Memes and Miracles

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” –Albert Einstein

Lately, I’m leaning toward ‘everything is a miracle’ because so many good things are happening.

I’ve been memed, which is not actually a miracle. In fact, those that have followed this blog for a while know how I feel about memes and chain letters. Those that don’t, see my March 20, 2008, blog. I said never again. But I really like Emma Larkins and not just because she interviewed me on her blog. She has also helped me improve my blog (notice there are no long streams of URL’s, just tidy little words to click on). Thank you Emma! I think everyone should check out her blog. It’s interesting and I always learn something from reading it.

The meme is to list six book-related things about myself. I’m going to twist this just a bit and use the opportunity to list six things about The Ride. These days, I feel as though there is no separation between me and the book—we are one. I consider the following six things little miracles.

1. Tuesday night I did a one-hour radio interview with Michael DeMarco of The Biggest Radio Show (click 11/11/08 Archive) in the World on Voice America. Thank goodness I had no idea I’d be on for a whole hour or I’d be more panicked than my usual unnerved pre-radio interview state. Overall, it went okay. But like the radio shows before, I thought up many clever things to say once the interview was over. Also, by the last segment of his show, I unfortunately went brain dead and could not come up with a movie, video or even three Beatle songs that I liked. I was so unprepared and yet I still enjoyed and hopefully learned from the experience. Michael DeMarco was fun and easy to talk to. Besides how could I not like talking to someone who called me ‘hot’ and told people to buy my book! Don’t just tune in for my interview, all his shows sound fun and interesting.

2. The Ride is shown in the ‘What’s New in the Bookstore’ section and I also have an article in the ‘Publishing Your First Book' section of Once Written. This site is also a great source of information for both authors and readers.

3. By using Google Alerts*, I came across an interesting blog site, Debbie’s Idea. The site is a free service for book recommendations. There I saw my name listed with authors like Wally Lamb and Donna Tartt. If that wasn’t exciting enough, when you click on my name, you are taken to a review. The review basically says my book was an excellent read and they had a hard time putting it down. Thank you, whoever you are, for taking the time to post that review!

4. BookLoons is a wonderful resource for book reviews of fiction, non-fiction, teens and childrens books. Joan Burton at BookLoons gave The Ride a good review. Though very pleased by her remarks, I haven’t posted much on the review because I think it gives away too much of the plot. So if you have read the book, check it out. If you haven’t read it yet, I’ll quote the last line, “Don’t miss it.”

5. J. Kaye of J. Kaye’s Book blog has not reviewed my book yet but imagine my delight when I saw the October photo of ‘What’s on Your Nightstand’. There is The Ride sitting right on top of Anne Rivers Siddons novel Off Seasons. How cool is that!

6. I just recently checked Amazon and noticed I had two new reviews. Both excellent reviews and both written by men. I thought the audience for The Ride would be women of all ages. I am so thrilled that men are also enjoying the book.

*Google alert, for those that don’t know, is a helpful tool that allows you to enter key words. When those words are used in blogs, you receive notification by email. I use The Ride and my name as keywords. I get a lot of alerts that are not related to me as there are at least two other writers named Jane Sutton. One writes children’s books and one is a journalist. As you can imagine, there are also lots of alerts for rides of all kinds. So when one actually pertains to me, it’s all the more exciting.

I should tag people to continue the meme, but the bloggers I know have already been memed or feel the way I do about chain letters. However, if you are a blogger and would like to be memed, please let me know.

I’m curious about your views on memes and chain letters. Do you respond or do you ignore them?

Thanks for stopping by,

Tags: The Ride, meme, Michael DeMarco, Emma Larkins , The Biggest Radio Show in the World, Once Written, Debbi’s Idea, Wally Lamb, Donna Tartt, Book Loons, Amazon, J. Kaye Blog, Anne Siddons, Off Seasons, Albert Einstein