Mama Finally Finishes Her Newsletter

Not sure if this is going to work, but Mama insists I TRY to spread the word about her getting married (It's Husband No. 5; you'd think she'd be used to it by now). Here's the link for the newsletter, I hope:

Summer 2010: Mama Gets Hitched!

Best,
Deborah Sharp

Mama Demands Doo-Dads

I shopped for wedding doo-dads today. Not favors for my OWN wedding, understand. Favors for a woman who doesn't really exist, and a ceremony that won't ever happen. The things authors do for their fictional characters!

With the launch of MAMA GETS HITCHED right around the bend, I've got weddings on the brain. And why wouldn't I? I just spent a year writing a mystery novel set around the Wedding of the Century in tiny (fictional) Himmarshee, Fla.

My Mama character loves weddings. So much so that she's tying the sacred knot for the 5th time. But what's a Bridezilla to do when her caterer winds up dead in the VFW kitchen even before they pass out the first pig-in-a-blanket? Daughter Mace must find the killer, or Mama's Special Day could turn especially deadly.

At some signings, we'll do fun, book-and-wedding-themed events -- women in fashion-mishap bridesmaid frocks, men in pastel tuxes and boutonnieres. I haven't actually found a Pomeranian ring-bearer, complete with satin tux and top hat, like the book's Teensy. Give me time, though. Mama would insist on nothing less.

Facebook, Ye Hardly Know Me

I keep reading all this angst over how Facebook is mining details of users' personal lives. The social networking site is supposedly studying its zillions of 'bookers with cyber-microscopes, all the better to target us with smart-bomb niche marketing.

Well, I have proof that Facebook doesn't really know me after all.

An ad just popped up on my profile page from a company offering discounts in Fort Lauderdale. They got it half right: I do live in Fort Lauderdale, and I do love a bargain. But I'm way too lazy to click on a link, download an ad, and run upstairs to my printer to print out some lame discount. So, that's a big strike out, advertiser who is paying Facebook to market to me.

But here's even more evidence that Facebook doesn't get me,. Guess what the ad was touting. Pole-dancing lessons. As in, Let's pretend to be a stripper. Hello? Don't you have my date of birth, Facebook? Do you really think a 56-year-old woman wants to swing around a stripper's pole wearing scantly nothing? Plus, have you not seen my marital status? My husband of 21 years would probably bust a gut laughing if I ever put a pole in our bedroom. Either that, or he'd pull a muscle indulging his own fantasy of being a fireman.

So, I'm going to put off worrying about Facebook being an all-knowing Wizard of Marketing until I get some proof they REALLY know how to target me. When I see ads popping up promoting ibuprofen and hair coloring, AARP and retirement communities ... well, then I'll know that Facebook REALLY gets me.

Working Without a Net

Have you ever had a moment where you just knew you were going to screw up?

It happened to me the other day, at a presentation at the St. Lucie (Fla.) Family Reading Festival. The event was at the Digital Domain Stadium (A.K.A. Mets Field, where the New York Mets hold spring training). I was scheduled to speak at 1:30. The day was warm, and a brisk wind whipped through the upper breezeway of the ballpark, where the authors were.

Just as I took the microphone, the wind gusted. It lifted my little note cards off the seat where I'd stashed them. I watched as the cheat sheets for my presentation danced away and over the balcony, tumbling end over end toward third base on the field below.

I just knew I was going to screw up. I felt a gnawing in the pit of my stomach. I heard a buzzing in my ears. And then, amazingly, I felt free.

"Just wing it,'' my husband had advised, when I began doing these book appearances a year and a half ago.

"No way in hell,'' I'd answered. "I am not a just-wing-it person.''

The funny thing is, it's been a long time since I really needed the notes. I'm talking about my books, and my own life. I know this stuff, cold. But I always wanted those little note cards nearby, for safety. Suppose I forgot where I was going, heading off on some wild tangent? Suppose I never found the point I was trying to make?

I could always count on the notes to lasso me back. Until I couldn't. Until I saw them fluttering away like fallen leaves against that green ball field. It was scary. It was exhilarating. After a year and a half of never knowing whether I could get up and speak without those notes, I discovered I could.

Suddenly, I was winging it. I was working without a net.

Watch Your Step

Always one to elevate the tone of literary discourse, I did a radio essay today about cow patties.

Yep, you can count on me to really step right up --- SQUISH --- and reveal the truth about the glamorous life of book-touring.

Check it out if you have a minute (Two minutes and 11 seconds, to be exact.) Here's the link, from my favorite NPR station in Tampa. for
Finding Old Florida.