Dear Kelly,

So Steve Martin wrote a novella, got it published, turned it into a movie and is starring in the movie.

Yikes! Natalie and I must be doing something wrong! Could it be that we weren't, um, born with the right equipment for success?

Or that we just aren't very good at stalking stars like you to get noticed?

Or that we don't get caught committing crimes--like say the housekeeper that was stealing from "the mean stars" and got on TV to reveal why she did it?

Of course, I don't begrudge Steve his success. But Natalie and I got to talking and decided we are going to get noticed, darn it! And so we have been brainstorming...

And we are bringing others into our evil schemes...

So check back every once in a while for news!

Now I must dash off and check on Natalie. Can't leave her unsupervised for too long.

Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/

Dear Kelly,

Natalie and I are starting to think that maybe you aren't paying attention to us. Sure, we understand, really we do.

It's just that we're authors, you know—creative types, and so we're a little insecure…

Which naturally leads to Natalie and I (I blame Natalie) cooking up some new ideas to get your attention. Not to worry—it's all good stuff. You know, like asking our blog readers to submit photos of hot guys. Wait, hold on, Natalie's yelling at me.

What? We're not doing Kelly's Hot Guys? No?

Oh, all right. Natalie is saying no to the pictures. Frankly, I think it's because Natalie has all the hot guys locked in her basement. In fact—have you seen the TV show DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES? I've heard rumors that Natalie is the inspiration behind a few of those characters.

But back to the blog. So Kelly, my point is that we believe you are a valuable asset to readers out there, and we're thinking we might be doing a little Blog Overhaul to keep things interesting. After all, Oprah is bringing back her Contemporary Book Club, and we all know that Oprah's choices can be a little….depressing.

We need Reading with Ripa to bring joy back to reading!

(Don't worry, I'll work on getting Natalie to relent on the Kelly's Hot Guys!)

Kelly, now that I have your attention, I have another question. Do you watch your finished work?

I don't read my published books. I've been thinking about this because I'm doing page proofs for my book that is coming out in February, TRHILLED TO DEATH. Page proofs are the final version of the book before it goes to the printers—it's my last chance to make corrections.

But there's no rewriting. No revising. No tweaking. I can only correct things like spelling, grammar, punctuation and the odd word that mysteriously gets dropped or added. I always hate the book at this point because I can't change things. I'm using the critical side of my brain to catch mistakes, but I'm not allowed to fix weak sentences, or poor word choices or flat out bad writing.

The critical side of my brain won't be constrained by those stupid rules. It sees everything.

"You used the same word twice in the same paragraph!"

"Quit using the word "just:!"

"That's a weak sentence, or confusing sentence, or passive sentence…"

But I have to ignore all that. And by the time I'm half way through the page proofs, I'm convinced the book is bad.

As in embarrassingly, career ending, awful.

Thankfully, by the time I get to the end of the book, I'm usually feeling somewhat better. But if I'm that neurotic reading the page proofs, what would it be like to read the actual book and find a misspelled word…?

Okay, since I've given you the possible news of a Blog Revamp, promised to try and convince Natalie to post occasional pictures of hot guys (for research of course) and asked you my important question, I think I'll send this off and hide so Natalie can't find me!

Sincerely,
Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/

Dear Kelly,

Do we have any real IMPACT?

So many people are devastated by Hurricane Katrina. It's heart wrenching and emotionally draining to watch the tragedy unfold on T.V. Clearly, those who survived will need years to rebuild their lives. It will take years to rebuild the cities. The blood, sweat and tears will take a toll on people.

And this is where you come in.

Bear with me here. Oprah does her part by going to the heart of a disaster and shining the bright light of her camera onto the wreckage. That is what she does and she is good at it. Oprah works to improve the world we live in with her ability to shine the light on human suffering. She has IMPACT.

But that is not what we, you and I and other entertainers, do. And we are left feeling inadequate and maybe a little useless in a time like this. That is not to say you haven't helped, I know you have, Kelly. I'm talking about our life's work.

You and I, we try to bring laughter, joy, and occasional tears of release to people. You do it through acting and I do it through my books.

Then huge disasters strike like 9/11, the Tsunami, the London explosions and now Katrina, and we are left feeling as if our work is pointless in the big picture.

As if we have no IMPACT in a time of need or crises.

So for the last couple weeks I have struggled with that. Just as I did after 9/11 and at other times of huge, previously unimaginable, tragedy or crises.

And then I remembered my mother's last days. She was ill and in a nursing home, and her days were torture for us, those who loved her. I remember it all vividly. And I remember something else—I was reading the Harry Potter books. And they brought me moments of relief in a pain filled time. I'd spend the day taking care of my mom, come home and take care of my family, and at night, I would sink into those books. I could take my first full breath of the day and let the stress, the aching worry and heart squeezing pain go. Because a little wizard boy named Harry Potter took me to a place where magic was possible.

In times like these, we must remember how important laughter, joy, and just a simple light moment are to those who are suffering. Providing those moments do have a real IMPACT. It gives people a break so that they keep going. And so Kelly, with all the people who will spend years rebuilding their lives, and all those amazing people who will help, let's IMPACT their lives with some desperately needed fun and laughter. Maybe you can consider bringing back Reading with Ripa because people are really going to need a light beach-read more than ever.

And most importantly, remember that each of us can make an IMPACT. Let's all reach out and help out neighbors in this time of need.

Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/

Dear Kelly,

Hey maybe now that summer is officially over and the kids are back in school, you'll have time to answer us! But if not, that's okay. Natalie and I understand. We have kids, we have careers, we have husbands…

Speaking of husbands, I have to say that in most ways, mine is very supportive. I love him, and he really does help me out in countless ways. For instance, when I went to Reno for a conference a couple weeks ago, he took several days off work to hang out with the kids. He's a good buy, BUT, this is how our weekend went:

Hubby, "What are you doing?"

Me, "Working." I'm at the computer, duh!

Hubby, "Is that your book?"

Me. "I have my book file open, but I thought I'd write a quick blog."

Hubby. "Shouldn't you be working on your book?"

Me. "Yes." Big sigh and I shut down the blog and open my book.

TEN MINUTES LATER

Hubby, "What are you doing?"

Me, Gritting my teeth, "TRYING TO WORK ON MY BOOK."

Hubby, "It's a holiday. Should you work so hard?"

AN HOUR LATER.

Hubby, "What are you doing?"

Me, "I thought I'd read. You're right, I need to relax."

Hubby, Turns on TV. "Hey, look at that."

Me, "I don't like boxing."

Hubby, "But he has man boobs. Look!"

Me, "Which one?"

Hubby, "Wait, they camera will go back to him."

Me, "Just tell me when." Back to reading.

Hubby, "No watch! Keep looking."

Me, "You know I hate boxing. It's stupid."

Hubby, "But he has man boobs!"

TEN MINUTES LATER

Me, "Fine, I'll put down the book. Oh look, man boobs."

Hubby, "See. He should lose weight."

Me, "So what do you want to do tonight?" I've put down the book. Hubby has my full attention which I know from experience that was his goal all along.

Hubby, "Shh, I'm watching TV."

Anyone want to guess why I write murder mysteries?

So Kelly, Natalie and totally understand why you just don't have time to answer us. It's not the kids, the career…it's husbands!

Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/

Dear Kelly,

Hurricane Katrina sure as hell puts my life in perspective. My heart goes out to each and every person on the Gulf Coast.

Because it's hard for me to take myself seriously in a week where a portion of our country is suffering extreme devastation, I'll just go for some silly stuff on stress. As you know, Kelly, daily stress can really kill our creative side.

My top five stress busters:

1) A good book. The best one I've read lately— AIN'T SHE SWEET by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. The conflict is a little silly, but the book is amusing!
2) A good movie. Loved THE WEDDING CRASHERS
3) Chocolate. Last chocolate—M&M's. I actually sent my son to the store to buy a big bag of M&Ms for the family. Something I never do because I am big on Self Control. (Oh stop laughing, I have SOME self control).
4) Friends. From a quick e-mail, or a day of lunch and shopping, friends mean I never have to be lonely. I only have to reach out to touch happiness, joy, laughter and companionship.
5) Watching LIVE WITH REGIS AND KELLY or HOPE AND FAITH.


My top five stress inducers:

1) Being on hold on the phone. Then making me listen to music while on hold.
2) Charging me $140.00 to deliver a $59.99 item. Oh and even better, refusing to tell me how much the delivery cost will be until AFTER I place the order. Then, when I call to cancel, actually having the gall to ask my why! Seriously, you're asking me? You can't look at the numbers and do the math? And for the love of Sanity, turn off the hellish hold music!
3) Rude people + Cell phones. There should be a law that forbids rude people from having cell phones. And why do they have to YELL into the cell phone?
4) The TV News where I learn about frivolous lawsuits. Makes me crazy. Five o'clock News = a glass of wine in my house. How else can I cope with rampant stupidity and greed?
5) Insurance. This week's four hour headache was courtesy of Dental Insurance who needed to know the name of my son's college. Since they didn't have the name, they denied coverage of his checkup. Period. Just denied it with a snarky paragraph in capital letters about not receiving required information on the patient. NOTE TO INSURANCE—if you want further information, you have to ASK ME. I am not a mind reader! I don't know by osmosis! Send a request through the US Postal Service just like you sent the dandy claim denials! Or hey, send an email, or call me! But nooooo….you put me through two phone calls (see #1 above) and at least twenty nine minutes of listening to my husband rant and rave to resolve it. Wait did I say resolve? What I meant to say is that they will REVIEW it and send me a notice whenever they damn well feel like it to let me know if they will actually pay the claim, or if I will need to spend countless hours going to through voice mail options and hold music to see if a real live person wants to actually do their freaking job!

Whew! I think I need to review my own stress-busters!

What about you Kelly? What drives your crazy? How do you de-stress?

Sincerely,
Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/

Dear Kelly,

Last week I went to a writer's conference with over 2100 other writers. I'm still recovering! I thought I'd share my random thoughts about the conference:

1) Wear comfortable shoes. Too bad I have to relearn this every single year!

2) Be nice to everyone! It turns out I was standing next to Linda Howard in the elevator. Somehow I managed to make small talk instead of blurting out; "You're Linda Howard, and I'm reading your book RIGHT NOW!" No matter how long I've been an Author, I'm still a Fan! And for the record, Linda was nice, funny, and down-to-earth charming.

3) If you win an award at the Big Awards Ceremony with 2100 women in the shimmering evening finery, say thank you and GET OFF THE STAGE! Most of the winners were gracious, amusing and reasonably brief. One was just strange. I have no idea what she was talking about. Or wearing—her dress made me think of Little Bo Peep. Then I was wishing for Little Bo Peep's staff (she did carry a staff, right?) to use to get that woman off the stage!

4) Next time, I might want to realize that if I final in a contest, I will be forced to walk up dangerous, rickety steps in barely-there high heels to get onstage, and then once I'm traumatized by scaling those steps (which were clearly designed by MEN), I will be asked if I would like to make any comments. Once I managed to get safely off stage, I was shuffled over to a professional photographer. I don't ever want to see that picture! P.S. Erica Spindler's book SEE JANE DIE won the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence in my category—Congratulations Erica!

5) My editor will recognize me and I have to stop making a fool of myself by saying, "Kate, I'm Jennifer Apodaca—" At which point my editor turns to my friends and says "I know who she is. I've met her before, talk to her regularly on the phone and edit her books. Does she think I don't know who I'm buying books from?" Okay she didn't actually say that, but it was darn close. And my friends? They are playing right along with my editor, agreeing that I am stupid. Sheesh. With friends like that, who needs reviewers?

6) If I try to sneak down at 7:00 am to get some coffee, I will be recognized. Yep, I only had about three fans out there amongst the thousands of women at that conference, but one of them found me when I was trying to be invisible. How does Linda Howard do it? Note to self—next time don’t be so cheap and buy a small coffeemaker if the hotel doesn't provide one!

7) Once I get home, my desk will be piled with contracts to read and signed (I am NOT complaining about that!), copy edits, blogs to write, contests to sort out and post on my newsletter group, and two works-in-progress that did not write themselves while I was gone. Then there's all the daily life stuff to catch up on!

8) And last—don't take ourselves too seriously. The only thing worth taking seriously in this business is writing the best damn book we can.

So, Kelly that was snippets of my conference week. I imagine it's much different for you when you go to big events. Everyone knows who you are!

Before I sign off, I must mention that I heard your name, Kelly Ripa, and the sorely missed Reading with Ripa segment of your show, talked about quite a bit. Everyone misses Reading with Ripa!

Best,
Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/

Dear Kelly,

Do you remember the phrase "Rock on?" Is that phrase seriously dated? Probably. I heard my son's very hip girlfriend say "Peace out" recently, which I found intriguing but not relevant to my point. But "Rock on," that pretty much sums up my personal philosophy about a career in writing and publishing. It's a rough road, full of pot holes and sometimes we crash, but to be successful we must…

Rock on.

First we do the whole bleeding on the page thing. Being writers that live in imaginary worlds, we don't usually use 'real' blood. Actors are the same, you don't use real blood either, right Kelly? So you probably get this. Here's an example of my writing day: Drag my growing backside out of bed at 5:45a.m. Hit the gym by 7ish on a good day. Back home and ready to write around 9a.m. Open the file of the book I'm working on and damn it, that difficult scene, the one that is NOT working, didn't fix itself over night. Stomp off (think metaphorically people) to check my email. Okay, pouting done, back to my scene. Between arguing with uncooperative characters, the compulsion to check my email every twenty minutes, coffee and diet coke refills, food, phone calls and the kids' sudden desire for chats, it's suddenly 3:00 PM. I have an hour left to write and wham—the scene starts working. I write ten or fifteen pages in two hours, spending the last hour snarling at anyone who is dumb enough to think I really stop at 4p.m. The next day—start over again.

Rock on.

Next come the critiques. I ask a couple people for a read through. Then I agonize for days, sometime weeks waiting for their comments. "Agonize" is an interesting word that stands for; knotted stomach, waking up at 2 am in a cold sweat, too much coffee, literally trying to hold back screams of "Have you read it yet?" or "You hate it, don't you?" when I see, talk to, or email these wonderful people helping me. "Agonize" sums up the days of my brain picking at the entire plot like a swollen scab. It's painful. Why would anyone put themselves through this?

Rock on.

The critiques come in from smart, talented authors who are generous enough to help me. They will make twenty nice comments and point out two problems. My eyes zero in on the problems and my brain flashes the FAILURE sign in big green neon letters until I have a headache. I walk away, determined not to let it get me. I stagger around muttering, "I can fix this. I can! I have to. My career is over." Then I down some Tylenol, make coffee and tackle the problems, once again snarling at anyone who interrupts. Strangely enough, by the time I'm finished, I am GRATEFUL to my critique-friends.

Rock on.

Time to send it to my editor and wait for the phone call. It's like waiting for a call from the gate keeper to heaven. My entire career is in that single person's hands (not true, but it feels like it). This period can take days, weeks or months. Coping strategies are essential. Frankly, the world would be a seriously ugly place without chocolate :-) Then the call comes. I have had all the variations—love it don't change a thing; love it, needs one or two fixes; umm you can fix this or you can start over (it was just a proposal but it still felt like a truck had hit me, then a bus, then a train…). On the last one, I tossed it and wrote a new story idea for my editor. She bought it.

Rock on.

Now I'm tackling a huge idea, trying to wrestle it into a proposal while writing the first of two contracted books, I'm doing this to grow my career, and because these two characters have come to life in my heart and soul. I'm worried I've taken on two much, worried I'll let down the people who believe in me, and just as important—worried I'll let down my readers, but you know my philosophy…

Rock on.

And this is what I tell the writers working so hard trying to cross over from unpublished to published. It's not an easy road, friends. Everyone pays the price in some manner. In may LOOK easy on the outside, but I promise you, every successful person has hit the rough patches. But what makes them successful?

They rock on.

So, Kelly, what's your personal philosophy?

Back to my son's girlfriend and her "Peace out" comment. From the context of our conversation, I took that to mean she's simply not going to deal with mean, nasty people. Are we raising a smarter generation of women or what?

Rock on,

Jennifer
http://jenniferapodaca.com/