smashed once we got home. I usually write my best stuff when I'm loaded, but that e-mail crushed me. She wasn't mean, just discouraging. I'm sure I'm not the first to feel this way. Even the greats were rejected, blah, blah, blah...so I forge ahead to our gigs coming up this month in Star City, Hot Springs, and Killeen. We're going to be busy.
Oh, and I probably won't hear from Rock Star either. It's just as well. Am I whining? Let's all be depressed! I need some sleep. I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning. Especially after this buzz finally wears off.
I'll be so ready when the school year is over!!!

That's about all I can say. It's Wednesday.
And it's been a while since the last post. Did I not write about going to Shreveport to the Hustler Club? What happened there? Did I save it as a draft accidentally? I could've sworn I wrote about that. Now it's not like my husband and I frequent strip clubs, but it was the only place in Shreveport that played rock music. I think it's the only place anywhere that plays rock music. And when they played "Figured You Out" on that Saturday night just before we left, I thought I was gonna freak out. I like that song way too much. So much so that when I was listening to it yesterday I missed the turn at Lockesburg on my way to Nashville and ended up having to go through Mineral Springs to get there. I was ten minutes late to my adjunct faculty observation.
I hate when I can't get the ideas in my head to turn off. I started on the first chapter of my sequel right after I came back from Shreveport. I had some of the first page down, then wrote the other scene that's toward the end-I had to get that one down. I worked on most of the first chapter again while at the doctor's office and the whole time I was observing Larry Cross's class. He's teaching the music class, like I do every week, so he was just lecturing on the Classical symphony...like I don't know about that already. He's doing the same things I am-so he passed his observation.
Here's some good news though-despite the two rejection(form) letters I got over the weekend. An agent from Artists & Artisans e-mailed, requesting the first five chapters. Wow. So I spent Monday morning tweaking some things and sent them in a big .pdf file. It's making me nervous, and all I can think of is what she'll find wrong with it. It's kind of a shame the middle and latter parts of the book are better than the beginning-but maybe the characters and the writing will be enough to get someone started. This agent is also a musician and dancer, and the agency doesn't have a long list of clients so maybe this is the way to go. One of the novels they sold is called the "Tuesday Erotica Club." A non-fiction book they represented is something like "The Metrosexual's Guide to Living." Not exactly high-brow literature, but that's not what I wrote. It's an indedpendent agency that's not even listed in my Writer's Market books. I always think "Wayne's World"-"I just hope you didn't think it sucked!"
That e-mail lifted my spirits some-I was beginning to get kind of down about it. But many writers have been turned down numerous times. You just have to keep trying.
I got my audition tape off to Rock Star: Season 2. The band is Tommy Lee's new band Supernova. Argggg...That would be something. I doubt the tape got there in time-I had trouble trying to figure out how to edit and Tony had to do it for me. I sent it express, but it got there a day after the Friday deadline-although the application itself said Monday March 25th. Strange, because the 25th was Saturday. Hmm...anyway, the Hawg's gig was good, but it wasn't my best. I was still battling my cold and I don't like the way I looked. I was almost over my cold until I caught one again last Friday. I went to Dr. Walker yesterday, but have to wait until I get my paycheck to go pick up my prescriptions. I should be better by the time StarDaze rolls around.
In the meantime, I'm almost finished cutting the word count on the manuscript. I took a lot out of the beginning, and have managed to cut out about 15 pages. I'm almost to the end sequence now, when they go to Las Vegas, and I've cut back the profanity and cleaned up some love scenes. (Bummer.) I'll probably have to cut the piano scene...and that turned out so well. Anyway, I'm still proud of my little hair metal love story, and am excited about its continuation. I feel like I can't get it written down fast enough. I'll probably spend all summer writing it. Then I'll be done with my sexy bass player for awhile, at least until I can get more ideas for the "prequel." It'll be sad to let him go.

Well, well, well...got my first rejection e-mail today. Not for us but best of luck!
I didn't like that agency's website anyway. No, I knew I get those. Just wait till they start coming in the real mail! Where you actually have to hold it in your hand and...blah, blah, cry, cry.
I continue to fix the manuscript. I've been able to pare some chapters down. And it's getting better...the writing and the story. I've cut a lot of the profanity...which in a way is disappointing. Now I feel it's lost some of the realism and characterization. Having to clean up my drummer's language just doesn't work...
I've grown way to attached to this story. It's almost like an obsession-all I want to do is read and fix it. All I did during the gig this weekend at Hawg's was write the sequel in my head. I've got a lot of great ideas. I wrote the timeline during the faculty meeting last Friday. It's a lot of ideas I already had, but now they just keep coming. It's sad, really. I'm in love with my hero and want to be there, back in the days of my youth when spandex and eyeliner ruled. People dog it out so much now, but we really did have a good time and those are still some great tunes.
I've been in la-la land. It's tough to be locked up in your own imagination. I got too cracked up watching homestarrunner.com-Strong Bad E-mail and his stuff about death metal bands and rock operas. I was laughing so hard I was in tears. I also like that Nickelback song too much.
Don and I fixed up the extra bedroom so I have an office again. I've spent every night on the computer. It will be nice when Don's gone on this big install and I'll have the house to myself(aside from taking care of Cass) and will be able to get the manuscript polished some more. I just hope that when someone asks to look at it they won't think it sucks. I think it turned out pretty good. It's just schmaltzy commercial trash fiction-plain old-fashioned entertainment. So someone might want to read it...

Noël and Heather have both finished reading-and they love it!! I had Heather crying all the way to Houston. She was even calling me at work to tell me about it.
I got brave and sent my first e-mail queries Monday. Tuesday, I actually got a reply from Coral Press, who publishes nothing but musical fiction. He said they were more literary than commercial, but if I'd send the first two chapters, he'd take a look at it. Wow!!
I don't have my hopes up too high, but I figure if he's willing to take a look despite the fact it's not what they normally do, that's a good sign. My query letter must be pretty good. I also think having my degree and being married to a former Coral Reefer band member is helpful.
I posted a short scene-(Randy's walk on the balcony in Las Vegas)-on the Writer's Digest Forum(of course warning readers of the language) and I actually got some positive feedback, which was to tone down the profanity. Sure, I can do that, that's not a problem at all. But they liked the story...and the writing. One person said it was "intriguing and very real." Maybe too real? With all those F-bombs? These are eighties hair rockers. "Fuck" and "Shit" are as common as "and" and "the." But I guess it is pretty intense if you're just the average reader. I read back over the excerpt last night, and there's just one paragraph, Randy's rant, that goes a little overboard but the rest isn't that bad. That's me, though, but I'm used to it. Noël and Heather didn't see that as a problem, either, throughout the book. That was just normal dialogue for the time and characters. I do want the book to have a wider appeal, so I'll be using the backspace bar a lot it looks like.

Whew!
Long deep breath, sigh of relief...it's done! Now I wanna cry.
I went to my mother's and wrote all weekend, from the time I got there until 2 a.m. Sunday morning. I only stopped to eat and run around Mena for about two hours. Oh, and I did sleep some. I even took the laptop from the den to my old bedroom so I could write the last words in the exact same place I wrote the first ones. I would've been sitting in the same spot on the floor but I would've had to move the furniture.
I cried like a baby during the last chapter, and the epilogue. Not because it's that sad, it's just very emotional, and I've been trying to get to this point for almost twenty-one years. It's also sad because those days in music are gone, and I wish I could go back there. Everyone criticizes it so much now, but we had a really good time then. It was just cool...
Now the hard part-sending out query letters. I sent three via e-mail this morning. Then noticed they had a typo. Well, that's just great. I sent one to Coral Press, which is a regular publisher, and two to some agents. I thought I might as well dive in. I don't expect this book to be a national best-seller or see it as a in-depth attempt to look at hair metal and culture, I just think it's a pretty good story with cool characters and someone from my generation might enjoy reading it. It's just dirty, schmaltzy commercial fiction.
I already have a lot in mind for the sequel! Erg....
I'll miss Jon for a while. He's my dream man-my perfect male alter ego. Now it's time to take Paul Hackman's picture off my desktop. That's gonna be a tough one.
I'll just send out my queries, and hope for the best. In the meantime, my band's working on its original stuff, and our gigs kick back off this weekend in Hot Springs. Yippee!!