Something is drastically missing from my holiday season this year.
Namely?
Those How-great-is-my-family?-Oh?-You-didn't-know?-Let-me-tell-you! letters.

You know them. You have a least one friend or family member in your circle that feels the need to send you a letter recapping the accomplishments of each and every one of their family members for an entire year.

What's that all about anyway? At what point (as a parent) do you think, "EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, needs to know how great we are. And if they don't know? Well, for goodness sake, we're going to tell them!"

I like hearing about friends or family members just as much as the next person. But really? How annoying is it that little Johnny hasn't done anything bad for an entire year? I mean, SERIOUSLY? For AN ENTIRE YEAR the only thing that little Johnny has done is win awards?
And join 27 organizations.
Where he's the president and/or MVP of ALL but one.
Not to mention that he teaches Sunday school.
To the other preschoolers in his class.
And has advanced to the 7th grade.
At the ripe age of 4.

Come on, people. I don't know about you, but I live in the real world. You remember that one? The one where there's too much stress because there's no money. Anxiety over the state of the world. The one where little Johnny gets sent to the principal's office for making a sexual advances at little Sally in first grade. The one where you get too much food and too little exercise. The one where your parents get sick too soon and your friends lose their job.

You now - REAL LIFE. THAT's the holiday letter I'm sending next year.

I get that maybe it's just me. (BAH HUMBUG...whatever). I mean, I had sixteen pictures of Ella sitting on Santa's lap printed into a Christmas card to send to our closest friends and family and I felt WEIRD about sending those. (And I even had some leftover!).

Hell, I don't even *gasp* carry a picture of my kid in my wallet (look, there's a lot going on in there with 3,722 pieces of change, some fuzzy gum and all those membership cards to now-defunct organizations, what do you want me to do?).

These are all things I plan to explore further about myself in the new year.
With Dr. Phil.
On one of his forums.

But for now? I'm starting next year's holiday letter. It opens with, "Dear Big Fat Fakers and Liars..."

As reported previously, my freelance writing sites are quite a waste, providing much more amusement than potential for work. This week's posting winner:


I am a teacher looking for someone to help me write student recommendations. I have about 15 to write, and they must be completed by October 20th. I can provide you with background on each student, his/her strengths and weaknesses, and the context for each recommendation. I need someone to physically write them. Each one would need to be unique and not a template. Please get in touch with me if you can do this job, and have good positive feedback and are a competent writer. Please also suggest a total cost for 15 letters of recommendation.


Now, really. What has this world come to?!? I'm thinkin' that in the time you spend to provide me with a background of each of the 15 students and his/her strengths/weakness and context, (or, in the time you took to write and post the AD) you could've, oh, I don't know, spent the time WRITING YOUR OWN DAMN STUDENT RECOMMENDATIONS...

Wow.
What's next? Young hottie teachers having sex with their students?!?

You know, I can't really figure out if freelance websites are useless or if it is just me. I belong to a couple of these sites where people/businesses list jobs and I can bid on the job if I feel so inclined. Honestly, it's very rare that I feel so inclined. Luckily, most of my freelance work comes from one publishing company that I've been EXTREMELY BLESSED to work with on a regular basis for about 5 years (don't get me wrong, I still need fill-ins for down times, thus membership to the freelance sites). Other stuff comes from referrels. After that? I can't remember one job that I've bid on and "won" through one of these freelance writing sites. Lately, I haven't even been viewing the listings regularly because I find myself becoming very annoyed. Many of the postings are ridiculous - like the business who wanted a freelancer to write an E-book but only had a budget of $175. Pa-lease. I find most of the listings insulting to my talent and experience. And then I think, are there really writers who take these jobs for this little money?!? Amazing to me.

Anyway, a while back I posted on a guy who had asked for a freelancer to write a eulogy for him. Today, this was the posting winner:

Project: Memo-report on online learning. I am an Uni Student. This is one of my school assignments. I am very bad in English. So I have no idea how to write. I want this report to be done before 2nd Oct 2007. My Uni is very strict on plagiarism. So please try to use your own words & put references. Honestly I can't effort too much on just a small assignment. So please charge me with very resonable price

Would this guy:

a. Be better at English if he, say, DID HIS OWN ASSIGNMENTS/WORK?!?!
b. Understand the effects of plagiarism better if a sassy freelance writer took this job and then plagiarized the entire thing?
c. Be willing to pay what a true writer's time and expertise is REALLY worth if he admitted that he was asking the writer to compromise his/her ethics by CHEATING for him?!?
d. All of the above.

SCORING: 10 points for A; 20 points for B; 30 points for C; 10,000,000 points for D and a free wiffle ball bat to beat the guy about the head and neck.

Seriously, if I had the time, I would do some of these projects just to teach these people a lesson. Instead, I have to fill my time writing about useless things on my blog, thank you very much.

I opened an online book industry newsletter this morning and saw this:


I almost peed myself with excitement.
Then I remembered I haven't published a novel.
Bummer.

I struggled with whether or not I wanted to write a posting about this. I finally justified it by telling myself that I needed to be honest, not only with myself, but also other writers.

A few weeks ago, I posted about being a semi-finalist in an international poetry competition (see Jan. 20 posting titled Kind of Cool). I didn't win, but I have more important information to share than that. A few weeks after being notified that I was a semi-finalist, I received another email correspondence. This time it was from a publishing company with offices in New York, London, and Paris. Even better, they were known for their fiction work (according to their email), but were now publishing some limited edition poetry and wanted to know if they could include my poetry in their publication. I admit, I was excited about this, not for the poetry part, but for the fiction part. I immediately began searching the Internet to learn more about this publishing company -- which, by the way, sounded very official and very much like large, familiar publishing company names. I couldn't find anything. Instead, I found listings with words like scam and fraud in them.

The purpose of this posting is not to smear names or point out specific companies. Instead, I'll let you find that information yourselves (just search the Internet for poetry scams and you'll find the companies). Instead, I just want to warn you about writing scams. Search out all companies before you establish any contacts (or worse yet, contracts) with them. Legitimate companies will never ask you to pay to publish your work. NEVER (period). Take heed and do your research. And if you do fall for a scam, don't feel bad. It happens to the best of us.

A couple of weeks ago, on a whim, I entered an international poetry contest online. Later that day I was laughing to my friend about it, joking that maybe I could at least win some of the money. Today I received a letter informing me that my poem has been chosen as a semi-finalist (no, no money yet).

Does this mean I have to grow a goatee and start hanging out at poetry-bash coffee shops?

Here's the poem:

Evolution of a Pain
You need cheer, help, laughter, I'm there.
"No problem!" I say. It's part of me to give and love.
But it turns against me. What have I said, done wrong?
I was only there for you. How can anyone find fault in that?
But you do. It's never good enough, never enough:
Unwarranted accusations, finger pointing, diversions.

Why are all of your faults acceptable, expected?
I get blank stares in a white room. Everyone else is
laughing, playing, worrying - but not with me, not for me.
I scream silently in the middle of a crowded circle.
It's funny how no one notices. "She has it all together."
It would be a fun game if it weren't happening to me.

A movie, a drama not happening to me, yet I'm part of.
A silent film ruined by the static of unfulfilled needs.
A play filled with disinterest, mindlessness, carelessness.
Look around. Would anyone notice if I weren't here anymore?
Sadly I know the answer. Yes, they would,
but only because no one else would make everything better.

Instead, I smile. "What a happy put together person."
But the eyes tell it all, don't they?

Copyright ©2006 Jacqueline K Wilson
Author's Note: This poem is a 2006 current semifinalist in the International Poetry Competition.

So.
There's a published author with my same name.
Lucky me.

It is strange: I'm a published author, she's a published author. I write children's stories, she writes children's stories. As far as I can tell, that's where the similarities stop. I am painfully aware that she exists, while I'm pretty sure that she doesn't even know (or care) about my existence.

I receive about 10 emails a month for her from children on my web site telling me how much they love my childrens' books. Unfortunately, these are not my books they are talking about. How do I know this?
1. I'm currently only published in the academic arena.
2. I've never even submitted my children's stories to a contest, let alone published them.

Not wanting to discourage any young children from reading their favorite author (I was afraid when the children didn't get a response they would lose interest in reading), I did the research and found Jacqueline Wilson's agent in the UK. I now forward all the children's emails to her agent. I'm pretty sure she still doesn't know I exist. I mean, that effort alone should net me some personally-signed copy of one of her books, but who am I?

How do these children even find my site? This is a phenomenon that I can't explain. One night while trying to answer this question, I Googled myself (yes, I'll admit it). There were pages and pages about Jacqueline Wilson (yes, the other Jacqueline Wilson). After about page 27 and no mention of me anywhere, I gave up.

So, here's the conundrum. What name do I publish my fiction mystery novel under? (Yes, I am hopeful that it will be published). If I use "Jacqueline Wilson" I risk the mix up between the two published authors. If I use "Jackie Wilson", you guessed it, people searching for my book will only come up with the famous R&B vocalist. I mentioned using my maiden name to my husband. The silence alone told me that didn't go over well.

I'm pretty sure the other Jacqueline Wilson doesn't lose sleep over having the same name as me.

Dang.

Today is my birthday. That's right, one day after New Year's. As you can imagine, I got cheated out of all the cool birthday stuff as a kid because everyone was "celebrated out" (or still out of town) by the time my birthday rolled around. Anyway, I digress (and I'm obviously not bitter).

I'm writing a fiction mystery novel. I have made a resolution that I will start submitting my book for publishing this year. HM. Interesting. Especially since I generally regard new year resolutions only for those who can't set and make goals for themselves the rest of the year. But this year I've jumped on the proverbial band wagon of resolutions. Hopefully this won't be one resolution that gets broken. Wish me luck!

WritRams, or Writer Ramblings, (AKA Jacqueline Wilson) is a wife, mother, writer, educator and consultant.

She is this Jacqueline Wilson and not this Jacqueline Wilson.

Jacqueline is available for freelance writing and consulting work. She is a published author and has written a range of work from educational guides to marketing materials to web content to articles and columns.

She loves reading, writing, Food Network, the Travel Channel, HGTV and Diet Coke. She never turns down chips and salsa. She is a *closet* gamer and some-time reality TV show watcher. She loves all kinds of music, but can't sing to save...well anything.

(She also apparently likes speaking about herself in third person.)

Jackie is enjoying the SAHM/WAHM role more than she ever imagined after having her first biological child at almost 40. (*gasp*)

Jackie is a published author in the medical academic field. While she enjoys academia and business writing, her true writing passion lies in the fiction field. She is working on her first (almost completed) mystery novel set in New Orleans. She hopes it will be the first in a series.

Jackie is also working on a humorous memoir about her crazy life without a Barbie Cake (in the style of Celia Rivenbark, only less Southern and more neurotic).

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