Closing Out 2022

It's the last day of the year. I stayed up too late last night watching season two of The White Lotus, but this morning we all slept in and woke up to a dreary December 31st. The oldest is studying her state capitals. The littlest is working on a puzzle. The partner is getting in a workout which leaves me taking stock. 

2022 has not been an easy year. This past school year was my hardest as a teacher mostly because the shutdown was so challenging for many of my students. Also, the whole family got COVID in April, but we've emerged from that relatively healthy. My own kids are adjusting well to being back to school in-person, and they have more school and sports activities than even their sports-obsessed educator-parents ever imagined. 

As a writer, I signed with Keyes Agency at the end of 2021, and having a novel out on submission has been a new kind of challenge. Still, a revise and resubmit request helped me strengthen my manuscript. The book hasn't sold just yet, but it is a better book today than it was a year ago. 

I published work I'm proud of and read some amazing books (although I'm still not back to reading like I did pre-COVID). So this morning, I updated my website and here are a few links if you're looking for something to read as we close out 2022. 

These two events pushed me back into the world and both were live-streamed so you can watch them. The first captures a powerful Get Lit performance by Venice Poets followed by a reading from Rice Paper Superheroes and tkk reading from her powerful book, Navigating With/Out Instruments. Then tkk and I sit in conversation about art, activism, and community building. The second event is with Women Who Submit, a Zoom event with WeHo Reads and Cody Sisco.

From Friday, September 16, 2022 at Beyond Baroque, I was able to read & share space with traci kato-kiriyama & Noriko Nakada. We gathered to celebrate tkk's book, Navigating With/Out Instruments, and our conversation looked at the ways art can excavate history and create a better future. 

On Wednesday, March 16, 2022 Women Who Submit presented at WeHo Reads about how we gather/ed throughout the pandemic. A healing exercise, panel, and performance of a group poem helped share how weekly check-ins with our WWS community kept us all afloat. 

While the novel was out on submission, I published a couple of essays and poems. You can read those here: 

"Night-Blooming Jasmine" an essay at Forty Fifty Women

"Poor Judgement: Remembering Japanese internment on a journey to Heart Mountain as Roe falls"

an essay at High Country News

"Marbles" part of a collection of remembrance poems on the 80th anniversary of EO 9066 at discover Nikkei. 

Recommended Reads: 

The Field Guide to the North American Teenager by Ben Phillipe: This was a highly entertaining read about a young Black Canadian who moves with his mother to Austin after his parents’ divorce and his Mom’s new job at UT. The narrator is third-person close and hilarious as it following the journey of a smart-ass kid adjusting to life in a new place. 

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet: The story of a town, Mallard, Louisiana, where folks marry light and these two girls witness their father’s lynching. The twins run away and one disappears into a white world while the other returns home with her Black daughter. A compelling and haunting account of the historical traumas we carry with us whether we like it or not. 

The New Kid by Jerry Craft: A graphic novel about a kid going to an elite private school. This banned book avoids Black trauma and focuses on universal issues of growing up. 

Navigating With/Without Instruments by traci akemi kato-kiriyama This is such a phenomenal hybrid work focusing on capturing life rather worrying about what genre can capture. With themes of community and intergenerational trauma, letter-writing and activism kato-kiriyama shows how we can honor our pasts by taking action in our present lives. 

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka: This third person plural novel is so beautifully rendered finding beauty in the harsh world of picture brides, early immigrant tensions, and Japanese incarceration. A beautiful capture of tragic collective trauma. 

Try Out by Christina Soontornvat  (Author), Joanna Cacao (Illustrator) A graphic novel about girls of color trying out to be cheerleaders in a conservative Texas town. I love the explorations of majority rules and popularity, girl friendships and family dynamics. 

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zaumer: this memoir explores the author’s relationship with her mother, the Korean side of her family, and her mother’s illness and death, Crying... captures the young artist struggling to find herself. With a father who is struggling with his own demons and a childhood seeking acceptance as a multiracial girl in a small town in Oregon (Eugene), the author reflections on new adulthood is beautiful to read. 

A Tiny Upward Shove by Melissa Chadburn: This devastating story and challenging read comes from the underworld: a spirit part flesh, part revenge. This cruel fiction exists within lives far too many experience. This book will haunt me for years and although I took several months to read it, this aswang's tale and the places and moments they brought to life force me to share space and pay my respects. 

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng: Reading his book after Chadburn’s meant I closed out the year holding my children a little closer. This tale made me want to both shield my children from the ills of the world and lean into the possibilities of what art can do to move toward a better one.   

Publishing Round-Up for 2019

The year is coming to a close, and it has been a busy one. With the publication of I Tried completing the Through Eyes Like Mine Trilogy, I'm ready to shift my focus to other writing projects. This is where my words found homes over the past year:

On the other end of our UTLA strike, Cultural Weekly published "Lessons from the Picket Lines" about my experience as a teacher and mother during our work stoppage and demand for the schools our communities deserve.

I attended AWP this winter. I'd avoided this conference for writers and writing programs ever since my MFA, but I wrote about my first AWP experience in "Attending the AWP You Want to Create" for Breathe and Push at Women Who Submit.

I was honored to have my essay, "Threatened Abortion" selected for the Santa Fe Writers Project's Abortion Ban Special Issue. I encourage you to check out this essay, but also the other important stories in this issue. This essay was first published for Breathe and Push at Women Who Submit.

My first fiction found it's way into the world this year. These two shorts from Rice Paper Superheroes appeared in *82 Review and What Are Birds journal respectively: "Andy's Alliance" "A Family Photo"

Other essays published this year were part of the Breathe and Push column for Women Who Submit:

"Tsuru for Solidarity" describes the activism occurring in the Japanese American community this year to protest family separation and injustice in camps at the border.

"Stay Cool and Keep Writing" provides resources for writers in resistance during another difficult summer of injustice.

"When Just Breathing is Enough" is about breathing during stressful times.

"Taking Attendance" captures a Women Who Submit workshop with Rocio Carlos and Rachel McLeod.

"5 Ways for Writers to Celebrate" finished off the year for Breathe and Push.

*edited for accuracy*

Folks, I left a couple of essays off! Two more essays for Breathe and Push made their way into the world for Women Who Submit. Jeesh. How could I forget writing about SAD and the end of the strike?

"Writing Through the Storm" captures the post-strike exhaustion teachers in LA felt this past winter.

"Getting Through Winter" describes my own struggles with seasonal affective disorder.


Despite lots of poetry submissions, no poetry publications this year :(, but there's always 2020.

Support An Independent Author (Me)

The release of the final book in the Through Eyes Like Mine series is a few weeks away. Edits are complete; proof copies have been combed through, tweaked and edited. I'm so close to the end of this project, so why am I still battling my decision to publish these books independently?

It might have been a conversation I had this weekend, and the implication that publishing my books on my own is a decision I made lightly; that I'm doing this with a sense of resignation.

How many agents have you queried?
How many presses?
How many rejections?
How many times have you been told no in regard to these books?

My answer: I've accumulated about thirty passes over a decade. Some think this is nothing. There are authors who finally get published after their 50th or 100th or 200th query. There are also authors who query agents, land with an agent, and their books still don't sell. There are books that get picked up by small presses and make a run of a few hundred copies. Some presses don't do much to promote a book, and their books quietly fade into obscurity. Some presses produce beautiful books, and some books have typos and ugly covers. There are small presses that print a small number of copies, and the authors never see a cent of the profit.

So, my decision to publish on my own makes sense to me, but I had to write this in order to remind myself.

I want people to be able to read my books. I want to see the books, to hold them in my hands, to read from them, and gift them to friends, and I want to receive royalty payments. I want to complete this series, and move on to other projects, and I'm willing to do the work to make it happen.

I hope you'll support indie authors. I hope you'll support me. Buy the books. Read the books. Talk about the books. If you are interested in the process of independent publishing, ask. I am working outside traditional publishing and it's scary, and I don't always know what I'm doing, but I know it's right for me, and it's right for these books.

As I wait on the release of I Tried, I'm still convinced independent is the way I want to go.

Vying for Mom's Blessing

Nine years ago, I sat in a coffee shop and wrestled words into their final form in Through Eyes Like Mine. I believed in the work. It’s a non-traditional memoir. It exists even though I’m not famous and haven’t survived a cult or unspeakable tragedy. I’m not a recovering addict or childhood star. It is a quiet book, a child’s story, told by a not-so-old writer. I shared it with my mom and the rest of my family, and with a few corrections and clarifications, they all stood behind it.

Christmas: 1981

When Overdue Apologies came out two years later, I tried to hold my middle school memoir to the same standard, but it is a different book. It is about a time most people would rather forget. I teach middle school, so I know it’s cringy because adolescence is cringe-worthy. My family laughed awkwardly throughout Overdue Apologies, but along with my middle school friends, they helped shape the work. My mom wondered what she was up to during my middle school adventure, but she supported its release. It came out just as I was about to have a baby, so I didn’t give it the launch it deserved. I was expecting, but I also wasn’t sure the world wanted a middle school memoir.

Now, as I ready I Tried for publication, the process feels the same but different. I am still pouring over the words, attempting to make it as perfect as possible. I have to steal time, just like before, but now there are two kids vying for my attention. The world is a different place with widening gaps between the haves and have nots, rural and urban, white and other, but these differences make these books feel more important. I shared the manuscript with family and friends who again influenced it, but the biggest difference this time is my mom isn’t here.

Summer: 1991

My mom was my first reader. She was my first ask about memory accuracy. She helped clarify my recollections. She framed the events in my early books, but with I Tried, I couldn’t ask what she remembered about my sixteenth birthday or Dad’s fall off the roof. She would have hated reading about the limits of white feminism, but I still think she would support this book. She would correct a few facts, tell me which parts were hard for her to read; which ones made her laugh or cry. She would love the snapshots of our family from the porch in Bend, and question the choices she made along the way.

I hope Mom can help me find a few last typos. I hope she will fact check my memory like she always has. I hope in some dream tonight or in the nights to come, she will look up from the rushing white water of the Deschutes and forgive the white feminist she was and the flawed feminist I am. I hope she will somehow give this last book her blessing and know: I tried.

10 years of blogging later...

Ten years ago, I started this blog. August, 10, 2009. Well, clearly I missed that anniversary.

Back then, I had the idea that maybe a publisher would stumble upon my blog, want to publish my book or at least my thoughts, and I hoped a blog could help me build a readership. It's been ten years, and not a single publisher has come knocking on my door, but I have found readers. Thanks for tagging along.

In that first year, I wrote about visiting China, fertility, the Dodgers, and then excerpted a bunch of a novel in progress, New LA Life, that still isn't done. I started a second blog, Throwing Cookies, for writing about sports, and I wrote a lot about food and education.

Nine years and 250 blog posts later, so much has changed since 2010. Back then, I was five years post MFA. I was teaching, eating at LA food trucks, and playing lots of beach volleyball. David and I were working hard to get pregnant, but we were not getting pregnant. The country was living in President Obama's first term.

In 2010, I wrote about my decision to self-publish Through Eyes Like Mine and included a mixtape. In 2012, I wrote about my middle school memoir, Overdue Apologies. Then, Kiara arrived, and although I tried to keep reading and writing and reclaiming my brain, it was hard. When Gabe showed up, it was even harder. But now, nine years later, I'm finally ready to complete the coming of age Through Eyes Like Mine series.

I Tried: Tales from an Emerging High School Feminist explores what it means to be a young woman of color growing up in rural America. In the final installation of the Through Eyes Like Mine series, Nori teeters on the edges of adulthood and navigates shifting expectations of her community, her family, and herself. I Tried examines the challenges and isolation a multiracial girl faces in small-town America.

Stay tuned. More in the next couple of weeks.

My Poor Deserted Blog...

How can I do a blog round up this year when I barely posted here?

Well, I posted once in June. Thank you for reading my culmination address to the class of 2018. It was my most read post of the year and the only post to make my most-read all-time list.

Then, I posted to the blog three times in the last two days. I had to get my favorite books and publishing summary for 2018 out there. Then, I had to tie together two ideas that have been on my mind for the past few months: Lynell George's Image/After: Los Angeles Outside the Frame and the upcoming UTLA strike.

If you kept up with this barrage of posts, thanks so much.

I had a few other blogs in drafts. I was going to write about teachers and gun-violence and the ridiculousness of arming teachers, but I didn't. I was going to write about my niece's journey to play division one basketball, but she got hurt, so I didn't pursue that either.

Laters, 2018, from Team Nakada-Gantt (and Jane). 

I did start editing the Breathe and Push column for Women Who Submit, an organization which supports women and non-binary writers submit their work into the world. A few posts that might have gone up here went there, so if you'd like to read any of those, you can find them on the Women Who Submit website.

2018 was a full year. I wrote about running my first marathon on Throwing Cookies and was able to get up to the Wellstone Center for Writers three times. My time and the space there has helped me bring three manuscripts to completion.

I will be looking for representation this year for Rice Paper Superheroes, a young adult novel that follows the Nakamura family from the Sawtelle Nihonmachi to Manzanar and back again.

Dispatches from a High School Feminist: Rising Up from Rural Oregon, is the high school memoir that will complete the Through Eyes Like Mine trilogy. I hope to release that this summer.

And finally, Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop: One Family's Experience with Mental Illness has moved from poetry to prose and I will be looking for a publisher for that as well.

After a move in August from our Mar Vista condo to a Home in View Park, we are settling in and loving our new space and neighborhood. What is on the minds in this two-teacher household most is the upcoming UTLA strike. If you have followed this blog you know my commitment to public education. This work stoppage could turn the tide for our schools, not just here in LA, but in our nation. Let's hope our city demands that our district do the right thing and fund the schools our students deserve.

With that, 2018 moves today from the front window and into the rear-view mirror. Happy New Year, y'all.

On the Occasion of My 100th Rejection

Yes, that is me and poet, Terrance Hayes.
I was so young, newly mfa'd and ready to be the writer. 

This past week, I finally received my 100th pass as a writer. It is a milestone I am celebrating, because if I'm not getting my work out there, I am not establishing myself as an emerging writer. As Los Angeles poet Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo of Women Who Submit helped me realize in her article,  "Building up to Emerging," getting my work published is part of building my career as a writer.

This journey started many years ago. After completing my mfa in writing, I set out to find an agent. I wrote a query for Through Eyes Like Mine, researched agents and agencies and sent out a dozen queries. I landed with Judy Heiblum at Brick House Literary Agents in 2006. She believed in my book, sent me wonderful edits, and then, just before sending my manuscript out, she moved to Sterling Lord Literistic, a big New York agency. My book was passed on by lots of editors at big houses. But the book didn't move, and Judy didn't see my next book, Overdue Apologies, as different enough that it would get picked up. My manuscripts quietly gathered digital dust on various computer hard drives.

I spent a couple of years teaching, started blogging, and spent the next few years of my post-mfa-life teaching and trying to start a family. In 2009, I finished up NaNoWriMo and was walking my students through the self-publishing process. That was when I realized, I could do this. It wasn't all that hard to put a book together and get it out into the world. I enjoyed designing covers, working with writer-friends who are great editors, and let my agent know I was going to self-publish Through Eyes Like Mine in 2010. She wished me luck, and I launched the book in Bend and Portland with readings and signings. It felt like a wonderful way to get my book in people's hands and onto shelves. It opened up readings at museums and in classrooms and at book clubs, but it was a lot of work.

Three years later, in 2012, just before Kiara was born, when I knew motherhood could put writing on pause for a while, I quickly and quietly self-published Overdue Apologies. I didn't schedule a book launch or readings or signings. I didn't have the time or energy as a new mother. But the book was out there and done.

It wasn't for another four years that I would connect with Women Who Submit, a group of LA writers who encourage submitting work to counter underrepresentation of women in literary spaces. That's when I started submitting. Since July of 2016, I've submitted to 106 journals, contests, presses, residencies, and agents. I've published or have forthcoming 16 pieces (poems, essays, excerpts) since then, was shortlisted for the 2040 Prize, and a request for a book proposal for Dispatches from a High School Feminist: Rising Up from Rural Oregon. For now, I'm trying to go traditional with this next book, but if things don't move, I'm not afraid to give it another go on my own.

Thanks to all of you for following this journey, for reading my books blogs. I know it doesn't seem like it's still the beginning, but as a writer, I'm working on building to emerging.

Shifting Focus Because Real Artists Ship

I haven't been here much since August. Correction. I haven't been here at all since August. Once the school year started, as happens most years, the weekday hours were spent at school teaching, grading, prepping lessons, and recovering. The weekends are full with the parenting of two kids, so even though I made some tough choices and stopped coaching this year, my writing took a hit. I was still getting up early most mornings to get the words on the page, but over the summer my focus shifted from producing new work to revising, editing, and submitting work into the world.

art by Stately Type 

This has been a long time coming. It's embarrassing to have so many files, drafts, excerpts, collections, selections, poems, essays, novels, and memoirs gathering digital dust, so I set a goal over the summer to submit to 50 small presses, contests, or journals before the end of the year. This push came from the consistent urging of Women Who Submit, a community that inspires women to submit their work by posting resources and hosting submission parties. A particularly inspiring essay by Xochitl-Julissa Burmejo on "Building Up to Emerging," helped me set this goal, and my writing partner, Hazel Kight Witham, joined me on this crazy submission blitz.

I'm at 37 submissions as of right now, and I wish I could say the acceptances poured in, but I have gotten fairly used to receiving passes. I try not to take any of them too personally, and I'm learning as I go.

I have a few new publishing credits: two poems at The Rising Phoenix Review: "Resistance" and "What Were You Doing." I have an essay forthcoming from Meridian. Hazel has also found success with credits at The Rising Phoenix Review, Flash Flash Click, and Binary Review. I've also posted fewer blogs, and the third installment of the memoir, Notes from a High School Feminist, continues to gather digital dust. I haven't read as much either, but it has been very good for me to get used to putting my work out there. After all, "Real Artists Ship." ~Steve Jobs

And I still have a few more weeks to hit fifty.

Through Eyes Like Mine v. Overdue Apologies

So, a couple of times in the past few weeks people have told me they didn't know I had a second book. What? How is this possible? It came out almost two years ago. Apparently, I didn't do a very good job getting the word out about Overdue Apologies, the middle school memoir follow-up to Through Eyes Like Mine.

Well, the early reviews are in, and it seems that the adults prefer Through Eyes Like Mine, and the young adult readers like Overdue Apologies more. My students have given me great feedback, even though I'm a little bit torn about my students reading my books. I don't mind when they read Through Eyes Like Mine, but this year I made the mistake of telling them they shouldn't read Overdue Apologies. So, of course, this made them want to read it. It's been good for me, though. I've had the chance to get more feedback and it's always funny to hear them critique my middle school choices.

"Ms. Nakada, I was mad when you broke up with Robert."

"What ever happened to Robin, or Casey, or Bianca?"

Then, one of my students wrote in a reading journal that she cried as she read the last chapter. She loves her middle school friends and hates to think they will someday drift apart.

She made me consider that it might not be so bad for my middle school students read my middle school memoir. Even though I did some things I'm not proud of, maybe reading my book will help them make better decisions than I did.

So, if you have a reader on your holiday list, here are a couple of books for your consideration.

Through Eyes Like Mine

Overdue Apologies

A Few Through Eyes Like Mine Big Pimpin' Shout Outs

In November I wrote this blog post about pimping my memoir and since then I've been working to get Through Eyes Like Mine into people's hands. I've participated in readings in Bend, Portland and Los Angeles. I've spoken with book clubs, received my first fan mail and had wonderful conversations with people about the book. It hasn't been easy and I haven't done it alone. The support I've gotten from family and friends has been phenomenal. There are so many great people out there getting the word out on the book and I want to honor some of them because it's hard out there for a pimp.

Everyone who reviewed the book on Amazon, Goodreads and Powells and the many others who sent me messages about the book.

Hazel Witham, who wakes up early every school day to write with me, who edits and provides feedback AND generously pimped my book to her many family and friends for the holidays.

Friends in Bend and Portland who supported my first readings at Old St. Francis School and Everyday Wine.

Leah Mackenzie who interviewed me an article in the Examiner. 

Emerson Middle School colleagues who continue to share Through Eyes Like Mine online, (thanks Diane and Caren) who showed up for our book club some of you twice, (thanks Meghan) and Michele and Heather who chose the book for their book club so they've discussed the book ad nauseum.

My Webster Middle School peeps who invited me to their book club (thanks, Alma) and even hung around during their conference periods to talk memoir.

The Rhapsodomancy Reading series, who hosted me at The Good Luck Bar (Thanks, Wendy) and all the Angelenos who came out to the event. 

Jeff who invited me to talk on CSDHTV with his students and is including TELM on his syllabus.

Hippocampus and Specter who published excerpts of my work in their literary magazines.

Jordan, who paired my book with a tasty Pinot Noir on her blog, This Girl Walks Into a Bar.

Katrina at KJP Creations who is making upcoming readings in Portland happen.

My parents: big pimpin'.

My extended family, Ron and Ruth for spreading the word among the Nakadas, and Aunt Bev on the Barry side.

Yukiko, my big sister who is responsible for my wide international following (so many people in China have read my book, and there are a lot of people in China).

Chet, and Mitch for continuing to support the book with friends and family. 

My husband, David who has put up with me working two jobs, handles all shipments and event sales, and has made many teachers at Brentwood Science Magnet buy my book. 

But the biggest pimps of TELM are definitely my parents. They not only allowed me to write all about how they raised me, but then they encouraged people to buy the book! Thanks, Mom and Dad! You are the top pimps! Congrats!

So, how are your book sales going?

Today at the end of a long day at my second job (teaching), one of my colleagues asked about my first job (writing). "So, how's your book selling?"

I told him things were going okay, but that it was hard to know. This is what I've thought about since then:  well, I haven't cracked any best-seller's lists, after toying with sales rankings in the thousands on Amazon in December I've fallen to the hundreds of thousands in February. But my dad, he's practically sold 100 copies on his own. You can now find my book in real life places (Between the Covers in Bend, the Nikkei Legacy Center in Portland) and buy it or order is from bookstores like Powell's. So I don't really know how sales are going. I wish there was a magic formula to stimulate the book, some tipping point when sales would accelerate and I wouldn't know every person who has read or ordered the book. As of right now though, my goal of 10,000 copies seems impossible, but maybe I won't feel that way in another three months. I guess I'll have to wait and see.

So, I've arranged a bunch or words in a particular order and put it between two covers. Any takers?

Pimp My Memoir: Through Eyes Like Mine for sale

For much of the past year, I've spent hours upon hours editing, revising, designing and redesigning Through Eyes Like Mine.  Much of that work has been done in the early morning hours.  Most of the process has been solitary.  It's what writers do and I'm a writer.  So although it's taken a whole lot of time and energy, I've loved doing it.

Now that the book is out, the marketing has begun. In this process, I'm much less comfortable.  I have to talk to people, email them, follow up with phone calls, and email or call again. I have to ask people to buy the book and that goes against all my socialist tendencies.  But if any of the editors from Penguin, Nan Talese, Tin House, Vintage, MacAdam/Cage, St. Martin's, Holt, HarperCollins, Graywolf, Picador, who passed on my book, had decided to publish it, they would have marketed the memoir so now it's up to me.

I decided to self-publish. I owe it to myself to pimp my memoir, so I'm asking for your help.

First off, to all of you who have already bought the book, thank you so very, very much.  If you read the book, please consider posting a review on Amazon, or as a comment on my website.  I would love to hear what you think, good or bad and to get people talking about the book.  Tell your friends and neighbors.  Write about it on your blogs.  Any press is good press, right?

If you haven't bought it, don't like to read, don't plan on reading it, I should have put this paragraph earlier because you probably aren't still reading, but just in case you are, you can help too!  Please share this post throughout the world of social media.  Even if you aren't so into books, please share with your friends.  Maybe they like books.  Maybe they will read it.  You too can pimp my memoir.

Or you can just chuckle about that little Noriko, (isn't she silly about all of this self-publishing nonsense) go about your day, and I'll simply carry on quietly, oh wait, I'm not supposed to do this quietly. Whatever.  This capitalism thing is hard for me, but I'll be out pimping my memoir, one book at a time.

My Decision to Self-Publish and Why I'm Sticking With It

After finishing my MFA I had a pretty solid manuscript in hand. It felt done. It felt different and real and I didn't cringe (too much) as I read over the draft months later. So I shopped it, landed an agent and thought, there it is! My book, written, sitting with an agent and she will make publishing happen!

Of course things didn't quite work out that way. My agent was great. She got the book to editors at big houses who read it and although they thought the book was beautifully written, it was a little too quiet or not quite what they were looking for.

That's okay. I didn't write it for any of them anyway! I wrote it for me, but I also wanted Oprah to pick my book for her show and now she's almost done with her show and won't be able to promote it.

Bummer.

But from what I hear, the publishing world is all sort of wacky turvy right now. E-books and e-readers and Snookie getting a book deal. Snookie. And it's so easy to self-publish. And so affordable. I can do it on my own.

Except then I have to do it all on my own.

So, I read and reread my book. I edited, revised, proof-read, read again, reread, reread and still, STILL there were mistakes. I made more changes. I printed proof copies. I shared it with my circle of talented friends who write and read. I heard from them and I made more changes, read, reread, revised, proof-read, added, deleted read again and again and again and again.

I designed a cover. I thought I liked it. I didn't. I changed it. I liked it again.

I'm waiting on what I hope will be the last proof copy. I'm really excited. I'm ready to send it out into the world. I hope to move 10,000 units. That's not so much. Wait, that's a ton.  

I hope you might want to read it.  

It's coming.  It's coming soon. 

Through Eyes Like Mine.  A book.  My book.  By Noriko Nakada.

Julie and Julia

That movie, Julie & Julia, tricked me. Not totally, but enough to catch me emotionally off-guard. I figured it would inspire me to cook amazing food, whisk together French sauces and poach eggs. I laughed and sighed at these two stories about love, food, and cooking.

What surprised me was how both stories were also about writing and publishing. That hit a little close to the quick. That whole, "You're not a writer unless you're published" made me real mad. All those messages on Julie's machine from agents and publishers, whatever.

 I'm still writing. I'm still blogging. I have finished manuscripts gathering dust from the "pass" pile on the floors of major publishing houses. Where is my national following? Where is my publishing offer, advance and movie deal?

No, no, no. I still enjoyed the movie. I still write everyday. I'm still a writer. I'm sure Julie's husband would agree.