Super late notice, but I wanted to let you all know I'll be reading from Self Storage at the Murrieta Public Library tomorrow, Saturday, September 6th, at 2pm. The address is 24700 Adams Ave in Murrieta, CA.

I was recently lamenting the loss of the Murrieta Hot Springs Resort--it was a beautiful spa, with wonderful old buildings from the 1920s, plus a great vegetarian buffet; my mom and I went there together once when I was in college and she was visiting me from Chicago. We each took a private mud bath--very relaxing, but then an attendant came into each of our rooms, barked for us to get out of the mud, and sprayed us down with cold water from a garden hose, as if we were zoo animals. That part, not so relaxing. Over all, though, a lovely, rejuvenating stay. The resort is now a bible college--I hope they haven't plugged all the "devilish" hot springs up with concrete or anything silly like that. Anyway, it will be nice to be in Murrieta tomorrow (especially if I get to see my friend Cindy who lives there!) and I promise not to hose anyone down. ;)

Thank you to everyone who left comments about finishing the draft of my novel--I am so grateful for all of your kind words. I know your support will sustain me as I muck through the revision process. The initial glow of finishing the draft has faded, and doubt has set in--I find myself worrying that the book is no good, that it's flat, full of cliche, etc. I have to keep reminding myself that this is part of the process, that there will be time to flesh it out, give it more dimension and freshness, etc. Ah, the ups and downs of the writing life!

It probably doesn't help that I recently received my first one star review at Amazon (the fact that it was posted early last month and I didn't see it until now tells me I'm not obsessively checking my Amazon rankings any more--that's progress, at least!) I know not every reader is going to like or connect with my work, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't smart a bit to know that someone absolutely hated it. It appears that this reader mainly objected to Self Storage on an ideological level--one of the lines of the review is "I'll sum it up. America BAD. All Muslims GOOD", which of course is not how I would sum up the novel, but once the book is in a reader's hands, it becomes their book, not mine. At least the reviewer advocates recycling--the headline is "Store this one in the recycle bin". ;)

As I launch into the revision process of my new novel, I'll try not to worry about potential future one star reviews. I'll try not to worry about pleasing anyone. I'll try to stay as true to the characters and their story as I can, to give them the respect they deserve by spackling up holes and trimming off excess and keeping their hearts beating with these imperfect human hands.