Today's rant is brought to you by Bobby Larkers Flea Market. The only place to buy junk you would never buy anywhere else or have need to buy.

I've been having a rough time of it lately. Lot of things going on and I feel so overwhelmed. But that's beside the point. The real reason I am ranting today is that family can be a real pain in the ass.

Family can in deed be a real pain in the ass. Let me give you an example. As an author, I have a constant nagging feeling that what I am doing is never enough. I feel that about a lot of things. I guess it is a neurosis if you will. Having said that, my first book which I wrote a year back, I asked both my dad and my sister to read before I submitted to the publishers.

As is the case in alot of us, time is luxury that many of us feel we don't have. When I asked my sister, I knew she had three kids and I figured she would take time to actually read the novel. Everytime I would ask she would indicate she hadn't had time. Finally after six months I got tired of waiting. I submitted the work and got it published.

The book has been out for a year now. A week ago, I had a discussion with my sister, where she told me about a movie that is about to come out. She indicated she read the book for that movie and that it was really good. I obviously was a little annoyed that she could take the time to read a book other than mine but had no time when I asked her to read it before publishing. So I asked her if she read my book. To which she responded yes. Okay, that made me feel a little better.

I figured now that she had read it I would get her opinion. Her response was that she thought the story was a good one, but that she thought that I rushed it a bit and that it was not organized as well as it should be.

You might think that it was constructive criticism and that I should take it for future works and of course I am. Here's a little history. My sister has a tendency of being in competition with me about a lot of things. She has not written a book yet but is in the process now of writing a book. So I can't help but wonder if this was her attempt to bring me down a step or two so that she feels a little better about herself. I've had plenty of other positive comments from others who have read the novel. Her response was the first negative response I had.

To be honest I expected negative responses anyway and was prepared for that. But this one coming at this time caught me off guard. Not only because it was negative and the first negative, but because she waited until the book had been out for nearly a year before giving it to me instead of reading the book when I asked her ahead of it's publishing to give me that assessment.

This honestly has given me doubts about my abilities to write, but also has given me a total lack of faith in my sister. That was something I never thought would happen. That's my rant and my story, and I'm sticking to it.