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...

The turtle...

My Fred carved this little turtle for me out of a chip of alabaster...he's so sweet (both of them, the turtle and my Fred!)

This is an old photo of me holding one of the orphan bunnies that we helped "get bigger" before releasing it back to the wild, what a pleasure to hold this tiny life in my hands and have it not be afraid of me, sweet little thing! I haven't had one yet this year, but they're around, growing into bigger bunnies...I've kept Max's nosy-nose out of the weeds so he isn't picking them up and bringing them to me (he's very gentle with them, such a good boy)...and I've been very "cruel" by keeping the cats inside until the babies are bigger...I can't bear hearing that pitiful cry as Crouching Tigger-Hidden Pooh carries one off, it breaks my heart...(Tiggy-Pooh is right here, eyes cracked open as if he KNOWS I'm writing about him!)

Go back to sleep kitties, it's windy outside...(that is the doggy bed...but the doggy never gets to sleep on it!)

Anyway...back to the turtle...I loved the tale of the tortoise and the hare way back...and still do...I've always been of the turtle sensibility through much of my time...slow-pokey toes, easy as she goes, living inside a protective shell...withdrawing when under threat, not sticking my neck out until it's safe...it's usually when I behave like a silly bunny that's when I get the smack down...know what I mean, jellybean? Been there, done that, got crap on my new t-shirt...

I've been immersed in editing my novel The Fractured Hues of White Light since March...and I believe it's as close to being publishable as it ever will be...I'm tempted to read it through one more time before turning it over to my Fred for him to do his design voo-doo to "make it so"...I'm grappling with the cover...I want to use a drawing...but I know color is important...so something that might fade from a stream of consciousness sketchbook doodle on the back to the glory of color on the front might be the way to go...the spine might be a "rainbow" of color...not sure...the brain is working it out...I'm kinda stuck on yellow being the main color...I have a few ideas...a few...I need to slop some watercolor around and see what happens...

I've been intrigued by this weeks NEWSWEEK...WHAT TO READ NOW...the fifty books that make sense of our times is chock full of suggested reading that might not normally make it on any top fifty, maybe the top 100 or 200 (if there's such a thing as a top 200)...and I loved The Write Stuff by Jon Meacham in which writers have their say in an honest roundtable conversation about writing and being published... Susan Orlean said the first book she bought on Kindle was by...Susan Orlean. (Of course it was, I'd do the same thing and be tickled pink that I could do it! Wouldn't you? Is it so terrible to want to exhibit some pride in what you do?) The conversation is similar to the series of conversations with editors and agents that I've read in Poets and Writers lately...all very informative, all very exciting...and at times disheartening...it's sometimes a real mood swing reading this stuff while being a writer...

The Now, Read it Again article by David Gates about revisiting favorite books is also a treat...and I especially loved reading The Reluctant Poet Laureate by Louisa Thomas about Kay Ryan, that one seemed extra special because I love her poem Turtle (yes, we're back to the turtle) the article quoted a piece of it...and I'm going to quote it here:

She lives/ below luck-level, never imagining/ some lottery will change her load of pottery to wings./ Her only levity is patience,/ the sport of truly chastened things.

Oh, yes...YES. My sentiments exactly...you see, I have some metaphorical crap on my new t-shirt because now that I'm really doing something with my books, self-publishing them as a publisher (Field Stone Press has started to receive junk mail, YAY!) and I've invested in a advertising campaign on Good Reads, and I'm doing a giveaway of 5 copies of Dusty Waters (ends on July 27th, click the icon on the side bar to check it out or join in!) I'm very excited by all of this progress that I'm making...and freaking out too because I've poked my head out a little more than I'm used to...I mean, jeepers creepers, people are buying my book, people are reading it...OMG imagine that! I'm still in the red...no profit yet, but that's okay, really, I never expected to make millions of dollars (not in a million years.) Maybe, just maybe, someone other than my son will post a review on Amazon.com...maybe...maybe...maybe...maybe the book will be banned or publicly burned (torches and pitchforks, oh, my)...wouldn't that be sweet? Well, maybe not (she tucks her head inside).

There's a whole lot of maybes...I completely understand Kay Ryan's reluctance to be in the position of representing 'capital-P Poetry'...I've spent plenty of time huddled over my creativity, always hiding what I was working on within the protective cradle-curve of my arm, fearing that the stray glance would see it and somehow they'd ruin it by noticing it...fearing the opinion of others, fearing someone would accuse me of being a "show off"...sometimes living up to the expectations of others is more than I can stand...or good grief, being a role model...holy shit, that's a lot of responsibility! (I'm relieved to read in Joyce Carol Oates journal that she often feels stunned by it too: "...might be that I am embarrassed at taking credit for whatever I do. If it's good I am embarrassed; if considered bad, embarrassed. By attributing my work to forces beyond my control I am distanced from it. I think that, briefly, explains the falsifications I have loved so dearly. Innocence masking experience.")

Anyway...I just want to write my books, get them out there into the hands of people who would like to read the experience between the covers, and I want to do it honestly...I don't know if they're going to like what they read or not...I can't apologize if they don't...I writes it as I sees it, okay? I made it up...half the time it surprises me what I write, so...ah, whatever...I can't please everybody...I just hope people will read my work with an open mind...

Like I said earlier, I'm agonizing over what to do for the cover of White Light, and NEWSWEEK had an article about that too...My Favorite Covers by Chip Kidd... and Poets and Writers also had a great article about interior book design...loved that too...

And finally, a delightful treat, an excerpt of Homer and Langley by E. L. Doctorow...so I've started a new list on my Good Reads profile...To-Buy...

Seeing my book being added to readers "To-Read" lists is exciting...and knowing that over 200 people are vying for my 5 free copies is freaking me out (in a good way)...

It's been a week of immersion...I think I've rambled enough...

Thanks for visiting...

Reading Virginia Woolf

One of my favorite books in the whole wide world is Night and Day...

This one bit in Chapter 12 is one of my favorites...we've all been in Ralph Denham's shoes, when faced with the reality of a person who we've fixated on for hours, days, weeks, only when we see them in the flesh again, we're struck by how different they are from the coveted dream...

His eyes were bright, and, indeed, he scarcely knew whether they beheld dreams or realities. All down the street and on the doorstep, and while he mounted the stairs, his dream of Katharine possessed him; on the threshold of the room he had dismissed it, in order to prevent too painful a collision between what he dreamt of her and what she was. And in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of phantom eyes. He glanced about him with bewilderment at finding himself among her chairs and tables; they were solid, for he grasped the back of the chair in which Katharine had sat; and yet they were unreal; the atmosphere was that of a dream. He summoned all the faculties of his spirit to seize what the minutes had to give him; and from the depths of his mind there rose unchecked a joyful recognition of the truth that human nature surpasses, in its beauty, all that our wildest dreams bring us hints of.

Katharine came into the room a moment later. He stood watching her come towards him, and thought her more beautiful and strange than his dream of her; for the real Katharine could speak the words which seemed to crowd behind the forehead and in the depths of the eyes, and the commonest sentence would be flashed on by this immortal light. And she overflowed the edges of the dream; he remarked that her softness was like that of some vast snowy owl; she wore a ruby on her finger.

From Night and Day, Chapter 12

I find it to be a very funny book at the same time as beautiful...I've read it so many times, I'm going to need a new copy, my paperback is falling apart!

"Books are a school for character, she argues, because they change (like people) as we read them, and change us as we read. Books read us." Virginia Woolf, Hermione Lee, Chapter 23, Reading, p. 397