WRITING FREEDOM

I've written about keeping a record of my own writing--and making a permanent volume of each year's work. I admit I need to write more nonfiction--personal essays, articles--and submit them in order to have any size to my books at all. But my heart in recent years has been with fiction.

I once read parts of several well-known authors journals. They used words to describe their love for writing that seemed to have been pulled from my soul:

Unadulterated pleasure...sit down and just write the darned thing...write to see what happens...I had to write no matter what else was going on in my life...freedom.

It is so wonderful to write fiction, to go anywhere with your ideas, to create a setting you've dreamed of visiting, to have your characters do, and say, things you have only wished you could do or say, and let the heart of the writing take any form--short story, chapters, poetry--maybe only letters between characters. It is liberating to me not to have to stick to data, dates, cold hard facts.

To write, whether to be published or not, soothes my anxiety and gladdens my heart. Doing so makes me a whole person. Writing fiction is the icing on my creative cake.

And, writing anything is never a waste of time.

A WRITER'S GUIDELINES

I am always clipping articles from all sorts of sources that I feel might prove beneficial later. Recently, I decided it was time to go through some of those clippings, weed them out and, just maybe, find something useful at the moment. In that context, I came across "Creating a Writer's Guidebook" by Michelle Mach, published in ByLine Magazine, September 20o6. She wrote that she tracks her submissions by creating a book each year of what she writes.

Mach copies all of the work she has produced within the year. She says this gives her a look at what she has accomplished. She makes these two-sided copies and divides them into published and unpublished. Usually, the unpublished is a larger stack than the other but that is not a bad thing--it shows she is continuously writing and attempting to publish. She includes rejection letters/slips, acceptances, reviews, submission records, and goals for that particular year. She even keeps a list of books read for the year. She has these bound in volumes that she keeps handy so she can compare how she grows from year to year-hopefully.

I must have thought this was a good idea then, as I still think so today. But I haven't done it. I do keep a submissions list so I can track what I have sent out but I have no idea of what I have written in each given year. A great deal of my time in recent years has been devoted to writing novels which would be a little cumbersome to bind and keep.

This shuuld be the year I do this. I haven't done much (yet)writing of anything but a novel, novella and rewrites of old fiction so it shouldn't take too long to begin my stack to compile into a book at the end of 2009. But just maybe I should start submitting some other writing before the year gets too far gone.

Maybe this is something we could all do, right?

ART LOVER

I have been an art-lover at heart for as long as I can remember--probably since I used crayons to create my first masterpiece. My maternal grandmother had framed pictures of famous art. Daddy Joe had real oil paintings in his grocery store, battle scenes of the Battle of Midway in which, my uncle, the artist, had flown a Navy plane off an aircraft carrier. Daddy painted in oils and I treasure one of his paintings I inherited now hanging in my office. And over my lifetime, I have visited hundreds of art galleries and museums. I am thrilled with what I've seen.

In the early 1980's, a tour of famous Impressionists came to the Los Angeles Museum of Art. Myself and three other co-workers got tickets for the viewing, called in sick, and traveled the thirty miles to indulge in the real paintings within our reach. I can still remember wandering from room to room, fixated on looking at them up close, and then standing as far away as possible to get the true picture. There was a hush in that building, a quiet adoration of beauty and power.

Some of the paintings were playful, several were severe, more reached out and touched my soul. I was drawn to the color, the artist's imagination, not bothering to wonder whether I was an expert in the meaning of the work, or not. My emotions were on a see-saw. I smiled, I laughed and I felt the mist of tears fill my eyes. Those paintings filled me with a deep longing to be a part of that world. And I found out a way to do just that.

As a writer, I see stories in the art pieces I view, then and now. It makes no matter when the art was created, or what the experts tell us the artist had in mind when he painted it, I can make up my own tales of what I see. If you are blocked in your writing, go to the library, pull one of those huge, heavy art books off the shelf, grab pen and paper (or your laptop) and make notes on what you see in a special work. If a story doesn't form immediately, I will guess that at least you are once again writing.

I left the art behind in that building then but it still, all these years later, remains in my heart. I was in the midst of royalty, celebrity, unforgettable beauty--and the possibility of being able to create my own art--with words.

DADDY'S GIRL

My garden is a wonder to look upon. With our cooler than normal spring and no rain, I wasn't sure the seeds would even sprout. Today, the tomatoes are tall enough to be tied up and are beginning to bloom. Corn stalks are shooting above the low wall--which means the plants are about two feet tall. I dug around the potatoes--we had our first tiny potatoes for dinner several days ago. There is one tiny yellow squash on a large bush. The green beans are blooming; maybe they'll be ready by the time the rest of the potatoes are. Lettuce, spinach, green onions, cilantro--it's all there in the small plot, in pots, and beneath the avocado tree (blooming too). I don't really have a green thumb--I am merely my daddy's girl.

When I work in my garden I feel a connection with Daddy. He always had a large garden to feed his family. I can remember before entering school, following him down rows, dropping in beans, corn kernels, and okra seed. By the time I was seven or eight, it was my duty to help water the garden--no hoses in those early years, just a bucket and a tin can. Of course, when I was older, I hated the picking, snapping, peeling, chopping and canning of those vegetables. I would rather climb up in my favorite mulberry tree with a pad and pencil to write my stories.

My husband watched me several weeks ago as I dug holes for my seeds, tenderly tucked the potatoe plants into the soil with a basin around each one, and sprinkled lettuce seeds in the shallow row. He didn't say anythng until I had finished and stood back to look at my work. It was then he touched my shoulder and said, "You are your father's daughter, honey."

He couldn't have offered me a more welcome gift.

"The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything." (Julian of Norwich)

IN EDITORIAL EVALUATION

My latest book is in editorial evaluation (editing?) as we speak and I guess it is time that I get busy with a new blog to promote it. I wonder how to go about this, however. How much can I say about a book that hasn't been published yet? Even then, how much do I want to give away to readers in order to encourage them to purchase the book?

Maybe I can tell them how the stories in the collection were written--when, what motiviation, where the ideas came from.

Taking each story and offering a glimpse at what the topic is might make short entries into a blog.

Since I enjoy sharing what knowledge of writing I do have, maybe I could offer tips on writing short stories, editing, rewriting.

And, mainly, maybe I need to write on the topic of marketing and promotion since that is what I will be doing from now until--well, who knows, how long I will promote this book. "The Quilt Maker" was published in 2005; I'm still promoting and still selling it. "Growing up Barefoot in the South" is a newbie out in 2007, and I still offer readings from it every chance I am given.

I just noted that I published books two years a part. I'd like to do better than that from now on so I will have even more books to market.

Anyone want to offer me some tips on the new blog and/or marketing?

NEW BOOK COMING SOON

No, dear readers, I have not dropped off the face of the earth. Nor have I been fortunte enough to be traveling around the world. Instead, I have been licking my wounds after once more evaluating the possibilities of having my short story collection accepted by a traditional publisher, grinding my teeth over the audacity of those rejection letters, and sucking up the disappointment. I surrendered to going the POD self-publish route.

That quest took up more time. My first publisher, Ann Phillips, with her Star Publications (no longer in business), was a dream editor/publisher. I managed to even sell a nice number of books--and it is still on Amazon until the copy supply runs dry. The second book publisher I used was PublishAmerica; it was quick, no cost, they did an excellent job of manuscript set-up, the cover is out of this world, and I was my own best customer. LOL Since it is a memoir, it's no surprise that for the publisher it was a hard sell. They don't like writers like me I'm sure (I didn't sell enough books although I really tried) because they weren't interested in my publishing with them again.

So I spent weeks reading up on every well-known POD publisher (and some obscure small ones)I could find. I found that they are not all cut from the same fabric as Mama used to say. I also discovered I'm not computer savvy enough to do some of the girations those companies want you to do in order to submit your book. Do you know what a manuscript looks like if you "eliminate all hard breaks?" Let me tell you, if you use * * * for time breaks, it is not a pretty site. Several of the biggies required that.

Then several wanted you to design your own cover, front and back, and spine; with all the right dimensions too. I felt that so many of them required me to do everything except print the book--so when I put out the big bucks, I was merely paying for a print job.

I do reviews for a New Jersey publisher, and for an online book review magazine. Many of those books are published by iUniverse. They are clean, virtually error-free, perfectly set-up, and the covers are outstanding. I was impressed by the look of each book I read, or received. I also spoke with a writer friend who had a book published years ago. He vouched for the editing, quality, and for the marketing help.
I read all I could at their site, signed up for an account and received contact from a publishing representative. We talked by telephone where I asked more questions, discussed all publishing levels (and prices), and I went with them.

It was a little scary downloading my book (my rep had me send as attachment for her, she put it in pdf form to see if I had a "clean" copy according to their submission requirements--which were simple to follow). It was fun to write the blurb for the back cover, a media tag, a web site posting of part of one story to hook readers in, and a new bio. Yesterday I downloaded the entire file and received a confirmation that the book had arrived. Today I went into my account and it shows that the manuscript is in the first stages of the process.

"Pink Poodle Pie (and Other Tales of Women Getting Even)" is in production.