Glorious Break

I’ve missed a couple days writing this blog, but that’s because I spent a couple days in Kansas City on a writing retreat. Writing retreats consist of soaking up coffeehouse atmosphere, eating good food, and writing. This writing goal was to clean up some formatting and language on Gaia’s Hands that I missed the first time around. Luckily, uploading corrected versions on Kindle is so easy that I did it in half an hour, and 20 minutes of that was tweaking the cover.

I have editing to do with Avatar of the Maker, especially as I’ve separated it from the Maker’s Seeds plot. That’s something I’ve learned over my years writing, that there is such a thing as too much plot. As I have one-third of the book written, this will probably be painful. Maybe I will rescue it later. I have another book, although a fluffy one, waiting in the wings.

I get intense focus on writing retreats, even though I’m writing in a crowded coffeehouse. Or, as it so happens right now, writing in a quiet hotel room while my husband snores. (Oh yes, Richard, you do snore).

Today, I will write my newsletter and get caught up on my promotion tasks. And feel rested for the week to come.

The Recitation

Let this be

A good day
A productive day
A rewarding day
A beautiful day
A day that gives me hope.

Lately I have been using this to start my day. I don’t think it’s a prayer per se, because I have very mixed thoughts about God answering prayers, as much “Should God answer prayers” as “Does God answer prayers?” I see this more to focus myself, to choose the actions that will best advance the day the way I want to.

Left to myself, I have good days and bad days. I have productive days and days where I do little but surf, largely influenced by what is due that day and how I feel. This works great when I feel possessed by an idea, in creative mode, perhaps even in a micro-mania, or if I’m down and have the time to relax. Right now I have classes and emails and panicked students and struggles with the writing.

With the — meditation? Litany? Shopping list? My days haven’t changed so far. On Wednesday, I had a good, productive, rewarding day at work with students right on target, work getting done at a good clip, an affirming conversation with a student. On Friday, my students couldn’t focus on class, and I felt argumentative.

Today, Saturday, I started the recitation again: “let this be a good day, a productive day, a rewarding day, a beautiful day, a day that gives me hope.” The blog has been the first productive act, and I will put up a tik-tok and start editing a problem child of a manuscript by noon today. Hopefully, it will be a day that gives me hope.

Nothing Left to Lose

I’d like to get to where I have nothing left to lose with my writing. Not to stop writing, but to write without an external reason. Not for readers, not for recognition, not for money, not to see my name in print. Just for the sheer joy of writing (when it is joy; sometimes it’s tedium).

I’m not there yet. I don’t care so much about the money, having probably earned only a couple hundred dollars so far. But I want people to read my books, comment about my books, and like my books. I have books with five reviews or fewer (and I have no way of knowing how many copies they’ve sold).

My dream is to have people want to write fanfic about my books, which I would let them do, keeping in mind the restrictions of the world I’ve built. I’d like to be a non-evil version of Marion Zimmer Bradley. This is far from the desire listed above.

Maybe the desire not to care is because there’s such a gap between where I am and where I’d like to be. Like I shot for the stars and ended up in the neighbor’s backyard. On the other hand, the freedom of not caring is exhilarating.

Weather and the Writer

I’m sitting by the window at Starbucks. My husband sits across from me, finishing his first screenplay, based on my first Christmas novel. The Kringle Conspiracy has sold a few copies, and I have distributed free copies to almost 5000 people on BookFunnel in exchange for registration on my mailing list.

It looks like it wants to rain out. It rained earlier, but we could use more rain. I could use more rain, wind, and petrichor to remind me that summer will be over soon. I talk about the weather a lot, because the weather always surrounds us and engages our senses.

Writers use weather to inform their scenes, but not always in the way we expect. Do happily ever afters always happen under sunny skies with rainbows? I can see scenarios where the last scene, the big kiss, happens in the pouring rain, or in a snowstorm. Each of those would communicate two different feels — the pouring rain might be tempestuous or cathartic, the snowstorm cozy or threatening. A battle in a torrential rainstorm would be grueling, but on a sunny day, be ironic.

I want you to take a moment and imagine some weather, either some that you love or some you hate. Then tell a story about what happens in that weather, describing the air, the sky, the precipitation (if any). Make the scene about the weather and what happens in this weather. Write it down.

Photo by Ralph W. lambrecht on Pexels.com

You are now a writer!

Feeling the Tension

I’m once again querying, sending out a manuscript and all the trimmings to agents looking to see if any of them want to represent my book.

It’s a nerve-wracking proposition, especially as I have had no luck so far with getting agents to look. It’s difficult putting one’s best work out there, not knowing if this time it will get some traction. Face it, rejection is difficult to face, and no, I am not used to it.

I’ve sent ten queries out today and I don’t expect to hear from any of them today, as it’s Sunday. Tomorrow, the early rejectors will reply, and I will wait on the others as I send out more queries. I’ve done this before.

I have made some important changes to this version, some having to do with grammar throughout and the more important ones having to do with something I should never have attempted with the story.

Wish me luck!

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com

As the End of the Summer Approaches …

I can feel the end of the summer. The County Fair is over, the weather is boiling, and I’ve done all my digital setup for the fall semester. I always do it early, according to my Facebook posts from years past, mostly to prepare myself for the fact that my days will be fuller and more carefree, and there will not be nearly as much free time to write.

School starts August 17, less than a month from now. Meetings start a week before that, and there will (hopefully) be a beginning-of-semester cookout for faculty and staff which represents the beginning of the semester more than any ritual could.

What have I accomplished? I’m a quarter of the way through one book, an eighth of the way through another, and I don’t know which one to write. I have finalized It Takes Two to Kringle, which is waiting only for some last minute putting together before I submit it to Kindle. I have edited an old but (in my opinion) outstanding book called Prodigies, which I hope to send off to agents soon. I neglected my garden again. I relaxed.

Life is good and I passed through the summer doldrums without much damage. Soon I will go through the beginning of semester highs (If this sounds like bipolar, it is, sort of). But it’s my cycle of the year and I will do my best to meet it.

A Poem in Retrospect

I have a poem that I think is great — almost. Except for the last line:

Deep Touch

He took me on a tour of the city –

tumbling water and greenbelts

and always, always the wind fluttering flags

in concrete forests. Over coffee at Timmy’s,

he said he craved deep touch,

choirboy eyes showing bleak around the edges.

I asked him how that worked,

nervously eyeing the billowy bed

which whispered raw suggestions in my mind.

He crawled onto the comforter,

A wild brilliant bird. He whispered,

“Wrap yourself around me.” So I did.

I buried my face in midnight hair, and pulled

my arms around his chest — warm, warm

with muscles steel potential under his skin.

He took my hand in his and placed it

over his heart. I felt wind fluttering flags

in a concrete forest inside me.

I dreamed the bird revealed himself in my arms –

A rising phoenix, poised for flaming flight,

melting the tall city buildings in the night.

Without the weight of concrete, I, too, could fly

with wings made up of flags and colorful banners,

with the song I had lost as a child.

Five or more years after I wrote it, I think the last line is disingenuous and a copout. Maybe even everything after “Melting the tall city buildings in the night” is disingenuous and a copout. I begin to think so. The poem is about noise and silence and don’t forget sex.

Let me know what you think

Progress

I got 500 words written today on my book!

Technology Hates Me

I have so many things I need to do today — put up a TikTok video, insert some front and back matter into the latest book, and tweak the cover for the same novel (which will be a Christmas novel, It Takes Two to Kringle, out October 1).

But technology hates me today:

Atticus (a book formatting app) keeps stalling out.
Atticus also is missing its back matter section so I can’t put in an afterword, acknowledgements, or disclaimers in my novel.
Photoshop (where I design my covers) won’t let me copy and paste a picture.
Crazy Video Maker will not let me stretch out the time pictures stay on screen for as long as I need them to.
ProWritingAid thinks I am making run-on sentences. (I am not).

At least WordPress is not throwing hitches in my writing.

And, to be honest, Photoshop functioned well when I figured out I used the wrong command.

But the level of frustration! I had hoped to have my book ready on Amazon (just in case) this weekend, and that will not happen. I hate being derailed.

Oh, well, need to find something to keep me occupied.

Progress!

Now, finally, as the summer winds down, I’m feeling motivated! The book and cover for It Takes Two to Kringle are almost done. I have brushed up my query letter and synopsis of Apocalypse in case I get motivated to query it. I have done little with Avatar of the Maker, but I have reconciled myself with the fact that Leah is going to be a pregnant eighteen-year-old.

I think I’ve said this before — my mind needs to be split between two things for me to be productive in writing. I’ve proven this every summer, when the first half of the summer is free, while the second half sends me chasing down interns and expecting the beginning of fall semester.

It’s possible that this is what it takes to be distracted from my perfectionism. Maybe it’s inertia taking over during free times. Perhaps I just need the dichotomy of work and writing to turn my mind toward writing. The best use of my time is all or nothing. But at least I’m making progress.