Between Jobs: A Novel is available now!

My book, Between Jobs: A Novel, is now available for purchase on Lulu.com! (click here!)

Here's a summary:

Fired from her first real job, Pam thinks it will be a piece of cake to find a new one. After all, she has a Masters Degree! She soon realizes, however, that she has a far greater task at hand. From committing massive conversational idiocy when first combating the question “So, what do you do?”, to contemplating her role in the world of work, to developing an acute case of “The Nasties,” Pam’s journey into this new phase of her life is never a dull one.

Based on the author’s experience as a budding young professional, Between Jobs: A Novel is a charming lemons-to-lemonade tale. Pam’s trials and tribulations, as well as her unique perspective and style, will leave you laughing long after you’ve put the book down.

If you would like to buy a copy (available in paperback and download), please visit my Lulu storefront. I hope you like it! If you do, tell your friends and/or send me a comment on my website.

Thanks for reading!


URLs for links embedded above:
Lulu Storefront: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=23531672
My website: http://pambellarose.weebly.com/index.html

My first rejection email: A momentous occasion

I just got my first rejection email from a literary agency last night! It's a momentous occasion. I sent my query letter to a few literary agents and hadn't heard back from them, so this is an improvement over silence and/or indifference, I suppose. What I don't understand, however, is what's not to like. It's a funny book about unemployment that zillions of now unemployed people can relate to. How can you go wrong?

You know what, though? Someone will take a chance on me (and my sexy wink). Ba ba bop baaa ba! Ba ba bop baa baaa bop ba!

Creative Shepherd

Creativity often springs from time spent with no particular task at hand (when you're unemployed, for example). It also stems from unusual situations and the ability to look at things in different ways. I, for example, wrote a book and started a blog. I did some fun stuff with business cards. You, on the other hand, might have decided to create some sort of sexy butter sculpture, or perform an interpretive dance on protein synthesis. To each his own. The point is that the possibilities are endless.

These fine gentlemen have illustrated my point completely and have taken creativity to a place not many of us have visited before: shepherding.
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/152506/detail/

I admire their work and am confident I would fit in with these guys. I'm moderately good at training dogs, after all, so maybe I could get a job as the Border Collie trainer! It's settled, then: I will move to wherever these fellas are located and join them as a Baa Stud-ette.

I just hope they're not under a hiring freeze.

My first query letter

I submitted a query letter to my first literary agent! Now I just have to wait 4-6 painfully long weeks to see if they're interested, then I send them my manuscript, and if they like it, they try to get me published! Yippeeeeee!

What's that? What am I talking about?! You forgot I wrote a book, didn't you? Either that or you haven't read this whole blog, and that's just shameful. Perhaps I've been neglectful: Maybe we should discuss that book again, reader.

This is what I told the company that will hopefully want to be my literary agent:

Born from the author’s deadly combination of graduate degree, ten months of soul-searching unemployment, and uniquely funny outlook on life, Between Jobs is the first novel to make the rapidly growing legion of the smart but suddenly unemployed laugh at their unfortunate predicament.

When Pam is fired from her first real job, she thinks it will be all too easy to find a new one; after all, she has a Masters Degree! She soon finds, however, that not only is it much harder than she thought, but that she isn't even sure what she wants to do with her life. Between Jobs is a lemons to lemonade tale that takes us through Pam's brainstorming, handy email networking, amusing experiences with recruiters, socially awkward encounters at parties, unsuccessful interviews, brief foray into temporary work, unclear sense of identity, and temporary loss of hope. The hilarious roller coaster ride of self-discovery continues as Pam is offered a contractor position, accepts it, and falls in love with it, only to be dumped when the contract is over. Defeated, but better for it, Pam decides to write a book about all the funny things that have happened to her while between jobs.

You know you want to read it! That is, when it's published...I'll let you know!

A little back story

So, my new friend, let me tell you a story.

I was once unemployed. That's a lie- it was twice, and for a total of ten months. During this period, what did I do with my time? I looked for jobs, read, watched TV, hung out with friends, played a video game here and there, worked out, talked to my dog…you know, all normal things to do. But then a funny thing started to happen: The muscle of my mind began to atrophy. Worried that my head would shrivel up like a raisin (remember that movie Beetlejuice?), I wondered what, if anything, I could do to keep my mind active. That's when I started writing…and I couldn’t stop. It seemed very much like I was sleeping and dreaming of writing, and when I awoke, a book called Between Jobs: A Novel had been born. Now, I'm trying to get it published!

Well, actually, that's not when I started writing all together. As far back as I can remember, I have always been a writer...

Like the time in third grade when I went to my uncle's wake. It was my first wake, and my mom thought that in case the need to express myself in this situation arose like vomit in my throat, I should carry a pad and pencil and use them as my very own barf bag. Here are some gems from that masterpiece:

Description of Uncle Wally
eyes: don't know (he's dead)
hair: brown
wearing: tux
faicail hair: mustache
hairstyle: slick
(Just wanted to throw this in, Aunt Joe's son's name is Kevin, my cousin!)
no. of flowers: 301
no. of lights: 52
casket: cool, just shows face and chest, rest is closed

That's pure genius, right there! I just want to point out that I knew the abbreviation for "number" was "no." before I knew how to spell "facial." What a champ! Later, I count down the number of hours, minutes, and seconds I have until the wake is over. Nobody can say I'm not detail-oriented.

Later in life, I continued writing. It was the awkward years of middle school, around the age of 11, that my friend Gretchen Ziegler and I wrote this dazzling ode to insects:

Raindrops on beetles and bright colored crickets
Mostly they're found in the center of thickets
Hornets and centipedes hid under jugs
These are a few of my favorite bugs

I eat them at midnight; I dip them in coffee
Sometimes I find them in boxes of toffee
Leeches and walking sticks, spiders and slugs,
These are a few of my favorite bugs

When the flea bites, when the bee stings,
When it's hunger I feel
I sim-pl-y crunch on my favorite bugs
'Cuz bugs are my faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavorite meal!

Please, stop clapping; it's too much.

In college, I continued to write a lot of poetry (mostly embarrassing and unworthy of sharing) in what I called the "Random Books of Pam." So random, in fact, that on one page there is a poem titled "Last Email of Love" and on the next, an "Ode to Food Poisoning." Two words for you: Budding. Author.

Something about being unemployed, though...I don't know if it was the anger, the sadness, the need to get it all out and feel validated, all that time on my hands, or all of these things. I wouldn't have been fulfilled with a report, poem, or ode. This shit needed to be a book.

And whom or what fueled this crazy, crazy idea? Ye Olde Downward-Spiraling Economy. An Economy so bad that it made it impossible to find a job and very possible to write a book. So I, thank you, Economy, for sucking so badly. I only hope more people will make different kinds of lemonade from you, like I did, you nasty little lemon, you.

Why we're here

Why did I start this blog?

1. Because you and I are both smart and funny and we deserve each other.


2. How else would you find out about my awesome, not-yet-published, reality-based humorous novel called Between Jobs: A Novel? (Well, that might not be the final title. I'll let you know.) Answer: You might not! *Gasp!* Especially because it's not published yet (beside the point!) As you may already know, you have no idea who I am (yet...). I would love for us to spend more time together before you make the commitment of sitting down with the page-turning fruits of my labor.


3. What do we do, you and I, while we're waiting to take that next step together? I'm glad you asked! We gather around the glow of the computer and discuss how awesome my current job is. Trust me, it's funner than you think!