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Meet Sunshine Walton

As I peered into my computer screen, a low and modulated voice broke into my reverie. “May I sit down?”

I look up, and the cafe became solid again. A tall, slender woman with brown skin and fine black braids pulled into a sleek bun stood with her hand on the back of the chair facing me. She is dressed in a red skirt suit with sensible black heels. Her air of calm competence left me feeling a bit awkward.

“Sure,” I said, nodding to the chair.

She reached down to shake my hand. “My name is Sunshine Walton. You asked to see me?”

Oh, I thought. Oh. Of course I had asked to see her. I had thought I needed to see my characters for my latest book more clearly. I hadn’t guessed … “Yes — yes. I did ask to see you. I just didn’t expect you so — quickly.”

Sunshine smiled bemusedly. “Did you want to ask me some questions?” She sat straight, almost primly, in her chair.

“Yes. What is your background?”

“I’m a military brat.” She sobered. “I think we moved five times by the time I finished high school — no, six. ” She chuckled, a low pleasant sound. “I got to see the world. It was a strange childhood. It was hard to get to know anyone outside my family, because then they’d leave, or we’d leave. It was a vivid and lonely childhood.”

“Any romances in your life?” I wasn’t sure that was a good question to ask, but I asked it anyhow.

“Oh, I had a grand romance in high school — that was ages ago …” Sunshine chuckled. “I was convinced he was the love of my life, and then — “

“Then what?” I asked impatiently.

“We moved again. Apparently it couldn’t last long-distance. He never wrote. Since then, I’ve been too busy to have a relationship — college, finding a job in my field …” Sunshine gazed in the distance, then shrugged.

“What is your field?”

“Accounting. But I also have some management skills. I think I have an innate talent for management, but I thought accounting was safer.”

“Safer?” I queried.

“More likely to get a job. I don’t like the thought of starving.” Sunshine raised her eyebrows. “That’s why my dad ended up in the military, I guess.”

“One more question,” I stated. “How do you feel about Santa Claus?”

Sunshine laughed. “I haven’t believed in Santa since I was seven. I guess he’s a good thing for the children. I suppose if I have kids, I’ll do the Santa thing with them, but …” Her voice trailed off as she gazed into the distance, then she shook herself.  She checked her watch. “I have to go — I have an appointment across town in fifteen minutes.”  She stood in an efficient motion, nodded to me, and strode out the door.

I smiled. Sunshine’s studied calm was about to be upended by a bit of Christmas magic.

My chat with the publishing coach — part 1

As I noted in these pages prior, I am trying out two publishing coaches (this happened by accident when I realized I’d verbally committed to two different people). I spoke with coach #1 yesterday and this is what I learned:

1) My cover letter needs to be more personal. I had no idea of this — I’m used to writing business letters, and that’s what I did. I rewrote my cover letter keeping this in mind.

2) I need more of an online presence. This blog, for example, is an online presence, but few people know about it. I have a twitter account which posts links to this blog. I’m putting up a page on Facebook and have invited friends — but few people etc. etc. In other words, I haven’t been letting the agents into my online presence. I’m fixing this.

3) I have a writing quirk that could be dropping readers out of the story — and it shows up on the first page. The quirk is that sometimes I give background in a blunt manner rather than through narrative or other storytelling. I break the adage “show me, don’t tell me”. My publishing coach is going to look for this in the first 50 pages; I need to edit the rest of this.

Being a serious writer, it turns out, is hard work. In my arrogance, or perhaps my ignorance, I thought my writing was publishing-ready when I finished it. I thought all that was needed was to proofread and change up some awkward language.

At the same time I’m grateful for my coaching and editing and I’m sighing about having to go through the document again.

But hello, online presence! Thanks for sharing the day with me!

Facebook, Stories, and Getting to Know You

On Facebook, getting to know someone looks like this:

Have you ever been arrested? Y/N
Had a parent die?  Y/N
Traveled overseas? Y/N
Gotten married? Y/N
(My answers are, in order, N, Y, Y, Y).

I don’t think that’s getting to know someone. Getting to know someone involves listening to the stories behind the answers above. In doing so, one can detect the feelings and thoughts of the person who’s telling the story.

It’s hard to do this on Facebook. People don’t tell their stories when they don’t think the other is listening, and it’s hard to look like one’s listening behind a screen. Nuances are lost. Emotions are lost.

That’s not to say that I don’t feel connected to people on Facebook. I feel connected to the people I’m friends with in real life. They’re the ones who have my stories.

Facing my fears (writing related)

My worst fear about writing is that, after developmental editors and publishing coaches, I will be left with this choice: Write what I love or get published.

I have gotten several rejections by agents. I don’t know if anyone will read me if I self-publish, because I’ve never been good at self-promotion.

There, I said it.

This has been my fear all along, that I will hit a dead end in my writing career — and yes, I think of it as a career, or at least the start of a career.

If that’s the worst thing that can happen, what are the possibilities?

  • I keep trying to find an agent, with the great possibility that revising my query materials will not attract an agent.
  • I self-publish, trying to get a readership on my own, which scares me to bits, because I hate self-promotion. I am convinced there’s a psychological disorder called “Midwestern Female Syndrome” in which sufferers display inward perfection while at the same time striving to look mediocre to others
  • I give up writing novels, because it’s really a waste of time to write novels that nobody reads.

I don’t have more than three possibilities in my mind. My mentor Les says that’s a bad thing, because there are always more than two options. I, however, cannot quit until I’ve exhausted all avenues.

On the flip side, how would I measure success?

  • An agent, and eventually a publisher if going the traditional route
  • At least 1000 copies sold of a self-published book, without having to resort to buying the books myself and reselling them
  • In the short run, at least breaking even on the investments I put into coaching, editing, and other items.
My vision, or where I would like to be:
  • Money to supplement my retirement in 10 or so years
  • A devoted readership
  • A book signing tour 
  • The confidence to say I’m an author
I think my goals are realistic — perhaps too modest, but realistic. 
This is where I am, world.
If you could send encouragement (non-anonymous preferred), prayers, wishes, or advice I’d greatly appreciate it. 

The glory of age

I sit in my writing chair, keenly mindful of the leaves outside which have turned, brilliant colors we don’t usually associate with wisdom and aging. Exuberance, we think, is for the young and for their springtime. yet the flames of the trees in fall should remind us that those of us who have grown older have our own glory.

Breaking through the writer’s block

I just finished my outline (rough) for NaNoWriMo this year, two weeks early. I think I told you I’m writing the sequel to my first Kringle book of years ago (which needs a lot of work and I don’t even know where to start!), Becoming Kringle.

It’s a rough outline, but I at least have an idea as to where the plot starts and how it gets to the end, which is better than I have been doing.
I unblocked my writers’ block once again, and I’m not sure how I did it. I think it might have been talking to Richard (my writing buddy), who asked the right question. 
Maybe, just maybe, I’ll make a writer someday.

Half awake

The feeling when you’re half-asleep and you can hear things around you move and stir; you let the sounds wash over you as you lay still, hanging onto the lassitude of your muscles and the fuzziness of your mind. You could move, break the film that separates you from the awake state; instead you lay suspended between the two states as long as possible. Outside is cold and things are expected of you; under the covers holds you in the arms of your childhood for just a few more moments.

Struggling to write (Warning: rambling a bit)

Ok, folks, I’m struggling to write lately.

In the last week, I’ve only met my 1-hour writing goal once, for outlining my NaNo book. I wonder if I’m going to have the ideas and the fortitude to write it.

I don’t think I’m depressed, just a bit listless and pretty tired. And clumsy. I’m really clumsy. I banged my nose on my car while putting my computer inside. Word for today: proprioception. As in I have none. But that doesn’t have to do with my struggle to write unless I inadvertently gave myself a concussion (no evidence that I did).

I think I’m also having an identity crisis — I am trialing two developmental editors with two different books (as I mentioned earlier, Prodigies and Voyageurs), and I’m scared that they’re going to say that my queries are great, but my books are not going to sell. At least I will know if that’s the case. I tend to think if things come to that, I will go back to poetry and short stories that I don’t feel people have to read.

I don’t feel like a writer right now. That’s the problem.
I don’t know how to feel like a writer. A writing retreat would be good, but there’s no place locally to retreat (except a cabin at Mozingo, but they’re all occupied). I have to figure out how I can boost my feeling like a writer in lieu of an acceptance.

Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

Autumn is a great time to find oneself.

Autumn is a great time to find oneself.

Autumns force one into introspection, during those chill October drizzles that remind us that we have a home to go to, whether physical or spiritual or familial. Fog obscures the familiar and forces us to face the feelings of navigating in a strange world. Thunderstorms — the glory of October thunderstorms! — inform us that sometimes anger clears the air.

The indolent fantasies of summer — the beach books, the margaritas, the vacations where we swear we’ll move to San Francisco to start a coffeehouse or Florida to retire — fade in the wild emotions of autumn, where idyllic sunlight through golden leaves becomes the crystalline silence of frost or the bluster of a wind that knocks down piles of the golden leaves now fallen.

Autumn is my season. I want to be the blustering wind, the crystalline silence, the fierce storm. I want to broadcast my emotions and make others feel, flush them out of the hiding places of their summer, make them see the richness of the fiery leaves even as they spiral around us in the gust.

I want to be autumn, for it’s a great time to find oneself.