updating my dear readers


I generally don’t blog the Friday post until the night before unlike other days of the week where I might be a week or two ahead. I discovered long ago that to be a (week) daily blog, some advance planning/writing is necessary. If I didn’t do it this way, I wouldn’t get any other writing done and fiction is my main priority.

Fiction is my main priority. I came to that conclusion last week. I am avoiding the hard work by blogging, but since I love to blog – a dilemma. I thought about just shutting down the blog and leaving 50 Something Moms. In the short term, I would have oodles of time for my “serious” writing. But in the near long term, I will lose everything I gained from blogging with the community and friendships I have made being chief on the loss list with no guarantee that I will be any more productive on the fiction front.

So I have decided that 50 Something is going to be strictly a two post a month proposition for the near future. I just don’t have time, and I don’t get the sense that I am in the right company. Perhaps I am too young after all? I hate tweener gaps. The SVM network is, ironically, launching a Canadian Mom site now. I wish I’d had that option last fall. But oh well.

I am instituting a new daily task calendar to go along with my quarterly plans. Perhaps this will keep me on track? I am juggling too many projects and sending out stories that are still in want of revision. Case in point? 2.0 came back from the sci/fi mag for the second time with a very nice rejection letter. It was a second look for them, but they still can’t picture it in their publication. It’s not a total defeat. They liked it. But there are still problems, and when I read it again the other night, I could see them easily which means I am rushing to get this out. It’s a miracle really they considered it once let alone twice because they are probably not the right market even. A testament to the strength of the piece but an indictment of me. I am spread too thinly.

Being in a hurry to get to where I want to be has always been a problem for me. I can see so clearly where I am meant to go and be that I ignore the stuff that is standing in my path.

Okay, ignore is strong. I underestimate the travel commitment. It’s a pantser thing and since I so seldom am wrong when I head out with my lance toward the windmills, I forget about the last battle in the larger war until I am flying bum over head to find myself looking up at the sky again.

“Details. Oh yeah, forgot about them.”

I got too caught up in the platform thing that Christina Katz is so keen on. It does me no good until I have product to “pimp”. Because isn’t that what  a web platform is for?  I have three and a half manuscripts of which one is finished and that includes the memoir. There are a half dozen short stories that need finishing in some way or other. I have another novel idea that is sitting in short pieces.

And I am having trouble with the whole “platform” thing anyway. I can see the point of networking with other writers, but the whole point of blogging is community.

And then there is Rob, BabyD and life in general with myself somewhere down on the list. Did I ever mention my growing interest in becoming a yoga instructor? 

Time, time, time. See what’s become of me.

I am in transition right now. Things might be more me-centric than usual, or not, here for the next couple of months.

In other news?

CB had another break from reality last weekend. I wonder what it’s like to be able to simply discount reality and invent a new one for oneself?

He called our mom to report an attempt on his life by people who have been following him. Mom asked him if he could call her back later as she was late for mass and had a brunch date with a friend. He said, sure, he was just updating her anyway.

Imaginary people stalking CB with nefarious intentions has come to be normal for us.

DNOS called him back while Mom was out.

“I’m expecting a home invasion at any moment,” he told her.

But a few days later, Mom finds a message on her voicemail from CB. He apologized for freaking her out. Everything was fine now.

BabyD has graduated from her remedial reading program and is now in the highest reading group with her friends, which was her only concern during the whole ordeal. I am pleased with her progress, but she is still a haphazard reader who tires very easily. Reading is going to be the straw that breaks her school loving back someday I fear. She is too much like her dad for my liking sometimes.

ED is still in Mexico. And still fine. 

It snowed most of the week. Depressing. But the sun is back today, and we are being threatened by a warming trend for the next week or so.

And that’s it.


Remember that story I started last week? The one that was going to be about 8,000 words or so and done on Friday?

Yeah, it’s not done, and at 11,200ish words I am only about half-way. It will be done this week but not much else will be done. Including blogging. I am feeling dry where opining is concerned and that is so unlike me, but I just feel fictionish right now.

And a publicist at Random House sent me a book out of the blue hoping I would “read it and share my thoughts with my readers”. I have no clue how she got my mailing address or if brand spanking hot off the presses hardcover books from publishing heaven are going to be a regular occurrence from now on. But now I have another book on the “have to” read and review list.*

And that’s it. Nothing more to blog about today. Life is writing and husband and child and doing dishes by hand. There’s spin and yoga and MidKid’s cat puking in the garage because it may be bulimic. And it’s still winter.

Later.

*Yeah, I know the woman took a chance when sending it and I owe her nothing but  – did I mention it’s a hardcover? – I feel for the author. Someday I will want bloggers to read and write (favorably with luck) about me and I don’t want to spoil any future karma.


The memoir is cooling. I won’t go back and begin the first serious revision until month’s end. So I decided to work on some neglected short fiction. Kumari for sure will be finished before the month is over and I have a Stephen King inspired monster story that is about a third of the way done which I want to finish as well.

As fate would have it, however, I was driving home from town after BabyD’s ballet class and was struck by a great first line. First lines in stories has been a preoccupation of mine for the past few weeks as memoir stuff rolls about in my head. A first line can make or break you because it influences the paragraph that follows. Sometimes, that’s all a writer gets to hook a reader.

So what was the line?

We killed the first one with a Chevy Avalanche.

The road home at night is a secondary highway through farmland. It’s narrow and has no shoulders to speak of with a gaping ditch on either side for any sort of wildlife to hide before making a run for the other side. This includes deer, of course, but also coyote and fox as well as dogs and cats. Even in the winter, you have to be aware of the possibility that something will dart out in front of you.

So while I was watching the road and scanning for potential roadkill and thinking about first lines … one came to me. Unfortunately, an entire story followed close on its heels and loathe to lose it, I started writing it Tuesday afternoon. By Thursday evening, I had 6000 words, and I expect to finish it today although I don’t know where the word count will fall out. I am think at about 8 grand, but that’s just a guess based on the fact that I am averaging about 2000 words a day on it.

And I really like it. It includes French dialogue and only slightly suspect scientific factoids.*

February is a fiction month for me. I had decided that back in January actually. 50 something Moms only requires two pieces from me a month and they have been published already. Blogging here is not really an effort as I do some of it ahead, but I will be leaving less of a footprint on the blogosphere this month. Not so much Facebook. No networking among the blogo-mom’s. Just fiction.

And so far, I am enjoying this fiction break. I have been away from it a bit and am surprised at how much I really like immersing myself in worlds of my own creation. It has made me rethink a few things, but I am not ready to discuss that today.

I will still be blogging here. Never fear. And I will let you know how the fiction goes as it goes.

*Rob is going to fact check my science. It’s good to be married to a grammarian with a chemistry degree.