20 years of writing: a long, difficult road

Writing for publication, that is. I've really been writing for much longer than 20 years if you count any creative writing that wasn't done for a school assignment...including schmarmy poetry and stories that led nowhere fast that I penned in elementary school.

And it's not actually 20 years, but because I started querying in 1993 and the first two pieces I submitted were published in 1995, the mid-point is 1994, which would be 20 years.

I hadn't looked at my records in a long time, but I was pleasantly surprised to re-read them. The letters I got from the Indiana DNR were so flattering, I really should frame them.

This was the acceptance letter:

"...the quality was exceptional!" - I should read this line every time I get a rejection

This is actually the first letter I got from them, and they sent the one above after I replied and said I'd be happy to have them keep it on file for future use:

"...you're one of the best writers to approach us lately." - so good for the ego

About the same time that I queried IN DNR, I sent out my first piece of fiction to Ladybug Magazine. It was a story I'd written for the ICL course I'd taken the previous year. The lovely Paula Morrow called me and asked if it was still available (yes, I screamed with joy after I hung up).

 Here's the first page of the story:

one never gets tired of bylines

I must have been on a roll back then. Even my rejection letters were good. See the hand-written note at the bottom? "The story is artfully written - very much so -- Please do try again."

Thus began my foray into writing. Unfortunately, while my writing career started on a high note, there were many depressing low ones in between too. While I never really stopped writing, I stopped submitting for a while.

It wasn't until the past 5 years that things started happening and chugging along again. For that I have to thank The Minnows Literary Group (and Michaela Rossner from Gotham Writers Workshop), my in-person SCBWI group (we need a name, people), and the Penguin Posse - my online critique group (and the 12x12 Challenge), and, my agent, Ella Kennen.

It's enough to make one sing!

So, have heart, if you have only begun writing (or whatever you've decided to do) in the last several years and haven't "hit the big times" yet. Be patient. Don't give up. You will eventually find your groove. Unless you're one of the lucky and talented few whose stars all align like a bunch of stellar schoolgirls in a Madeline story from the get-go, sometimes, it can take a couple of decades to hit the publishing sweet spot, that place where you have arbitrarily defined success, be it having an agent or being picked out by a big publishing house.

Has your career, or a change in life direction, started out promisingly and then took a turn for worse before becoming better?

(I used the PS Express blotter function to blot out the addresses, which is why some parts of the letters look funny.)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

An odd assortment of thoughts

I'm not very coherent these days (those who know me for more than several years will chime in and say, "what do you mean 'these days'?" but I will ignore them); I get the feeling the most of my future posts will be a random collection of loosely connected, or thoroughly dis-connected, thoughts. (how I feel...gee, how did the kids know this when they created this thing?)

An update on the credit card fraud issue. I suspect it's more than that. After Bank of America canceled our card, I had 3 things pop up that were purportedly ordered by me. One was a fitness video: the company called to say that they had trouble charging it to my card. Well, yeah. Another was a book club subscription; a box of books from The Good Cook book club arrived in the mail yesterday. Another is the Book of the Month Club. Oy. So now I have to get a hold of them to let them know that I didn't sign up for either of them. I wonder if there are more to come... As if life weren't harried enough without stupid, extra things to stress over.

Have any of you ever had your identity stolen?

Dh and the boys got some planting done in the greenhouse last weekend: they put in spinach, various lettuce, and different Asian greens. Looove Asian greens! They also dug up and transplanted horseradish. Dh made the best horseradish sauce with some of the roots and shared some starts with the people who responded that they wanted some. Lisa said that it is next to impossible to buy in town. Dh says that it's due to its only being harvested at very specific times.

And for a totally unrelated thought: the last time I did any *real* writing was years ago. Sure I did NaNoWriMo the last two years, but I mean the kind of writing that I actually can picture a sale with. Well, thanks to the most excellent Gotham Writers' Workshop's Science Fiction class, I may have one or two stories ready for submission before long.

The experience of this class has been so good, in fact, that I am tempted to take SFII in April. But, without credit card to use and feeling inundated by life, I may just wait until next year.

I know that some of you enjoy sewing, so wanted to share this video for sewing kids' tutus that I found over at the About.com Sewing forum.

I have to say that having life so busy (and not all in a good way), plus reading The Happiness Project book, has helped me not to dwell on the credit card/ID theft issue as much, although it does eat at me that there are such people out there who don't deserve the free oxygen they breathe.

But, on a happier note, if you have a special someone whom you've been forgetting to tell how special he/she is, go check out Suzanne's post on Forever Friends. :)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Resolutions & other pretty things

Wow, have I ever gotten out of my blogging groove! I just haven't felt much like writing or reading blogs recently. I blame it on my lingering cold, and dh's bout of gastroenteritis. Nothing drains me more than having to think up meals for me and the kids. ;)

I started my previous post talking about resolutions, but then got side-tracked by trees and stollens, and, in the end, after dusting the flour off my hands, decided to cut the word 'resolutions' out of the title.

But here I am, back facing resolutions again. Michelle (Blog of the Soap Pixie) wrote a fun post about breaking resolutions, and Anne-Marie (Soap and the Finer Things in Life) had her usual thought-provoking post about making resolutions.

I have mixed feelings about resolutions. I hate being told what to do, even if it's me telling myself. This is why I will never join a book club. I'll read what I want to read when I want to read it thankyouverymuch. Goodness, I'm obnoxious sometimes.

That said, there are a couple of things I really, really want to accomplish this year, as I mentioned at Anne-Marie's blog. One is to whip myself into shape (that is, exercise more regularly), and the other is to whip into shape the manuscript I wrote for the 2009 NaNoWriMo. I think it has potential, and since it's been years since I had anything published, I'm looking at this ms with a gleam in my eyes. Incidentally, a gleam in dh's eyes was how ds#1 came about, so how much harder than that could birthing a novel be? HAH!

As anyone who's ever gotten something published will tell you: it's damned hard. This is why I've decided to enlist professional help (no, not the psychiatric kind, although that wouldn't hurt either) by the way of Gotham Writers' Workshop. I consulted with dh on this, and his response was, "so what will you give up in order to take this class?" He wasn't talking about money. He was referring to my 400 hobbies and other endeavors.

The 10-week course will require a commitment of at least 5 hours a week. What can I give up, indeed? Well, I can't give up making ceramics and soaps and paper and knitting because I've got orders for those that I have to fulfill (even though our sales at Artfire is pretty pathetic, and our sales at Etsy is pretty much nil, we've got orders from really great friends and relatives! I have to add, too, that if it weren't for the incomparably wonderful Ms. Carrie (Under the Willow Gift Shoppe), our Artfire site would have had nil sales too). I can't give up on sleep because I am not fit to live with if I get less than 9 hours of sleep per night. I can't give up on homeschooling because the darned kids refused to attend public school.

Sooo, I guess that leaves playing stupid games on Facebook (which I really should give up regardless) and blogging (writing and reading), both of which will have to take a back seat because I am determined to have an edited manuscript that is at least presentable to an agent (even if I don't present it) by the end of the year, if not sooner.

For those who are curious as to what this story is about, I'll just say it's "Two mathematicians, a physicist, and an criminologist walk into a spaceship...". Barump-bump.

Another thing I want to accomplish this year is to read this wonderful book:and follow Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project Happiness Challenge! By golly, I will be happy or I will die trying. ;D

Before I run off to accomplish *real* things, let me leave you with some eye-candy.

Firstly, take a look at these gorgeous bookmarks that I bought from Annie (Imagine and Create). I bought 3 and she gave me a couple of extras, lovely gal that she is!Next are the goodies I got from Julie (Craft Knife) for the Pay-It-Forward giveaway she had. Ok, I screamed like a girl, and I'll tell you why in a second.See the funky CD cover above? Inside is this:
Neat, eh? I need to listen to it and then really tell you how great it is, but the day was spent on bathrooms and things I can't even recall (except for the fruit crisp...gosh was that good). Tomorrow, though...tomorrow, I'm doing some listenin'.

Here's the reason for my scream:
Did anyone else yell "Valeris!" like I did? Did anyone else even think, "Star Trek VI: The Final Frontier"? Am I the only sci-fi nerd who hangs out at this blog? Well, anyway, I showed one side of the bookmark in that first photo and the other side above. Julie makes geeky-cool bookmarks from comic books. You can find them, and other super nifty stuff, in her Etsy store!

The third thing in the pile o' goodies I got were the really cute buttons (see first photo). I've already decided that the tree button belongs with my purse. The boys can fight over the other two.
I think I've wasted enough time on my butt tonight. I don't know why I don't just do some shorter posts instead of bottling it all up and throwing one huge post at you...but that seems to be my style, doesn't it?

Hope the new year has been a good one for all of you so far! Do any of you have an interesting resolution you care to share with me? :)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams