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, July 31, 2016

The Summer Spent Editing "Drinking from the Fishbowl"


 
For a good part of this summer I have been busy editing Fishbowl...Even tho' it isn't finished yet, I'm considering the look of it...the book cover design...the photo above is an idea that is in consideration, I'm confident that my Fred will come up with a beautiful design from some of the things I've floated his way. The plan is to publish by the end of August...that's the plan in my head, because that's  Georgia Sullivan's birthday (one of the main characters.) We'll see if I can pull it off. It is close...very close.



The process seems to be taking forever, and each time through it, I find "something" (it's a bit maddening, obsessive compulsive, and yet terribly FUN! I love editing, and I do love this book, my weird little soap opera about dreams and realities. For the last five years of writing, editing, and going line by line backwards and forwards, the word count and page count expands and contracts...pages, paragraphs, and words are cut...more are put in...

Sometimes I go several days not looking at it at all, or thinking about it...I've written a few poems, a short bit or two... I submitted a poem The Chronic Need for a Magic Bullet to The Sun, I'm waiting for a response...it's about my 7 months on Vicodin for nerve pain from the shingles, a timely piece, a bit rambling...a less refined version is posted on my Wordpress website: https://laurajwryan.wordpress.com/poe-ems-and-other-short-stuff/essays-compositions-pontifications-musings-noise-rants-and-other-what-not/chronic/


Balance. It's about balance.  To do what I do I have to balance life and art...it's never easy...but I manage to do what I gotta do.


 When it's been very hot, I've spent time under the Three Sisters, the pine trees (Norway spruce, I think) in the corner of our acre...it's nice, cool, the crows living there like me because I feed them peanuts every day so my table is not shit on...remarkable. (The Mr. & Mrs. raised another baby, man that is one big cry baby, nigh pitiful, often hilarious...big enough to fly, yet whiny and fussy as can be!)

This bowl of ice cream...yes, it has significance in the plot...it's Georgia Sullivan's favorite flavor...and it must be green, it can't be plain.

 Of course...there are other creative plans rolling around in my head...one having to do with this fuzzy blue friend who was featured in my novel Dusty Waters, A Ghost Story...his name is Distinguished, and he would like me to tell his story some day...I'm thinking a children's book, watercolor illustrations...bright, sweet, a rescue of sorts...
He's a happy fellow isn't he? I resurrected him on Mother's Day weekend after many weeks of acquiring components to recreate the creature from my childhood...he was real, but my parent's dog chewed him up while I was away at college, there was no saving what was left, a sad end for a well-loved friend, part of the pantheon of stuffed animals who resided on my bed. I have no idea where he came from, other than a planet of blue fuzzy critters...I'm inclined to believe he was a homemade church bazaar purchase based on the "I am Slurp" critters who were popular at the time. The original had a permanent greasy smudge from the peanut butter sandwich I tried to share with him on a picnic in the backyard. He's very squeezable, tho' his mouth might fall off...yes, that is a pink hair curler...the best part about that curler, it was one from my mom's bathroom vanity, so it's special. I have promised him not to drop him in a puddle or try to share my peanut butter sandwich...just hugs and outings to watch the world go by...

 My wee donkey, Elizabeth turned 25 on July 7th, I gave her a brand new halter to replace her ratty one that she's probably worn for near that many years (it looks it.) She's precious. (Ears!) She loves hugs too.

 Okay...the politics have gone off the rails on Ozzy's Crazy Train and are careening into fucked up bat crap crazy land so...
Fuck. The VP is the Stove...can't go wrong. Dude, this thing made me laugh. Not much about this year's election is all that funny...well, John Stewart is a bright spot. I do have a political poem brewing...I'm channeling my little folk singer Dusty Waters, of course...she's plinking it out on a ukulele, but keeps stopping to hold her head...to keep it from shaking off her body, she's so disgusted.

Well, that's the news from my acre of the world in Upstate New York...



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