I have a home theater.

I know, I know. My book hasn’t even hit the shelves yet and already I’m acting very Hollywood, home theater and all. What can I say? State-of-the-art sound system, huge flat screen, plush velvet sofas and a fully-stocked mini bar and kitchenette. Every movie you could possibly ever want, right at your fingertips.

(cough)

Okay, okay! So I’m in la-la-land. Our home “theater” isn’t exactly state-of-the-art. Or plush. Or fully stocked. It’s a $99 24-inch RCA color TV that weighs a ton, connected with a 2-in-1 VCR/DVD combo player that we got from Costco. Our movie collection consists mostly of Blue’s Clue’s (“Do you see a clue?”), Barbie adventures (“I want to grow up to be a princess!”), and a dated copy of Caddyshack (“Be the ball.”). We get our movies from the library for $1. We don’t have a mini bar; we don’t even have microwave popcorn. Nachos? Fuhgetaboutit.

Our theater seats consist of a polished rattan couch with fading palm tree print cushions, a rocking chair, and the floor. What’s found beneath the seats are your usual suspects: coins, paper clips, a missing princess slipper, bits of rice cake (my daughter … busted! She’s not allowed to eat in the living room), a dust bunny or two. Why should I travel 45 minutes to the nearest theater and pay $8 to deal with someone else’s dirt? I’ve got my own here, and it’s free!

Still, I miss the occasional movie in a movie theater. Movies have always been a great way to jump start my writing, so I will continue to dream of the ultimate home theater, plush velvet sofas and all … someday. In the meantime, I’m just going to have to make do without movie theaters, home theaters, Netflix or TIVO. I don’t even have cable. But I’ve got Blue’s Clues and Barbie for inspiration … what else do I need?

What movies are stocked in your home theater?

We won’t get into the whoosie-whatsit of that book, but suffice it to say that I exorcised a few demons with those two characters. Let’s see … they were Chinese-American (like me – check!), one of them worked overseas in Asia (check!), one of them was a management consultant (check!), one of them was a writer (check!), one of them was ambivalent about relationships (check!), one of them had to deal with getting pregnant and managing work (check!), they both had an interesting set of parents (check!), and they were both competitive and slightly insecure (check, check and double-check!).

Deidre, on the other hand, came to me fresh. When I wrote the first line for GOOD THINGS, “These corn fritters are simply orgasmic!” (spoken by another character), Deidre showed up in her ruched scoop neck dress and Cole Haan slingbacks and that was the end of that.

It’s sort of like being assigned a roommate in college – there she is, like her or not. All her stuff is out, her pictures are up on the walls, her clothes are hanging in the closet you share … and you’re stuck with her for the WHOLE year. You hear her telephone conversations, you meet her friends, you know what she stashes in the sock drawer of her dresser. As the months progress, she becomes more familiar. You watch her put on makeup, you know her annoying habits, you know when she gets her period. You end up knowing a lot about her, but she’s not you. You have no control over what she ultimately ends up doing.

You don’t have to love your protagonist all the time. I didn’t. But I was always rooting for Deidre, and by the end of the novel, I was definitely ready to throw her a party. You can’t always choose your roommates, but it’s a good thing when she turns out to be someone you like and end up connecting with.

Do you keep up with your college roommates?

Debut fiction author, about to be published, seeks literary representation after ending it with current literary agent. Must be willing to discuss possible story ideas, be open to light editing or comments. Similar philosophy on writing, publishing, and marketing preferred. Has time for me. Laughs at my jokes (I promise to laugh at yours!). Firm but flexible. Responds promptly. Current list should be impressive but manageable, with a view that adding me would be a wonderful complement. Able to sell foreign, dramatic and audio rights (bonus if rights are sold prior to publication). Must be excited to be working with me, excited for my writing career, and loves being a literary agent and helping authors get published.

Yes, it’s true. I am agent-less. A little over two years since I first signed on the dotted line, I have ended it with my agent. Don’t get me wrong: she’s a good agent, she’s been in the business a long time, she accepted me as a client (always a nice thing), she sold my novel to a great publishing house, and on this day of all days, I am thankful for her. Really.

But I didn’t really consider if we would be a good team for the long haul. We’re not. There’s lots of reasons why, and I won’t get into it since my reasons will differ from yours or anyone else’s. Suffice it to say that I’ve agonized over this for almost a year. Releasing an agent is almost as hard as finding one.

Future published writers, don’t learn the hard way. Get your writing as good as it can get, choose your agent carefully, research potential agents thoroughly, work on a kick-ass query and keep refining it until someone on your short list says YES. Then interview them. They need you as much as you need them (I know it doesn’t feel that way now, but it’s true).

You need to believe in yourself and in your writing, and that you deserve to find a literary agent who is the right fit for you. This is not something you want to settle for, trust me. The right literary agent is like the right marriage partner, and all the work you produce and sell ARE your children. Do this now, because if you desperately sign with the first person who says yes, you’ll be in the same boat as me, and it’s tough. For starters, you never really “end” it with a literary agent who has successfully sold your writing. You will continue to be married for as long as that literary property is receiving royalties. She will forever be able to negotiate rights on that property. Getting a divorce is yucky, especially if there are “kids” involved. My former agent and I will be co-parenting GOOD THINGS for a very long time.

I’m still processing and trying not to panic (Did I make a mistake? No! Yes! No!), and despite the title of this post, am not quite ready to jump back into the find-an-agent scene. But I’m still a lover of a good agent-author relationship. It’s out there, somewhere, and I hope every author, including myself, finds it.

This isn’t a new thing. I’ve had a thing for bookstores for as long as I can remember. We’re talking pre-cafe, pre-espresso machines, pre-cushy sofas, pre-piped in music. Wifi? Please.

I’m not picky, either. Corporate multinational book chains? Love ‘em. Small indie bookstores? Love ‘em. Airport bookstores? Love ‘em. School bookstores? Love ‘em. Shabby newsstands on the streets of Beijing? Love ‘em. Garage sale with a box o’ books for 25 cents a piece? Bring it on, baby!

Next to the library, bookstores are my favorite places of all time. The mere thought of a bookstore conjures up such happy feelings that I can hear Julie Andrews putting it to song in my head. And, of course, now that I am a soon-to-be-published author (No! Yes! No! Yes!), I love bookstores even more.

So what if the shelf life of a new book, especially fiction, is two months? So what if you don’t have a riser in the front of the store and are banned to the shelves (also known as Siberia), spine out? So what if no one knows where to find your book because you’re a first-time author and they have yet to hear of you? None of that matters* because you are going to be on the shelf in a bookstore, a glorious bookstore, several glorious bookstores (and maybe even a newsstand in Beijing!**) and that’s, well, pretty damn cool!

At least for two months. But regardless, I will continue my bookstore lurking, grabbing stolen minutes and hours whenever I can, browsing Siberia, rummaging through bargain book bins, flipping through the acknowledgments of new hardcover bestsellers, searching for great Christmas gifts (I can recommend six debut novels you might want to consider). Bookstores are my refuge from an otherwise hectic life, one of the few places I can go to forget everything else for a moment and remember what I love to do more than anything***: write.

* OK, it matters a little.

** If this were to happen, it would most likely be a pirated copy seeing how I am waiting for those foreign rights to start pouring in.

*** OK, I love my kids and my husband and doing things with them, but seeing how my love of writing pre-dates them and has been going strong for, oh, the past 30+ years, I’d say it’s right up there as one of my greatest loves of all time. Chocolate runs a close second.

My first kiss – not the kind delivered by exuberant parents and grandparents, by the way – was much anticipated and came in the fourth grade. It was towards the end of the school year in Houston, Texas, and I had a crush on Jason Harris. Jason lived on the next street and had a clubhouse in his backyard. One hot afternoon after school, we huddled together in the clubhouse and I knew that this was it. Jason Harris was going to kiss me. OMG, Jason Harris was going to kiss me!

We faced each other and, well, nothing happened. I started giggling. Jason’s smile was frozen on his face (translated = he was just as terrified as me). After a few more seconds of this, he finally made the move, leaned forward, and pressed his lips against mine. And there it was. My first kiss. Then the ice cream truck came down the street and the moment was lost as we scrambled to find change for Fudgcicles. That or a Rainbow Push-Up Pop. Decisions, decisions (you see, life was just preparing us for Starbucks after all).

As fate would have it, my family moved a few short months later. Jason and I wrote a few letters but then fifth grade came and then sixth grade … you get the picture. We were literally an ocean apart and a reunion was unlikely (that sort of thing only happens in romance novels).

There’s nothing like a little anticipation to keep you going – wondering what might have been (with Jason and other, ahem, “firsts”) is certainly fuel for lots of great stories, all waiting to be written (side note: I have an ex who actually made me SWEAR I wouldn’t write about him. Yeah, right!). But maybe some things are left better as memories, especially with the Debutante Mascot patrolling the grog. Besides, we write fiction – no real life stories there, right? *cough*

PS. My official temp page is finally up: www.miaking.com. Now if I can only get the rest of the site going …

When I’m caught off-guard with my kids, I’ll throw in a video to tide them over. I’ve got two for you, and Deb Eileen found one as well. They’re all here for your viewing pleasure:

• Dash – The Movie (3 minutes) – on living
• Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad (10 minutes) – on writing and selling
• Dove – Evolution (2 minutes) – on beauty and reality

Like most videos, there are commercials in there as well – for products, for companies, for ways of thinking. Let’s hear your thoughts on the videos, and if they inspired you, irritated you, or bored you …. bring on the popcorn!

If only I had more time to write, my second novel would be done!

If only I had more time to write, my agent would see that I’m not a slacker, but someone with actual promise!

If only I had more time to write, I’d be on the way to quitting my day job and writing ALL OF THE TIME!!!

Ah, but the sad truth is, this is what my writing time looks like whenever I can actually squeeze it in:

Organize desk.

Oops, forgot to get water. Need to stay hydrated. Go to kitchen to get water. Or maybe tea? Green tea or herbal? Maybe just water. Ooh, lookee! Ginger ale! Do we have ice? Damn, no ice. Better make some ice.

Okay, finally ready to work. Man, my computer folders are a mess. Should really organize my computer folders so it will be easier to see where all of my work is.

Have I backed up my computer lately? It would totally suck if I lost all my writing. Better back it up before I forget.

Husband calls on cell phone. Wants to know if they can come home yet. Of course not! I’m writing, dammit!

Just pick up where you left off, Mia. Page 167. But you know, maybe this whole thing would work better in first person instead of third. POV is everything. Remember what happened with Memoirs of a Geisha?

Well, that didn’t work. Okay, back to third person.

Do I have clothes that need to go into the dryer? Is that red sweatshirt in the wash? I think it is. Shoot, if I don’t get it out, the color will seep through to the other clothes. Who gave us that stupid sweatshirt anyways?!

Oh, I just got an email. Somebody left a comment on my post! Sure I can read it in the email, but let’s go look anyway …

OK, come on, get back to work. Great, we’re writing, it’s flowing, FINALLY … what, it’s six o’clock?! How did it get so late? Please let there be a frozen pizza I can cook for dinner. I was JUST getting warmed up, too. Maybe I can squeeze in another 10 minutes … who’s that pulling up in the driveway? They’re back already?!!

So, while I’d rather be writing more than almost anything in the world (in concept), the truth is, it rarely happens. In any given week, I’d say I’m lucky if I end up writing two hours towards my next book.

How many hours a week do YOU actually end up writing?

“The hairy thing that lurks under my bed” suddenly seems harmless when compared with your entire house rocking and rolling like nobody’s business. “The hairy thing that lurks under my bed” could be a science project gone bad, a small farm animal (I live in a part of Hawaii that has its share of small, odd-looking farm animals), even a troll (I’ve never seen one but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist – I try to keep an open mind about these things).

But an earthquake? That’s serious, scary business. You want to run, but exactly where are you going to run to?

And, if you have kids or a spouse, then it’s like you have a responsibility to keep a level head. No screaming or panicking, lest you freak out the 6-years-old-and-under set. So even though EVERYTHING is rumbling and quaking (it really is!), you sort of say nonchalantly, “Hey, let’s go stand under the door frame!” You try to make it sound like a game even though you are shouting over the din (earthquakes are LOUD) and wearing only a T-shirt and boxers. You try not to look perturbed as you calculate how far away the front door is from the bedroom door, or wondering if maybe you really should start screaming and panicking. This isn’t Space Mountain, this is the EARTH under your HOUSE moving and NOT STOPPING. It’s disconcerting to say the least.

But it does stop, does a few hiccups, and as you continue the “game” of loading up your car as fast as you can with all the emergency supplies you bought from Costco five years ago, you realize – again – that, shoot, I live on an island. Where am I going to go? If I drive non-stop for seven hours, guess where I end up? Back in my front yard again!

But, truthfully, it wasn’t as if staying in the house was a bad idea. There was hardly any property damage. There were cracks in the walls and the carport ceiling caved in on the car but only one thing broke, a picture frame. And our eight million bookshelves (I’m exaggerating here) with all sorts of stuff – nothing fell off. Things came down from the closet shelves but since they were already in boxes (with lids!), we just had to push the boxes back on the closet shelves. Done! Oh, and a plastic piece on the shower door broke so that the door swings out, and the water heater spit out some black water onto the wall. Even the TV worked. I did a quick vacuum, wiped up the dust, pulled the sheetrock off of our car, washed my hands, and we were off to the neighborhood Pumpkin Patch by 1:00 pm (the earthquake was at 7:07 am).

So, as you probably guessed, I headed straight for the bake sale table, looking for chocolate. None. Nada. There were macadamia nuts cookies, pumpkin bread, caramel apples, Rice Krispy treats, peanut butter cookies, but no chocolate ANYTHING. The parent manning the booth gave an apologetic shrug. “They were the first to go.” The grocery stores were closed for clean-up so there was no chance of getting chocolate there. Ditto with the gas stations.

I am grateful no one was injured. I am grateful my family and our things were safe and sound. I am grateful that our community managed to pull off a Pumpkin Patch within hours of a major earthquake. I am grateful that we had electricity and running water restored almost immediately. I am grateful that our little house that I constantly bitch about (never again!) held up so well. I am grateful that 100 FEMA experts were deployed in record time even though, as it turned out, there really wasn’t any catastrophe needing their immediate attention. As far as big earthquakes go, we fared pretty damn well, especially since the epicenter was about 15 miles from our house.

Still, there’s the chocolate. While I’m not expecting another major disaster any time soon, I want to be prepared this time. So send your donations to: The Earthquake Chocolate Relief Fund, care of Mia King, PO Box 6886, Kamuela, HI 96743. This is not tax deductible and you will not receive a receipt. All proceeds go to benefit me (hey, I could have post traumatic stress!) and will probably be eaten within 24 hours. Thank you for your attention to this matter, and know that your donation will be going to a good cause!