A busy time...

A dried out burdock leaf made an interesting pattern I couldn't resist...

This little guy was in my garden feasting...


I've been out and about the acre on and off today (and yesterday)... taking a few pictures (if you can say 86 photos to be a few!)

A rose in my garden...taken yesterday...

Marks on asphalt...

I found a box of nails that were left out... I love the "wash" at the bottom of the box...

August flowers...

I finished preparations for my next art exhibition at a local restaurant (Gentile's), matting, framing, making labels, and figuring out prices, 20 pieces total, paintings, drawings and photographs...a nice mix of things for people to look at... I hope the patron's and the staff enjoy my work...I believe the installation is happening on August 6th. I'm looking forward to going there for dinner (OMG that's a belly full of yummy food!)

I just Googled Syracuse.com earlier today and found that the notice for my book signing on Saturday, August 7th 1-4 at The Gallery at Healing Art Passages in Liverpool NY has been posted, so hopefully that will bring in some new peeps to see what I've been up to... I'm pretty happy to do this little gig, and I hope to expand to other places in town or the region...

I'm proofreading chapter 3 of my next manuscript Drinking from the Fishbowl...tinkering with this and that, it's moved along too easy, I'm suspicious when that happens, so I'll revisit it again later, maybe I'm too tired to really think about it today.

At the end of our walk...with distant thunder rumbling over Syracuse in the north, my faithful dog, Max, once again proves that he does not like his picture taken... believe me, just seconds before I took the picture, he was looking up at me with perky ears and happy brown eyes...

(He's the best of good boys!)

May...

This pert little face looked up at me from the rock wall with it's "Who do you think you are?" greeting...I love the wee viola's known as Johnny Jump-ups... who do I think I am indeed... some days I wonder...

The book signing went well yesterday, I sold and signed a few copies... met with a young lady who is in the process of becoming a writer, and while her mom was in line paying for a signed copy of Dusty Waters, she meekly came back and said "Can I talk to you?" She pulled up a chair and asked "How...?" And so I told her... finish this book, but most of all practice, patience... and don't forget to have fun...

Although we had a lovely chat there's this part of me worrying... Wait, who do I think I am? I'm still muddling along, sure I have a book published, and altho' I'm doing better than I ever imagined a year ago at this time... my sales report wasn't "zero" for the month of April, I have a new 5 star review on Amazon, so I'm doing something right... I have an author chat coming up at Library Thing starting May 10th (about Dusty Waters of course)... my second novel is on the cusp of being published... I just need to get a cover ready... but is it enough? What did I forget to tell her?

What I forgot to tell this young lady is this, sometimes there's more uncertainty than certainty on a good day... don't lose heart. It won't be your first book that will get published, it might be the fourth one you write, or the tenth one... no matter what, set your goal to keep going forward. Soak up experience, write, keep your mind open to new stories, write, listen to that special voice that's whispering to you, write. You want to be a writer... be a writer... write every day because you love it. Don't write for the money. Look at it as an investment... invest in time, invest in the tools you need, invest in your words, make them right, make them tell the story the way you want it... it's a labor of love.

It was a hot weekend, the lilacs are blooming... coming around the back corner of the house this morning, the smell of lilac beauty hit me... here they waver on the afternoon breeze...

Homecoming...

Wanting to meet the author because you like his work is like meeting a duck because you like pâté...Margaret Atwood.

I laugh at this quote every time...

I always find it so flustering to meet a person I admire...have never found it too fulfilling because it winds up being this weird thing, unsatisfying...I don't know, like a bad aftertaste. It's always so awkward meeting the famous anyway, they're inundated with everyone else who's with you in line waiting for the autograph and after my book signing experience, I know it's just...tiring. Today, I met my inspiration, Joyce Carol Oates. I found her exactly as I imagined...not at all disappointed...why, blow me down, she rocked!

I normally do not like being in crowds, so I was very brave going alone without any moral support...I also braved the chilly gray day...found my way into the auditorium, settled in and waited for the show to start. The place filled up...and as usual, I always get the person who doesn't have space issues sitting next to me...a very large elder man kept bumping my arm...and then midway through...he fell asleep. Which...I think...can't be sure...JCO looked in our direction and I felt like saying..."No, I'm not with this dude..." And I kept saying to myself (just like I always do when I'm in this situation), why me? Damn it.

Anyway...JCO read poems...talked about the poems...told stories, went on tangents...made fun of Syracuse weather (an easy target)...was amused because people kept laughing whenever she mentioned Donald Trump (so she'd just say his name again just because)...and the New Jersey Turnpike...(you had to be there.)

There was the one person during the Q&A who had to say something about her work being "so dark and depressing"...she again joked about the Upstate New York weather possibly being the cause...I giggled quite a bit (quietly, I didn't want to wake the man next to me of course). I do believe that the Upstate New York weather adds something special to the writers who have experienced it...

I thought JCO was gracious throughout the event, very funny and natural, down to earth. I got in line, bought a copy of her latest...and got in the line for the signing...


Yes, it's official...I'm a nerd...I'm awkward to begin with...being small, light weight, sickly, juggling myself, my belongings that consisted of my purse, long flowing raincoat, oversize scarf, my funky hat, my mocha cappuccino, and I had extra big hair today because of the weather...reading glasses, then add a precious book to the equation and stick me in front of a woman who I have admired since I was 14 when I read Wonderland (during that impressionable time when I found out that I can write about ANYTHING I wanted to...I didn't have to write something "nice"...) Okay, you get the picture...so she asked for my name, I sputtered it out...and she asked, "What do you do?" Ummm...I'm a writer, an artist, and I work here in the art collection. She signed the book, handed it back..."Well, looks like you really got the artist thing going with what you've got on..." I think that's what she said, and she kind of laughed...maybe she smirked just a teeny bit. Ugh..thanks...thank you for Bellefleur, it's my favorite book. I don't think she replied, I left the line, nearly running, trying to find my way out of the building, to familiar ground, back in the bowels of the art collection, back to my office that I fondly refer to as "the cave", back to my work that I abandoned to go dallying on Homecoming/Reunion weekend...25 years ago I graduated from SU (JCO graduated in 1960, two years before I was born.) Then I started to laugh at myself...You nerd. It occurred to me that I kept crouching down while I stood in front of her...she was sitting, and it made me feel odd being so excessively taller (I'm almost never taller than anyone, except wee children)...so it must've looked like I was bowing and scraping...I wasn't, I just felt the physical need to be at her level...

I'll bet she was thinking..."Okay, who brought the weird girl?"

I don't know...but...it's funny...did I leave an impression? Probably she'll get a story out of it for her next reading...(oh god, there was this weird girl...why me? Damn it.) I know I would...I just did...a story that I'll remember.

Maybe she knows...she has an inkling what I go through on a day to day basis, as a creatively driven person...a mind that is running a million miles of thoughts at light speed...I can't write it down fast enough...I muddle along trying to go above and beyond stuck on survive...writing and painting...working a full time job to support my "habit" as I call it...that creative vice that requires certain tools and devices to make inspiration come into being...

Since I've been reading the Journal of Joyce Carol Oates I've felt this kinship with her...I feel less "nuts" knowing that she feels exactly like I do about writing...it's been like looking in a mirror at times. I would love to sit and chat with her...maybe someday...

And so...that's my story...

It's Friday night, raining and dark...welcome back to Upstate New York JCO...

National Free Comic Book Day...and my book signing at Fat Cats

Here I am at the book signing for local authors at Fat Cats in Johnson City NY...


Me and my Fred...and of course...I had my pencils and sketchbook on hand to keep my busy hands and mind busy while sitting still...


And to top off the day...the Kentucky Derby, Mine That Bird and Calvin Borel at 50-1
What an awesome bit of riding on a muddy track!


(photo by Robb Carr/AP)