Waiting on Nor'easter #4

Well, I've heard all sorts of weather predictions as this fourth nor'easter approaches us...but here it is 9:30PM and nary a flake of snow has fallen so far. Kelly and I had to run out to Walmart after dinner tonight so I could get some things for work that we've run out of, and she needed applesauce for her lunch bag. We were laughing as we waited for the light to change so we could turn into the parking lot- about the mad rush for bread, milk, and toilet paper being practically non-existent this evening...although we've gotten snow with the past three storms we've also gotten rapid thaws immediately following them. Spring is here as of today. The daffodils are three inches high already.
     I think we've all become rather blasé about these "nor'easters" here in western MA.
     I think we're all sick of them, sick of winter, and ready for the warm kiss of spring to touch our cheeks.
     I've been doing some spring cleaning- something highly uncharacteristic of me. I do not like to clean, will normally clean only when I can't sleep and then I'm a whirlwind while everyone else is fast asleep.
     I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of the printed proof copy of The Clockmaker's Son. This is the time when, although I've read the book half a dozen times, I worry about continuity issues, missed verb tenses in the same paragraph/chapter, typos, and some huge obvious error somewhere in the story! Stress is my BFF.
     Going back to looking out the window and wondering where the snow is...

This is How Fast Self Publishing can be

     Last Sunday I was about 2/3 of the way through the final edit/revision of The Clockmaker's Son. I was chatting vis facebook messenger with author friends Kate Anderson and Melissa Volker when I mentioned I needed a cover for the book. Melissa jumped right on that. After asking a few questions she disappeared. Less than an hour later she was sending me a picture of the cover she'd designed- holy moly! Lightning strike and a bullseye! A few tweaks (color of wolf, where to locate the wolf head image, a few background touches) and the cover was basically ready! They she started work on the back cover! By late Sunday night I had had a lesson in back cover blurbs (keep it brief, make it compelling). I came up with something and sent it, but agreed to sleep on it and get back to her on Monday evening after work. Monday arrived and before dinner Monday night I'd sent her the tightened up, polished, very brief (especially for me!) back cover copy. By bedtime I had front and back covers, spine...and a full book (front and back cover with blurb) promo ready to upload to CreateSpace, and social media to promote the book!
     I finished the interior copy edits/revisions early Wednesday morning and then uploaded the interior file and the cover image to CreateSpace. The file went into review as usual. On Thursday after work I was able to see the book on CreateSpace, and ordered two proof copies that night. Today (Saturday) I received notification that my proof copies were in the mail!
    Six days from book cover creation to proof copy in the mail with said cover.

     Now I need to say something else. Last June, Kelly and I founded the WhipCity Wordsmiths after being encouraged to start a writer's group in Westfield by Artworks of Westfield. I was reluctant because I had belonged to a writer's group in Westfield back when my playwright friend, Jim Curran, was still alive. Kelly and my sister Lynnmarie were also members with another woman whose name escapes me, Maryann S....? We used to meet in the reading room of the Athenaeum. We used to write to prompts and then read our work and receive gentle critique.
     I did not want my authors group to be that author's group. I wanted something more along the line of the New England Authors/Writers Coffeehouse, a traveling group of authors who meet at various locations and just talk about writing, writing opportunities, and offer one another feedback and support. These are the big dogs in the area. They are fascinating to join, listen to and connect with.(I've been fortunate enough to attend one of these get togethers here at Blue Umbrella.)
     But this little group Kelly and I have put together is a for local authors trying to find their toehold in the world of literature. It's more a social and support group for authors and writers- a gathering where we can kick around ideas, help one another, offer and receive advice, hook one another up to services for authors/writers (beta readers, book cover designers, proofreaders, editors) and share information about local author event opportunities where we can promote our work, and stay abreast of writing contest news/deadlines. The thought of sitting around a table writing to prompts is simultaneously braining numbing and anxiety inducing, something akin to test anxiety. I do write my best under pressure (well, sometimes), but that's when I already know what I want to write. I am thrilled with how this group is progressing toward that goal. The past three meetings have been fantastic!

I was asked today if I liked Createpace and why. I do like it because it gives me complete control over my book projects. I can also pull a book off Amazon or Kindle, or both, when I've made revisions or corrections and then get it back on there within 48 hours or less looking and reading better than before. If your big brand name publisher messes up your book and all your mistakes are printed, you can't say, whoa! Stop the presses! I screwed up! Sorry, they aren't going to pull your book and let you fix it. You have to negotiate a corrected second edition, I suppose, but they're not going to put out a second edition unless they're made their money back on your poorly edited and not exceptionally well proofread first edition. I, for one, get annoyed reading my favorite authors and finding all sorts of errors in the text. I probably have issues...but if I'm putting a book out there, I'm going to make sure it's the best it can be, no matter how many times I have to pull it to make tweaks. But, I guess if you're making big bucks because you're a big name author you probably don't care if your books read like crap because your fans are still going to buy them anyway. I'm a basically unknown author, so if someone stumbles upon one of my books I certainly want them to read me at my best, not like I'm a lazy writer who rolled out of bed, didn't have her morning coffee and wrote sloppily. I need to present myself to impress the reader. CreateSpace allows me to do that.


   

Another Snow Day & An Amazing Friend

It's Tuesday and it's snowing, and will continue to snow into tomorrow. Can I just say, "I've had enough of this?"

This winter has really wreaked havoc with my RA with frigid cold spells and then a week or two of unseasonably warm days and chilly nights. My joints are screaming that they've had enough, too.

The only good thing happening today is that I'm working on the final revisions to my NaNo novel from last November, The Clockmaker's Son. I've the interior book file all formatted and ready to upload since late Sunday night. Now it's the last careful read through and final revisions, corrections, grammar, continuity check time.

And here's the really awesome part. I put it out there this past Sunday evening that I needed a cover for this book. Author and graphics artist/designer (and good friend)Melissa Volker jumped right in with both feet within moments. She had a mock up of the potential cover done within an hour! I loved it, we exchanged messages and she tweaked it according to my responses. Last evening I sent her my final version of the back cover copy that she needed to add and a short time later she sent me the completed front and back covers and spine file ready to upload to CreateSpace! She is, to say the very least, AWESOME! I am so lucky to count her as a friend and not just a fellow author. She's also a WhipCity Wordsmith so this right here is a prime example of the type of support I want to see among members. If one of us can help another, then we should put ourselves out there and do it. Melissa will receive full credit for her cover design and assistance in an acknowledgement inside my book on the dedication page which will let people know that she does this sort of thing, and maybe they'll contact her and she'll get some additional work out of this. It's exposure for her, and it gives my new novel a more professionally designed cover than I would have had otherwise. It benefits both of us.

So, let it snow outside. While I'm stuck taking it easy on achy joints inside I'm rereading The Clockmaker's Son, and feeling nothing but warmth in my heart because I have such an amazing friend.

Fun with Riley

My cat is small, lightweight, and very fluffy. He's mostly gray but has a white belly, white paws, and a white bloop on the left side of his face. He has pea-green eyes. He looks like a little gray fox, and just recently, Kelly pointed out to me that he plays like the fox we saw in the backyard the afternoon on the day before my father passed away. Riley Beans likes to toss his toy plastic springs up in the air, then leap up and pounce on them. He'll swat them, chase them down the hallway, grab it in both paws, toss it up in the air again...and the whole production begins again. It's fun to watch him because he gets so involved in his play that he's oblivious of everything else.

Tonight, when I lay down across the foot of the bed to write in my journal, he jumped on the bed like he usually does to have "quiet play" with me. Quiet play is that he lies near my pillow and watches what I'm doing and I'll wiggle the pen around for him to catch, or slid my hand under the covers and he'll attack my fingers. Sometimes he burrows under the flannel blanket and attacks my fingers that are on the outside of the blanket, which can be more dangerous for me since I can't really see when he'll attack. He's got sharp little claws!

When we first adopted him he wasn't a very sociable kitten. He'd been fostered in someone's home but I think they mostly kept him in a cage and didn't interact with him much. When I adopted him he was by himself in a cage in a room by himself. He had no problem taking over Kelly's room when we brought him home. She was away a college at the time. So in the week between my adopting him and her coming home for Thanksgiving that November, he more or less ruled the roost, not taking any attitude from his older brother, Revere. Kelly had adopted Revere in June after we'd lost Isador.

Riley had juvenile gingival hyperplasia which means his gums were growing over his teeth, and eating away at them. The vet originally wanted t pull all his teeth out, but we asked him to look into something else because Riley was only 5 months old if that and I thought it would be cruel to pull all his teeth. So, the vet did some research and then decided to try lasering the gum tissue back from Riley's teeth by himself, a procedure he'd never attempted before. He did an excellent job. Riley lost three teeth because they couldn't be saved and cleaned, but he came home with fresh breath for the first time in his life. He's been fine with annual cleanings since...some cats don't outgrown this. He was lucky because he did.

But it took him a long time to learn how to play. He liked to sleep, he was skittish and hid when people came to the house. He didn't seem to know how to play. Both cats had a large box of toys but only Revere would play with the catnip and squeaky mice, the crackle balls, etc. The first thing Riley played with was a hair elastic, one of those thick stretchy bands you get in the hair accessories aisle. I had longer hair that I'd pull back into a ponytail at the time. He was sitting on the bathroom counter one day while I was putting my hair in a ponytail. He was watching me, and then he looked down into the still open drawer and saw one of those elastics in there- and quick as a wink he snagged one and tossed it out into the hallway, then leapt off the counter and pounced on it. That was his favorite toy until he got a little bag of plastic springs I found at Dave's Soda and Pet Food City- cat toys. He loved picking up the springs, carrying them around in m\his mouth, dropping them and swatting them up and down the hallway.

The springs are still his favorite toys. He has never played with a mouse or a ball.

Over the past year and a half he's really bonded with me and become my best bud. He sits in the chair beside me at the kitchen table when I write. He lays near y chair when  sit in the living room. And he sleeps snuggled up beside me every night. Wherever I go, he goes. He's always looking at me as f reading me like a book, or he's studying me...like a lab experiment? I don't know, but he's cute and he's won my heart.

He's fun to come home to after a bad or long day at work. He's so devoted now...and he does such cute things. And he talks. Well, at least he thinks he's talking to me. I usually can understand what he wants- treats, to play, for me to follow him and pet hm.

He's also a master manipulator..he knows how to play his mother and get his way!

John calls him the little devil in gray fur. Well, he lords it over the man of the house too, sitting at the end of the couch and glowering at John until he gets up...and then he portly takes the warm sot against the pillow John rests his head on while watching TV. What a smug bug he is when he has his way!

I call him the fluffy tyrant. Kelly calls him the brat.

But, I think all three of us love the little guy.

And yes, we love Revere, too, but it's Riley Beans who s loaded with purrsonality!.

I Crack Myself Up

I finished the proofreading and first edits of The Clockmaker's Son (2017 NaNo novel) tonight. Sometimes you can find some funny stuff that you've unintentionally written when you're reading through your work for the first time.

Tonight's killer typo was "The aloha wolf wanted him dead." Of course I meant ALPHA wolf!

Well, that will get corrected n the final version.

Overall...when I finished writing this novel on either the fifteenth or eighteenth day of NaNo last November I totally lost interest in it because I wasn't sure, after several false starts, that this was the story I wanted to tell. I threw it (in a binder) on the dining room table and ignored it for three, nearly four months (if you count the remaining days of November and the first week of March of this year).

I had no motivation to even look at it.

But three days ago, after seeing several pictures of the clock tower that had inspired the novel, I dug out the binder, now buried under several others, and began reading. It starts slow and I might tinker with the beginning, but then things begin to happen. Relationships develop while others disintegrate and fall apart. People are killed. A young woman struggles to find her place in the world. The prodigal son, not a well-loved figure in town, returns and more people die. The young woman is nearly destroyed, but finds an inner strength and resolve that she never realized she had. The clockmaker's son comprehends that there is only one thing he can do and sets his course to accomplish that deed.

I won't say more...the novel isn't exactly what I had thought it would be, but it stands on it's own four feet. I can work with it, tinker with it a little, and it'll be fine.

Will begin the edits and revisions to the computer file tomorrow. Should have a new novel out of this in April- fingers crossed!

What's with this Winter?

This morning Kelly and I got up and ran to Dunkin Donuts at the Ponds for breakfast. It was sunny and 44 degrees. We wore hoodie sweatshirts and sunglasses.

At one o'clock we left home to do some shopping, antiquing, and furniture browsing. The wind had kicked up again and the skies were becoming cloudier. We still had hoodies on.

At quarter of four we headed home and the skies were charcoal with massing clouds. It looked as if it was going to rain. When we got home at quarter past four there were signs of raindrops on the deck stairs and deck. The skies east of us in West Springfield were black but out skies were cloudy, overcast, gray.

We got inside and no more than a few minutes later Kelly said, I think it's hailing out. We looked outside and sure enough small, round beads were literally raining down from the sky. Being who we are, I grabbed a camera and she grabbed the cat and we went out on the deck to document the "beads" falling from the sky. Revere, who is black and white, had round dots of ail in his black fur. Kelly had them on her blue t-shirt and in her hair. We went out twice. The sun was shining and we thought we might see a rainbow, but now...guess that only happens with light refracting through rain.

And then we had a snow squall and it got very dark...within a few minutes of coming inside. It snowed and the temperature dropped into the 30's. It was beginning to look like winter again as the sun set. There is a coating of snow on the deck and cars.

So we began the day with a hint of approaching spring in the air and ended the daylight hours with a firm reminder that winter was still the present season and she's not ready to acquiesce to spring just yet!

You just have to love New England where it seems you're never appropriately dressed for the weather because the weather is constantly changing throughout the day.

Reading Old Stories

While my laptop was off to Texas for a new hard drive I spent a few days reading Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson, a Penguin Classic paperback. She was the queen of delving into the cracks in our psyches and prying loose the nightmares lying deep within them. It reminded me that some of my early writing was heavily influenced by Shirley.

Two nights ago I had to go dig out binder #9 (from a sixteen binder collection of my early work in a cabinet in the den) so I could read the typewriter written copy since the story does not exist on any computer at this time. It's a dark little psychological story about a young wife's disillusionment with her marriage. Her husband already takes her for granted and never notices any changes she makes to her appearance. Then one fateful day they wind up eating at the same diner, she alone at the counter, and he with another woman in a booth. It's quite possible from the look of things that he's having an affair and that opens the cracks in the young wife's psyche and she does something truly awful.

Another story from the 90's is about the fracture in an Irish couple's marriage. The wife runs off with another man, leaving behind two young son's and a husband who is struggling with anger, disbelief that she would do such a thing, and depression. His older sister comes to help take care of the little boys who show their anxiety over the departure of their mother by becoming fearful of fairies and pookahs and such. The wayward wife and mother, meanwhile, has become disillusioned by the man who had promised her a more exciting life- he's not exactly all she thought he was, and she's thinking about going back, but afraid of how she'll be received, therefore she delays leaving her lover. Tragedy, of course, strikes.

In another story a police detective is involved with his chief's under-aged daughter. He knows it's wrong but he can't stay away from her and she's maddeningly nonchalant about his feelings for her, and then makes the mistake of telling him she has the power to destroy his career when she becomes angry with him- and he kills her. And even though he is meticulous about removing evidence from the motel room, he inadvertently leaves one damning piece of evidence behind on the bathroom sink.

I wrote a lot of darker stories back in the 90's, and I suppose, even back in high school I was entertaining myself with these kind of stories. But, like Shirley Jackson, I have a humorous side. I also have a romantic side.

And then there are the children's stories I wrote for Kelly when she was growing up. I haven't even looked at them recently!

When I go back and read older material I sometimes can't even remember writing it. I have grown and changed over the years. Sometimes the older stories and prose pieces are more lyrical then what I write these days. Hard to believe I wrote poetry, a lot of it, from ages 12 through my early 30's...but  really don't even know where all of it is anymore.

For someone who less than ten years ago didn't think she could write a novel...I've proven myself wrong a number of times! Which reminds me, I have several novels on the dining room table again...patiently waiting for me to pay some attention to them again. Soon...