Scott Waldyn

Career Progress, Rewrites, and Sex Scenes

In case you missed it, I am Fiction Editor at Literary Orphans now!!! This thrills me like you wouldn’t believe. I thank Scott, Mike, and Brittany for being such wonderful people to work with and willing to let me join the next tier. And as I assured Mary, I will remain in my position at r.kv.r.y., too.

The Blueshift Journal published “Our Mother’s Memoir was Published Posthumously. On Purpose.” Oye, I’m so glad. The original version was written on 4/16/11. I worked on it occasionally and earlier this year got a higher tier rejection from Vestal Review. I looked at it again, tweaked it and boom! Six years later, acceptance.

And while that is a tale of not giving up, I admit that I did give up on this lilac bush. I planted it at least 5 years ago and nothing. I quit weeding around it, neglected it, really. Yesterday, it caught my eye.

Gorgeous, isn’t it? And it smells great.

I nervously sent my pages to Mary and Gina. Nervous because “Sweet Spot” was part of it and in an earlier chapter I’d mentioned how badly written most sex scenes are so I was basically setting myself up for comparison to that and if I didn’t nail it, if it wasn’t right, organic, plausible, good, I feel the whole book would have failed. It worked. There were a few (very few) comments on that part so, now I have the confidence to proceed with the rewrite.

So here’s to more reading and writing!

The Columbine and Iris are in bloom and even after all this rain, the tomato plants are in the garden. On a deeply personal note, Husband and I have made it another year so happy 17th anniversary to the man who never reads this blog unless I print it out.

Have a lovely day.

Thank you for stopping by and reading.

Remember, you are a great person!

Cheers!

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

April flowers including my first hyacinths!

With the recent temperature fluctuations, I was happy to see a few of the daffodils managed to bloom.

The hyacinths are getting there.

As well as these roadside tulips.

This afternoon, thundershowers are predicted, and since it’s April it finally sounds like the weather is on the right track. If the electric goes out, I’ll be catching up on my reading for r.kv.r.y. and Literary Orphans. Oh, the Audrey issue of LO dropped yesterday if you’re looking for amazing writing to peruse, plus there’s an excellent interview by Sanjeev Sethi with Scott Waldyn at The Review Review.

Most of my writing is out. On the Submittable queue, I have 21 listings and 14 of them are marked as “in-progress.” Waiting is such a drag, so I’ll be doing Pilates after I post this. I also need to write more pages in “Dreaming Lettie” to send to the novel critique group. We had been on hiatus and I’m glad that’s over. The support is amazing and I always come away from our meetings energized.

After my “physical” yesterday, I’m convinced our “nurse practioner” is doing drugs. Either that or she’s completely inept. I need to start looking for a new doctor before she kills Husband and me, but I hate searching for doctors. We had the best one ~ Dr. Chow ~ but he left to do research. We finally found another adequate provider, but he moved. Since then, we signed up for another doctor, yet neither one of us has actually seen her – just this “nurse practioner” person. I suppose it’s my own fault for having an appointment after 4:20 on 4/20.

Anyway! I’m looking forward to the weekend. Friday is another meeting of the Hamburg Writer’s Group at the Comfort Zone. Saturday, I’ll be doing my shift at the West Falls-Colden Community Library and then Husband and I are going to travel to see awesome Niece from Boston for at least a few hours. Sunday, it’s an early mad dash home to attend the Taste of the Southtowns, so if you see me at any of those places, say hi – and thanks for stopping by!

(*These are merely my own Creekside Reflections. If you were here, I’d expect you to see things differently.)

Good. Golden. Overwhelming.

Since last you read, amazing things have happened in my life:

Awesome Niece Rachael announced she is going to visit us in August.

Nancy Leone stopped by and we had a lovely morning together discussing writing.

I had a strange-but endearing-meeting with a person who will henceforth be referred to as “Trouble” about Matt’s presidential campaign.

The play by Donna Hoke I directed was performed by three amazing women (Shirley Reeves, Marilyn Heary and Jeanne May.)

My interview with Beth Gilstrap about her short story collection, ” I Am Barbarella” was accepted and went live on The Tavern with the support and care to detail that only Scott Waldyn and Mike Joyce can provide.

Kim Chinquee–the Queen of Flash–gave me, Gina, and Mary a tour of her awesome home before our novel critique group meeting.

The zinnias are blooming. Displaying IMG_20150723_103133.jpg I WON THE GOVER PRIZE!

I know, nothing like burying the lead, is there? Anyways, I’m working on yet another revision of my book on the off chance the prize encourages an agent to contact me. Take care of each other until next time!

(These are my creek side reflections; your experiences may vary.)