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.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

New Years Eve


Crows in a snowstorm, 12/28/2009...imagine my surprise to see that mob outside my window! My goodness...I think our crow friend "Baby" brought everyone he knew over for breakfast (usually it's the four family members who come around)...and I slept late...what a rowdy bunch, turning the snow upside-down looking for eats...they heard about the popcorn and peanuts...cracked corn and sunflower seeds...apples and bread...and the occasional stale corn chips...yes, my acre has become the popular yard to visit...(the stalks in the foreground are mullein, the little finches and chickadees have been eating the seeds, they're about picked clean by now.) Being home all week from work has allowed me to see what goes on during the daylight hours...

It's been a long year...lots of living done...good days and bad days...I take 'em as they come.

The biggest thing was publishing my book, Dusty Waters: A Ghost Story, and I've been happy with how it is being received by readers so far, and it's pretty cool that I've sent it as far away as Australia...I'm glad that my Fred and I decided to form Field Stone Press and do it ourselves, it just seemed to be the right thing to do. Am I kicking myself for waiting so long to do it? No. I took the time and extra effort to make it right, I didn't dive in willy-nilly. How many copies have I sold so far? Well, let's just say...I gave away quite a few. Do I know what I'm doing? Yes...and I continue to learn how to do better. The beauty of it is it's mine...it's never going to go out of print, ever. I'll keep plugging along, networking, doing whatever I gotta do to get it into hands of readers. I feel content about it, there's still the self-doubts involved (is it good enough?) I'm planning to set up a "shop" soon to sell signed copies (since there's been a recent interest from a few people), I'm exploring possibilities, asking questions and such...I'm open to suggestions.

I'm working on the next book, The Fractured Hues of White Light, getting her ready to go to print soon...I'm taking one more look through the proof that my Fred made for me, checking for any problems, wrong word disasters, crazy exclamation points, extra spaces...it's so far pretty clean. I'm feeling relaxed about the whole thing, no rush, no panic, the story will get told. It's been an experience writing these stories down...many of them started with a few lines in a notebook in 2000-2001, some maybe even sooner than that...so it's been a long process getting to where I am now, and the year 2009 has been a fulfillment of a dream...there's no big publisher, no big advance, no book tour, no hype, no fuss, but that's all right, I don't want fuss...I want my book to get into the hands of readers who want to read a book, not to be part of the frenzy around a product...a franchise...maybe I'm just old fashioned. I love the written word, I still prefer to hold a book in my hand while sipping from a cup of hot tea...or a tall glass of Guinness. It's a beautiful thing reading...it's magical...and I'm afraid too many people miss out on that magic, the gift that a book gives to a reader.

I raise my glass to the written word...

Happy New Year.
This little kitty got started early...


This little kitty will not make a good candidate for a designated driver...

Be careful out there...

2 comments:

Caterina Giglio said...

happy new year to you! and yours!

Maggie Neale said...

Enjoyed this post....glad i found my way back to your blog. Have a prolific 2010.