Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Playing with a spider...

Not really playing with it, just took a picture of one on my bedroom wall because the angle of the light made a cool, yet creepy shadow...it was just an itsy-bitsy spider...the photo turned out too blurry to be anything great, so I made it look like a drawing instead...


I'm in the process of self-publishing my novel, Dusty Waters through Createspace, I just ordered the proof of the book this morning and should have it in hand in about a week or so...stay tuned...my Fred and I worked on the book cover Friday night, burning the midnight oil...I've shared it with a select few supporters for feedback, so far everyone that has seen it, loves it...I'll post it here as soon as it's "For Sale"...I almost did it this morning, but changed my mind...

What in the world does a spider have to do with my book...nothing really...tho' my character Dusty Waters would've probably found the spider cool too...her birthday is on Halloween...the book is a good ghost story...

I'm very excited about becoming published...I'm trying not to get too excited tho', know what I mean? There's potential for disappointment and more frustration...let's just say, I'm being realistic about this process. I have no high expectations about making millions, maybe some pocket money if I'm lucky, trust me, self-publishing isn't that good of a deal, I would have to inflate the price to an unaffordable price for the reader to really put a bulge in my wallet. I'll do what I can to self-promote it through blogging, hand selling it, making it available for Kindle and other e-book readers...I'll muddle through...it's all a learning experience. Over the course of ten years, I've written five novels (I'm working on my sixth)...in the line up Dusty Waters is the fourth one that I wrote, it is the first one to be published...since I can't seem to get through the gatekeepers the traditional way, I had to crash the party on my own terms...I'm not doing it to make the money, I'm doing it to get it out there...

It's a wait n' see...

Here's a picture of the heart of one of our trees...

2 comments:

Pat said...

It seems like the heart if the tree is what you were doing in the commentary. Sometimes when I try to explain myself, I feel overexposed. Good, good luck!

Gwen Buchanan said...

Oh I love the spider composition.. looks perfect a bit blurry... most mysterious...

a friend of ours has self published her own series of self illustrated childrens books.. she enjoys it ..
actually another friend had hers published through a publisher... she had connections as her previous job was as book critic for a big Newspaper in British Columbia Canada... and she had a weekly spot on CBC radio on a book panel.. she is in Montreal now and has just published her second book.. for children too..

it seems it really depends on who you know to get a lucky break early on.. John tried publishing a few short stories a few years ago but no luck..

Good luck to you .. you are a fantastic writer as your blog proves... you have a perfect right to get excited.. It's exciting!!!!