essays

May the 4th be with you, too.

Once again, I started this blog post only to discover I could write most of an essay without thinking about it. I don’t know if I’ll finish this one—I haven’t looked back at the last one yet. That’s out of laziness, not fear. This latest assemblage of words scares me a bit since I’d be unmasking a “truth.” Sigh. I don’t know. I suppose I should write it, try to find it a home, explain —like in most essays— that we, as humans, are less different than we suppose.

I had a bit of niceness writing wise. The editor at The Journal let me know that my story “Anum Cara” went far in the process but ultimately didn’t make the cut. The nicer part being that he genuinely seemed interested in me sending more work. What I have plans to do is pull up that story, look at it again and send it out. If it was close for a venue that sports a 1.09% acceptance rate on Duotrope, the odds are in its favor to be accepted somewhere. It worked for “Our Mother’s Memoir was Published Posthumously. On Purpose.” Mark Budman at Vestal Review gave it a “good” rejection and the next time I pulled the story up, I changed a few words and sent it off and BOOM. It will be up in Blueshift Journal #7 soon.

The days of Board of Education duties are soon to be over and then it’s back to audience member for me. Whatever will I do with my free time – other than read books that I choose instead of Alison Duwe’s choices? Well, there is the revision of “Near Eden, New York,” which “Anum Cara” is a chapter of, to complete. Luckily, it’s in fairly good shape so knock on mahogany that won’t be a horrible slogging mess. I could be wrong though. Nina Fosati sent two pieces last night with the lament, “Are they ready? I can’t tell anymore,” and those were for short stories. Mary Akers is going through the same thing with changing the point of view in “The Belongers.” Sure, writing is rewriting but where does one get the gumption? If you hear of a sale, please let me know.

Otherwise, it’s been rainy outside. I need to pull out the tulip and crocus bulbs and plant the lilies I just got. The neighbors would probably appreciate it if the lawn got mowed—at least the roadside yards—but eh, it’s too wet and I don’t care about property values at the moment. It isn’t like anyone drives by to consider moving here. The road is in piss-poor shape and there are no new businesses to attract people to the area. Well, these two were attracted to our property. Probably because of the lack of traffic on the road.

Thanks for stopping by!

*These are my Creekside Reflections. Your experience may vary.

Vote for Joan Kelly on 17 May 2016 for SGI : A blog post

Happy Cinco de Mayo and welcome to this post which is being written at a Chevy dealership while waiting for an oil change. One of the dealers is calling to wish people happy birthday and I’m wondering how I’d feel if they called me. If it was to say “Happy Birthday, you’ve won a free car/one month’s car payment/a free oil change, I’d probably like that a lot.

I’m here because one thing led to a minor renovation and since my novel writing group is coming on Tuesday, I really need things finished so Husband is at home painting instead of sitting here. Originally, the thought was that I wanted the space under the kitchen sink painted brilliant white so it would be easy to see things underneath. The next thought was that he wanted to buy a good paint sprayer to tackle that job. That led to other things I’d like painted, which made him consider getting a fairly decent sprayer and after that, well I forgot the logic, but there was some and now all sorts of cleaners are hanging out on my kitchen counter instead of on the shelves above the washing machine closet because those are torn out and will be replaced once the painting is done.

If you live in the Springville Griffith Institute area, I urge you to vote out the nonsense and vote for Joan Kelly. Joan is decent, hardworking, and listens to people. Of course you’ll need to vote in the atrium of the high school instead of the library because of “safety concerns.” Allison Duwe’s safety of being reelected is under threat due to her complete incompetence so she’s punishing the elderly in the area who thought her idea of a new gym was ridiculous and voted against it 1553 to 348 or something close to that. No one can accuse her of being a good sport, or a gracious loser, or even a decent person for that matter, and that is my opinion so settle down if you don’t agree. It’s my blog and I get to have my say—at least until next January it’s supposedly a free country with freedom of expression and freedom of the press guaranteed by the first amendment.

Otherwise, the miniature rose bush that Husband got me for my birthday is about to bloom again, the world out my Creekside window is going green and the peas are planted. I got another 20 pages written for a book, I’m working on two essays that may combine into one long one and I just got an ARC of “Hoopity Time Machines” by Christopher DeWan which I’ll be reviewing for The Tavern Lantern portion of Literary Orphans. I also have two pieces by Nina Fosati from the Hamburg Writers Group, a paper by Nancy’s niece, and the novel pages for my novel critique group to either read or reread and leave comments on and…yeah, I could go on about other reading and writing, but I brought “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr with me so I’m off to read that and will post this when I get home.

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading!

(*These are my Creekside Reflections. Your experiences might vary.)

I spent Valentine’s Day with my Tax Guy and other confessions…

Yes, it’s true. On Saturday, we went in to Mark Adamchick’s office and he estimated our refund (NY State and Federal) would be equal to the County Tax bill which we received on Monday. Gotta love the timing.

The cold and snow have been unrelenting. I’m pet-sitting for a neighbor. Had I known what the weather was going to be like, I would have rethought my answer. I still would have done it, but I would have thought longer before agreeing to do it.

The day before Valentine’s Day, wonderful things happened. I received the postcard XO Man sent from Tierra del Fuego (props if you get the Letterman reference), there was a letter from a dear friend, and to top it off, Husband stopped to buy me a rose. He didn’t have to–I’d gotten mini-carnations two weeks before and we’d gone out to lunch last week since we didn’t want to deal with the hassle of dining out on VD.

My husband is awesome.

The writing lately, not so much. Oh sure, I had another piece accepted (Thank you Tim Sevenhuysen) and it went live today at 50 Word Stories. Otherwise, I’ve been spending a lot of time on rewriting some short stories and rewriting old stories feels like I’m not moving forward. I did squeak out a new flash for a contest. I started several one night, let them alone for a few days then picked the strongest and polished it to fit a contest’s requirements. Last weekend when I was at the library, I did make a leap forward with “The Little Woman,” a story I conceived of in November 2012, but again, it’s an old story.

I suppose the answer is to plunge back into “the new piece.” I still don’t know what it’s going to be–size wise–but I’m still smitten with it. Unless I decide to submit a bunch of stories…or maybe poems. I could polish a few essays I’m close to liking enough to send out, but maybe I should scour agent listings and send out more queries…

*Sigh*

What I really want to do is buy seeds and plant them.

Thanks for stopping by!

TGI August!

Happy August to all!

I’m happy to be stepping out of July’s Camp NaNo. I made my goal by the fudge factor of kicking in a story I wrote on the cusp of the June/July turn over–and I feel spent. I know each time I attempt this crazy idea, I do produce and I do grow as a writer, but I’m done with trying to do anything but a novel in 30 days. Short work/essays/poems are much too hard to try to produce on such a demanding schedule. Added to that, my best friend moved away and was settling into her new home, I took a play writing workshop, and had major property upheavals this month. I am in need of a vacation.

But do I get a moment to relax? HA!

The next draft of my play, “File it Under Whatnots” is due next week–and I want to get a copy of it to Bella Poynton before then so I can hone this piece to as close to perfection as possible. I love that is a priority in my life. I never thought I’d attempt to write a play, but I did.

Should you be clueless, western New York weather is a funky mix and during the summer I try to get up early to take advantage of the cool air to get things done…And getting things done has happened all over the property recently.

My garden was weeded…Not the surrounding area, just where the plants are growing in the raised bed.

Husband heard of a guy who scrapped cars, so we needed to clear out the Subaru. The things in the Subaru needed a home and the “temporary scaffolding” that held a bunch of pipes and things needed to be taken down, moved and reinforced. The leaded glass window he’d pulled out of the wall behind the bookcase earlier this year was in the way. Jim Tuttle had told us frogs need a place to do their thing so they’d stick around our garden.

Thus:

The scaffold was cleared, dismantled, reassembled and the trees were trimmed–not that I have pictures to show you of that. The garden shed was measured,

cut with a grinder

and had the window installed.

We’re not there yet, but the liner is bought, the hole is mostly dug, and I’m looking forward to frogs moving in soon.

The scrapper–one of the nicest strangers I’ve ever met came, took the Subaru AND the 4 dead tires we’d pulled from the creek over the years.

None of the pictures I took turned out well enough to show you that I got my hair cut and colored as a test run for attending Mary Aker’s book launch at the Roycroft coming up soon. You should join me there! Plus, while they were in bloom, I appreciated these flowers:

All in all, a great few weeks around here.

(These are just my creekside reflections. Your experiences may vary.)