Little Things

Going from writing novels to writing a collection of flash fiction and micro-essays is a bit of a transition, but I have to say, it's one I'm thoroughly enjoying.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still stewing on The Man in Question.  I have little bits of ideas floating around in my brain for it and every now and then one of them gets dressed up enough to be tangible and gets written down.  But it's fun to work on little things for a change, to pare everything down to its bones – because they're still stories, complete little microcosms...they just deal a lot less in the exact dimensions of things and what people eat for breakfast.  And writing them makes you think very hard about what is important (as in, absolutely indispensable) about the story you're telling, as well as about how to make people see things without necessarily talking about them.  It's also scary, because it's much harder to hide incompetence when you only have a line or a paragraph to do it in.  If you flub one line in every twenty pages of a three hundred page novel, most people will forgive you, but if you flub one word in a flash fiction story it's like getting a giant zit on your face on the day of a photo shoot.  So it's a challenge, which makes it scary and stressful...but it also makes it fun.

It also feels much more like a collaboration, between me and the illustrator, of course (more about her later, because she's awesome!) but also between me and the reader.  One of the greatest beauties of creative work, in my opinion, whether it's written or painted or danced or played, is the power it has to call up different images, different emotions, depending on who the audience is, what time of life they are in, what their mood is at that moment.  Books that meant one thing to me as a child mean an entirely different thing now.  I sympathize with different characters, or I understand things at a different level, or in a different way.  I'm not the first person to point this out, but in that way a story is never really finished until it has been read, and as a writer you have to learn to relinquish control at a certain point, you have to realize that nobody is going to see exactly what you see, and that that's okay, that it's even beautiful.  Writing flash fiction, I feel that loss of control is expanded as the word count shrinks, and the stories start to work merely as little triggers to the imagination, or at least I hope they do.

Among the little things I'm including a smattering of fairy tales of sorts.  In my mind I think of them as little episodes of Fairy Tale Characters Thinking Outside the Box, which, now that I think about it, would make a great television series (I see it as a weird sort of unreality show, but with the surreality and humor of the fantastic Gaiman/McKean/Henson collaborative film Mirrormask – "I shall slip unnoticed through the darkness... like a dark, unnoticeable slippy thing.")...  Anyway, I get to play with aspects of classic fairy tales that always bothered me, which is fun, and I have to do it in very few words, which is hard.

I also get to work with the ridiculously talented Traci Manley, who is doing the illustrations.  When I decided to do a book I thought of Traci's style was the only thing I could see to go with it.  I'm so glad she's agreed.  I've only seen a couple sketches so far, but I eagerly anticipate the rest.

***

Once, on a chilly night, a poor boy rubbed a magic lamp – and out popped a Jinn.

“You must be cold without a shirt,” said the boy, and he gave the Jinn his ragged jacket.

Now they travel the world together, granting wishes and telling stories.

The World Spins Madly On

Yes, I'm still here.  You were wondering, weren't you?  I'm also still writing, though you couldn't tell by looking on this blog.  Currently I have two projects in the works: a novel, still in the very early stages, tentatively titled The Man in Question, and a collection of very short things (some flash fiction, micro-essays, etc) that I'm calling A Phantasmagoria, partly just because I like that word, and partly because its definition (a sequence of brief, dreamlike images) is particularly apt.  

Writing with a toddler is weird.  All those who have done it successfully have my unwavering and eternal respect.  I mostly write while Griffin naps, which is more conducive to short pieces than the long arc of a novel (thus, the Phantasmagoria) but is infinitely better than nothing.  However, I am occasionally able as he gets older to write while he's awake.  For instance, this evening I am updating this blog while we watch Chicken Run.  He likes chickens, and airplanes.  I write well with white noise.  We get a companionable evening.  Everyone wins!

While it may not exactly qualify as writing, I did recently revamp all my covers, and have officially switched to using my full name (it's now Melanie Rose Huff, thank you very much). This was for multiple reasons.  Anyway, the books with the new covers can be found here, and the website has been updated...at least mostly.

I also opened a cultural center in my hometown last year in memory of my husband, fulfilling a dream we had together of opening a quality facility for arts instruction and performance.  The Aaron Huff Memorial Cultural Center (or the Cult, as I usually shorten it...Aaron would have approved) is on Main Street in Chewelah.  I rent the space to dance and music teachers, and have events there periodically, the most recent being the local farmers' market's Christmas Faire.  During the week there are lessons in ballet, piano, Irish dance, voice, clogging, yoga, and more.  I take class there myself three days a week.  There's still more I want to do, but it's coming along.

So that's the last two years in, if not a nutshell, possibly a banana peel.  I still miss Aaron so much.  I miss our weird little inside jokes.  I wish I could see the look on his face as he watches his son.  Yet I am fortunate, and Griffin is fortunate, that we have his music.  Griffin will grow up knowing the sound of his daddy's voice, and I'm learning what a blessing that is.  And Griffin is more like Aaron every day.

And things go on.  I try not to be too much of a hermit crab, and Griffin helps a lot with that, as he's a pretty social midget.  He also has good taste in literature, but that's a post for another day.

There are long icicles hanging from the vines outside my windows.  The moon is just past full, and very bright.  Outside it is extremely cold, but inside it is warm and cozy and the lights on my Christmas tree are bright spots of color twinkling at me from the corner.  Chicken Run has been done for some time and Griffin is asleep upstairs. Our dog is asleep on his blanket in the corner.  I should not be awake right now, but it's quiet and peaceful.  I have hope for tomorrow.  One thing I've learned: optimism is incurable.

This has gotten far too long and rambling, so I'll leave it here, with a bonus in the form of one of my favorite bits of poetry for this time of year, by Susan Cooper:

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

"Hand it around first, and cut it after."

Happy New Year!  I admit to having rather high hopes for 2014.  First of all, for those who are still unaware, my husband and I are expecting a baby sometime around the end of January.  And yes, in spite of my less-than-pleased reactions to unwanted belly-touching and overly personal questions from near-strangers, i am extremely excited about this.  Secondly, yesterday evening I completed the manuscript for By Water and Blood!  Huzzah!  Now on to the editing, formatting, etc.  My goal was at least to have the story finished before the baby arrived.  Writing pregnant is a weird experience for various reasons, mostly involving concentration, but I fancy writing with a brand new mini-person might be even trickier...just a guess.

So one of the major issues I'm confronting now is the question of genre.  It may seem backward, but I never start out writing a book saying, "I'm going to write a fantasy novel" or, "I'm going to write a mystery" and I try to avoid the words "chick-lit" and "paranormal erotica" altogether.  Nothing against the people who write those things, they're just not so much my things.  Silly or not, I feel more freedom in my writing if I don't categorize it from the beginning but give it the freedom to become what it is going to be in its own time.

In Through the Looking Glass, Alice is put in charge of cutting the cake after the fight between the lion and the unicorn.  She tries to cut it into slices, but the slices always join on again.  This, we find out, is because the cake is looking-glass cake, and therefore backwards.  When she hands the cake around first and cuts it after, it works like a charm, dividing itself into the perfect number of pieces, although Alice is left with the empty platter and no cake for herself.  I always feel that is how the genre thing ought to work.  As the story unfolds it should show you what it is, rather than you calling it something first and then checking the boxes as you go to make sure it fits the requirements.  Also, it's my birthday today, so apparently I have cake-brain.

Of course, the downside to this method is that I then end up with a finished piece of work that I have no idea how to categorize.  Ashford and Violet Shadows, as clearly historical works, were fairly simple in that respect.  By Water and Blood, however, is a different matter entirely, and refuses to fit nicely in any box I try to put it in, thus resulting in strange dilemmas, for I must call it something.  It has elements of mystery, but it is not a "mystery novel".  It involves the paranormal, but is not populated with an endless string of vampires or werewolves or demi-gods as one might expect of a "paranormal" novel.  It has its romantic moments, but is certainly not a "romance" and it goes to some (for me at least) very dark places, but certainly would not qualify as "horror" or "thriller".  The closest I can come to an apt description is to call it "contemporary fiction with paranormal elements," but...there really isn't a genre for that.

So...we'll see what happens.

Wishing you all an amazing 2014!

Oh, and P.S...or the blogging equivalent:  January is Human Trafficking Awareness month.  Among the other elements listed above as being part of By Water and Blood, I also delved into human trafficking as part of my research, and it has become a truly important issue to me.  A portion of the proceeds from my launch week for By Water and Blood will be donated to an organization called Shared Hope International, based in Vancouver, Washington.  Their mission is to end human trafficking, particularly the sex trafficking of minors, in the US and around the world.  They provide safe housing and job training for victims, and they work on raising awareness and educating communities to recognize the signs of trafficking.  Go look them up.  I command it.

Some Tasty News!

Violet Shadows has been chosen as the novella category winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Awards!  There, I blurted out my big news right at the beginning of the post and now have nothing more to say...but I will say it anyway.

I received the email last week.  I saw who it was from, clicked on it with trepidation, and there it was: I am writing with some fabulous news! Your book has been named the Winner in the Novella category of the 2013 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.  Congratulations!

After I realized that my mouth was hanging open at an alarming angle, I got up, bolted around the house a couple of times, and sat down again...then sent several gleeful text messages to various friends and family members.

Anyway, the winners will all be listed on the Indie Book Awards website by the end of May, and meanwhile I get to revel in the nice, cozy lap of validation for a while...there's also a nice little check coming in the mail, and a gold medal, which I'm guessing is not really "gold" so much as "gold-colored" but which I shall treasure nonetheless.

So I'm sending out a huge thank you to the lovely judges and everyone else involved with the Indie Book Awards.  You made my year.

In other news, By Water and Blood is on the home stretch.  I'm hoping to finish the first draft by July sometime.  Then on to editing, rewriting, formatting, and, if all goes well, publishing in the fall.  My fabulous mother (those of you who have read our children's book, An Amazing Alphabetic Anthology, will be familiar with her work) has agreed to do the cover illustration, as well as sketches for the chapter headings.  I am really enjoying the prospect of working with her again.  I hope to release a bit of a teaser for By Water and Blood within the next several weeks, so be looking for that.

That's all I have time for now, but I will try to post more regularly...and yes, I know I've said that before.

Cheers!

I know it's been a very long time since I wrote last, but things have been happening.  My official website is now live.  Check it out at http://melanieroseauthor.wix.com/melanierose.  I'll still keep this blog for random posts of various kinds, but the website will be a nice central hub for everything.  My mom and I have been working on getting a new edition of our children's book, An Amazing Alphabetic Anthology, out and available.  You'll notice it's been added to the nifty widget on the right.  Also, I'm featured all this week on DelSheree Gladden's blog, The Edible Bookshelf.  Check it out!  There will be something different every day, ending with her review of Violet Shadows on Friday.  So...lots of stuff.  More later!  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Book Launch Friday - and Huckleberries

So...in case you couldn't tell from the post title, my book launch is coming up this Friday.  I'm having it at Flowery Trail Coffeehouse again, from 2 to 5 in the afternoon, and my husband is providing music.  The exciting part is that his new album has just become available, so we're turning the event into a sort of album release party as well.  So...music, books, coffee...what else could you possibly want?

On the current writing front, I'm picking up some older projects which were left in the dust when Violet Shadows ran away with me.  Two of them are vying for my attention at present, so I'm not about to complain.  More on that as it develops.

Making a foray up into the mountains with my mother tomorrow to pick huckleberries. (for those of you who do not live in the Inland Northwest, yes, there is a berry called a huckle (berry) and they are delicious!)  We generally try to go several times every year in the late summer.  We then freeze most of the berries and hoard them like squirrels, metering them out carefully to make them last all winter.  You can buy them, of course, for $30 a gallon...but then you miss the fun of hiking all over the beautiful mountains looking for them and coming down with hands that look like you've murdered somebody...and you still have to pay $30.  Of course, I wouldn't sell mine at all, even for more than that, and you can tell how much I like you if you come to my house and I break into the huckleberry store...or not.

Chewelah in the Spring: Earth and Inspiration

I took a walk through town today.  May is probably my favorite month out of the whole year.  I love watching the colors suddenly explode.  There is a wind blowing today, and you can smell all the flowering trees at once wherever you go.  Our garden is getting better by degrees each year, and the berry bushes are thriving.  We take Ferdy out in the grass sometimes and let him run around.  He likes to snuffle about for a while, then always ends up nosing around in our clothing.

I've had a writing surge lately, and am hoping to finish my first draft of Violet Shadows by early June.  Then comes the rewriting and editing process.  I'm hoping to publish in the autumn again, around October sometime if all goes well and my characters don't decide to do something outlandish out of the blue.  On Saturday I'm taking part in a book fair with the Libraries of Stevens County.  It's being held at the golf course.  A good venue, but it does feel a little strange after last summer to be going up there in a capacity that doesn't involve serving beer.

A Question of Intent

First of all, Ashford is free on Kindle today.  Happy Friday the thirteenth!


Lately I have started writing study guides for a curriculum program.  It's a great side job, as I get to reread some of my favorite children's classics (and young adult) and write about them.  The study guides focus on story structure, character, theme, literary devices, etc...


One thing that constantly comes up is the question of symbolism, and for every children's classic written there are hundreds of people willing to tell you all about what the author intended in that department.  My most recent experience was with The Velveteen Rabbit, and I heard so many different ideas concerning the possibly symbolic nature of certain passages (even one claiming that the fact that Skin Horse and the Rabbit are made Real but the mechanical toys are not is symbolic of salvation not being for everyone) that it boggled the mind.


In study guides, certainly, the question is always, "what did the author intend?" and you go from there.  And that brings me to Tolkien.


I must confess, I am a Tolkien nerd.  Always have been, since I was old enough to read the books the first time, and always will be, until I'm blind and senile.  Twice in the last year I have been present at writing-related seminars or workshops where statements were made, as fact, concerning Tolkien's supposed intent of comparing Sauron to Hitler, Mordor to Nazi Germany, etc...  Both were phrased as, "Tolkien created Mordor to represent..."  This bothers me extremely, because Tolkien stated very clearly in his lifetime that he intended no such comparison.  In the preface to the (I believe second) edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, he says:

"As for any inner meaning or "message", it has in the intention of the author none.  It is neither allegorical nor topical.  As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches; but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit.  The crucial chapter, "The Shadow of the Past", is one of the oldest parts of the tale.  It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted.  Its sources are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it was modified by the war that began in 1939 or its sequels.

"The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion.  If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dur would not have been destroyed but occupied.  Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth.  In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.

"Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes or views of those who like allegory or topical reference.  But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence.  I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.  I think that many confuse "applicability" with "allegory"; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author."

That seems fairly definite.


Of course, a good, well-concieved and well-written book will present different ideas to each person who reads it.  Some will agree with the author and some won't.  That is how it should be, and I'm thoroughly honored by anyone who sees my work as relevant to their life in a particular way.  Just don't say I wrote it to say exactly that...because I probably didn't.  Thus the "applicability" vs. "allegory" reasoning.  Thank you Tolkien.

To Tweet Or Not To Tweet

I know Twitter is old news.  I have become painfully aware of late that for an author peddling their wares to not have a Twitter account is becoming nearly as rare as writing on papyrus.  In exploring online marketing tools for writers I have come across a growing number of sites offering to spread the word about your book or your website.  "Just tweet your info to..."

I don't want to!

Why am I feeling so rebellious on this subject?  It's hard to say exactly.  Partly, I suppose I am just old-fashioned, though there are other reasons.  As it is, there are so many tools available for book promotion that I have to make myself stop, or the next novel would never be written and I would lose myself in web pages and end up stuck in an author's cafe somewhere tangled in karmic chains.  (By the way, karmic chains are wonderful things, but they can get distracting.)  So the first reason is:

1. Time, obviously, and complication.

2. I'm turning into more and more of a hermit.  Oh, I love people, but I also like running away from them.  I like being alone, having time to think, and I find that I'm much nicer in company if I've spent a nice long day on my own ahead of time.  I realize the days of the reclusive writer are over, but this blog and a Facebook page are relatively easy to avoid if avoidance is required for my peace of mind.  But the more connected to the world I become, the more I long sometimes to rid myself of it all and run away somewhere, perhaps the Channel Islands, to scrawl novels with pen and ink, possibly on papyrus.

3. I have a crippling fear of turning into one of those people who tweet uncomfortably personal details of their lives, or stuff that's just plain boring.  Would I, for lack of subject, end up tweeting every time I trim my fingernails or find something spoiled in the back of the refrigerator?  Doubtful, perhaps, but terrifying to contemplate.

4. I'm mulishly stubborn, often about the most pointless things, but I get a considerable amount of satisfaction out of not giving in.  What is the the point of this free will of mine if I don't use it?

These may all be very feeble reasons, but there they are.  Anyone with any arguments for or against please feel free to comment.

Dear People Who Follow My Blog,


I must apologize for my long delay.  That last post kind of took all the blogging energy out of me for a little while.  That, and I've been concentrating on the new novel and the dancing and really neglecting everything else.  We have a show coming up next week, so I've been writing in the mornings and then tearing off to rehearse like mad.  The consequent pile of sweat and bandaids and sore muscle rub which is myself does not feel much like blogging.  But rehearsals have turned the corner from the "it's going to be an epic disaster" phase, and are now on to the euphoric "it's all coming together" phase, and that's splendid!


So last night, a little after midnight, after a long, convoluted dream that seemed to go on forever...I got up to make breakfast.  I don't know why.  I remember looking at the clock, but the numbers didn't register.  My brain just said, "make breakfast" so I did...well, started to anyway.  I'd just embarked on the toasting and the slicing when Aaron walked into the kitchen and asked what I was doing.  I paused, knife in hand, said, "making breakfast" like it was the obvious thing, and then looked at the clock.  I was awake enough at that point to understand what the numbers were trying to tell me, and shamefacedly set down the knife and returned to bed.  And now I know what I would be like as a zombie.  I'd be the zombie you find in your kitchen in the middle of the night frying brains in an iron skillet.


Speaking of zombies, I must offer my congratulations to Victoria Dunn, of the awesomely snarky blog Handmade By Mother (the link should be on the right side of my page) who has recently scored a publishing contract with the Canadian publisher The Workhorsery, for her novel, Alice Hearts Welsh Zombies.  I'm not always up for the zombie craze, but this is a book I will be buying.  After all, it takes place in Wales, and involves bog-snorkling!


Cheers!

Interview

My thanks to Sylvia Ney for the interview on her blog, Writing In Wonderland.  Click on the link below to read the whole interview.

Writing In Wonderland: Author Interview: Melanie Rose: Melanie Rose calls herself a “Renaissance Girl”. In fact, the name of her blog is Musings of a Renaissance Girl: http://www.roseandwren.b...

Giveaways and Such

For those who haven't noticed the nifty little widget to the right of this page, I am doing a giveaway through Goodreads for three signed copies of Ashford.  It's a good way to maybe get your hands on one if you're interested but aren't sure about shelling out the cash.  Signing up with Goodreads is pretty easy if you aren't already (I wasn't until just recently, being rather behind the times) and it's a great way to find out what's going on with your favorite authors and discover new ones.


Making progress on the new novel, though I'm not far enough along to share any real details yet.  Hopefully soon!

Slumps and Their Cures

I have to admit, yesterday morning I fell into a slump.  It happens.  If anyone claims it doesn't happen to them, they lie.  I'm at that stage in the self-promotion process where a great deal of time and energy has been spent on it, but the results are still unclear.  Roooowwwwrrrr!  Growling is sometimes the most satisfying response to these things.  However, my slump evaporated in the early afternoon thanks to a friend of a friend.  The friend of a friend had borrowed Ashford from the friend and I was informed that the friend of the friend (confused yet?) had read it in a day, cried uncontrollably at the end, and could not stop thinking of Perry Bertram.  Ahhhhh!  My day was instantly rosy.  I made someone cry!  I created a hero that teenage girls obsess over!

To add to the glory of the day, I ended it with a fantastic ballet class in the evening. Those two things will last me at least a week.

A Launch, a Load of Self-Promotion, and a Hedgehog

Yes, it's been a week and a half, and I completely forgot to update my blog concerning the outcome of my book launch, which is doubly bad because I have this URL listed in the front of the book as my website and I hate the thought of people thinking, "oooh, blog" and then finding it stagnant.  Not that they would, necessarily, be thinking, "oooh, blog" but they might, and I would hate for them to be disappointed.  


In any case, the launch went very well.  There was a steady stream of people, and by the end my face hurt from smiling, so I think that would generally indicate success.  Afterwards I went home to collapse on the couch with Kezia while we consumed pizza and Strongbow and watched An Education (great film by the way, based on a memoir) and had a lovely evening.  Since then I've been wrestling with the beast known as Self-Promotion, which does not come naturally at all.  I've known people who were simply genius at it, but I am not one of them.  In a way, the online promotion part is easier.  Those people don't know you.  And Very Old Friends, who've watched you slave over the novels for years and even perhaps read manuscripts...those aren't bad either.  It's the hometown promotion that's the hardest, I find.  Suddenly you're approaching people who, though they don't really know you, per se, have seen you about town and known of you since you were a midget.  I can assure you, I was thoroughly unimpressive as a midget.  Yes, I had fabulous adventures in my head, but who was to know?  I certainly didn't tell them.  Cancer threw me a little more into the public eye, but who wants to be known for being disease-ridden?  Anyway, approaching people who know you in the aforementioned vague way, and saying, essentially, "Hi, I've written a book.  Please buy it," can feel rather odd.  However, I have been gritting my teeth and getting it done, though generally in a less blunt fashion.  The online promotion has slowly been coming along as well, though it's a lot to learn.  There is, in the end, so much that could be done for promotion, with all the resources available, that I find I have to make myself stop, to set it aside and go back to the writing.  After all, the writing is what really counts.  Without it, there would be nothing to promote, not to mention that without it I would turn into a sodden mass.  We write for the same reason we breathe: because without it we would not survive.  Numbers and sales seem petty things then.


I have acquired a new friend recently.  His name is Ferdinand, or Ferdy for short, and he is an African Pygmy Hedgehog, an anniversary gift from my husband.

Publishing and Other Odds and Ends

Okay...do I remember how to blog?  It really has been a while, but September has been a very busy month.  I know, excuses, excuses.  But in all honesty, since the last time I posted plenty of things have happened: my sister broke her ankle, I went to Portland to visit her, my husband got a new job, and I wriggled my way through the preliminary steps of publishing Ashford, among other things.


Yes, I'm self-publishing.  A controversial move, but much less so than in the past.  At this point it can't do me any harm, and might do me some good.  The manuscript had been edited and re-edited multiple times, by others and myself, and was starting to build a little fan base.  It's time for it to exist in another form, and it's time for me to learn how to market it.


From the back cover:

Seventeen year old Anna is a naive American orphan, delighted to find herself on a tour of Europe in the spring of 1939.  A feeling of camaraderie with all mankind thrills her as she mingles with throngs of foreigners, but her joy is short-lived.  WWII shatters the world.  As fathers and sons, husbands and brothers dive grimly into the trenches, Anna is left stranded in England, disillusioned and afraid.  However, this worldwide catastrophe may be the perfect catalyst to mature Anna into the brave young woman she longs to be.  Even as the world is shadowed with disaster, Anna finds friends in the kindly Bertram family.  In the midst of all that threatens to tear her world apart, will she find a place to truly belong?

My thanks to Megan Andrews for the back cover description.

The golf season is winding down, and I have to say (surprise!) that I'm ready for it to be over.  It's been a good experience over all, but it's not my world.  People look at me when I speak, and it's like they don't understand the language.  In all fairness, I probably look the same when they start talking about golf.  That world and mine are like oil and vinegar (to borrow a phrase from Anthony Trollope).  Not to say that mine is better or theirs worse.  They just don't fit.

Prologue To a Busy Day

Greetings at the beginning of a very full day.  This morning: finishing off a going-away gift for my good friend who is leaving for college next week, baking a batch of croissants as a thank-you gift for a certain very generous favor (and, incidentally, for breakfast tomorrow), getting a decent start on the next chapter of my novel so that tomorrow when I have more time and concentration I can delve directly into the next tragedy which will propel the plot forward and in which I shall not have any sentences this long or confusing.  This afternoon: demonstrating for a ballet class full of brand new adorable urchins, helping my mom set up her Etsy shop, going back for my own ballet class and staying late for photos, after which I shall come home and gratefully fall into bed.


At least I'm hoping to get all of that done today.  I make no promises.  The novel is coming along nicely these days, and I think my new-found dedication is starting to pay off.  There are still some days where I write only very little, don't like that very little and delete it the next day, but I try to tell myself that those days are as much a part of the process as the productive ones.


Lately I've taken to reading Robin McKinley's blog.  Check it out at www.robinmckinley.com if you're interested.  I've always loved her writing, whether it's her YA work (Beauty, Dragonhaven) or her more adult stuff (the wonderful and unsettling Deerskin, or Sunshine).  It's fantasy with real literary merit.  In any case, she blogs daily -- which in itself is impressive to me -- about life in general, which for her often involves raising hounds, ringing handbells, gardening, chasing bats out of her attic, and writing of course.  I find it delightful.


Just to let everybody know, I have changed my settings to allow for comments from readers who are not officially followers of my blog.  I didn't do this at first because I was trying to avoid spam, but I do enjoy comments and I like feedback, so I changed the settings so that anybody can leave a comment but I have to approve it before it posts.  Hopefully this will help.


Cheers!

Costumes and a Karaoke Man

This past week has been more than a little crazy, and this weekend I'm a bridesmaid for a friend's wedding.  Consequently, not much time for blogging, particularly since my newly rekindled self-discipline requires me to spend my spare time on the novel first, before the blog.  Yesterday, as I had a couple of free hours, this self-discipline led me to pack up my laptop and walk down to the park.  This method has worked very well for me lately.  I give myself a designated amount of time, I get to be outdoors in the sun, barefoot in the grass, and free from distractions.  Sans laundry, sans sewing, sans bills, sans internet access.

Yesterday, however, I realized I had unwittingly picked the one day of the entire summer when KaraokeMan sets up on the park stage.  I don't know his name, or why he does it, or anything else about him except that one day every summer he sets up a karaoke machine and belts out a motley collection of songs in the Chewelah city park.

I went around to the side of the park behind the stage, on the other side of the creek, where the music was not quite so loud, and settled down to write.  Wrote through a selection of ABBA tunes with slowly ebbing enthusiasm, which slowed to a drip as he started in on Whistle While You Work.  Then he started yodeling, and I gave up in despair, shut off my computer, and set out for home again just as he was settling in with Who Wears Short Shorts.

I just realized that I promised more costuming photos some time ago.  Here is one with three of my solo costumes.  Costumes for solos are the most fun, because you don't have to worry about being able to duplicate anything.  I'm in the center, with Lexie and Megan on either side.

A Returned Sense of Purpose

Returning to real life after the PNWA Conference is always a bit squiffy for me. (Yes, I am aware that "squiffy" is not a word.  But it should be.)  Four days of concentrated writing, the society of other writers, writing workshops, featured speakers on writing...it's lovely.  Writers are their own kind of weird, and I think that's the thing that helps me the most every year.  It's a companionable weirdness, a solidarity, and it encourages me that I'm not alone in this obsession with words and stories.  Writers may be famously introverted and depressed, but those things considered they are very encouraging people.  I never feel any sense of competition.  Everybody wants everybody else to succeed, because if they succeed it means you can too.  Also, it's one of very few places where you can mention having arguments with your characters or reading the dictionary for fun without being branded a psycho.


So once again I've returned to the real world, but I hope I've carried a piece of that atmosphere back with me, and through contact with writer friends met there I will keep hold of it throughout the year to come.  The biggest thing I came away with this year was a new sense of determination and discipline in my writing.  This is what I've wanted since I was a little girl.  Only I can make it happen.  Also, in going through old manuscripts the other day I realized that I am currently working on my sixth novel.  What matter that the first four I wouldn't dream of showing to anyone?  Those were practice, and I never have to write that terrible "first novel" again.  Hurrah!

Release, Richard, Rants, and a Feral Ballerina

The album release party was a success.  Everyone enjoyed the music, and we sold a number of cds, perhaps not so many as we hoped, but not so few as we feared either.

As a follow-up to a recent post, I must say that Richard III was quite good, the setting in the 1930s done very well, and Ian McKellen simply perfection as Richard, slimy and charming, wily and paranoid, all at once.  So the woman at the junk store was once again proved wrong, not that I ever listened to her recommendations much anyway.

I leave Thursday morning for my annual writers' conference, and find myself in a state of mingled excitement and worry, as usual.  Excitement because of the cathartic experience of spending four days in the company of fellow writers, concentrating on writing, writing as life rather than an accessory to life.  Worry, because of meeting editors and agents and exposing my writing (and through it, myself) to the scrutiny of others.  These things will always be harrowing experiences I think, no matter how my writing eventually fares, or how much confidence I gain.

The four days of the conference serve another useful (at this point indispensable) purpose as well.  They shall offer me a brief respite from work.  In general it hasn't been too bad.  I've met some lovely people, found an endless new supply of character ideas, and the tips aren't so bad either.  The last two days, however, have worn me down into a fine paste.  There are always days like that, there always will be, at any job.  At the coffeehouse there was the man who invited me out to his "ranch", the one who always asked you to stir his coffee with your little finger "to sweeten it up", the woman who went on a tirade when you ran out of her favorite salad dressing.  At the golf course there is the man who offered to be my sugar daddy, or the one who mocked me as I split up his tab, or the woman who insisted I stop and take her party's order as I was on my way to the kitchen with three water glasses in each hand, menus under one arm, and the ketchup and mustard carousel dangling from my little finger.  Not that my days are made up entirely of these occurrences.  Hardly.  There are generally plenty of good things to balance out the bad.  I don't mind cleaning up after people, really, and I actually quite like waiting on tables.  What I don't like, what makes me see red, is the air of entitlement which so often comes with the aforementioned actions, the attitude that the fact that you are waiting tables and they are not gives them the right to treat you in any way they see fit, to mock, harangue, or hit on you without compunction.  Meanwhile, they expect speed, efficiency, serenity, and grace from you.  Generally I can manage the speed and serenity, if not always the other two.  The last two days I've been slipping.  Four days of rejuvenating literary immersion should be just what I need.

Rant over.  By next Monday morning I will love customer service again, or at least see the amusing side again and dislike it a little less fiercely.

I must conclude this post with a photo of my alter-ego, the Feral Ballerina, from Stephen Pastis' comic strip Pearls Before Swine.

Summer, Ashford, and Sewing

Summer has finally arrived, though it took its time about getting here.  My roses are starting to bloom, and the raspberries (which we just planted this spring) have little green berries.  The plum tree has its usual horde of tiny purple plums, which are rather hard to see because the leaves on the plum tree are purple as well, so you have to hunt for the plums.


The Ashford rewrite is coming along steadily.  I've committed myself to a chapter or two a day, but no more, even if it's going well.  If I do more I find I start scanning instead of reading carefully, and then I miss things.  I'm approximately half-way through, and hoping to be done by the end of July, assuming I don't have to do anything too drastic, like delete whole characters or add six new scenes.  Then I have to get it out to a few people, preferably people who have never read it before, to make sure it all works and catch anything horrid I've missed.  After that, if all goes well...we'll see.  I have ideas.


For the sewing, I've sold a jacket and a skirt in the past month.  Yes, they were to personal friends, but a sale is a sale, right?  Besides, though a little extra income is always nice, the main reason I'm trying to sell them is to give myself some excuse for something I would be doing anyway.  I enjoy making things, particularly out of other people's old clothes and curtains and table-cloths, and it's more fun if I'm not the only one enjoying them.