Thank You.

Okay--my day was crap. The Monday before finals is ALWAYS crap. Too many kids saying "Why, oh why, did you fail me for not doing jack shit for two months. Why didn't you TELL me my F was so bad!" It's often either that or, "What crappy job can I do on a small assignment to change my C to a B?" BLARGH. I'm through.

Well, not really through. There's always a few rays of hope. My creative writing club is going strong-- that's always nice. I had kids giving me some fantastic book reports. That's nice too. I totally chewed out three kids from my second period for interrupting my creative writing club while those kids were giving book reports to me quietly by my desk. Good feeling gone.

There's more... in fact, I could (and probably will) bitch for hours about the class of 2011, but for the moment, I have a happy, and I'm going to toss my stinky Juniors to the wind and talk about my happy.

I'm sort of embarrassed to talk about it, actually--it sounds really narcissistic (although we know that this is a failing of mine anyway) and, well, you all know how I hate to tempt the gods. In fact, I probably wouldn't mention it, but I think I owe a lot of you a big THANK YOU, and so, well, I'll bring it up.

When you go to Dreamspinner Press and look up the different options--short stories, novels, novellas, what have you, you'll see, on your right, a scrolling list of the best sellers in that option. So, for the link I gave you--in the Advent Calendar section-- you'll probably look on the right and see "If I Must" scrolling by. It's been #1 for a week now. Uhm, SQQQUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!, right?

So, I was checking it out because, uhm, quite frankly? Can't get enough of seeing that, especially after a shitty day like this one, when I noticed something. When you click on the story itself, you get a different Best Seller list--this one for the actual length option of the piece. So, if you click on the cute little kitten cover to check out "If I Must", you end up in novellas. Last night, my husband was looking over my shoulder (because he's a supportive guy and is getting a charge out of this) and he said, "So, are you on that list yet?" And I said, "No... these are big deal sellers, you know? These are novellas--mine is just the Christmas stories. I wouldn't end up there."

Except there I am. I'm number ten, and by the time you guys get this post, I'll probably not be there anymore because it's always changing, but, for a minute, there I was. And as vain as it is to dwell on it, well, it's been a shit day. There was the students, there's my ever plummeting popularity on GoodReads (have I mentioned it's the year to hate on Vulnerable? Ouuuuuucccchhhhh...), and then there was the real stuff, like grocery shopping and no walk, and kids approaching sick (or on their last legs before vacation) and a family that moved Christmas up five days (so my real mom's family is having Christmas on Saturday--about five days before my knitting was planned to be complete!) and my CONSTANT wondering about whether I'm doing my job justice or not, and a house fairy that has yet to find my address and clean up the wreckage the last meteor left and... well, you get the picture.

Today, there was a sign from the universe that said "Yes. This is possibly a good route for you to be taking."

And I need to thank the people responsible. Thanks guys--I know a lot of you followed me from a genre you liked to one you were maybe not so excited about. I know some of you bought my novella and thought the kitten was cute and the story was cute and maybe you'd tell your friends in spite of the big label of "Gay Romance" on the website. I know a lot of you had faith.

Thank you. I hope you all enjoyed the story. I certainly enjoyed telling it for you. For everyone who's had faith in me (whether you bought the story or not!) just thank you. Every time I send up a Holy God, Merciful Goddess, Let it NOT Suck--I have you guys in mind. Let you not be disappointed. Let me do what a good storyteller does. So for all your faith, I'll say it one more time.

Thanks.

Amy