A Snippet of Autumn

Yesterday afternoon, I looked out the window to see a maple tree striped with fire.

Astronomical autumn came quickly. Soon, leaves will tumble and be brushed into piles smelling of dust and bark. Evenings will grow dark sooner, and the motif will change from flip-flops and seashells to pumpkins and dried corn stalks. It’s time to reap the harvest and prepare to settle in our homes to wait for winter. Our schedules will not allow us that rest, but our bodies long for it as the days get shorter.

I will feel the temperatures drop, and I will wear a jacket against the chill. I will drink hot, smoky tea with cream to chase away the cold. I will feel the change of the seasons, even though my summer was spent inside and working due to the COVID-19. I will wish for a huge leaf pile, one that will accommodate my big, old bones.

Soon, the snap in the air says. Soon.

COVID check

How is everyone doing? I’m thinking of COVID again after six months of wearing masks and socially isolating, and just wondered how everyone was doing.

I’m not doing bad. I’m back to not going to the coffeehouse again because restaurants and other food establishments are the worst places if you want to avoid COVID. So my social life has been greatly cut back again. I’m getting a lot done. I’m getting the hang of teaching live while using Zoom. It’s not easy, but I’m feeling accomplished again.

If there’s one thing I’m still missing, it’s a writing retreat. I really need a change of scenery, especially since the cafe is off line. But I am restricted from retreats for the same reason I’m restricted from the cafe — too many people. Too many particles.

I think some things are changing in my life. I’m talking to more people on social media. I’m getting used to not eating at restaurants. I’m dependent on mail order. I’m appreciating what I’ve lost.

I’d like my life to go back to normal. I would like to be mobile again. I would like to go to restaurants and hug people and have a writers retreat and not wear a mask. But for now, I’m doing okay.

A small triumph and some thoughts on improving

I got two pieces accepted for publication yesterday! One was a flash fiction piece named “Literally” and the poem “Deep Touch”, which is one of my more favorite poems. (The poem above is neither; it’s just an illustration of what I write.)

I anticipate the journal didn’t get too many entries, because this is an inaugural issue of a journal and it’s not a high prestige literary journal. I’ll take it — I don’t write lofty enough for a high prestige literary journal. I also don’t use the modern convention of longer poems. My heroes are Emily Dickinson and ee cummings — they didn’t need more than about 24 lines.

To be honest, though, I wish I could write longer poems. I wish I understood what people are doing in longer poems so I could at least see how they work.

That’s something I wouldn’t have done when I was younger — try to improve. I now have this burning desire to improve everything I write, and I think I have improved to the level of my instruction, which is why I need more instruction.

I will always need more instruction.

Plowing through everything

Saturday morning, and I am wondering what to do with my time. My husband is going to work, and I am done with the following: work for my class in improving my online class; the manuscript in both paperback and kindle; the cover to my book; several advertisements for the book; revamping my new blog; fixing some errors in the new blog …

Oh, yes, I remember now. I need to start plotting Kringle in the Night. Even though it’s still September and NaNo is a month and a half away.

Times like this I wonder if I’m on a hypomania binge because I’m SO productive. I still seem to be sleeping; in fact I slept in this morning.

If this is normal, I’ll take it.

More on New Blog

The new blog is up and running at https://lleachie.wixsite.com/laurenleachsteffens . At the moment, the blog entries are some of my favorite less “personal” items from this blog (i.e excluding the existential dread). I will discuss writing issues, creative writing products and books I publish. It’s definitely a professional blog. I figure I will write in it once a week.

This blog will continue to be daily thoughts, essays about life, and more personal items.

Come by and look at it! Join up1 Read about The Kringle Conspiracy!

Some News — new blog

I will be writing a more professional and less personal blog weekly over at this site. I will continue to write this blog on a near-daily basis because it gives a more personal touch to writing. I will move a few selected entries over to the new site, but the site will focus more on writing and less on personal experience.

This is all part of making a professional presence. Wish me luck.

The Author Jitters

I’ve been focusing too much on the novel. Ok, maybe not too much. I have the cover properly sized and titled and the like, I have copies both for hardback and e-book, I have formatted and proofread (again!) and I’m still worried about whether it’s good enough.

I’m dropping the novel November 1 (not November 15 as I said before). I am way ahead. Once I get my favorite beta reader’s notes in, I could finish the submission. All is good, but I’m still panicking.

I have other things to focus on (besides work, of course). I could start plotting for NaNo in November. I will be writing the sequel to The Kringle Conspiracy, known as Kringle in the Dark. NaNo has a prepping self-guided class that will get me into November in good shape. I just need to focus on them.

I have to be a bit less antsy with this writing thing.

I live to create

In putting together the parts for the book-to-be, I discovered something important about me — I like creating things. Not just for myself, but I like what I create going out to the public in tangible form.

I don’t have the talent to draw, build, or knit. People keep me away from sharp objects like power drills and saws. (With good reason; I once had a power drill fall on my foot.) My kitchen is not organized enough to bake for others, like the woman who makes macarons in town. I can write.

And now it looks like I can publish.

I don’t know if I will put everything I’ve written into self-publishing. I need to see if this book can get traction. I need to see if my queries (now improved) can get traction. But I have time, because I am satisfying a most basic instinct of mine — creating and putting forth into a hopefully irresistible package.

Getting excited about self-publishing

I’m excited about this new book thing.

I think it will be ready for a November launch.I have a cover for it, I have some blurbs to go on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. I have other things to do, but I think I can get them done in time.

I know I will probably not get too many readers. But self-publishing a little book like this breaks a curse I have in my mind that I will never get published. It also breaks me in on how to publish on a low-stakes book. (I consider my more serious books, the fantasy novels, high-stakes.)

And this particular book … Kris Kriegel, the young toymaker with a Santa sensibility, has been with me as a character since high school. The first scene of The Kringle Conspiracy is basically the story I wrote in high school for my creative writing class. That was 40 years ago, and it’s still as relevant now.

So I’m excited, and I’m looking forward to a Kringle Christmas.

I wish I could write modern poetry

I wish I was better at poetry.

If I believe the critiques I get, I quit writing before things get good. That’s not my feeling at all. I don’t want things to drag on; I don’t want to put words in just to put words in. I’m writing moments more than histories.

I cut my teeth on Emily Dickinson, who didn’t even end her poems except with a dash. But that’s not fashionable anymore; poems wander for pages now, and I don’t know how to do that.

I wonder how I can learn to write modern poetry without shelling out a lot of money for a master class or, worse, having to take a real college course.

Poetry, ironically, is what I thought myself the best at, and it’s now what I write the least.