On Monday, I walked to a meeting. The route was a stretch of Nye Beach in Newport, Oregon. The destination was a local pub. The person I was meeting was my publisher. On my back, I carried 160 pages of paper—my book manuscript, completed last week and fresh from the printer. The sun shone brilliantly,…
Honestly, she is.
(Well, she’s sure it’s coming, anyway.)
The other night I dreamt I was pregnant with my ex-boyfriend’s baby. This is impossible for many reasons, not the least of which is I haven’t laid eyes on him since 1996. (Oh, and my ten years of marriage, though I guess that doesn’t stop everybody from getting into this particular pickle). No matter—in the…
Last week I was invited to a middle-school classroom to talk about being a writer. It was one of those moments that made me go “huh?” and look over my shoulder for the real grown-up/real writer who was surely standing behind me. “Oh, you mean me?” said my inner ego, who is nerdy, shy and…
Well, I’m back. You didn’t notice I was missing? Just read the posts written from Thanksgiving until the week before Christmas, especially this one. They were written by my evil twin. Between you and me, she needs to be institutionalized. Or at least heavily medicated. I must admit that I am not one of those…
This whole book thing is sucking the life force out of me. I know, I know. It’s what I’ve always wanted and I should be able to find the joy in it and by complaining I sound like a big fat whiner and nobody likes a whiner. Captain Daddy and I got mired in a…
Today, as I pull out my hair and gnash my teeth trying to get through some mind-scrunching edits on my book when I really should be in the kitchen baking two pies for tomorrow and definitely shouldn’t be blogging at all, I offer you only a modest gift. But isn’t it a lovely one? “Maybe…
The meeting with the publisher went very well. If all goes as discussed, my book will be on the shelves next fall. It’s the strangest sensation. Driving home, my brain was short circuiting. I have every reason to think that this is actually happening, after so many years of it not happening. I am going…
Imagine a dark and blustery night, a room cast with shadows. A writer polishes her working manuscript. The publisher has asked to see what she has so far. (Plot Twist). She adds fancy words, changes the formatting, calls on the universe for extra powerful positive thinking. The wind blows like a demon out her office…