Jenna Glatzer, Ghostwriter

Like most people, I lead a very busy life. Sleep is a precious commodity that I don't get enough of on a regular basis. I could tell you all my reasons, but I bet you have your own. So when it comes to sleep, I want to make the most of every minute of it-- and that starts with having a comfortable bed and pillow. My parents bought me a new mattress for Christmas in 2009. It was a fancy pillowtop one from Sleepy's, fairly high end. I liked it in the store, but when it came to actually sleep on it at home, I woke up with a stiff neck the first morning. I thought that maybe I just needed to get used to it, so I gave it some time... but it just wasn't comfortable for me. I was planning on returning it, but then my daughter crawled into bed with me one night and had an accident. My waterproof mattress pad had melted in spots in the dryer, so it failed me. Big stain. There went my ability to return the mattress. I was seriously bummed. What I'd wanted, but was afraid to t...

When I started writing, older writers would often say things like, "The publishing world has changed! It's not like it was when I was starting." I'd wonder what publishing was like for them; they painted utopian pictures of editors who spent lots of time nurturing writers who showed promise but didn't have professional polish. They described bookstores giving "fringe" authors a chance, and not giving up on authors whose first books didn't sell well. They described publishing as a kind, gentle world where promotion was left up to the publishers and writers had nothing to do but work on their craft. I don't know how much of that was factual and how much was romanticized. My guess is about 50/50. It's true that when I began writing professionally in 1997, the publishing world had become more competitive, more prone to the chain bookstores' "bestseller" mentality (leaving less space on shelves for books with smaller audiences, regar...

First, thanks to CSNStores.com, where you can get anything from a dollhouse to an Eames lounge chair , for inviting me to do another review-- which is coming up soon. But I have something else I wanted to talk about first. Or rather, that I don't want to talk about first. Namely, I don't want to talk about Charlie Sheen. And so I'm blogging about it. I realize the irony of this... I stopped caring about Charlie Sheen at precisely the moment he held a knife to his wife's throat and threatened to kill her. A guy who does that should not have a TV show. A guy who does that should not have the world record for the quickest rise to 1 million Twitter followers. But people love crazy. We love to watch people go off the rails. I'm not sure exactly why, and I'm sure not above it all-- despite that I have no sympathy or positive feelings for Sheen, I've watched the interviews, too. (At least, parts of them, until I got frustrated enough to stop.) I want more attenti...

My sweet Sarina, tomorrow you will turn 4. I know you've been afraid of turning 4 because-- as you put it-- "my whole life will change." But I want you to know that that's not always a bad thing. When you were born, my whole life changed, and I could spend forever telling you how grateful I am for that. I had heard about this magical moment from some women, but things very rarely happened for me in those fairytale ways... people said things like, "You'll never know how much love you can feel until you look at your baby for the first time," or "It's the greatest joy you'll ever have!" and I only half-believed them. I mean, I really did want a baby more than anything, but I still thought they might be exaggerating this supposedly magical, indescribable, otherworldly love. They weren't. When I first laid eyes on you, I cried. I said, "She's perfect!" and I meant it. And I still do. You, my mess-making, candy-sneaking, bed...

*This is a sponsored post through Mom Bloggers Club.* I don't do sponsored posts unless I think the info is genuinely useful, and in this case, I do... iTriage is a free medical reference application for Smartphones (iPhone, Android, iPod Touch, and Palm, and coming soon to Blackberry). Here's what it offers: ■ Information on more than 300 symptoms, 1000 diseases, and 350 medical procedures ■ A nationwide directory of hospitals, urgent cares, retail clinics, pharmacies, and physicians ■ Turn-by-turn facility directions from GPS, IP address, or zip code locations ■ Nurse advice lines ■ Detailed quality reports from HealthGrades on hospitals and physicians ■ Help negotiating medical bills ■ Emergency Room wait times for hospitals in select parts of the country I just downloaded it from the Android Market (fast, no problem) and found the app to be simple to use and full of helpful information all in one place. Were I actually away from home and needing medical care, I think this ...

Random.org selected comment 52, which was from Shellie & Brutus. Congrats! CSN also gave me a gift certificate that I used toward the purchase of this Wildon Home sheet set . I have a tall mattress, and a stupid propensity for picking fitted sheets that shrink, so lately, the fitted sheet and I have been having a knock-down battle every time I change the linens. Three corners I can manage, but that damn fourth corner turns me into a red-faced, panting, sweating person who hollers, "Come on! Get on there! You jerk!" and hopes nobody ever walks in and sees me in this condition. So you can see that I was due for some new sheets. Anyway, I've never owned 600 thread count sheets as far as I'm aware-- I mostly pick up whatever's on sale-- and I wanted to see if I could feel the difference. I couldn't. I would fail the Princess and the Pea test, too. But that's okay. They were totally comfortable, but I didn't really get the "ohhh, so this is what it...

The thing about writing is that there's no multiple-choice exam you can take to find out if you're doing it right. You know if you're good at math because either you get into the honors classes or you don't... you pass the finals or you fail. With writing, the closest barometer you get in school is to see what kind of grade you get in English class-- or if you're lucky enough to be in a school where "creative writing" is offered (mine didn't offer that), you can check out your grade in that. But it's not objective the way math or science are. Your grade is largely dependent on a single teacher's taste. A competent teacher can tell you if your grammar stinks, if your writing is full of holes or redundancies, or if you're making common errors-- but there are many areas that teachers can't reliably grade. Your writing style, primarily. Like what I did just there. "Your writing style, primarily" is a fragment, and an English teach...

I have pissed off the Twitter agents. It all started when one was lamenting the fact that writers sometimes accept offers of representation without checking in with the other agents they've submitted to first, and I responded with my view on why writers might do that. Ugliness ensued. And because I can't adequately respond in 140 characters or less, I figured I'd respond in an open letter here. (I was in the middle of a completely different post for writers, but that'll have to wait a bit. It'll be awesome, I promise.) This is the actual exchange: literaticat: For the third time this week, somebody has accepted representation from another agent without giving me the chance to respond. Grr. If you don't want me to even have the chance to be your agent WHY ARE YOU WASTING MY TIME & FILLING MY INBOX IN THE FIRST PLACE? I'm not MAD, just, why not give yourself options? Get an offer, tell the other agents - chances are one of them might be interested too. Me...

'Tis that time again, and I have to admit, I'm really excited to see the look on Sarina's face when she opens up her gifts this year. This is the first time she was able to make a "list" for Santa, so I know I've done right with most of the things I've bought her. For those of you who are looking for ideas for a preschooler, I thought I'd share with you some of the best toys and games we already own or I've already tested out: 1. Mobigo Sarina has owned the Mobigo since last summer, and it's been a steadfast companion whenever we have downtime. It's a terrific little handheld gaming/learning system for young kids (they suggest 3-8, and I agree). Simple to use, with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and the game it comes with is very good quality. My daughter has just one other game so far, and it's kept her entertained for months. Every time she finishes a game, she rushes over with excitement to show me her new score. 2. FurReal Friends Lul...

Happy Thanksgiving, readers! I'm thankful for you. And for stuffing. Mmmm, stuffing. Just in time for the holidays, CSN Stores has done it again-- they're offering one of my super readers a gift certificate that you can use in any of their stores. And those stores are mighty diverse. You can get just about anything there, from a stool to a bed. To win, all you have to do is leave a comment here telling me something that's made you happy this week. For extra entries, you can do any of these things (leave me a separate comment for each thing you do): 1. Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GhostwriterJG 2. Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect. (Look over there in the right sidebar for the follow button ---> ) 3. Tweet about this contest. Use whatever wording you want, but here's one example: Win a $40 GC to CSN Stores from @GhostwriterJG at http://jennaglatzer.blogspot.com/ . 4. Review any of my books on Amazon, Goodreads , BN.com, or your own blog for 5 extra e...

My mom called last week to tell me that there would be a one-night-only showing at my local movie theatre of the 25th anniversary concert of Les Miserables at the O2 Theatre, and she asked if I wanted to go. Of course I did; I lost count of how many times I saw Les Mis on Broadway, but it was approximately 8, sheerly because I could not afford to go every weekend. All but the last were spectacular. (The last one was an off-Broadway revival, and it was pathetic.) The first time I saw it was around 1987, which made me either 11 or 12. Colm Wilkinson was starring. The dynamics of the show are a big part of its magic-- from the booming, rousing group songs to the pin-drop moments between phrases of "Bring Him Home." I am convinced that anyone who isn't moved by that song is clinically deceased. Tonight's showing was sold out, and my parents, brother, and I had to sit separately from one another (though close enough for me to lean forward and tap two of them, at least). N...

For the past 20 minutes or so, I've been inwardly huffing and puffing about a post I read where a non-parent denounced child harnesses (usually cute backpacks with "leashes"), calling them cruel. She insisted that parents who use them are lazy and that the kids will grow up to be rebellious, drunken teens who can't wait to get away from their parents. First, I don't use a harness on Sarina. But I do know something about the absolute terror of having your little child outrun you at an amusement park, resurfacing at the top of a ride she didn't belong on. I would never judge someone for using a harness. Others who do just can't get past the "leash" imagery, but you know what? It's less restrictive than holding a child's hand firmly or placing a child in a stroller or baby carrier. Where are all the insulting outcries about how children are being oppressed because they're in strollers? A harness gives the child some range of movement, s...

I love Amazon... or at least, I did, until today. Today, Amazon took a stand! For pedophilia! Uh... huh? No, seriously. Amazon is selling this in their Kindle store: The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure . ( UPDATE : as of Nov. 11, the page is down. I've captured screenshots of what the listing looked like, and you can view them as a .pdf file here .) This is the author's description: "This is my attempt to make pedophile situations safer for those juveniles that find themselves involved in them, by establishing certian rules for these adults to follow. I hope to achieve this by appealing to the better nature of pedosexuals, with hope that their doing so will result in less hatred and perhaps liter [sic] sentences should they ever be caught." Now, anyone can publish anything on Amazon's self-publishing platform, mind you. I don't blame Amazon for not catching it immediately. What I DO blame them for is their deplorable response to the situation once t...

It started when my new coauthor, Paula Bloom, posted a video where this guy shows us how to peel hard-boiled eggs just by blowing on them: By the way, he's lying about the baking soda being "key." Totally don't need it. It's just easier to peel (or, er, blow) eggs that are not very fresh, so choose eggs that have been sitting around in your fridge for a few days. Anyway, I had to find an excuse to try this, so I decided to make egg salad. Egg salad and I have a bit of a checkered past. See, I loved it when I was a wee one. My dad proudly told me a story over and over and over (still does) about how he got the "secret recipe" from a deli owner one day. He used to frequent a Brooklyn deli and loved their egg salad, and kept bugging the owner about the recipe. He knew there was a secret ingredient, but the owner refused to tell him what it was, because then he knew my dad could make it at home and stop coming to the deli. Well, finally, my dad was about to ...

"Funny you should ask that, Bob. As it says in my book, in chapter 4..." That's where I roll my eyes and change the radio station or TV channel. I hate... freakin' hate... being "pitched to" in ways that are thinly veiled as something other than pitches. Free webinars that are really just teasers to try to get you to buy big packages of audio books and DVDs, free e-books that promise to tell you all the REAL secrets in the book that you have to pay for... etc. I think I've struggled with the concept of self-promotion-- and commercialism in general-- since college, when I was an advertising major. Actually, I started as a fine art major, but by sophomore year, realized I wasn't good enough, so I switched into advertising. By the end of junior year, however, I realized I didn't want to spend my life convincing people to buy things they didn't need and couldn't afford. It's just that it was too late for me to switch majors again without ...

**CONTEST CLOSED** Congrats to the winner, Debbie C, comment #166! Thanks, too, to CSN Stores, for allowing me to review one of their products. I chose the Patch Products Building Words Tabletop Pocket Chart ($15.25). It's a very cool tool for kids who are starting to learn how to read and spell. It includes pictures of simple things: a cat, a bug, a pot-- all three-letter words-- along with the cardboard letters needed to spell all those words. Kids place the cardboard letters into vinyl "sleeves" to spell out the words, and when not in use, all the letters and pictures get stored in a big pocket in back of the chart. Love it! ----------- Hey, guess what? I have another $50 gift certificate to CSN Stores to share with you, my glorious and splendid blog readers. CSN is a great online network of sites where you can find anything you need for your home, from nightstands to rugs . If you'd like a chance to win, I have a bunch of ways you can do so. Leave a separate comm...

Last week, Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington bridge. He announced that he was about to do it on his Facebook page, then he drove there, left his wallet on the bridge, and jumped. The reason he did this was that his roommate, Dharun Ravi, secretly videotaped him "making out" with another male and announced it on Twitter... then encouraged everyone on Twitter to watch live streaming video two days later when he secretly turned on the webcam again to watch Tyler. Dharun did this from student Molly Wei's room. First, let me show you photos of these shmucks: What an adorable pair, no? Molly with her cross hanging from her neck... The maximum sentence for the top count of the current charges is a 5-year prison sentence for invasion of privacy for each of them. What I wish is that Tyler had the kind of social support he needed following this kind of cruelty. That's the intent of the It Gets Better project: http://www.youtu...