I have my moments . . .

I admit I don’t read all of my Goodread reviews. For one thing, it would be hard to keep up with reviews on twenty books. And besides, there is the author curse to deal with. The curse is this: you can read thirty glowing reviews about your book–and feel so happy–until you get to that one bad review. I know that it’s impossible to write a book that everyone on the face of the planet will enjoy. People have different tastes. For example, some people inexplicably like the song Hotel California.

If you aren’t familiar with the song Hotel California consider yourself fortunate. It is a slow ballad about a hotel that traps people inside. There is stabbing going on. I remember hearing once that the song was inspired by the movie Psycho. When it comes on the radio, I literally leap over furniture so that I can turn the station two seconds faster.

Anyway, so authors expect bad reviews. I shrug off most, but every once in awhile there is one that bugs me because it gets the facts wrong and then the reviewer states that s/he didn’t like the book because of those facts. I know authors who have gotten bad review for books they didn’t write. I once got a bad review for a book that I hadn’t finished writing yet. (Apparent the reviewer had psychic powers.)

Sometimes I read reviews though and I had to say that I loved this review of A Longtime (and at one point illegal) Crush. I won’t quote the whole thing because that would look like shameless self-promotion. I will say that the reviewer is brilliant and astute and right about all the nice things she said about me.

You know how (Janette Rallison) seems to create the most awkward, embarrassing, yet down right hilarious teenage moments in all of her books? (If you don’t, read some and you’ll see.) Well my friends and I have what we like to call “Janette Rallison moments”. It’s where we have the most humiliating experiences that are mortifying at first, but then we have a giggle fest later on about it. Like the time when one of my friends got their braces stuck to her crushes shirt. Yeah. Definitely Janette Rallison moment.

I am ridiculously proud to have humiliating moments named in my honor. This is perhaps because I’ve had so many Janette Rallison moments myself. In fact, you could pretty much say my life has been one Janette Rallison moment after another.

The latest, completely true moment that happened to me:
Imagine you are at a place where you are surrounded by people who are all dressed up. You are dressed up too. It is close quarters. You reach into your purse to pull out something you need–something that everyone is expecting you to have. It is at this point you realize that the bad smell you’ve been getting whiffs of all evening originates from your purse. Apparently one of your evil cats has recently crawled into your purse and peed inside.

There is not a gracious way to get out of this sort of situation. And unfortunately, randomly screaming in close quarters is still not socially acceptable. That Janette Rallison moment will probably find its way into a book someday.