Chrissie

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Hey everyone, I just want you all to know that when I started writing Chrissie in 2002, I had hopes that someday it would be published. Chrissie - The Pre-Teen Years, will be published by Xlibris Press sometime this year.

My cousin is editing the manuscript now, and it is almost ready. I still have a few more chapters to write and send them to her, then I will send them to Xlibris when my cousin returns the manuscript to me.

I wish to thank all of those who have read Chrissie in the past, and those yet to.

Barbara

"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."

Comments

where is it

i cant find the link to big closet classic now. I cant find chrissie :(

thank you

thank you. their fascinating. if i can find the publisher shes was talking about i will order it. The links there are rather difficult to navigate :(. IM having a hard time finding chapters 2 3 4 5, of chrissie.

link

erin's picture

Congratulations!

Here's a link to the version of [Chrissie] on BigCloset.

- Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Try Again?

Erin, I think you need to reset that link. It's simply taking me back to Barbara's blog entry. (I found the story anyway via the Classic BigCloset link at the top of the page.)

Eric

Linking

erin's picture

When you click on the Chrissie link, it should show you two listings of Chrissie, the second by me. That second has links to Chrissie on both BigClosets.

Here's the info from it:

[Chrissie - Chapter 15]
[Chrissie - Chapter 16]
[Chrissie - Chapter 17]
[Chrissie - Chapter 18]

You can find earlier chapters of Chrissie on Barbara's page at Classic BigCloset.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Just a Suggestion...

Barbara, it is of course your story, and you're free to publish it however you see fit.

But I hope that when it's edited, you'll have your cousin or someone check for anachronisms. There are a number of things that don't quite fit the time period; I can't speak for others but I know they distracted me. Things like "Father Goose" (1964), "Follow That Dream" (the title song from a 1962 Elvis Presley movie), the lyrics you quote from Ricky Nelson's "Teenage Idol" (1962), "Feminine Mystique" (the book that publicly coined the phrase was published in 1963), calling the counselors "Ms.". Network television didn't regularly show movies in prime time until the sixties ("Saturday Night at the Movies", NBC, 1961). Road Runner cartoons weren't released for television until 1960, and then appeared only occasionally on ABC's once-a-week, prime-time half-hour "Bugs Bunny Show". Ed Sullivan's "cute puppet", Topo Gigio, debuted in 1963. And that's just items that I remember from one re-reading earlier today; I wasn't actually compiling a list, so there are very probably others.

Nearly all of this is background material intended to set the scene, with little impact on the plot. But there's an awful lot of it: more, I think, than you get right. (FWIW, my memory does the same thing; I was certain that the #1 song in San Francisco when I first started listening to Top 40 radio at age 8½ in early 1959 was "Cathy's Clown" by the Everly Brothers, and the hitbound "KEWB Discovery" was Johnny Burnette's "Dreamin'" But both came out in 1960.)

It'd take a little time for you to run down some lists, online or in reference books or library archives, to jog your memory as to which Elvis songs, Cary Grant movies, TV shows, etc., you were actually thrilling to at the time. But since you're presenting this as an autobiographical novel (and therefore probably don't want to move the date of the action ahead five years to make everything fit better) I believe it'd be worth your time and effort.

Respectfully,
Eric

Hi Eric

You were right about Teenage Idol, and I meant to say Be-Bop Baby (Imperial 5463, 1957). My mind sometimes goes faster than my fingers. I will let Jeanne know about this. I will let her also know about the others too. I don't know what I was thinking, but that particular chapter I guess was way ahead of 1958 (giggle). But you are wrong tho about the shop Feminine Mystique. Even tho a book made it a household phrase, it was in use long before the book came out. Also, I don't know why you say that Ms. wasn't used in the 50's, because it has been in use since the black people were slaves. I won't debate this with you. If you don't like the story, don't read it.

Barbara Lynn Terry

"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."

"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."

Love & hugs,
Barbara

"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."

"Miz" vs "Ms"

As I said before, it's your story. All I'm doing (besides showing off my research skills, such as they are) is trying to prevent your story from distracting people like me who get pulled out of a story when they come to things that seemingly can't be right.

I didn't really want to go through this; obviously proving a negative via research is impossible. But while your camp counselors in the late 1950s, like most women, would have answered to "miz" (usually interpreting it as either "Miss" or "Mrs.", whichever was correct), they would not have used "Ms." in their signatures or in identifying themselves. The term simply wasn't in use at that time as a title, except for its rare and limited usage in addressing an initial piece of business correspondence to a woman whose marital status wasn't known. (If she responded, the correct title would be in her letterhead, or appended to her typed signature, so you wouldn't have to use it a second time.)

Its use by choice by young adult women as a hipper term than "miss" doesn't happen before the 1960s, and generally the mid-to-late 1960s. (Check your old high school yearbooks, or magazines of the time, or series novels like Nancy Drew.)

Best, Eric

Re: "Miz" vs "Ms"

Whatever...

"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."

Love & hugs,
Barbara

"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."

I have a suggestion BLT,

I was going to go with XLIBRIS or Author House publishers, but after much research and talking to other authors I found XLIBRIS to be overpriced, use deceptive advertising for all their marketing deals they offer, and worse of all, they don't deliver the finished products in a timely manner.

Try it and see; order a book from lets say Amazon or Barnes and Noble online booksellers. Make sure it is an XLIBRIS or Author House published book. Author House was bought out by XLIBRIS by the way. Yes they are a division of Bantam books, but don't hold your breath for Bantam to offer you a deal from XLIBRIS.

Anyway, you order your book, you will wait, and wait, and wait. You see, when you order the book from Amazon, they place the order with XLIBRIS, XLIBRIS then sends the order to (one) of the several printers they use. If they get it right, that printer already has that book in it's software programs. If not, they request it from XLIBRIS and they send it on. It took me three months to get a copy of my brother-in-laws book! He has since changed PODs.

You with me so far?

Unlike regular publishers, the POD (Print On Demand) publishing companies, do not stockpile, warehouse, or keep any extra copies of your book other than your initial order from them, no other books exist. Any online purchases, needs to be printed and bound, then packaged and shipped.

I highly recommend LULU Publishing! Erin I bet can recommend another POD that is a lot better than the rip off companies of XLIBRIS and Author House.

Ask around BLT, ask those authors that have been published and ask the pertinent questions. After all, you want a quality product, printed as much to the way you want it as possible, and have your fans and those wanting to purchase your book to get it as quickly as possible.

You would also like the price to be reasonable; otherwise, who would buy it? That means you have to have a low initial cost so you can lower the price by taking less profit for yourself. The LULU site has a calculator that helps you understand the pricing and how much your minimum price will be to get your book published and then you can realize what profit margins you can play with.

PLEASE LOOK AROUND BEFORE SPENDING THE OUTRAGIOUS PRICES XLIBRIS CHARGES! All those extras, add up in a hurry!

Huggles
ANGEL
Be yourself, so easy to say, so hard to live.

"Be Your-Self, So Easy to Say, So Hard to Live!"