Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
April 14, 2005 - Bittersweet Results
Copyright
2005 Fox Broadcasting
As Simon Cowell had predicted, Nadia Turner was the one who went home last night on American Idol. I was disappointed to see her go, but I knew that the time was coming.
What was most surprising was who else joined her in the bottom three.
Scott Savol was one of them, which wasn't much of a surprise. But the big surprise was that Bo Bice was also in the bottom three.
Of course, when asked about this result, Paula Abdul said she wasn't concerned, that she would still see Bo in the finals. And Randy Jackson also pointed out that previous winners Ruben Studdard and Fantasia Barrino had both found themselves in the bottom three at one point.
I was sorry to see Nadia go, but I think she's proven that she has talent. Hopefully, it will give her career a boost anyway. If there's a silver lining to these results, it's that it wasn't Bo who went home. I think he's got great potential, and hopefully he'll step up his game now.
In some personal news, I had entered a self-published book contest held by Writer's Digest, entering my book, Picturebook of the Martyrs. I just got the results, and although I wasn't one of the winners, the judge had nothing but good things to say.
In the three categories they were judging, structure and organization, grammar, and cover design, I scored four out of five in each.
The judge wrote some positive things about the design of the book and the work therein:
Cover design catches the eye, book is an easy to hold in the hand size, pages flip easily, soft ivory paper, and layout of poems, interesting poems on various subjects. I particularly liked "A Healer's Work I" and the image of daffodils creeping "from the shadows" of night leading to sleep. The list poem "Dumpster Diving" is clever. After filling my head with images of a dumpster's contents in the stanza I am set up for the rubber plant "set beside the dumpster" and the telling "when I touch the earth inside / its cumbersome pot; before being cast out / this plant was watered." This leads to my rereading the first line of the poem again "They can't really mean it." Good poem. It leads to other images outside the poem.
I thought it was interesting that the poems she liked the best were written postgraduate school. The book was primarily composed of poems written while I was in grad school, and the poems she pointed out were transitional poems to the way I'm writing now.
In answer to the question, "How can the author improve this book?" the judge wrote, "Nothing that I can see."
Finally, in answer to the question of "How can the author better market the book?" she had a constructive comment I've already considered, to list it on Amazon.com. The reason I have not yet done this is because you have to have an ISBN number first, and they're a bit pricey. I've been waiting until I could purchase the number in order to do so.
Really,
this was the kindest rejection possible. I also received a "certificate
of participation," which kind of made me feel like I'm in elementary
school again. But at least it was a positive experience. At least now
I have an impartial outsider's confirmation that my book is worth reading
and that I simply need to find better ways to market it.
More Musings on American Idol:
Moral:
The glass can be half empty and half full at the same time.
Copyright
2005 by Alyce Wilson
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