The Results

Okay, the rejection letter from the publishing company on Christmas Eve so long ago did have a profound effect upon me. I have been rejected before, but never strung along for over a year and told I was the most likely winner and then had the cord slashed the day before Christmas. Thank goodness I had the wonderful gift of my family around me to make the moment less important than it has become. 

I think until now I have denied what that rejection meant. I continued to write, just not my stories from my own imagination. I took classes to improve. I joined writers groups who have helped me see my failings, but when I most often would have sat at my computer and joined my characters for a cup of tea or a glass of wine, I have instead played mindless video games. Those games seemed to take me away from the pain of not being enough, a constant and ever playing song in my head for my entire life.

What I have been able to do is write about my experiences at Haywood Street Congregation. Maybe that was more important than my tales anyway, but not finishing the tasks of taking the books to their completion has left me feeling even more inadequate. So today, I will reembark on putting my thoughts and imaginings to paper. We'll see if Deep Well Books is real or not.

String Weavers re-edited

On Christmas Eve I received a letter from River City Publishing Company. STRING WEAVERS was not the winner of the Fred Bonnie Award. I had waited over a year to get that verdict. I entered STRING WEAVERS in the Young Adult Division of Amazon's Create Space Breakthrough Novel Contest in January. It made it to the second cutting. After Peg and Tawney read the middle section for me, they zeroed in  on the problem --- the voice of the narrator is an adult, not a young adult. I thought long and hard about the book and have decided it never should have been put in first person. The story needs to be told from the perspective of the omniscient third party. Granbecca needs to tell some of Michael's story. Michael needs to tell most of it, but there needs to be some distance in the telling. I am in the midst of a major rewrite again. This time I'll send it out to maybe 15 carefully chosen agents and then self-publish if it doesn't find a publishing house home.

Where did a year go?

It is December 11, 2012 and I just realized I lost a year on the Blog. It has been a busy time and although I've been away from the Blog I have continued to write. I am working on a mystery set in Williamsburg, VA with a working title of HISTORIC ACTS and I continue to hone RIGHTEOUS ACTS. Also, I have started on a sequel to STRING WEAVERS called WHITE HAIR. I find that working on multiple projects right now keeps me fresh in all of them. Eventually, I'll center on one as the characters take over the story.

Our children and grandchildren have had my attention recently. Lucy had an author's tea at school last Friday. She is excited about my book and I am anxious for her to be old enough to read it. Eight is a too young for a Young Adult book. STRING WEAVERS is a little dark for her. Jack happens to prefer Dr. Seuss because of his rhymes so I am going to have to practice my poetry and write a story for him.

In Touch with the Spirits

Yes, it is only a week until Halloween. I attended Bouchercon and have had a continuing stream of guests since then. Hence there has been no entries to my blog.

The mystery conference was thought provoking and fun. The company who came were even more enjoyable. Many of them were friends of many years, one we've known since our college years, and the reunions were special. It always amazes me how you can pick up where you left off with long time friends, even if you haven't been together for years. Such were the visits with these people.

Now I am back to writing, full of stories in need of telling. The spirits of the muses are presenting themselves in large numbers. You'd think it was All Hallows Eve today.

STRING WEAVERS, which has been with a publisher for nearly five months for review, was recently rejected. Perhaps it is time to retire this book, but before I do, I am sending it to a writing competition in Alabama.

I continue to work on a new mystery in the Rorschach series. I hope to pitch it at the Northwest Carolina Writers' Conference in November.


I continue to be hopeful.

Getting ready for Bouchercon

I am so excited about going to St. Louis for Bouchercon, a mystery readers/writers' conference, next week. I love hearing other writers discuss their books and the writing process, but I also like being able to meet and discuss the publishing process with agents and editors. I am going with three other writers and we will discuss our books as we travel. It is an energizing time. I'll come back ready to write more and better.
In that vein, I have been rereading DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY by Chris Roerden. It is the quintessential writer's Bible on how to write better. The wonderful thing about Chris's book is that it gives good examples to model. The right way to write becomes embedded in your subconscious. This is a great teaching technique and Chris uses it with acumen. 

End of the Month/End of the Summer

I know that summer officially ends on September 21 or there about, but really it ends the day after Labor Day. Labor Day is a week from today so we are unofficially at the end of summer. It has been a busy one, a good one. We attended a sweet wedding in Birmingham, I traveled and was with friends and all four of our children, not all at once. Mandy and Lucy and Jack came to see us as did James and Rawlins. The only more a mom could ask for would have been visits from Katie and Kenn.
The garden is getting tired of producing and Ken and I are both tired of picking and canning and freezing, but the harvest has been bountiful and we will be so grateful come winter.
I am making progress in Righteous Acts and have entered String Weavers in a competition. The winner gets a publication contract. Persistence pays, so I am told, in publishing. I am persistent and I work at improving everyday.
I am glad to have this blog to talk to. It clears the mind and gets me ready for the day to come. Off to exercise, meditate, pray for our world, and write. Oh, and I have a friend coming for lunch, a treat.

Harvest Bounty

Ken's garden has produced far more than we can use. He has enjoyed giving away the extra, to our children, to our neighbors, to the church, and to the food pantry in the county. That is wonderful! I am glad his labors have brought him such pleasure and pride. However, I have not been such a willing participant in using the bounty. I have canned and frozen my part and I'll enjoy it next winter, but I want to be writing. I want to dance and sew and organize and visit and entertain company. This is what I am supposed to be doing. This is living my life, not living Ken's which is what I have done all our married life, except for a few brief years in Dothan and a year or two before we moved here. It is frustrating to have to bump against his expectations for me, frustrating for him and for me. I am a pleaser, but the time has come to please God and me, not necessarily anyone else. Back to rereading DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY and rewriting RIGHTEOUS ACTS.

Time for Guests

Summer is time for company in the mountains. This summer has been especially hot everywhere, even here, but here we still have cool nights and the occasional cool day to make the heat dome tolerable. Because of this and a backlog of people who have been meaning and wanting to visit, we have been and will continue to enjoy lots of guests. I love it!

Living Your Life

A friend said to me, "I just want you to live your life." Wasn't I? I got up every morning, took care of my family, taught school, took care of my family, graded papers, sometimes emailed friends, and started all over again the next day. Wasn't that my life?

In KING OF LIES by John Hart, Work discovers that he has been living the life his father wanted him to live, down to who he married, not just what he did. Sometimes now I feel like I am not living my life. I am not sure about the days when I took care of my family, taught school, and sometimes communicated with friends, but now I understand what my friend who wanted me to live my life was saying.

I canned 21 quarts of beans yesterday and cleaned and broke a bushel before I canned them. I will be grateful for all those beans next winter, but I am not sure that spending a whole day doing them is how I was supposed to spend my time.

As I grow older, I realize how precious every minute is. I ask for Guidance every morning and yesterday all day I felt the pull of my computer to get back to writing. When I feel pulls from elsewhere, I am not living my life. People are imprisoned by many things and in many ways. Mostly we imprison ourselves with false beliefs or anachronistic assumptions. Today I write and visit with friends and have my hair cut. I think that will be living my life.

Waiting

In writing there is much "waiting to hear." I am in one of those periods. My manuscript for STRING WEAVERS is with a publishing company that publishes Young Adult novels. I think SW is a good Young Adult crossover, which means its audience is teens to adults. My husband, one of my toughest critics, thinks it fits well there and he doesn't even like most novels, being a biography man. I hope the publisher, who has read it before and asked for changes in the point of view, will want it for the company's line of teen books. If not, maybe it will be my "book under my bed" for awhile. I am discouraged about selling it as an adult book and I think it fits better as a crossover.

I have begun outlining Book II in the series, WHITE HAIR. In it Michael meets an ancient Cherokee who becomes his mentor teaching him lessons on how to be a man. There are elements of WWII history and the part the Cherokee played as Wind Talkers in both WWI and WWII. The conflict comes when Michael discovers that some poachers that he and White Hair meet have ties to Hitler's anthropologists who were sent to learn the Indian tribes' languages between wars.

Also, I continue to work on RIGHTEOUS ACTS. During my trip to Birmingham and my walks around Mountain Brook I clarified in my own mind the part Jill's inner conflicts will play in the story. Stay tuned for more.

Writing group

I've been traveling. This past week I went to Birmingham, Alabama to visit my eldest child, my son, and to see as many friends as I could fit into a week. That turned out to be a lot. I had a wonderful time.

One of the people I saw was a friend who I met through Sisters in Crime, the Birmingham Chapter. We decided to exchange some of our writing by email for edit. I respect her opinion and her expertise at editing, so I am excited about this partnership. We ate lunch with another friend who is a school librarian. The two of them make a great pair. They both are avid readers so we had much to say about our reading list this summer.

When I arrived home, one of my classmates in Vicki Lane's "2nd 40" class wrote and told me she also wants to be in a writing group with me. I am thrilled. I like her writing style also and she made some very valid comments to me about my writing during class.

I feel grateful to have so much help ahead.

Working on the Plot

It is not the plot of a book that makes me tremble. I have the plot from beginning to end in my head long before I even put it to paper as an outline. However, the execution of the plot, fleshing it out literally, so that the players are real and reacting as humans act, not as players, is what causes me to stay up late at night writing and rewriting. Fortunately, when I get beyond my panic, I love going with the flow. In fact, I don't want anything or anybody to dam up the flow. I'm in the fear phase right now, but I feel my self-confidence reemerging. Look out Righteous Acts. Your creator likes your characters and is ready to make them real for everyone else.

New Friend

A new puppy found Ken yesterday. He was weeding in the front flower bed and up our hill came a tan and white terrier. He decided our side porch was home and promptly took up residence. Late last night we did the unthinkable and fed him. He is well trained except he jumps. He sits on command, fetches, and Ken has shown dominance so now a good "shush" stops his scratching at the doors. We have to find him a new home. As much as Ken might like another dog, Izzie will feel rejected and we all three move too slowly for this dog. If you know of someone who loves dogs and wants a new one(probably 4 months old by his teeth), just respond to this blog.

Best Seafood North and West of the Gulf and the Atlantic

If you're ever in the vicinity of Birmingham, Alabama you must not miss dinner at the Pita Stop which now has two locations. We were so homesick for their seafood we went twice in two days this weekend. You can't miss the Amberjack. However, my favorite is the Seafood Kabob with chunks of grouper, shrimp and scallops. Everything there is marinaded in the Pita Stop's special Mediterranean marinade. My mouth is still watering and I can't wait to get back for another big helping. Yum!

Travel

Because I got to do so little of it for so many years, I love to travel. The same old byways are just as fascinating to me on the one hundredth trip as they were the first time I traveled along them. We made a familiar trek today to Birmingham for a wedding. It was a wonderful day on roads well traveled.

weather

I must be getting old. Here I am writing about the weather again. Well, it has changed so much in two days. Last weekend it was very hot. We were glad to have sandals and short pants. Today I have my shawl around me and socks on. This temperature is to my liking as is summer hot, but it is the back and forth adjustments that require a lot of my body.

We are expecting storms again this afternoon. They are moving in from Tennessee as the last ones did. As long as we avoid hail I can enjoy the lightning and thunder. Hail will destroy Ken's crops and batter our vehicles. I have never experienced this many storms with hail in them in my lifetime.

Family

I love my children. This weekend two of our children and their significant others are going to be here in the mountains with us. We have looked forward to this for a month. The first son arrived late last night. The second one arrives tomorrow night. They are both here to see one another, but one is going to a wedding also. This is a weekend to celebrate. We'll miss the girls and their loves and the grandchildren, but there'll be other opportunities for that reunion. They are together in Chapel Hill where they live.

Writing a mystery

I love a good mystery. I want a provocative element in the book, a complex set of characters that are all important to the plot, and a fast moving plot. That is a tall order if you are writing one. Today I am going to edit Righteous Acts to see if I can make the 13 chapters I've written have all of those things. Other than that it is wash day Monday and clear the guest room Monday and Tuesday. We are having company this week and I am thrilled. In my next life I'll be a bed and breakfast owner perhaps.

The Business of Writing

It sounds so romantic, sitting in your ivory tower at your cleared desk with you computer and all those creative thoughts. Well, it isn't romantic, but it is fulfilling even though you're in a closet that is your office with a mess on your desk next to your computer. You still have all those creative thoughts that you had in the car on the expressway or while you washed the dishes or walked to get the mail. They itch to leave your fingers as they hop across the keyboard of your Apple. And when the day is finished you feel like you've let go of ideas and people and places that needed to be out and about so they could meet the world around you.
I spent several days editing the first book and writing the second one. I don't think the first book will ever be finished until it is published. The second one is coming along much faster. I think I've learned somethings about putting words on paper that say what I mean. Now for two days I've been researching agencies that might connect with my first book and therefore be willing to represent me to publishers. Lots of them are not a good fit and though that is discouraging it is good to find that out and not waste their time or mine. One or two do. Today I submitted to one of them. They had a form to fill out. I filled it out and then the mayhem began. Technology and I don't get along when I am tired and by the time I got ready to hit submit I was apparently too tired. I punched submit and found that most of the form went to the agency blank. So tried again, only to clear it accidentally before I punch submit this time, luckily. Finally, I filled the form out, maybe not as well as I did the first time, but at least completely, and hit submit. I got a confirmation and it made it. The discouraging thing is that if they don't think I am right for them I won't know it until I wait and wait and wait and just am left to assume it wasn't a good fit. That is the way the business of writing goes these days because electronic submissions, though usually time saving, are so abundant that agencies don't have time to reply to all of them and still sell the books of those they can reply to.
If anything I'm persistent. I'll keep sending out my queries and I'll continue to polish and polish it, but I'll spend more time now on my mystery at least until I've gotten emails back from those submissions that said they'd get back to me.

Lighter and Brighter

After all that reading about death, I am ready to be out in the sun. It is a bit too hot to head out after 9 or 10, but 6:30 or 7 in the morning is just about right. The dog and I watch the sun come up over the mountain to the side of our house as Ken heads out with his tools to plant more tomatoes. We've had so much rain that Ken has had to replant. We are hoping we'll have the right amount of rain to keep everything growing. The strawberries from Ken's garden this year were heavenly. We are looking forward to the tomatoes and watermelons now.
Unfortunately, I have a brown thumb so I leave the planting to Ken. I'll help with the harvest and canning which is a joint effort. In the meantime a new mystery is brewing inside my brain and I have to get it on the small screen.