writing skills/profession

Vote For Me and other things


Daily Writing Tips is sponsoring another short story competition for all genres at a 1000 words or less. Round one of the voting began yesterday and my story was among them. If you have a moment could you take a look and vote for me if you like the story? I don’t want any mindless voting, and yes, I know that this is how people win contests on the web, but I would prefer you voted only if you thought my story was good.

Generally, I don’t do well in contests, but I thought I would give this a try. I have been so swamped between the memoir, book reviewing and 50 something Moms that I haven’t been working on any short fiction for submissions. I plan to do that next month while I take a breather from the memoir (which is 80,000-ish words and I have just two months left of the time period I am chronicling – so maybe another 4 chapters to go).

Also, I have two pieces up this week at 50 something Moms, and if you don’t have the site on a reader yet, you can find them here and here. They are light-hearted and not at all creepy and I even mention that I have kids. All firsts for me apparently.*

My review of Breathing the Ghost Out will be up on Friday, and I am hard at work on The Vigorous Mind for a review at the end of the month. I also got my copy of Matrimony and couldn’t resist reading a few chapters, but I am not sure what I think about it yet. It’s woman fiction written by a guy, so I guess that makes it man fiction. 

I also got Midori by Moonlight, which is the giveaway this week, and had to read some right away. I flew through the first four chapters and find it quite engaging. There is a distinct feminist undertow but it’s not preachy. The main character, Midori, is left stranded on a fiancée visa after her American husband-to-be brings her to San Francisco and promptly dumps her for an old girlfriend. Midori is 29 and an old maid by Japanese standards but isn’t at all interested in her culture’s view of women, marriage and the way things should be if a person wants to “fit in”. Fascinating look into Japanese culture too. So, you still have until Friday to get in on the giveaway.

Went to my first spin class in quite a while today. I tried spin when I joined my first health center back in Iowa in 2003. I dislike spin because you don’t move. There is all this effort and absolutely nothing by way of going anywhere, so different from running. Even on a treadmill, I feel like I am moving.

But I didn’t fall off the bike, faint or throw up. All good things. On the down side women in their sixties were kicking my ass without mercy. I can only improve, right?

New yoga instructor at the new studio in town this morning. She studied with my old instructor whose Monday class I am still taking. I am finally past the inertia feeling of yoga. At first it seems as though it is all new age mumbling and nothing at all is going on in your body. Not true. My massage therapist is quite impressed with the progress yoga has made in me. My shoulders and neck are finally free despite still being prone to tension knotting, and I am able to really let time pass during the more still exercises now.

So, this is the weekly update a bit early. Tomorrow’s song lyric is the last. I am thinking I need to experiment with vidcasting and perhaps Thursday is a nice day. Opinions?

Let’s jump the hump and get on with the week, shall we?

*I was rolling my eyes as I typed that just so you know.

Another Friday Update


First full week following the Christmas break and I am nearly back to my normal schedule. Once yoga and spin classes start next week, I hope to find a sustainable rthym  for the quarter.

Progress? Nearly finished reading Breathing the Ghost Out and have begun the review for next Friday’s post. It’s not a easy read because the tone is dark and the subjects uncomfortable, but it is an incredibly well-written and beautifully told story. Kirk Curnutt is a good writer.

I poke along as far as getting blogged a bit ahead here goes. I suppose it is better for you dear readers that I am in the moment, but it makes much more work for me. I got two pieces done for 50 something Moms. One is published here. The other I am keeping as a draft until later because I am a bit tired of the two a week pace I have been trying to maintain recently and if I released it from draft today, I would end up getting published on the weekend again and no one will read it. I have been getting weekend spots a lot. Luck of the draw partly, but also because I try to put pieces up for the editors when the queue is low but by the time anyone sees it to publish, other pieces appear and they get the better “time slots”. Maybe the quality? Maybe. I am not a “professional” and some of the others are. Still, there is a little bit of randomness involved and timing matters when you post something from draft state to ready state.

The memoir? Not done. Yeah, I know what I said but it just keeps getting longer. It may end up closer to 90,000 words all told, and I am having issues with details again. How detailed do I get in order to describe my circumstances or explain events? How much of my life is mine for the telling and how much privacy do I owe anyone who may have intersected it enough to stir up a memory or illustrate a point? I am going to check on this with a memoirist or two that I know and who have published.

I think writing about the old neighborhood brought the issue up again most because of the creepy guy who lived next door. He was coincidently an old schoolmate from grade school days. He was unemployed, an alcoholic and a pain in the ass at too many different junctures along the way. I don’t know where he is now. Last I heard, he’d fallen victim to the burst housing bubble and the bank took his home. He could be back in our hometown living with his parents again because they bailed him out several times during the three years we were neighbors. That kind of enabling seldom ends.

He caused me the  most trouble when Will was still at home. He thought it was funny to give Will access to alcohol, which was like poisoning him because he’d lost the ability to metabolize it. I had to call the police and get lawyers involved. He is a part of the story, but he is also  pathetic substance abuser, so I feel a tweensy bit sorry for him.

There is another funeral this weekend. Shelley’s biological father died last weekend. Rob and the girls are attending and I am staying home with BabyD. She really didn’t know Grandpa D and we see no need for her to sit through yet another service. 

Oh, and it’s snowing. Nearly every day. I remind myself that spring is three months off and that there has only been snow on the ground for 6 weeks now, but it’s not like back in the Midwest where the temps go up and down and snow melts. Snow falls and then it stacks up here. It will not be above freezing for a long time yet. The only plus to this is that ice storms are extremely rare. 

Not a very exciting week, eh? But I am pleased none the less.

Upcoming Events at anniegirl1138


I am still in the thick of plotting my first quarter but so far the following are on the books:

January 16 is y review of Kirk Curnutt’s Breathing the Ghost Out. I am about a quarter of the way through and have to say that this is an author who knows how to breath life into his characters. They are very real though uncomfortable.

On January 21st I will be guesting blogging here, and writing about my favorite bookstore in my old West Des Moines stomping grounds.

Another TLC book tour review of Ingrid Cummings The Vigorous Mind is scheduled here on January 27th. This book hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t tell you much about it first hand, but I am excited. Essentially she writes about cross training the mind to health and happiness through diversity of activities.

Finally, another book giveaway! On Monday, January 12 I will host a week long chance for my dear readers to win a copy of Wendy Tokunaga‘s Midori By Moonlight. I haven’t yet gotten my copy, but I was intrigued by the synopsis. Young Japanese woman with a dream and a pending wedding to an American arrives in San Francisco, but things don’t work out the way she’s envisioned them. I don’t read this type of book a lot, rom-com-ish women’s lit, but I like the genre and wish I had a talent for it. Very excited to have the opportunity for another giveaway. I love giving books away. Come February I hope to have a few more giveaways in the works.

I am still weaving my quarterly web of writing tasks. I am finding that breaking my time into 90ish day increments to be most helpful, but I have still not discovered my John Deere tractor in terms of a project. One that will grab hold and not let go. And no, the memoir is not in that category. The memoir is an Ahab thing. What I am talking about is that one idea that fires the creative neurons and swamps you with the need to write. And yes, I know too well a writer cannot live off divine inspiration alone. The grind of writing is the norm. But I know the lightening strikes are out there. The readiness is all.

Stay tuned.