COVER REVEAL: CHASING ECHOES

I’ve already said this too many times this morning, but I have to, here, one more time.

Cover Reveal!!!

If you click on that above-link, it will lead you to Krystal Jane’s lovely cover reveal on my book. I had Krystal do the honors because a) I knew she would do a better job than me, and b) her blog rocks. But, just for posterity’s sake, I’ll go ahead and post my cover HERE, too. After all, Ocean in a Cup was the blog that had to endure all of my ranting and whining for the last five years or whatever; it probably deserves to have some good news smattered on it too.

So here it is, the full cover wrap for CHASING ECHOES:

And here is the eBook cover:

I have Najla Qamber to thank for such a job well done--love her!

In other news, I now have an official author’s website: www.jodiperkins.com. It has all of the information about my book, Goodreads link, etc. There is also a blog section of the site, and I’m going to use that as a place to record anything related to Chasing Echoes, future books in the series, etc. Unfortunately this means TWO BLOGS again. History has shown that I don’t keep up well with two blogs. But I did take out the comment section of Blog #2 in an effort to help keep up, so hopefully that will work.

Ocean in a Cup is my personal space, so I decided I would like to keep it as marketing-free as possible. I'll go ahead and post a few links on my side margin for my book (once the book is available), but I won’t be pushing sales through these blog posts. 

Medieval Days & Snakes at School

I need to write a post! It's been such a loooooong time (actually, I just looked at my last post to check, and it's been eleven days, which isn't too terrible, so I took off one of the o's in looooooong).

I don't have anything particular to write about, so I'll just talk about this past week. Let's see...on Friday, a production group called the Kingdom of Esperance visited our school and led seventh graders in a Medieval Festival, complete with tent encampments, archery demos, period-art, and a tournament of knights with real armor and swords. It was pretty awesome. Our city's newspaper was supposed to send a reporter to cover the event, but the reporter cancelled at the last minute, so I was asked to cover the event instead. It was so, so fun. I got to run around, interviewing the workers and taking pictures.

Even during the archery demos, no one batted an eye when I trespassed over the caution tape to get close-ups. At one point, one of the more "official" looking people asked me if I was trying to get action shots.  I honestly thought that he was going to tell me to step back. But instead, he escorted me closer and told the workers to wait until I was ready before shooting their next set. Sadly, those pictures ended up with a glare on them, so I was unable to send them to the press.

For the record, I'm awful at taking pictures. I have no finesse for it at all. Kind of ironic that I ended up being the "reporter" for this event.

Anyway, I sent my photos and story to the newspaper, and it came out on Tuesday morning.

The only thing that grated on my nerves was the paper used my entire story, but labeled the byline "Photos courtesy of Jodi Perkins." Um...photos?? What about the article? I mean, it's small, but still. Grrrrr. I almost called them to complain, but then decided it wouldn't accomplish anything.

On Saturday I was paid $400 to be a presenter for THIS. 

I have to say, I am ridiculously proud of my district for pulling off this little trailer. It's like your five year old running up to you with a drawing that actually looks half-decent. Anyway, I was asked to give a 45 minute presentation/workshop, and OH MY GOODNESS was it fun.

After the presentation, I went skating with Shan and all the kids. My parents showed up to drop off a late birthday present for my nephew, and we all decided to go out to dinner. Usually we only get together for special occasions, so that was pretty awesome.

A snake showed up in the girl's restroom on Wednesday. Tom, our maintenance guy, heard a girl scream in the bathroom, came running, and found the snake. He then brought the snake to me, because somehow I'm the unofficial animal care person on our campus. I let him know the snake was harmless and I would take him home with me and put him in our garden (great for keeping down the pest population when you're trying to grow stuff). But then my principal got wind of the snake and said there was no way I was allowed to keep him in my classroom (to her credit, she was very calm. I think I must give her a mini-heart-attack every week). Tom went to transport the snake to our outdoor lunch patio where I was going to pick him up at the end of the day. But when he arrived, the snake was GONE. We discovered a small gap beneath the handle of the carrier where the snake managed to escape. Of course this all happened AFTER my principal had told us "Don't you let that snake get loose on campus!" I really didn't feel particularly inspired to tell her that a snake was now roaming free somewhere between the cafeteria and room 405, so me and Tom kept it quiet that afternoon. The next day, Tom found our creepy little buddy in front of the snack bar. This time I didn't mess around. I picked him up (yes, with my bare hands. I ain't scared--or particularly bright) and put him in a giant glass vase and sealed a lid with air holes over the top. Our computer specialist asked if she could take the snake home because her daughter loves them, so I ended up handing him over to her, and the rest is history.

This has turned into a long post considering I had nothing of consequence to write about.

That One Time I Got Published

Five years ago I was published for the first--and only--time in my life in the May 2008 issue of True Story Magazine (as shown on left). I'm not sure why I never talk about it.  Well, maybe I know why, but I'll get to that in a bit.

It started about five and a half years ago during 5th period with a journal prompt that I posted on the whiteboard for my students. The question was, "Do you believe in miracles?" After the students finished writing, and consequently sharing their perspective on the topic, I shared with them a mysterious incident that happened when I was four years old. The kids loved my story.  One student shouted, "You need to write that one down Mrs. P! You should get it published!"

That night, with the student's words still echoing in my head, I did write it down. A few days later, I sent it to True Story Magazine. It was a magazine that I was currently subscribed to, plus my mom and grandma used to read it when I was a little girl, so I was familiar with their layout. I knew each issue contained a "Miracle of Faith" section, and I felt hopeful that my story would be a good fit for that. I didn't know what the word count should be, so I simply checked out the word count of previous stories and based mine on that average. Since the setting of my story occurred the night before Mother's Day, I decided to play off of the holiday to increase my odds.

All of my instincts were dead-on. I was teaching a couple weeks later when I received a phone call from Clint. Ironically it was 5th period. He told me that I had received an envelope from True Story Magazine. I remember my heart started thumping in my chest, because I had read that "due to the volume of contributions we receive, we can not reply to each submission." So why would they be replying to mine?  Daring to hope, I told him to open the letter. He did, and read the good news to me out loud over the phone. I was stunned. They offered me $100 for all rights to my story, which they wanted to feature in their Mother's Day Edition. When I hung up the phone, my class wanted to know what was going on. I told them, and they went crazy, whooping and hollering. I told them they were the reason I was getting published. A whirlwind of hugs and congrats ensued, and I cried with happiness.  It wasn't about the $100--that meant nothing to me.  It was the fact that someone out there found value in something I had written, and the fact that it was my 5th period students, of all people, who had inspired me.

It's my dream to be a published writer. At the time that this happened, I thought, "This is IT. This is the moment where I break into print. This is the moment I am PUBLISHED."  I seriously could have dropped dead with joy right there on the floor of my classroom the minute I heard the news.  And when my story finally came out, I can't even describe the emotions I experienced.  Nothing compares to that feeling of flipping through a magazine and finding your story, with your name printed beneath it.  It's amazing.

(Actual photo of story, as seen in True Story Magazine)

So why don't I ever talk about it?  Because it's five years later, and nothing has happened. I have never moved forward beyond this little achievement. I've been stagnant.  Now something that I should be proud of has become a sore reminder of how little I have accomplished since then.  It's discouraging to reflect back and realize that getting a piece of work published in a magazine wasn't the life-changing moment that it felt like it was going to be back then.

But it's occurring to me that you can't win the lotto if you don't buy a ticket.  Yes, it's true that I haven't published anything else since 2008, but I also haven't tried.  I somehow expected for all of the pieces to magically fall into place without me having to put in the required effort.  So yeah, I need to accept that the published piece wasn't the magic wand I was hoping for, but that doesn't mean that it's wasn't an important step.  I need to buckle down on my manuscript, keep networking with other writers (twitter's been awesome for that), send more short stories into potential publishing venues, etc., and see if anything sticks.

Someday over the rainbow in a land of pixie dust and unicorns, I hope that I'll look back on this little published piece and realize it was that big, pivotal moment after all.  Maybe I just need the hindsight of more time, more bumps in the road, more failures, and eventually one big success, to realize it.