Tag Archives: RWA

July 3, 2014 · 11:29 am

It takes a village…

Writers need several things to be successful: imagination, talent, and drive being core ones. But they also need balance between their professional writing lives and their personal ones, and they need essential people  they can depend on and who are supportive of them and their writing needs.

Mega published writer Barbara Wallace, in her June RWA article, “Seven Habits of Effective Authors” makes the case that writers need balance between their two worlds: the writing one and the non-writing, or personal, one. We all work. Whether it is inside the home or out of it, writing full-time or part-time. But we can’t write/work 24/7. We would be zombies if we didn’t get away from the “work” aspect for a while. Why do you think employers give vacation days to employees? They know you shouldn’t be sitting at a job all day every day without a break.  You need a balance between the two. Being with family and friends and enjoying the time spent together, doing things and relaxing, strikes a good balance between the solitary work of writing and this need for social interaction.

Along with balance comes support. Writers must cultivate support on many levels and along many different avenues. Having a supportive family who leaves you alone while you work at your writing is great; it’s a gift, actually. Anyone who can do the laundry for me to allow me an extra couple hours of writing time is a blessed person in my eyes. But your friends and critique partners are solid support systems as well. They will listen, with friendly and critical ears, to your ideas, plot problems, deadline needs, etc. and are excellent sounding boards. They can offer advice, questions for clarification, and just point out inconsistencies in your writing that you may not have seen. And everyone needs a good old fashioned bitch session every now and again, and who better than your girlfriends to join you? Hopefully, armed with chocolate and adult beverages!

Writing is a solitary endeavor, even when you have a writing partner. Being able to balance your life and have good, solid support systems surrounding you, are very good ways for you to be more effective in your writing.

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July 1, 2014 · 11:27 am

All it takes is one “yes.”

Recently, I was a guest blogger at NHRWA author Mary K. Stone’s blog  http://marykstoneblog.com/ I decided to upload that entry to my site as well, so check it out here and then visit her website to see what she’s up to.

I’ve loved crossword puzzles since I learned how to spell, probably because I love words so much. My favorite birthday present when I turned 8? A dictionary.

So, what’s a 9 letter word for: refusal, dismissal, forsaking?

Here’s a hint: the answer starts with an r, ends in ion and can make you cry your eyes out and eat an entire package of Milano cookies in one sitting. Make that 2 packages.

Got it yet? Yup. REJECTION.

Some other words used to define rejection include: turning down, spurning, repudiation, and, my absolute favorite: the brush-off.

As a writer I have experienced my fair – and unfair – share of rejection from everyone from editors to literary agents, to publishers. I‘ve had synopses discarded, proposals denounced, queries snubbed, and outlines slighted.

I’ve been rejected in person, in print, in emails, in snail-mail, via phone and even once in a text.

I’ve experienced rude rejections (Ms. Jaeger, please do not query us again as we do not accept what you write) and form letter rejections ( Dear Writer: Thank you for your submission. We will not be asking for any further work from you)

Being a writer is fraught with enough problems without adding rejections to it. Finding time to write, liking what your write, having other people like what you write; editing, revising, restructuring; plot arc construction, motivation, goals and conflicts for the characters; deciding on a setting, theme, names of characters. The list is as long as my ingredients list for fruitcake!

The first time I ever got a piece I ‘d written rejected by an editor, I was 25. I’d already had over a dozen fictional story stories published in literary magazines, and had been writing non-fiction articles concerning health care and nursing for several years. I’d sent an article proposal based on my master’s thesis to a well-known nursing journal that had already published me twice before. I thought the topic was very timely and felt it would make a great addition to their monthly publication. I waited three months for a reply. Just as I was about to call them – this was eons before email was available and we were ALLOWED to call editors, I received a form rejection letter. Not even addressed to me personally, just “Dear Writer…” The editor stated the topic for the article was not relevant for their publication and that they were not going to ask for the article in its entirety.

Was I crushed? You betcha. Was I pissed off? To say the least. Did I want literary revenge? Hell, yeah! Did I do anything about it? Of course I did. When I finished the gallon of Cherry Garcia that I kept hidden in my freezer for emotional emergencies, I queried another nursing journal, telling them everything I’d told the first one. I got an actual phone call (remember, no email, no texting, no cells phones in the 80’s) from the Editor-in-Chief who wanted the article for their July issue, which would be featuring my UBER-RELEVANT topic from other health professionals.

The takeaway I got from this experience? Not everyone is going to like what you write. But someone will.

Flash forward several years to when I started writing book length fiction. When I was done with my first masterpiece, I began the literary agent query route. I sent out over 75 queries to agents all over the U.S. who specialized in representing what I wrote at the time: medical thrillers. Over 95 % of the responses I got back were form rejection letters addressed to “Dear Writer…” Three agents actually addressed me by name and told my why the weren’t choosing to represent my work, and two asked me to change the book completely around to what they thought might sell, and then they would consider – maybe –representing me.

When the box of Dunkin’ Donuts was gone, I picked up one of the responses I received that actually had been positive. I still have this rejection letter in my file cabinet today. The part that stuck out so plainly to me read: “While I do not feel I can devote the time and attention to representing this work that it needs, please be assured, you are a very good writer, and it only takes one person to say “yes” for you to be published. Unfortunately, I’m not that person, but I believe she or he is out there and that you will connect with them. Good luck, and I know I will see your name on a book jacket some day.”

 This was without doubt the nicest rejection I had ever received up until that time, and, to this day. If all rejection letters could be written this way, I believe we would have a lot less depressed authors milling about.

Now, the takeaway I got from this letter? You got it; same as before: not everyone is gong to like what your write. But someone will.

It only takes that one someone – be it an agent, editor, or publisher, and all those rejections that have been lining your file cabinet drawers will seem inconsequential and irrelevant. Or they will even seem like what they really are: the dues you’ve paid for persistence and perseverance.

As a writer, rejection of your work is part of the road you will travel on your way to publication. Yes, it hurts for someone to tell you they don’t like or want your work. Yes, it blows big time to have someone in a position of literary power tell you what you’ve written is not pertinent or that they don’t know how they could market it effectively. And yes, it destroys your soul when you’re rejected flat out, with no reason why, in a dry worded form letter.

But…

It only takes one editor, or literary agent, or publisher to say “YES.”

 

 

 

 

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June 26, 2014 · 9:36 am

More effective writing habits, Part III

Knowing yourself and what you’re capable of, is a smart concept for everyone, but especially a writer.  Personally, I know two solid truths about myself: I love to write, and I am a world champion procrastinator. Those two facets of my personality have, in the past, clashed, with procrastination taking the lead  and proving to be detrimental to my writing.

Barbara Wallace’s article in the june 2014 RWA Romance Writers Report, lists 7 effective habits authors should have. Number 3 is all about knowing yourself.

I’ve mentioned before that I work at a paying job that takes me out of my home three days a week. I have two days during the regular work week off and then every saturday and sunday. This may sound like a lot of time to be able to devote to writing, but in the reality called life, it isn’t. On my days off from “work” I need to: grocery shop, clean the house, do the laundry, ironing and putting of the clean clothes away; run errands to: the bank, post office, credit union, dry cleaners, in addition to scheduling all doctor, dentist, hair dresser/manicure appointments. Thrown in are my feeble attempts to get a continuous form of exercise, not to mention paying bills, checking on  family members and throwing a little time in for eating and sleeping. I can usually accomplish most of what I need to do in one of those 4 days off.

So that leaves 3 days to write, correct?

No, it actually only leaves 1 because the weekends are sacrosanct for family time. And that one day? If I get to write for that whole day – 8 hours or more, uninterrupted – that’s a modern day miracle. I usually have to do something that has occurred that needs my immediate attention not named on the above list, and which can’t-for-any-reason-possible wait.

So, in reality, I usually get about 4- 5 uninterrupted hours per week to write. Now, that is SO not enough time to pump out a book, much less a blog.

So, knowing myself and my schedule as I do, I started planning the time to write, everyday, for at least 1-2 hours, beginning in january 2013. The time is usually split – before work and after on the days I leave the house, and when I am off, I try to do 4-5 hours, again split between everything else I need to do. I set a weekly goal of the number of pages,  scenes, or plot points I want to accomplish, and then eek out a little of it every day. I never feel overwhelmed to get everything done, because any time I can set aside for writing is, in my opinion, good time. And I usually do make my goals every week.

By doing this, I was able to complete three full length novels in 2013, plus write a blog about menopause,  find the time to do NANAWRIMO,  enter several contests, and joined my state chapter of RWA .And my personal life did not suffer one iota. In 2014 I set up this blog/website, joined the Twitter-verse, and have already finished 1 book completely, the second, halfway. Not bad.

Know thyself and to thine own self be true. Words to live by.

If you have a moment, check out my new blog page, Read All about it!

 

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June 24, 2014 · 10:04 am

Effective Habits, Part II

So the second effective habit Barbara Wallace talks about in her article in the June 2014 edition of RWA magazine is about establishing structure as a writer. Structure, when used here, doesn’t mean how you construct your stories. It refers to being consistent and regimented in how much you want to write every day.

Writing goals are wonderful yardsticks when you write. They can be anything from a daily word count, to how many scenes you want to do a day, to how many chapters you want to get on paper in a given time frame. On the days that I don’t go to my paying job, I routinely set a goal of 1000-2500 written words. They don’t have to be perfect, they just have to get written down. This translates, when I’m working on my WIP, to about 8-10 pages per day. Some days I write a great deal more, but I never write less. And if I’m not pounding it out on the novel, then I’d doing it in this blog. Most of my blog entries average between 600 and 900 words, so that’s a fair chunk of writing still, on those days the WIP isn’t going smoothly. Every November a competition called NANOWRIMO occurs. The acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the goal is to write AT LEAST a 50,000 word novel in the month. I’ve done it for the past two years and both times I’ve exceeded the word count simply by setting a daily goal and sticking to it NO MATTER WHAT. This is the key to structure: doing what you’ve set out to do no matter what.

Many writers who are lucky enough to actually support themselves with their writing and do not have to have outside employment to survive, will all tell you the same thing: they treat writing as their 9-5 job. It may not occur exactly in those hours, but the reality is they work full 8 hour days or longer on their craft. Sitting down at the typewriter/laptop, and producing words-sentences-pages every day is how writers ,who are successful, write.

I’m a terrible deadline-er. This means that, 1. I hate deadlines, 2. I have never, ever, made one, and 3. I hate deadlines.I was that kid in school who always had their summer writing assignment done before july 4, who always had the term papers ready to be handed in at least a month before they were due, and I never studied the night before an exam. Never. I always had the full studying done long before that. In my adult life this hatred of deadlines shows its head in similar ways:  I amortized my mortgage so my house was paid for decades before it was supposed to be. I pay cash for most things because I do not like that monthly credit card statements that says “minimum due now,” and I am always ALWAYS early for work. How does this apply to writing? Well, if you give yourself daily goals, you will never be in that deadline crunch when you are furiously typing those last, critical pages for submission, and you can have the luxury of reading, re-reading and revising the work to make it the absolute best you can do.

Structure is a good thing. To a writer, it is essential.

 

 

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June 22, 2014 · 12:38 pm

More words of wisdom

I am a voracious reader of my monthly RWA magazine TheRomance Writers Report. The minute it arrives into my mailbox I am all over it.  An article in the June 2014 edition caught more than my eye – it spoke volumes to me as a romance writer. For the next several blogs I’m going to be dissecting the piece as it applies to me and my writing career.

Multi-published and talented writer, Barbara Wallace, in an article titled “Seven Habits of Effective Writers,” details  specific strategies writers should incorporate into their writing lives. The first is, basically, to write.

This may sound like common sense, but there are many distractions that can come along to prevent you from writing on a regular schedule.  In truth, you can’t  pen the all american great novel if you don’t sit down, get your but in the chair and type away. You can’t say “puff!” and your novel will magically appear in print. It MUST first be typed onto the page – or laptop screen. Let’s face it, if you are not employed as a writer -as I am not – finding the time to write can be difficult. Work obligations, children’s and  spouse’s needs, grocery shopping, laundry, and just dealing with the everyday stresses that being alive comes with it, can make carving some time out to write your book troublesome and problematic.

But….

If you really want to be a writer, you must write. Even if it’s for twenty minutes every night between supper and putting the kids to bed. Even if it’s on your lunch hour. I used to get up at 4 am just so I had two hours to myself before I had to get the family up to start the day. Saturday and sunday mornings were great because the members of my household liked to sleep in on those days. I recently attended a talk by famed writer Lisa Gardner, who shared with the audience that when she was beginning her career, she would write every night at eleven p.m. because that’s when she had alone, free time.

Whatever schedule you can devise that allows you to be working on your manuscript is up to you. As long as you do it consistently, regularly, and productively. It makes no sense to tell the family you’re going upstairs to the home office to write for an hour and then answer emails, check Twitter and Facebook, or be recruited into a particularly tedious game of Candy Crush. No. you are there to WRITE and that is all.

Personally, I consider everyday that I don’t write SOMETHING, a wasted day. Be it my blog, a character profile, or a scene in my current WIP. I schedule time for myself, away from everything and everyone, just so I can create. And I don’t think this is selfish, as a former friend  once told me she thought it was. Did you see the word former in that last sentence?

There’s an old saying that goes, “happy wife, happy life.” I want to change that up a little and declare, “happy writer, happy woman.”

 

 

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May 2, 2014 · 5:02 pm

Conference – Part 2

So it’s the first day of the NECRWA conference in Burlington. After checking in I received my “goodie bag” complete with program, name lanyard and my scheduled editor appointments for tomorrow morning. I get to “pitch”  my newest work in an 8 minute diatribe to two powerful editors at two distinct publishing houses. How do you define nervous? I’ve done this before at other conferences and that feeling of nervous anticipation coupled with sweat-producing dread never seems to go away. I know I have nothing to be nervous about – after all, I talk for a  living. But I think it’s that little nugget of self doubt that always permeates my soul when I talk about the stuff I write. Will the person like it? WIll they understand the story line I’m talking about? WIll they think I’m a complete illiterate moron? Will I stutter, falter, spit?  And God forbid – will I forget the story line I am pitching? All  these things run through my mind when I think about the pitch.

I’m a confident woman. Really. I know myself and I know my stuff. I can articulate – most of the time – well. I write fairly well, or so I’ve been told. But when it comes to talking about my writing with a complete stranger – who, by the way,  may be  my ticket to publication – I turn into an inarticulate, thread of thought losing toddler. That’s just dumb!

I’m not going to think about it for now. For today I’m going to attend the meetings I’ve chosen, learn from the masters, and just relax and enjoy the moment. I’ll think about the pitch later…probably all night long…and I won’t sleep, and I’ll be bone tired tomorrow and then then  I really will forget the story line, or falter, or stutter, or spit.

Oh god! What have I gotten myself into?

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April 26, 2014 · 10:19 am

Why I write romantic fiction

Those who know me personally already know the answer to this one. Sometimes, though, it’s good to lay it all out so everyone knows the same thing.

For most of my life I’ve loved reading mysteries. As a kid I read Nancy Drew and the Trixie Beldon mysteries like they were sustenance for my starving body. As I got older I discovered Agatha Christie and by the time she died I had read every one of her novels and short stories at least twice. I never really read what was called “love stories” until after I had my daughter. I was browsing through the book store one day, looking for a new author – since most of the ones I liked had died! – and I spotted a Nora Roberts paperback. It was Irish Thoroughbred. I read the back jacket and it seemed like I’d like it, so I took it home and read it. In three hours. I was absolutely hooked by the way she wove a story. The same day I went back to the bookstore and bought the other three titles they had in her name. They were devoured within three days. For the past 25 years I have read everything published by Roberts, including her JDRobb works. By opening my reading world to romantic fiction, Roberts introduced me to a wealth of  other  romance novelists who have made my life so much sweeter and more exciting with their writings.

When I decided I wanted to try and write romance, I sat down and made a list – really! a list – of why I loved reading it so much. These were the highlights:

  • there is usually a happy, relationship-resolved ending. And who doesn’t like a happy ending?
  • the female characters are always independent, smart, many times funny and witty, go-getters, nurture-ers, thoughtful and someone I would like to be friends with.
  • the male leads are usually – but not always – alpha males, successful in almost everything but love ( hence the heroine!), smart, charming, family oriented ( usually) and someone I would like to have in my life. The beta males are pretty hot, too.
  • the secondary characters seem real to me, not walk on’s who come in and then go, usually just to deliver a message, like so many other kinds of novels I’ve read. You never see them again and they serve no purpose in the character’s life except to tell them one piece of info. In romance writing, the secondary characters are real people, just like you’d have in your own life. And they serve real purposes in the main character’s lives.
  • the sex is written from an emotional viewpoint, and not a clinical one. I’ve read enough “popular fiction” where the obligatory sex scene describes a going into b and then c happening. Boring. In romance, we get to hear and witness the character’s emotions, responses, desires and dreams. And a really good author will make you feel like the character’s emotions could be yours as well.
  • the stories told around the romance are fun, sad, exciting, mysterious, thrilling, though provoking and sometimes even just sweet.
  • who, after all, doesn’t love LOVE? Being in love, feeling loved, loving someone else. Even the Bible says “Love one another.”

Those are the main reasons I like reading – and now writing – romantic fiction. I’m sure if you ask ten different romance authors their reasons, you will get ten or more different answers than mine.

Some of my favorite Romance Novelists:

Nora Roberts, Tami Hoag, Julie Garwood, Linda Howard, Lisa Kleypas, Kasey Micheals,

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April 22, 2014 · 11:13 pm

You write WHAT?!?

For years I never told people my secret. I kept it between myself and my laptop. No one knew, suspected, or had any inkling what I did with my free time. Then one day, quite by accident,  I let it slip. The look I got from the person I told was comical and just this side of insulting.

“You write WHAT?!?” I was asked.

“Romance,” I replied.

“Why would you write that kind of book? You’re happily married and successful.”

I asked what that was supposed to mean and what connection it had to the kind of book I liked to write. The response floored me. “Romance books aren’t very interesting. I mean, the plot is always the same. Nothing new ever happens. They’re not very stimulating.”

Okay, did I say just this side of insulting? 

Romantic fiction has gotten a bum rap for a number of years, yet the sales statistics are staggering. Over 1.5 billion – that’s billion with a capital B – dollars in revenue in 2012. Compare that to its next highest competitor of mystery sales at just over 7 hundred million, and you can safely say romance sells. So why the bad rep? Why do people – professional writers included – feel that romance novels are the second class citizens of fiction?

You can probably get ten different reasons if you ask ten different people, but I’ll tell you the ones I’ve personally been told by friends and acquaintances.

“I don’t like books that have a lot of explicit sex in them.”

“The basic story line is always the same. The ending, predictable.”

“If I’m gonna buy a book,  I want to read about more than just  the two people in  the story.”

“I don’t like mushy writing.”

These are actually things that have been said to me when I asked. I’d like to address them individually.

“I don’t like books that have a lot of explicit sex in them.” This is so stereotypical that I’m pissed off I even have to address it. Romance novels come in all degrees of heat.  Everything from inspirational novels, where the two “love interests” don’t even kiss, to erotica, and everything in between. Some romance novelists are known for their heat level, jacking it up high and then cooling it down, just to fan it again. This is a normal romance roller coaster. The characters don’t hop into the sack on page one ( well, some authors in erotica do that). Their relationship grows in the novel until it reaches a point where the author either lets them act on their sexual attraction, or finds ways to keep them apart – interested – yet apart. It’s not all sesexsex on every page. That would be a boringly clinical book if it were, with nothing vested in the characters. You might as well read a sex manual.

“The basic story line is always the same. The ending predictable.”  Part of this statement has a smidge of truth – the last sentence. Almost all romance novels end the same way – with the heroine and hero discovering that they want to spend the rest of their days together. Marriage is usually the end product, but not always. The first part of the sentence is just flat out wrong. The basic story line of every romance novel is not the same. Sure, you have two main characters whom you’re rooting will fall in love, but how they get there, how they go on that journey, is different from book to book, character to character. Just like every person in real life is unique, every character in a novel is as well. Every person’s journey is unique, just like every character’s is. Nothing in life is predictable and neither are romance novels.

“If I’m gonna buy a book,  I want to read about more than just  the two people in  the story.”  This statement is surely made by a person who does not read romance. Yes, all romance books have two love interests. But just like in real life, there are people surrounding those main characters. Parents, siblings, friends, bosses, enemies and co-workers. Unless your story takes place on a deserted island and the main characters are shipwrecked, you’re gonna have more than two people in the story. Those secondary characters have their own story lines as well, again just like in real life. How they all intersect, intertwine and effect one another is the basis of sound story telling.

“I don’t like mushy writing.” Well, neither do I. Nor do I read it. What I read is dialogue that sounds natural, as if the two people were speaking in my own living room to one another. What I read is a plot that has a beginning, middle and resolution that satisfies me as the reader. I don’t read flowery sentences and purple prose, or any kind of drivel that makes no sense and makes my groan. I read well written, well plotted, superbly spoken works of talented writers. That these books have as their main premise a romance in them is frosting on the cake as far as I’m concerned.

Romance readers know what they want in a good story and romance writers strive to give them that with each and every book they pen. Numbers don’t lie and romance novels are here to stay.

Thank goodness for that.

 

 

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April 20, 2014 · 11:12 pm

But, what’s your book ABOUT?

I was speaking to an acquaintance the other day and she asked me what I was working on, writing-wise. I told her a new series of contemporary romance books concerning several members of the same family. She floored me when she then asked, “but, what’s it about?”

Really? Didn’t I just say it’s a series of contemporary romance stories about a family? What part didn’t she understand? A series of books? Contemporary Romance? Family members?

Then it hit me.

This chick is not a writer. Of anything. Not letters, not emails, not lists. I don’t think she even writes a check, just pays everything electronically with a swipe of her index finger on her smart phone. And it was me who wasn’t understanding her, not the other way around. If she had been a writer, or even remotely acquainted with some sort of writing, she would have understood the description I gave her. But she wasn’t, so she didn’t. She really did want to know what the book was about – everything from the plot line down to the characters and where it was taking place. To her, that’s what the book was about, not my clinical, yet apt, description.

Sometimes I take  for granted that people know what I’m talking about when they ask me about my writing. In truth, the only people who ever understand completely what you are saying when you discuss writing are actual writers. My non-writing friends do not know, for instance, what ARC’s are. Nor do they understand the difference between line editing copy and galleys. To them, ARC is what Noah sailed on – just spelled incorrectly. Writers know it’s an acronym for Advance Reader Copies of books. Line editing I still think is self explanatory(!)  and galleys are not the area in the bottom of boats where you cook your meals, but the final copy of your book  you need to check for any and all mistakes before it goes to print with those mistakes on the page forever.

I enjoy writing contemporary romances, but I love reading Regencies. I mentioned this to another acquaintance once and she asked, “what’s a regency?” Again, really? Not her fault. Her sum total of reading concerns biographies of celebrities, PEOPLE, and Cosmo. The funny thing is when I explained what a regency romance was and told her some of my favorite authors and titles, she actually became a fan. She asked once if it was possible to turn a regency romance into a contemporary one. Hello! Anyone remember CLUELESS!??

I really do need to have more patience with, and be kinder to, my non-writing friends –  of which all my close close friends are. There are so many times, though, I am  happy that I belong to the NH Romance Writers of America group and the national RWA. It’s so great to be able to talk about my writing with some people who never require detailed explanations of what my book is about! They get it on the first try.

 

 

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April 19, 2014 · 8:41 am

When the past becomes the present

Okay, that title is a little obscure. This is the story behind it.

In my thirties, I pretty much made a living doing freelance article writing for newspapers and magazines. That’s how I made cash. I didn’t need to work because my husband’s salary was more than enough and we both wanted our child to have a parent at home, not both of them always working. At the same time I was writing a great deal of fiction – mainly short stories – and had lots of success with awards and publications. I was also harboring a secret: I was writing book length romantic fiction and murder mysteries. I never attempted to get them published. I wrote them simply for my enjoyment when I had a few hours of time to myself. I liked my stories and I didn’t really care if anyone else ever saw them.

Fast forward a few years and I went back into the workforce as a favor. I didn’t have the time to devote to any kind of writing – freelance or fiction – so I let it slide for about 15 years.

A few more years ahead now. One day I was downsized at my job. Not let go,  but my hours were severely cut. My daughter was gone and on her own, my husband was still working full time, and now I found myself with more time for myself than I’d had in a decade. There is only so much house cleaning and working out at the gym that you can do in a given day, so I decided to pull some of my old fiction stories out and reread them.

Here’s the part of the story that’s weird. I don’t even remember writing most of them. There was a four year window where I actually penned 8 full length novels – each  300- 400 pages. During this prolific time I was shuffling my daughter to school, dance class, karate class, etc. I was making entire home cooked meals EVERY NIGHT of the week and my house looked great. And I still managed to spend all that time writing. I had an entire series of books devoted to one family. I started rereading them last year after I was down sized. I couldn’t remember what I’d written so it was like finding a new author and a new set of works to delight in. Some of them were pretty good, I thought. A little dated, because they were written before Iphones and such, but I started reworking them and modernizing them.

Lo and behold, two of them won contests and the editors at two publishing houses asked for complete manuscripts. I’m waiting to hear back from them as I write this.

It’s a funny thing when your past endeavors come forth to the present. I wonder if I’d tried to submit them for publication back then if they would have been accepted.  Or, did I need to write them and then put them away, only to turn to them again at this stage in my life.  I’ll never really know the answer. Suffice it to say, I had a great deal of fun rereading and reworking them. If this leads to publication, so be it. If it doesn’t, I know I’ll still be writing into the next decades of my life.

And who knows: maybe I’ll find something in the future that I’m writing now and will be surprised by all over again.

Like I said: it’s weird.

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