Near Eden NY

A Holiday Tip and Thoughts on the New Year

Here’s a tip I came across by accident: when you receive a personal/instructive rejection, print it out on holiday paper. It makes the sting of the “no” a bit easier to take.

Gina Detwiler’s book launch for Forlorn this weekend was spectacular! It was a great time, too.

Hello! It’s another Thursday here and I’m happy for two recent rejections that were not only personal, but gave great feedback. I know – it is so hard to even think about doing that at most (if not all) places, so I want to say THANK YOU to both JMWW and Forge.

You’re catching me on a good day, as I’m super excited for many reasons. Tomorrow, a piece I really like and thought turned out well will go live at Flash Fiction Magazine. I’ll also be donating blood, meeting up with Husband for his urologist appointment then off to Hamburg Writers’ Group. After that will be Saturday and we’re headed to Pennsylvania to spend time with great people, including our niece, Rachael. Bridge will be played. Other than that, we’ll see. Bridge is important. There was a threat that “heads would roll” if Bridge wasn’t played.

Of course, it’s not all fun and excitement. I’m cleaning the house – which is no fun – but I like coming home to a clean house, so it’s worth the tediousness.

As the end of the year is looming, I’m thinking about projects I want to complete, new ones to embark on, and my friends and family. At Donna Hoke’s party, I heard encouragement from Dave about needing to say “enough” at some point, so I’m coordinating with XO Man so that when I finish the next revision of Near Eden, it’s off to him. That scares me more than querying agents. Or putting a hat on the cat…

Ah well, what is life if you don’t face your fears occasionally. Thanks for stopping by and for the read! May your holidays be happy and bright!

*These are my creekside reflections; your experiences should vary.

Tearing myself away from honing #amwriting

Kudos to the wondrous Kathy Fish for hosting the Fast Fiction Reunion on Zoetrope this weekend. I met some wildly talented writers and had a blast. Plus, I wrote two new flashes. Yeah! It hasn’t been that long since I finished a piece, but it feels that way. Now, if I could just make time to submit…

I’m in the middle of a minor kitchen project and when I say “I,” I mean Husband is doing the work and I’m coping with the displacement of things so of course this morning, Allison suggests coming round to drop off the “appreciation gift.” My life resembles a sit-com at times.

I’m honing “Near Eden, New York,” based on great suggestions from Nina, Mary, and Gina, plus my own thoughts after leaving it alone for a few months. My synopsis needs work, too. Being a writer is such fun, let me tell you. But I do take time to enjoy the roses.

Literally. This is the sight that greets me on my way out the door.

Sadly, the peonies are already waning.

The bulbs that I can’t remember the names of are thriving in these days before the official start of summer. I hope you’re enjoying your time, no matter what you’re doing. As for me, I’ll be diving back into Tara and Pete’s story. It’s a lovely place to be.

Thanks for stopping by and the read!

(These are my creekside reflections. No sense getting worked up about them if they don’t agree with yours.)

Honey, I swear! The caviar was for research purposes only!

Yesterday was my turn to host the novel critique group. Spoiler alert: Early in Near Eden, New York, Pete brings caviar to Tara’s house to win over her cat. Anyways, at the previous novel critique meeting, Mary had said she hadn’t eaten caviar but thought it was salty and maybe the cat wouldn’t like it. Then, New Year’s Eve arrived and listening to NPR that morning, I heard Scott Simon interview Susan Stamberg. She described a dish called Caviar Pie. On the off chance they did, I asked a guy at Wegman’s if they sold caviar. They did, and some of it was reasonably priced.

Obviously, not hosting the Christmas shindig created a groundswell of decorating and celebratory angst that needed to be expressed and I’m happy Gina Detwiler and Mary Akers made the drive to put up with it.

My cat didn’t like the caviar cold, but cleaned the stick that held 10 or so fish eggs later that night, just before I left to attend SGI’s French Honor Society induction ceremony. Valerie Brown was making crepes after, but I was quite full by then. When I got home, I received a call from my friend/line editor in California. He wants me to stop querying until we go over the book at least one more time. I don’t want to, though. I probably will, but I’m going to be pouty about it. I think Near Eden, New York is good, and he agreed, but he wants it even closer to perfection. He also hates my query letter because it makes it sound too much like a lighthearted story. I tried to convince him it’s just a romance. He says it’s so much more. I love fights like this and am so grateful these are the problems I have.

And, oh yeah, it’s official, I was duly sworn in and it was on Facebook so it has to be true. I’m a Board of Education Member! Photo courtesy of Colleen Mahoney and the Springville Journal.

Thanks for stopping by!

*These are my Creekside Reflections; your experiences may vary.

Let’s wrap up this year already…

This is my last post for the year and — knock on wood — we get to the new one before yet another celebrity passes. Cohen, Bowie, Rickman, Prince, and Princess Leia all in one year is devastating! Sadly, there were even more…

I’ve ended up with a bit of a time buffer that I’ll be using to play catch-up-on-the-paperwork. Such a fun game! I made a decent dent in the filing of my writing over the weekend, have been winnowing the newspaper stack each night, but I’m dreading the receipt sorting/gathering tax paperwork part of the game. Yes, I know, it could be worse and I am grateful for the problems I have, but I still sometimes wish I had a secretary so I didn’t have to play one in real life.

Speaking of real life, I really was appointed to the Board of Education. Is that life imitating art or me getting suckered punched into a bureaucratic and political quagmire? Either way, it will be more experience to plunder for another story or two…

Writing wise, I only know I’m not getting my hopes up. When I finished Life and Crimes, I thought it was the best thing I’d ever written. Full requests from agents was so damned sweet and then, when they said no, it hurt. This book, tentatively called Near Eden, New York, is better written than that — in my opinion by a lot. What if it isn’t enough though? What if I need to write another book that surpasses this one in quality before I have a book published? It’s such a heartbreaking profession — not at all the way I imagined it would be when I started dreaming about being a best-selling author. I know I’ll get there because I’m not smart enough to quit, but in the interim, I think I’ll return to the Hot Pants office at Zoetrope and start churning out flash.

I stopped in there last night before I glanced at my flash file. I don’t have a lot left to send out. Again, I know, that is the best problem to have — getting so much accepted that I have nothing left to submit. I am grateful. So grateful and I would love to continue kvetching here, but that isn’t reducing the paper stack.

Thanks for stopping by!

*These are my Creekside reflections. Your experiences may vary.