Hiatus

I guess I've taken a hiatus from blogging for a while. Just in case anyone misses me, I promise I'll be back. Like that proverbial bad penny, although, what with inflation and all, I'm at least a bad nickel now!

Life Interrupted

Actually, it's not life interrupted so much as it is that my freakin' new novel keeps getting interrupted. It's Day Three, and I've only got a little over 5,000 words! I've had to just jump in for an hour here and a few minutes there because this silly thing called "life" keeps getting in the way.

Why won't doctors, attorneys, DirecTv repairemen, propane gas delivery guys, Avon ladies, and frankly pretty much everyone else in the county understand that I HAVE MADE A COMMITMENT. If I is gonna be a writer, I has gots to write! Even the dogs are conspiring to keep me from having two connected thoughts. Buford wants in, Lizzie is hungry, Buford has to pee, Lizzie needs a hug. How on earth do people with children do this?

So, for one quiet moment here (well, quiet except for Buford's whimpering that it's raining outside and he really needs to pee so could I please quickly build him an outdoor toilet where he won't get his feet wet) Clark is in bed taking a nap, Lizzie is snoring beneath my feet in the little cave she's decorated as her bedroom beneath my desk (I love what she's done with the place, the sheepskin feels so good to my toes) it's raining so I don't have to feel guilty about all the outdoor things I'm not getting done.

I think it's time to pull up the Girl in the Mirror and see what Dixie is up to today. Well, as soon as I answer the phone and turn the burner off under the boiling eggs. And...

Tick Tock Tick Tock

Time is couting down to the start of the NaNoWriMo competition. I'm so excited. I always get cold chills when I'm getting started on a book, but this time is even more so since I have a real deadline and people counting on me to help in a private contest between regions for total word count. So not only am I aiming for the 50,000 words by Nov. 30, but also as many more as possible to help my 'team.'

I've met some very interesting people, and am looking forward to actually getting together in person at some point.

I would imagine my blogs will be short and sweet and few and far between in the weeks ahead.

 My "real" novel manuscript is with an agent as we speak, and 2 more have partials of it. Having this new project takes some of the pressure off of 'Hot Bubbles', putting it straight on 'The Girl in the Mirror'. I work best under pressure, so, guess we'll see what happens.

Thanks for being there! I wish more of you would write comments in here instead of emailing me privately or sending PMs. But, it's always nice to hear from you no matter where it comes from. :)

 Wish me luck and bon voyage!



I'll be fine so long as the laptop battery stays hot, I stay cool
and there's plenty of books, Cokes and Hershey Bars!



NaNoWriMo Fo Me

I've heard writers talk about "NaNoWriMo" in the past and I've seen it listed in portfolios, and finally, after all these years I remembered to do a Google for it. And, now I'm officially a 2010 participant.

If you've been living in a cave as I apparently have been, NaNoWriMo is the affectionate nickname for the National  Novel Writer's Month (or something like that). November is the official month when participants sit with fingers poised over the keyboard waiting for 12:01 a.m. November 1st to start writing the Great American (or Middle Eastern, or British, or wherever the Internet hits them) Novel. And fingers must cease typing at midnight on November 31st at which time you have pledged to have 50,000 words on paper.

So far it's been great fun getting to know other participants in my area through the NaNoWriMo forums, and we're planning some 'meet and greet' work parties in the future at various Mickey D's and libraries (both sure bets for WiFi, although I've eaten orange marmalade that ran faster than the WiFi at the Guntersville McDonald's...and why should they care? You've gotten your food by the time you realize that you're eating way too many carbs and calories just to be able to get online while you do it, and then could send Pony Express quicker than getting an email to send).

Luckily, my pants have wings because I've been planning to fly by the seat of them waiting until just after midnight Sunday to let ideas flow. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, the whole novel just appeared in my head as I was waiting for sleep last night.

The title will be "The Girl in the Mirror." Story line: Protagonist is Dixie Cantrell, the proprietress of a New Age emporium (tentatively entitled "The Market Bizarre" featuring "Unique Junque and Other Curiosities...I love the English language with its spelling quirks) she has inherited from her great-aunt. She will find her aunt's journal and discover that some of her ancestors were well-known for their talents in mystical affairs. A face she sees in a mirror in the shop sets her out on a mission. While on the mission she spends time with a sexy detective who happens to be the one who answers the phone when she calls the police after a break-in at the shop, and she helps guide a troubled foster kid who desperately needs something, anything, to believe in.

Since I can't start to flesh out the characters yet and start writing, I've been searching for artwork to tape up around my desk to inspire me, something inspirational and "quirky" to use as the desktop for my computer during the month, and as always I get carried away and do something very time-consuming and silly like the 'art' up there featuring the front window of the Market Bizarre. Believe it or not, I, with my previously limited ability to do "photoshop-type" stuff, took a picture of French doors, put them into FotoFlex (online software program that I LOVE for removing backgrounds) removed the windows and pasted in bits of pieces of "curiosities" that I found around the internet. It ended up being someplace I'd like to live (Lori said the same thing, what do you think?) surrounded by crystals, wind chimes, candles, glass bottles, suncatchers, dragons, fairies, amulets and the like. You can tell when insomnia hits me by how creative I get. Obviously, I haven't slept in a while.

I tried working with the 'girl in the mirror' aspect and I came up with this, which isn't all that great, but it's enough to inspire me if I tape it to an upper shelf and look at it without my glasses on. The girl in the story is a blue eyed blonde, and this kid looks like a brunette, but...like I said, without glasses...

I'm sort of excited about the idea. I have lots of 'side stories' just aching to be worked in. So, I guess I need to focus on Halloween to get my mind off writing until I can write. Lizzie's fairy costume is pretty much done, but Buford may have to go as a Big Blue Dog Wearing Bandana at this point because I can't find clothes to fit him. (He is oh so obviously my son!)

Literary Midget Me

I posted a reply on another blog where I referred to myself as a literary midget. I got a couple of personal responses saying that I should never denigrate myself so in public.

Denigrate hell!  I am proud to wear that title. Certainly if being a literary giant means you have to write so deeply insightful that readers need a stepladder to put into the hole to get down to your level of misery. If you look at bestseller lists, books that garner the highest credits are those that 'touch nerves'. Ouch. I've had abscessed teeth before. And when the pain subsided, I admit I'm guilty of touching the tooth with my tongue to see if it's still sore. Once. And being surprised when the touch throws gasoline on the embers of the pain and it flares to life. That whole "touching a nerve" thing is way overrated from my point of view.

I think a lot of people go through life so drenched in their emotions that they forget to live the today because they're so engrossed in reliving the past. I know that what misery I've experienced is likely a drop in the bucket to someone who, for instance, had their only child kidnapped, tortured and murdered. How do you live through something like that? I'm in awe of anyone who kept even a thread of sanity after living such nightmares. But, I've had enough in my life to give me ample opportunity to walk through it wrapped in black gauze, refusing to look at the light because the dark seems so much safer.

I didn't grow up in a Disney movie. My mother was an untreated bi-polar schizophrenic and my dad was an enabler. I started life as a twin, but my mother miscarried my brother. The fact that when I was pulled from the womb I didn't have a penis was a huge disappointment to them, an emotion for which they constantly overcompensated towards me giving me all sorts of complexes.

As an adult, I've watched the people I loved most in life die slowly after a long battle with cancer. Then I had to fight that same battle (which I appear to have won....and always have to include the addendum... so far) not once, but twice. The second diagnosis occurring two days after my father, my childhood hero's funeral. I have been so miserable with my life that I prayed to die. And I have been so afraid when that life was threatened that I prayed to live. I've heard other cancer survivors say the same thing. "I never realized how good life is until I thought I wasn't going to have it any more." How many people who successfully commit suicide have major second thoughts about a nano-second too late. As the noose tightens, as they see the bullet coming in slow motion, as the car wheels leave the tarmac. I would imagine that if there was a way to get those percentages, they'd be pretty damned high.

I believe that misery, when all is said and done, is a choice.

So is writing about it. And reading about it. I choose to 'just say no.'

I will never be a literary giant because I learned long ago that touching your tongue to an abscessed tooth causes pain. And no matter what the choices life gives me, I'm ALWAYS going to take the door that definitely does NOT have pain behind it.

I want to create characters that make people laugh, and make readers wish they were real people that shared their life. I don't care about being "laugh out loud funny" ... but I never understood why the movies that critics gave the most emphatic thumbs up were always the ones that my friends told me "Oh, it was so good, I cried all the way through." Screw that. I've got enough real honest memories to cry over. I don't need to pay to watch or read someone who's create fake ones to do the same thing.

Now, I'll get down off my soapbox. If someone will get me a ladder. You know what short legs we midgets have!

A Writer Must Read, but what?

I only wish my books were so attractively displayed in real life.
This is how they appear in my head at least. (Desktop design
is my second love. When I get bored with writing I create some-
thing artistic. I love collages, weaving together bits and pieces
of art into something as warm and comfy to me as my
one of my gramother's quilts.)

I have been told that to be a good writer, you should read. I started reading long before I learned to write (remember those big chunky pencils we used to use in first grade? Do kids still use those or do they now use iPods with small printers attached?) and I haven't stopped since. I am not a book collector, I am a hoarder. They could easily film an episode for the TV show based strictly on the sheer numbers of books that are housed under our roof (not quite so bad that we simply have trails through teetering stacks, but I'm only 52, give me time). 

Our "Friends of the Library" have a small bookroom where they sell donated and ex library books to make money for buying 'extras' for the library. By this point, I think surely they should have been able to add on a new wing and probably hire thirty new employees just from the money I spend there. Even at $1 and $2 a book, it adds up. Especially since I always leave with fabric shopping bags stretched to the max with books.

When I got married recently, we added on a master bedroom. It's 24x36' with 8' off one end for a whirlpool tub bathroom and walk-in closet, and 6' off the other end for a library/office. The room divider wall (open on both ends) between the bedroom and the office is floor to ceiling bookshelves on both sides (the headboard is built into the shelving.. I love sleeping surrounded by books! How peaceful.

My husband was a little stunned at how quickly those shelves filled up. We're talking about a space of almost 275 square feet. And it's not only filled, it's filled to bursting. Leaving no place for his collection of antique car models or my dog and horse figurines for which the bedroom side was originally intended. I see more lumber in our future and another grumbling wall of books. If reading alone made you a good writer, I should be on the bestseller's list. Actually, if I could resell all the books I have on the craft of writing for what I paid for them, it would probably equal a fairly good book advance.

I have found that the one thing that is most detrimental to my writing is reading books about writing. Telling you "how I do it", or "how it should be done" or "the basics of writing" which are usually basics that if I had started out doing I would have fizzled long ago from boredom. I know some writers need the regimentation of outlines and copious notes, but I'm more a seat-of-your-pants kinda gal. If I think about it too long it gets boring. (Yes, I'm a Gemini, what are you?).

Writing is like anything else in life. It is only satisfactory if you do it your way. If you are an individual and express yourself in every as such. I am currently reading a book that was on the "every writer must have" list. I won't say what it is, because it's a really good book, beautifully written and I have enjoyed many parts of it. The author is one of my 'cyberfriends' and I hope she never knows how very close her words have come to shaking my faith in myself.

Perhaps some writers become more confident when they can knowledgeably discuss Kafka, Salinger, Chekhov and a bunch of writers I've heard of only when the more pompous among my friends toss their names into conversation. I have tried to become "better read" and all I got was "bigger bored."

Not that I don't own and read classics. Admittedly the shelf that holds that collection only whimpers from the weight, whereas the shelves that hold my collection of Robert Parker, Mark Childress, Jim Patterson, Thomas Perry, Janet Evanovich, Sue Grafton, Marcia Muller, and all the rest of my heroes' work groans so loudly I keep expecting the neighbors to complain. I love the classics that I read often, but I read the ones that entertain me: Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Wizard of Oz (all of the titles), Mary Poppins, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Emma, Gone With the Wind, Sherlock Holmes... those to me are classics. Because they entertain me, they spread my mind into other places, and they make me feel good about coming home again.

In the writer's book that I'm reading now, there are constant references to authors whose works I don't think I could stay awake through if I mainlined caffeine and put toothpicks as props for my eyelids. They are gloomy, full of defeat and doom and reminders of how badly the world does suck sometime. The entire book seems gloomy and filled with dire warnings of what can happen if you stray from the norm.

Sorry, when I have time to read, I want to either learn something (I probably own more non-fiction books about subjects that have captured my fancy over the years than I do fiction) or I want to be entertained. That entertainment may come in the form of laughter, shivers, or the warm fuzzies, but for me to sit still through it, it has to leave me as happy with my life as I was when I opened the flyleaf or it will immediately go into the discard bin. (Currently I'm filling up a bin of discards for the NaNo book drive...usually my unwanteds go to the library to be resold to another bookophile.) I only discard what I think I will never want to read again, or won't ever possibly need for research.

The last thing I need in my life right now is worries and doubt. I was thrilled when I completed my last novel in 7 weeks. Then I read that if you write quickly, there will be so much editing later on that it will become a thing of drudgery instead of joy. I was thrilled that everyone who read it before it was submitted to an agent told me that it was quite funny and they had chuckled throughout. Then an agent told me she didn't find it all that amusing. My feathers drooped. They perked up a bit when one of the larger agencies answered a query with a request for more chapters. Another agent liked the book well enough to ask if I'd be willing to rewrite and if so, she wanted the entire manuscript on approval when it was completed. Another agent called with a half hour's excellent advice (which pointed out the same problem areas previously highlighted, so it made the rewrite much easier).

I guess the point of all this (and somewhere in the babbling there usually is one, if you look hard enough) is to ask... what do YOU read to be inspired to write? Or do you read at all? Is reading a hobby or a chore? Do you read books suggested by agents and publishers and other writers? Or those suggested by other readers? Do you read How-to books to "hone your craft?" Or do you spend spare time reading about gardening and bungee jumping? Do you read books you enjoy, by authors whose style you hope to emulate just enough to be a jumping board for your own creativity to make its splash? Or do you read what's on the "must read" list? Do you write better after  you've been warned how hard it is, and how many writers fail to make the cut? Or do you write better when you ignore everything around you, books and all and just write the story in your head.

Please, make title suggestions and tell me WHY you read what you read. (Meanwhile I'm headed to Amazon to check out Janet Evanovich's "How I Write" which I've been told is a "must have." I'll let you know!)

But The Best Part Is...

There are a lot of wonderful things about being a writer. There are a lot of things that suck about it too (like having to rewrite the old stuff to get it sold when you'd really rather be fleshing out the new idea you just had for the next project).

Today's blog is going to be short and sweet thanks to Verizon who sent me a whopping $200 bill for my MiFi wireless. I know and expect some months that I'll go slightly over my allotted 6 gb (which is a pittance, but I live in a rural area so my choices are limited and Verizon until now has seemed like the least of all the evils) and I always pay my over-charges without complaining...but this billing month, what with my father being hospitalized and then dying, and me getting a cancer diagnosis with all the medical appointments and surgery/hospital stay that that entailed, I know there is NO way that I logged in that many gb in a month. But I digress.

Because I'm between carriers, and grabbing Internet hookups where I can, I'm going to ask my fellow writers to reply to this question: What is the one thing you enjoy most about being a writer. The one moment when you know that no matter the downside, there is nothing else you'd rather be (even if you had a choice, which "real writers" don't). Is it the moment when you type The End? When you can get revenge or show your appreciation of someone by inserting them anonymously in your novel? The moment when an agent says "let me look at that?" The few minutes that you spend writing that you realize later was over an hour but seemed like no time at all because you were so engrossed?

Share! Let's see how much alike we really are at heart.

Do You Believe...

Boy, those are scary words to hear. They have been known to strike hearts in the fear of many a strong otherwise-fearless man who heard them from the mouth of the person who just buckled their seat belt beside him on a trans-Atlantic flight. The relief is almost palpable if the speaker finishes the sentence with something other than religious witnessing.

There are lots of things I believe in. I believe in Santa Claus. How else would you explain that feeling that you get, even if only for a brief moment, when you look at a twinkling Christmas tree? It's a flashback to the days when you believed that a fat man dressed in red snuck into your house to leave prezzies. I don't believe in the red suit or the fat any more...but I do believe in his spirit.

I believe that people are inherently good, and just as there are no bad dogs, just bad owners, I believe that even the worst of people put into the best of circumstances has the capability to surprise even himself with what he finds in his heart.

As much as I don't want to believe in Astrology, it fascinates me. And, if you know me really well, and you've ever read the description for a Gemini you have to admit I'm the poster child of the Gemini sign.

Right now I am totally overwhelmed. I've started a secret (major work) project for a friend's Christmas/birthday present.  I'm also 2 weeks out of cancer surgery and still suffering the side effects of the anesthesia to say nothing of having all my guts sliced and burned (maybe I've been watching too many Criminal Minds, Dexter and Bones reruns?). We're still in the throes of a home-remodeling project that I now have almost given up hope of being finished before I start paying for it with my Social Security checks (still a decade away). I've completed two novels and started another, and am trying to 'stay social' in the publishing industry which eats up a lot of hours out of every day. Still dealing with the paperwork surrounding my dad's death, and trying to get his house cleaned out...a monumental task at the best of times. To say the least, I'm staying busy.

But, with all of that on my plate, a few minutes ago, an idea hit me. So, with the taskbar already groaning with 3 open Word documents, a ublisher design project, a couple of games (diversion when I get burned out) and a Kindle book that I read while I download new software, I stop it all when the thought hits me that "Hey! My notes for our Recycling in the Garden seminar could be fleshed out a little bit and probably make a great e-book. And before I know it, I'm opening up those notes with an eye to starting yet another project. Throw in some yarn for crocheting an afghan and open up a paint can so I can finish painting the bedroom and I should be damned close to certifiable.

It pleases me to note that I took a deep breath, wrote my idea on a post-it note and stuck it to the new board I've recently created for these moments. You CAN teach an old dog (bitch?) new tricks!

I guess I actually have to believe there is something to this whole Astrology thing. I've read every one of the signs, and I would have picked Gemini out to describe me without knowing what dates it covered. I've got just a little tad of Taurus in me which makes sense since I was technically supposed to have been born a week earlier, which would have made me a Taurus instead of Gemini. If I'm totally honest with myself (geez, I hate doing that!) I admit I have a split personality. Not split like bipolar, but there are just two very definite sides to me. Not so much good and evil as, well, naughty and nice (does that put me on both of Santa's lists? More prezzies!?)

I like to think that this makes me mecurical enough to enjoy a bunch of different writing pursuits because of the "flightiness" of the Gemini... and the dedication and stubborness of a Taurus to "get 'er done." And most of the descriptions of Gemini state that in the field of journalism or some aspect of writing it is usually easy for a Gemini to achieve a successful status.

And now, a little-known fact about me, that my parents never told me about until my mother tossed it out as a barb in one of her bipolar hissy-fits. I am biologically a twin. My mother suffered a partial miscarriage, and lost my brother in the end of her middle trimester. I was stunned to find this out, but it explained so much to me. On so many levels.

So, those of you who know me well, this was cut and pasted from a site devoted to Geminis, boiling down the characteristics. What do you think? Is it me? Duh!

LIKES

Talking

Novelty and the unusual

Variety in life

Multiple projects all going at once

Reading

DISLIKES
Feeling tied down Following rules, such as in school Being in a rut Mental inaction Being alone

 



PS: Did you notice what the cavas is for this photo. Body art absolutely fascinates me!

Death, Love and Trying a Little Harder

I'm in the middle of a rewrite of one of my novels. I'm one of those rare people that actually enjoys it. I usually just pretend that someone I don't like very well has sent it to me to be edited and I can almost always think of ways to improve what's on the page.

Although my novel isn't a romance, there is a guy who is one of those all around good guys who is sort of a composite of all of the men in my life. I have been blessed with the men who have come into my life in the last few years. Only one truly bad apple in the bunch (and trust me, he was bad enough to ruin more than just a barrel, he could single-handedly ruin an entire orchard... one of those single men that should come with a warning label tattooed on his forehead). The picks of my litter, so to speak, are mostly men who came into my life via the Internet (I met the 'bad apple' in person, proving yet again how wrong are the folks that curse the Internet as a way to meet people).

The Internet has made the world a lot smaller, and certainly it expanded my horizons... that were already pretty expanded by being part of the show dog community that encompasses people from around the world.

Several years ago I created a forum, Over 45-Not Over the Hill, (which, because of its logo of a luxury liner became in time to be referred to as simply "The Ship") as a meeting place for a large group of us that had met online at various venues; a place to meet and chat and discuss the world and all its vagaries. Over the months, several romances bloomed and I have been thrilled to see so many of my friends finding love within our circle of friends. One of those couples was Dan and Jeanie. Dan was in Arizona, Jeanie in NJ. After the courtship that started and flourished on the decks of our little ship, quiet, reserved scientist Dan moved to NJ to be with fun-loving, outgoing Jeanie. They have been a role model for all of us, shining hope that love comes when you least expect it, and will find a way to flourish if you allow it to do so. That you're never too old to fall in love.

This afternoon, Jeanie (so very youthful and energetic) was out walking when she was hit by a car and killed. It makes me sad that I can't find any words to say to Dan to express how devastated I am for him. How much we will all miss "AuntJeanie". Because she was walking close to home she didn't have ID on her. Luckily she had her cell phone with her, and the NJ police were able to use it to contact our mutual friend Rod in Florida, who made the ID and then contacted the family to tell them what had happened.

Everyone tells me that it makes a writer stronger and a better writer if they have suffered and lost. If it's true that what doesn't kill me makes me strong then I guess I'm ready for the Olympics. Within the last five years I've lost my mom, my brother and my dad, I've been diagnosed with two separate cancers and gone through the surgeries and treatment for both. I've watched one of my very best friends of 30 years on a downhill slope fighting a battle with cancer that we all know she cannot win. I watched my mom slowly lose her mind to Alzheimer's and then watched my dad lose his to prescription drugs. I've lost "heart dogs," beloved horses, friends and special neighbors to accidents and illnesses. I was the victim of a sociopath that left me with my mind and spirit almost irrepairably bruised. And now I'm watching the heart of a friend breaking with grief.

I'm not complaining. I know people that have had it a LOT worse. And, it certainly hasn't been ALL bad. During those same years I met and been reunited with people who have become my dearest friends. I met and married the love of my adult life. I have proved that I have the commitment to make it in the world of fiction (note I said commitment, whether I have the talent or not remains to be seen) by completing two novels, and have a couple of others sitting there waiting on me.

But, losing AuntJeanie puts a new bookmark in my life story. From this point on, I promise I'm going to try harder to find two things that are wonderful about my life for every one thing that seems to go awry. I'm going to make more of an effort to write something that I enjoy every single day (my 'day job' with the greenhouse keeps me fairly busy writing newsletters, seminar notes, designing ads and working on our website). I'm going to try harder to stay in touch with the people I care about and never let them doubt that I love them.

And I'm going to do my best to lose 50 pounds. Yeah, you read it here. 50 pounds. By the time we reopen the greenhouse next spring. Y'all keep me to my word. Y'hear! You have my consent to berate me, tease me, bug me and chastise me, but this time I'm going to try...just a little harder.

The Faces I've Been

I have been many different people in my life. I have been a leader, and I have been a follower. I have been the studious salutatorian of my senior class and I have been “the friend who always makes me laugh.” I have been a thin cheerleader; I have been an overweight housewife. I have worked on a factory assembly line and I have been the director of a non-profit organization. I have been a weak and peaked cancer patient, and I have become a healthy, strong two-time cancer survivor.

Throughout all those different phases of my life, through all of the faces I’ve worn and the places I’ve been, one thing has always remained the same. If you ask me to describe myself I will say simply “I am a writer.”

Words have been there for me through all of the hard times of my life. Watching pets, friends, businesses and family members die, struggling to stay alive while deadly chemicals fought their dangerous opponent inside my body, and feeling helpless in situations over which I had no control.
Whether I read them or whether I wrote them, words have always been my safe haven. A place to go where I know there will always be a light on, a latchstring out and everyone knows my name.

I recently wrote the eulogy for my father’s funeral. For many reasons, it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I had just completed a novel, Hot Bubbles and Chocolate, that took me six weeks and three days from start to finish. It took me four days to write my dad’s eulogy. If the words had come that slowly during the writing of Hot Bubbles I would have been on Social Security before it was completed.

Up until recently my writing career has been in non-fiction. I’ve written books on ferrets and rabbits and various dog breeds and have had regular columns as well as feature articles in national magazines and local newspapers. I’ve done line-editing for a major publisher and I’ve been the Associate Editor of a small newspaper. I’ve enjoyed it. I learned a lot from every project and I am proud of every accomplishment.]

But, it’s time to look ahead to yet another chapter in my life. I now have two novels completed and I’m beginning to query agents to try to find them a home. Being published in non-fiction came so easy. A friend mentioned my name to a publisher friend in conversation. The publisher friend contacted me and asked if I’d be interested in doing a feature article for her to fill a space that another write had failed to fill in time. I had the article researched, written and accepted  in half the time I was given, and the rest is now my history.

Writing fiction comes much easier to me than writing non-fiction. I have always entertained myself with movies that run inside my head (and no, they’re not voices and, no, so far none of them have told me to climb a rifle tower carrying a clock). Now, I simply type out those stories as they play out and voila I end up with a novel. Sometimes I surprise myself with the results; occasionally my characters surprise me as they do unexpected things, leaving me with a new subject to research so I can guide them correctly through the next chapters.

While the writing is easy, this whole new agent/query/rejection/submission thing is not only the farthest thing from being easy, but it’s amazingly time-consuming. I find that instead of happily typing out my little stories, these days find me cruising social networks and surfing the ‘net hoping to bump into someone who will be so pleased at bumping into me and being offered my golden tomes of humor, insight and wisdom that they will offer me large buckets of money. Or at least can give me the address of yet another blog, or yet another agency, or yet another writing website that will have the answers I need to the questions I didn’t know I needed to ask.

I’ve met some wonderful people thus far on this journey. And I find I fit as well in the skin I’m in now as I have done is so many skins in the past. Like everybody else, I make mistakes in my writing as well as in life. But, I hope that I learn from the writing mistakes as much as I've learned from the life-altering mistakes. And I hope that everything I learn continues to help me grow as a writer. And as a person.

No matter what face I wear, I am always me. And I am always a writer.

Writing Promptly

Writer's Digest has a three-times-a-week contest (I'm not sure if there is really a winner, perhaps it's more exercise?) on their blog called "Promptly." Sometimes a paragraph is started and you have to finish it, sometimes directions are given like "think of your favorite food memory" and whatever the instructions, you have to write something on the spot. Er, thus the name "promptly?" I don't usually take the time to do it, but today I was waiting on a phone call so I dashed off a very prompt reply (within 20 minutes... woulda been less but I had to cut 58 words).

Today's instructions were: "Take two of your favorite songs, and match up a line from the chorus of one with a line from the chorus of the other. Then, write a scene that starts with the first lyric, and ends with the second. 500 words or less."

This was my entry....
First line is from Dr. Hook’s “More Like the Movies” http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=7617622&song=More+Like+the+Movies
Last line is from Randy Travis’s “Too Gone, Too Long” http://beemp3.com/download.php?file=8302706&song=Too+Gone+Too+Long

“I wish I could have made it more like the movies for you.” I turned to face the window, noting that raindrops sliding down the windowpane echoed the trail of tears on my cheeks. What the poets say is true. Sometimes the world does cry with you.

“I hope you and Dani will be very happy together.” I almost choked saying the words, hating to admit even to myself how untrue they were. At the moment I don’t think there was anything I wanted less than for Derek to be happy. “But, I don’t think you are ever going to be happy until you realize that once the screen goes dark and credits start rolling, real life starts and everyone’s hair isn’t always perfect and there isn’t a screenplay to memorize so you always have the right words to say. People leave toothpaste lids off, they fart, they have bad days and they say things that can’t just be cut out and left forgotten on the editing room floor.” I always pace when I’m angry or sad, but now all I could do is just stand there. I guess that’s what I do when my world gets torn apart.

“Movies don’t depict reality, they just allow us the fantasy that maybe life could really be that way. Most people understand that. You keep forgetting.  When the movie stops and real life starts, you don’t take the time to look for depth that real life offers, you race back into another romance for the head rush of the fantasy. Poor Dani.”

Derek just sat there, his elbows on the arm of my grandmother’s rocking chair, his head in his hands. I don’t know whether my words were sinking in, or whether he was trying to pass a kidney stone, but either way he was suffering. And I’m honest enough to admit that I enjoyed seeing at least one real emotion on his face. I was stunned to see an actual tear rolling down his cheek. I took a step towards him and he put up a hand to stop me. “I never deserved you,” he said, his voice soft and filled with emotion. “You are absolutely right. About everything. Please know I really loved you. And I will carry you in my heart forever.” 

It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that the son of a bitch was still acting out a movie. I could almost see Bogie standing there by the airplane telling a crying woman that it was for the best. I walked over, opened a drawer and pulled out a little antique derringer that my grandfather had given me. The last lines that Derek Wayne uttered in the B-movie that was his life were prophetic. “I’ve been too gone, too long. Now it’s too late to come back home.”

What did you/would you have written?

And The Weiner Is....

The header for this blog comes from a typo I saw in a newspaper years ago in the cutline beneath a photograph of the kid who had been the last man standing in a county-wide chess tournament. There stands a kid who already only needs a pocket protector and a calculator in his hand to have his likeness used in the dictionary as an example of "nerd." And his fate was forever sealed by careless fingers from an unknown typesetter who labeled this poor guy "The Weiner." Who says the written word is unimportant? Tell that to the kid who had to go back to school the next day to jeers and taunts of "wouldn't you like to be a weiner too?"

I've been dabbling with blogging for quite some time. I have a boatload of different blogs for the different hats I wear in my daily life. There's a Natural Horse blog left over from the days when I owned a riding stable. Then there's a more current Herbin' Legends blog that is followed by clients at our Unique Plants greenhouse (herbs, heirlooms and other not-easily-found plants). There's also a place where I go to reminisce and post chapters of what will someday be my memoirs... memories of Growing Up Southern. I also have a not-so-well-publicized place where I go to rant and rave over indignities suffered and to rail at the fates and powers that be. Don't tell anybody, but that one is named Pasture Prime (I'm not). There are other blogs floating around out there in cyberspace that I began and then abandoned when my interest in the subject faded (or in the case of my bunny blog, when tragedy struck and a meandering raccoon broke into our greenhouse and either turned loose or killed our family of Mini Rex bunnies).

All of that was a verrrrry long story, and it's way too late to make it short so I'll just continue. All of that was to say that all of those blogs have been done with Blogger (Blogspot.com). I have always loved the widgets and gadgets available, I find it easy to manouver, easy to create and I have been well pleased. Then I made the commitment to be more serious about my writing and I was told by those far and yon that to be taken seriously I needed to be on Wordpress.com. That I would find that I could do a lot more things with Wordpress, that Blogger was for noobs and the computer illiterate and Wordpress was created for the more serious blogger. So, I went to Wordpress. Where I was immediately overwhelmed simply by its appearance. I eventually managed to get a blog set up, The Write Idea, and I managed to find and figure out how to add a couple of useful if not creative or interesting widgets. I love the final look of the page, but the whole thing still is just not a pleasant experience. I have found it a chore to write the couple of posts that I have put there and I can't really figure out why. I just find this easier, simpler and it lets my creative juices flow (oops, sorry about that, let me get you a napkin) without having to worry about the technical side of things. So, in the big race of Wordpress vs. Blogger, according to me at least, the winnah (or weiner) is...... Blogger.com!

See you later. Same time, same Blogspot!

To Market, To Market

I'm doing a rewrite on one manuscript and starting to send out queries for the other. It's daunting to try to convince yourself that you have psychic abilities as you read the bio for agent after agent, hoping to feel a tingle that will be the signal that THIS is the agent whose heart will be touched by your words.

I belong to several writers' groups and I'm constantly amazed by some of the things I hear when they discuss querying. "I liked her picture, she's hot. I'd like to work with her so I queried." "I know he doesn't usually agent books in my genre, but I'm hoping he'll like mine well enough to..." "The submissions guideline said just to send the first three pages, but I just don't think that's enough, so I sent the first three chapters." These are usually the same writers who show up at meetings with crestfallen faces and a cluster of rejections in hand, hoping to be mollified by the rest of a group of fellow writers who will surely agree that all agents are arrogant pricks who wouldn't know good writing if it bit them in the britches.

Geez. If you're trying to sell a truckload of jelly, would you back it up to the door of a guy who sells only pickles? And if he didn't buy your jelly would you whine and complain and slam doors and kick kittens claiming that the man is obviously a fool for not recognizing your superior merchandise.

There's a fool in the equation all right, but it's not the pickle dealer. It's the person who ignores the first rule of salesmanship. KNOW YOUR MARKET.

Choose the agents to whom you query carefully. Look at what books and authors they have in their list of credits. Be honest about what you've written and what you hope to write in the future. If someone says your book doesn't fit their needs, then you've either taken your jam to a pickle plant or you've gotten a polite form letter. If the letter appears to be a form letter "Dear Author...." then perhaps it's not a true marker of the situation. But, if you get personal letters telling you that they like the book but it doesn't fit their needs, then open up your Writer's Market and start highlighting another group of lucky agents who'll be receiving your query. Somewhere out there, there's somebody who's looking for that truckload of jam that you're trying to find a home.

She's Baaaack

It was very heartening to get a couple of emails asking if I was alright because I hadn't posted in a couple of days. The "stats" don't show many readers, and I never get any comments (?) but apparently SOMEBODY out there is reading.

So, to answer the question, instead of getting all PC and saying "it was a personal matter" I'm going to ignore the PR folks who say that when the product you are trying to market is yourself (whether as an actor, a screenwriter, an author, etc) you never admit that you have personal problems and sort of like the Queen, never give anyone the impression that you do human things like fart or belch or heaven forbid get sick with anything other than "a little allergy attack."

I had cancer surgery. My second in the last five years.

I am extremely lucky. My first bout with cancer (breast) sent me through surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and all of the horrors that go along with it. But, with the pain and weakness (and being bald, which let me tell you, is NOT a good luck for a short fat girl!) came a new strength and a dedication to myself that gave me the courage to leave behind my non-fiction career and focus entirely on doing what I love best. Telling stories. We Southerners do that best anyway.

For four years I've been cancer free. My life made a 180 turn with a divorce, marriage, adoption of a bluetick coonhound and the opening of an herb greenhouse. And a lot of time spent honing my writing skills and completing two fiction manuscripts with two others close to being "in the can." I don't think I could have asked for a better "ending" for a very bad first chapter.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, my dad died. Two days after his funeral I got the results from a biopsy that came about as a result of me pressing for more testing. The results were positive for cancer. A different type. Uterine. Last Wednesday I had surgery (which included a hysterectomy, salpingectomy and oophorectomy) and yesterday received the results that the cancer was contained in the portions that they removed. I've dodged a nasty, high-powered bullet and I am now cancer free without having any further treatments! If I still wrote non-fiction, what a story I would have! My doctor sat ten feet away from where I was suspended head-down, under deep anesthesia while a robot following directions of the movements of my talented surgeon's hands, skillfully sliced and burned away the bad parts, leaving the rest of me intact and rarin' to go!

I like to think of my surgeon as an editor. Going through my manuscript/body and removing the bad stuff while leaving only the parts necessary to keep my story moving along strongly and capably.

I definitely suggest particular type of body-editing if it's necessary. I took almost no pain pillks after surgery and now my biggest problem is that I want to be doing stuff that is still on my 'don't do' list. I'm depressed (apparently that whole hanging upside down for three hours thing, combined with the deep anesthesia, PLUS all the girly aspect of this particular surgery is going to make the next three weeks sort of an emotional roller coaster for me). But, I've been way deeper with much less reason, so I just keep tossing that old black dog a bone to keep him from nipping at my heels until I get him safely put back into his cage.

I don't know whether it was the drugs or the extra rest or the sleeping pills in the hospital, but I have this story roaming around in my head. Right now it's just bits and pieces. I have the setting, I have the character well honed, I just have to figure out why we're here! What do you do when that happens to you?

Hope you pass all the tests life tosses at you. Remember, for most of them there are unlimited do-overs!

Of Black Dogs, Capsules and Things That Go Bump In The Night

I spend at least an hour every day reading blogs of different agents that have caught my eye. I like to think that when I find an agent he/she will become my friend and partner. I read blogs by writers too and I'm always surprised to find that many tend to see agents as some sort of demi-gods that have glowing auras surrounding them and a background of angels to sing quiet background to their golden words. I guess "hero worship" is a good term. I don't get it. When you have a legal issue you hire a lawyer. Do you get all googoo eyed when you meet him for the first time to sign those papers? When you get a rash you go to a doctor. Do you wonder why he lets God sit in his chair? If you want  your house painted do you curtsy when the painter arrives on your doorstep?

I am in awe of the terrific and underappreciated job that agents do, but I'm not a big fan of hero worship. I respect my doctors (I call them by their first name with their permission) and I am appreciative of the work my attorney does for me, and I almost kissed the last painter right on the lips when he showed up just in time to keep me from painting my bedroom ceiling myself. Like everyone else I have favorite celebrities; if I weren't having a hysterectomy next week I might still offer to have Randy Travis's children and I think Vampire Bill is just the sexiest thing since edible panties. But, they're humans just like you and me. As my grandaddy would say, "they put on their pants one leg at a time, same as I do" (I do blushingly admit there are a few people I'd pay to be able to watch).

Although I don't follow for the same reasons that some writers apparently do, I follow avidly the blogs of several of the agents that have caught my eye. One of them recently admitted a problem with depression and explained how she deals with it. And asked her readers if they thought that writers and other people in creative industries were more liable to suffer from depression than "normal" people. Having never been normal, I don't have an answer for that. I do however suffer from mild depression and always have. I am empathic, and I grew up with a manic depressive/schizophrenic parent. I felt every mood swing that my mother felt, at an age far too young to have a clue what I was feeling or how to deal with it. That made me look at the world in a slightly different angle than "normal" people view it. I fear different bumps in the night than do most people.

I answered her question in my usual 'wordy' way (someday I really must learn how to edit myself) as follows:

1. I’ve been around the block a few times as a non-fiction writer, and am now finding that after all these years of hard work and a satisfying amount of success I’m literally the low man on the totem pole when it comes to finding a helpful ear for my fiction (which is in my opinion MUCH better than my non-fiction ever was!)

2. My dad died three weeks ago, after a brief (less than a week), unexpected illness.

3. Two days after his funeral I was diagnosed with uterine cancer.

4. I broke two front teeth and my dental insurance won’t take effect until October.

5. The one of these that concerns me the most and is most likely to send me spiraling towards the bottom is the first thing on the list. I am depressed that it is so difficult in the publishing world, and I’m having to start from scratch again at this “advanced age” of 52.

Cancer? Been there done that (breast, four year survivor). This time it’s a snap; robotic hysterectomy and I’m back at the computer in four days. My dad lived 80 years and prayed to die in his sleep and his prayers were answered. The teeth will eventually get fixed and until then, heck, what do I have to smile about anyway?

The point of all that is to say that life in all its ups and downs is what we make of it. It is who we are when we wake up in the morning that makes the decision about how we will react to the things that happen to us. I’ve been on mild antidepressants since I was 30. I thank heaven for pharmaceuticals that gave me a choice that my mother never had. Even with drugs though sometimes we have no control over what our minds tell our bodies to do. Many of us have black dogs nipping at our heels for much of our lives. Some days we’re able to toss them a Milkbone and they go back to their den for a while, other days it seems easier to just let them feast on us. We learn to write the highs in our stories on the days that we feel them and the lows when we can best describe them from a personal point of view. And on other days, if we’re good writers, we’ve learned to fake it well enough to get the right thought across to readers. (I find sometimes writing a high when I’m feeling low can actually give me a lift and sadly, vice versa).

Do writers have more bouts with depression than “normal” people? I think maybe we just are honest with ourselves about it more often because we’re used to working in our heads. And working alone. You have to know yourself pretty well to be a good writer. Self-awareness is the first step to treating any problem. Says the woman who suddenly has 50 pounds too many under her belt (or it would be if any of them still fit me).

Thanks [unnamed agent] for being honest. For introducing to the world the you that you see when you look in a mirror. Most people could benefit from that kind of honesty.

So, now I pass along that question. Do you think writers are more prone to depression than "normal" people? And do we handle that depression differently?

Dealing With Rejection

If you're a writer and you would like to see your words in black and white someplace other than your computer screen or printer, you will have to submit those words to someone in a position to make that dream come true. You and two-hundred-bazillion equal or better qualified, equally and more talented writers than yourself. And the few million that couldn't write their way out of a paper bag but because of their tenacity will someday wear someone down enough to print their drivel.

Because of the sheer numbers involved, the law of averages tallies up to the sad fact that there are thousands more rejection letters mailed out daily from agents and publishers than there are letters with a more positive message. Occasionally you read about a lucky writer who just happened to get their first query letter describing their first novel to an agent who just happened to be looking for just such a project and they were signed immediately with a million-dollar advance. Once you have completed creating the voodoo doll of this charmed writer and have inflicted whatever curses you feel necessary for justice to be served, you must face the fact that you are going to be receiving a lot of negative replies before you receive the golden one that makes all the angst "worth it."

All of us have different ways of dealing with rejection.

• Some of us curl up in a fetal position in the corner and cry and lose weight because we have lost the will to live, much less eat. This would not be me. I, obviously, proven by recent pictures of myself, have never lost the will to eat nor am likely to. No matter the crisis. If they'd have taken that tube out of my throat I would have happily scarfed down a tomato sandwich while they were cutting my leg in two to put in a knee replacement.
• Some of us read the letters again and again, hoping to find something positive amidst those most negative of words "does not meet our needs at this time." Which we all know is agentese for "sorriest piece of ill-written trash to cross a desk since Mt. Rushmore was dust." We pretend that this letter is actually an invitation to keep sending them queries; that they are stating they are sure that eventually they will indeed "need" something that we have written. These are the eternal optomists of the sort that as children were thrilled with the gift of a room full of manure because "there has to be a pony in here somewhere!"

• Some of us snort and delete or toss the rejection in the trash, proudly and loudly stating that "it's their loss" as we open up another document and start over with a new potential blockbuster. While our soul quietly curls into a corner and cries and loses weight because it has lost the will to live.

• Occasionally some of us will use the constructive criticism in our mounting pile of rejection letters to realize that if everyone in the parade is marching in time except us, it's possible that maybe WE are the one that need to get in step if we want to keep up.
• More often than not, most of us will at some point get to the place in our career when we are certain that if we receive one more rejection letter we are going to snap. For those dear writers, poised on the brink of pubishing suicide, I pen the following suggestion of a reply so you can go out with a bang instead of whimper.

Dear Polite Agent,

Thank you for your letter rejecting the manuscript of a novel that I submitted for your perusal “because it did not meet your needs at this time.”

Over time, I have received rejections from a large number of equally well qualified agents. With such a varied and promising spectrum of rejections from which to select, it is impossible for me to consider them all. After careful deliberation, then, and because a number of agencies have found better reasons than that which you gave to reject me, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your letter of rejection.

Despite your agency’s outstanding qualifications and stellar previous experience in rejecting manuscripts and queries, I find that your rejection does not meet with my needs at this time. As a result, I will expect my novel to be enthusiastically sent by you to publishers around the globe starting Monday.

Circumstances change and one can never know when new demands for rejection arise. Accordingly, I will keep your letter on file in case my requirements for rejection change. I would suggest that you do a Google or Bing search to find groups and forums filled with budding writers who might more readily accept your polite note rejecting the piece of their soul that they have sent you.

Please do not regard this letter as a criticism of your qualifications in attempting to refuse me representation. I wish you the best of luck in rejecting future authors.

Sincerely,
A Thoroughly Disgusted Writer





(c. Bobbye Land Hudspeth..... if they like it, be sure you give me credit now. If it makes them angry, I never saw it before in my life!)

A Little Bird Told Me

I'm not handling all this new social stuff very well.

I'm not a hermit, but I lead a pretty private life. My nearest neighbor/farm is 1/4 mile from my house. You can't see my house from the road. I don't belong to any clubs or organizations that require regular attendance, and I haven't been to a "real" party (you know, one that didn't sell Tupperware or sexy underwear) since Jesus was in diapers.

Now, suddenly, here I am doing the equivalent of standing in the middle of the four-lane, buck naked with my arms waving in the air hollering "look at me, look at me." I feel like the girl whose mother tied pork chops around her neck so the dog would play with her. I used to have publishers email me and ask me to write non-fiction for them. Now, I'm reduced to playing games and begging someone to read my fiction work. *sigh*

When I was in the second grade and I came upon an empty school room with an invitingly clean blackboard, I used the minutes until I was discovered to write my name many times in newly-learned cursive. When I was discovered, I was shamed by having to write underneath my name "A fool's name and a fool's face are always seen in a public place."

Now, four decades later I'm writing my name all over the most public place imaginable, the Internet, hoping someone notices. And hopefully doesn't think I'm a fool.

I have learned that even when you think you are shouting into a bottomless pit, there is almost always someone listening. Say nothing you don't really want someone to hear. A few days ago, overwhelmed by page after page of 'notes' on my Twitter home page, I wrote, "OK, I need an agent dammit. D'ya think running naked through streets holding a manuscript aloft would help? *looks in mirror* Never mind."

Who knew people actually read those things?

Embarrassingly enough, today I got a Tweet (Twit?) from an agent who had seen that Tweet/Twit and offered to "take a look." If that should pan out, wouldn't that be a story to tell 'em around the campfire!?

Socialization Is So Important

I always stressed that to people who bought my puppies over the years. Nothing can compare to the well-rounded adult that was brought up being well-socialized.

Now, other writers, agents and publishers are telling me the same thing. I must become a social creature and join all sorts of forums, blogs and social websites. I am learning how to Tweet and I have a writer's page on Facebook. I joined LinkedIn and before I could get a profile finished, I was getting emails telling me I needed to "check what Samantha is up to." Since I don't know a Samantha I didn't rush to check out her page. Within the next ten minutes, I'd somehow been "linked in" to over a hundred people. Many of them casual acquaintances, some of them friends, some I've worked with in the past and a majority of total strangers. I finally traced Samantha down as owning a store where the sister of one of my friends shops! Apparently when I told them NOT to go to my address book they used the same selective deafness that Buford the Big Blue Dog uses when I tell him to stop stealing bread, and they rifled through my e-mail address book like a pervert in an undies drawer. And they dug all the way to the bottom of the drawer too. And sent an invitation to not only all my panties, but also invited the panties of my neighbor's sister's uncle's best friend's maid to link to me!

If you got a request to "link with me" and you don't know me, or haven't heard from me since I developed breasts, I apologize. I haven't been back in to see what havoc has been wreaked. I'm a little afraid to. It's like watching an episode of "This Is Your Life" gone terribly wrong and the "guest" is reintroduced to people from their past that were in the past for a reason.

I guess I'm handling all the socialization well. At least nobody has jumped out from behind a bush and snapped open an umbrella in front of me. (And only dog people will know WTF that means).

Warning: Exhausted and Grumpy Writer Ahead

I am literally wearing myself out trying to have documents on hand to fit the requests of any other agents that might contact me.

I have saved both novels (why oh why didn't I listen to the people who said focus on just one? Although doing that is sort of like a parent admitting they have a favorite child) in a variety of fonts and formats. I've backed up, rebacked and printed and saved and I'm so confused now that some poor agent is likely to receive a copy of my Facebook status or my father's eulogy instead of what she's asked for.

In the middle of all of this I downloaded Dropbox because I kept reading about it on different agent blogs. Sounds good. You just put in it copies of stuff you want to protect or have available from other computers, and voila. What no one told me was that when you "drop and drag" (as instructed) files into Dropbox, they are no longer on your desktop. Imagine my horror when I came back after lunch and opened my Hot Bubbles and Chocolate file and it said "this file is empty." Heart attack city! (Better than a hospital stress test... now I know my heart can take anything).

I quickly learned to copy and paste into Dropbox. Yeah, I know. Unnecessary. But, I am too old to just blithely trust all these newfangled inventions.

Nothing in the mail today. At least there wasn't a rejection!

*sigh*

Your Post Has Been Sent

Well, it's done. My newly hashed synopsis of Hot Bubbles and Chocolate, my bio and the first three chapters of the book are now wending their way through cyberspace to what I hope will be gentle and welcoming hands at the agent who brightened my world by requesting further info. Thank you Arliss for being there and doing the voo do that you do so well!

I'm too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to do anything but play solitaire. And dream. And think about what I shoulda, woulda, coulda done differently.

Ah well. Tomorra is anothah day. (I did mention I'm Southern, right?)

Out Of the Darkness, There Came a Voice

OK, it wasn't a voice. It was an email. But, it came at exactly the right time. No matter what comes of it, it's a wonderful thing to be told that you've "intrigued" someone with your writing. Especially someone who "matters" (not that the readers who have already been intrigued with Hot Bubbles...Lori, Dennis, Pete, Clark and Arliss et al... don't matter, you know what I meant).

I opened the morning e-mail to find:

I was intrigued by your project and would like to see the first three chapters of the manuscript. It would be great if you could EMAIL me, as an attachment that could open in Word (rather than a PDF) the first three chapters, a brief one- or two-page synopsis, and a short bio (including a list of any previous publications).To expedite the review process, please write REQUESTED MATERIAL in the subject heading.

Thanks for contacting me. I look forward to reading your work.

Regards,
Another Unnamed Agent

I'll bet they say that ... "I'm intrigued"...to everybody, but for now, let's pretend I'm special.

Of course this means I immediately have to start preparing yet another synopsis (longer this time, whew) and re-edit and then re-re-edit the first three chapters. And dash the synopsis off to Arliss for a quick readover. I'll send it all tomorrow after I double and triple check everything again.

I'm psyched.

The Sharp Sting of Rejection

After joining beaucoup (boo-coo? anyway, a heck of a lot of) writer's forums, and lurking at dozens of agent's blogs, I had resigned myself to settling in for a long wait before I hear from an agent after submitting my query.

Suffice it to say, SOMEONE out there not only doesn't like me/my writing, but is quick on the draw to tell me so. My first rejection arrives in the morning email.

Dear Ms. Hudspeth,

Thank you for sending me your query. Unfortunately, your project isn’t right for my list, so I’m going to pass. The number of queries I receive makes it impossible for me to provide personalized feedback, but you might try www.agentquery.com, if you haven’t already, for a better editorial match.

Best of luck with your agent search.
The Unnamed Agent

Ouch.

Her polite suggestion would be really helpful... if I hadn't gotten the info to send my query to her from, wait for it, agentquery.com. I had submitted Hot Bubbles and Chocolate to her because her personal agency page as well as the blurb on agentquery.com said she was interested in "chick lit, women's, contemporary fiction." I guess it was just me. Sob.

No more e-mail. And my mind whirling in too many directions to write. Thank goodness for TiVo and the fact that Criminal Minds and Whose Line Is It Anyway run on lots of different channels giving me an unending supply.

I wonder if you can develop a taste for hard liquor?

Hitting Send. Really. Hitting Send. Now.

I never knew my pinkie finger could be so strong. My mind tells me to hit the enter key which will send the query letter to one of the six agents I have chosen with whom to possibly start my journey.

I have pored over submissions policies, suggestions and requests. Most went via email, a couple went directly from an agent's website. Not sure if I like that idea or not. At least I know I answered the questions they wanted answered in the amount of space they required. It will probably be much easier to be ignored that way though, or forgotten. Of course, it's very easy to hit 'delete' to an email too. *sigh*

If only there was a "one size fits all" template so this stuff could be done once and then get back to writing. But this agent wants things one way, another wants the opposite. One is my kind of agent, wanting a lot of info up front, with a fairly lengthy bio and synopsis. This I can do. The next says that query, bio and synopsis all-together should be no longer than one page. I can write more than that about my breakfast cereal. Now, I guess, is when I learn how to edit, chop and further mutilate my already prepared bio, query and synopsis. By the time I get finished, it's going to read little more than "I'm a writer. I've been published a lot of times but nothing you'll recognize. Now, I've written a book about the Civil War. A lot of people die but then a lot get happy. Please represent me." Ack.

Another agent wants 12 TNR (which I now, after doing a quick Bing-search, know means Times New Roman font), first 2 pages, no bio and an "intriguing query that will knock my socks off." I put that one off 'til last. Maybe with practice I'll become better at sock-knocking.

Finally, all the letters are written. The requested pages have been formatted according to each person's preference. Websites have been double-checked to be sure that the spelling of the particular agent I'm querying is correct (and current). A bio has been written that makes me (hopefully) sound interesting, knowledgeable and immediately gives the impression of you'd-be-a-fool-to-let-me-go. The synopsis has been written, rewritten and then written again. How do you condense 20 chapters into less than one page? Again, ACK. This has been an all-day job. Not a single word got written except those trying to prove to someone that I don't know that I is indeed a writer and words, they is my life.

My finger hovers over the send button, and then, one by one my children go out into cyberspace to hopefully find a loving home where they will be appreciated, nurtured and allowed to grow into books I will be happy to call mine.

I wish I drank.

To Market, To Market

OK, as the first day of the rest of my fiction writing career, I start by opening my Writer's Market book. Geez. How overwhelming. My eyes are crossing trying to make heads and tails of agents and publishers, their wants and needs and their submission preferences. Good thing I don't have a "day job." How do people get published and lead normal lives with kids and families and jobs and bills? I'm lucky that I have time to focus just on writing, and I still am having a hard time keeping up!

I finally get my rhythm going, and a few hours later, my Writer's Market looks like it's years old instead of just months. Pages are tattered, folded, spindled and mutilated...and marked with a rainbow of marker colors. A pink line means that the agent (I decided to focus on agents and try to get signed with someone who will handle all this tedious query stuff so I can actually have time to write again, instead of also querying publishers directly) is one that handles my genre(s). A green line denotes ones that accepts email submissions. I am far too green (environmentally, not jealous) to waste all the paper necessary to send manuscripts that may well end up in a wastebasket somewhere. Besides, email is faster and I'll have a definite record of who I sent what to when. Yellow means they are currently accepting queries and new clients. Eventually I'll go back through and make a list of the ones with all three colors.

For now, I'm trying to find agencies that have at least one agent who focuses on the different types of manuscripts I currently have available, as well as those that are 'baking.' I enjoy working on different types of manuscripts, so I need to find an agent who is willing to work in different genres instead of fixated on one.

Behind the Gray needs an agent that loves history and historical novels. Hot Bubbles and Chocolate needs an agent that loves to laugh and can find humor in day-to-day life.

After too many hours staring at fine print, I squeak in a couple of hours of editing. Tomorrow, I write query letters. Tonight I watch reruns of Frasier and wish I could write as well as their writers!

A New Commitment to Me

There's not much to say about cancer that is good. It's tough to put a positive spin on having a life-threatening disease. Even harder to find something positive to say about the treatments that put you near death to keep you from dying.

The one positive thing that came out of my bout with breast cancer was the realization of how really short life is. And how very little we truly appreciate it until we are told that we might not have it much longer. Like everything else, we only truly realize how important our life is when we think it's about to be taken from us.

I remember sitting and looking at the crystals hanging in my bedroom window while I waited for the effects of the latest chemo treatment to wear off. I made a vow to myself that if I lived through, I was going to make changes in my life. Important ones. Not like the New Year's Resultions that I'd been making and breaking for four decades. This time I was going to make a difference.

Four years later, I'm divorced and remarried and my ex is my best friend. We all still live on the family farm in North Alabama, but we started the herb and heirloom plant business that I'd dreamed of for most of my life. Our thirty acres of pasture no longer provides a home for beef cattle, but houses two horses, a donkey and eight goats (most of them rescued from the dog and human food market). I no longer show purebred dogs and now am owned by two rescues... a Heinz 93 (way more than 27 breeds swam their way into Lizzie's gene pool) and Buford the Big Blue Dog, a bluetick coonhound rescued from a Tennessee shelter (quite a long way from fluffy English cocker spaniels!)

Probably the biggest change I've made in my life though was ending my focus on non-fiction writing and writing The End to not one but two novels. And today am well on my way to finishing a third.

I never was a hot commodity in the non-fiction market, although I still get emails and notes from people who have bought my books. I was able to pay a few bills and make a few "fans" and meet a lot of wonderful people along the way, but... (and just like the one I sit on, that's a BIG but!) I was a square peg in a round hole trying to write non-fiction. I knew all the facts on my topics, and I am a fair-to-middlin' good writer. But I was bored to pieces.

When I wrote the first sentence of my first novel, I was hooked. I had created a character that I dearly wanted to have in my life. I dragged the writing of that book far longer than I should have because I just wasn't ready to say goodbye. Only after I started a second novel (thinking the first one was a lost cause and I'd never finish it) did I meet even more people that I wanted to get to know and was able to finally tie all the loose ends for my first characters and let them live happily ever after.

When I write fiction, I don't have to "think." I just shut my eyes (luckily I type by feel, so I actually can do the eyes-closed thing) and let my fingers type out the movie that's playing in my head. Sometimes my characters do surprising things and my eyes fly open and I'm prone to saying aloud "well, who the hell is that?" or "what did you do that for?" I've learned that it's useless to try to erase and turn my characters in a different direction. If I try the movie in my head does that thing that used to happen in the old Lake Theater in Guntersville when I was a kid and look like it's melting at the edges and then you can see the ends flipping in front of the bulb. The only way to get the film to play again is to let my characters go back to doing as they please.

I love making people laugh, and absolutely nothing pleases me more than to be in the room when someone is reading one of my books for the first time and I see grins creasing their face or hear them laugh out loud.

Then I know that I have fulfilled my goal. I have changed myself and my life. Whether it's all for better or worse remains to be seen. I have only this last couple of weeks dabbled my toes into the fiction publishing industry. So far, not so good.

It's scary out there! I made the mistake of joining several forums for fiction writers hoping for hints and tips. Instead I got hives and an erratic heart beat from all the horror stories. Big bad agents who reject manuscripts because the header was started on the wrong line, or the font was too big/small/wrong. Publishers who tie up a manuscript for months (years?) and then at the last minute reject them. It was with great trepidation that I took a deep breath and jumped into the pool.

So far the water's ok. This blog will be my record to show myself how I'm progressing. And, maybe someday when my books break sales records it will be proof to someone else who's standing there, poised on the brink of making a life-change, that they can do it too. And, maybe someday if my books are in the sales bin at Books A Million, some bargain hunting reader will Google me (or Bing me, or whatever they're doing in those days) and find this and see that I did try. And I did do my best. And I have no regrets.