Shameless Self Promotion

I won! I won! I won! I won! I won! (tee hee). I found out today that Moonlighting in Vermont, my first publishable novel, won first place in it's category in the 2009 Daphne du Maurier Award For Excellence in Mystery/Suspense - unpublished. The category being mainstream. I've entered a fair number of contests and never even finaled (except the synopsis contest in which I got third place), and here I am the top of my category. It's given me a rather large head.

Well not really. It's a humbling experience in some ways. And a testament to believing in your own voice, and your own better judgement. The big thing though, is getting with other writers through critic groups and workshops and listening to what others have to say. Sometimes others people can be off base, but by listening and noticing when more than one person is saying the same thing, you can weed the good from the bad and improve your writing tremendously.

So thank you to Joni B. Cole, who leads an awesome workshop and whose books I really enjoy, and to Alison, Meg, Jen, Terri and Anne the original inky 500 who kept me afloat through the whole process. There are a bunch of other writers I owe thanks to, folks from Joni's workshops and those famous names that I love to read. I hope you know who you are, if not watch for your name in the future I hope I can get to you all someday.

Starting Small

Sometimes success takes an act of faith - jumping on the wagon as it goes by.

The chance I took was signing a contract with a small and newish publisher. Of course the publisher took a chance on me too. A mutual leap of faith. Without that leap I would likely be back at square one. Unpublished.

I was worried that I might be missing out on publicity opportunities that a bigger outfit might offer me, but after talking to a fellow writer I've discovered that even larger publishing houses don't push for unknown authors. So not only do I get more personal attention and get more of a chance. I've get more time to get decent sales.

I'm happy where I'm at. It's a good place to be.

Recently I was looking at my tag line wondering what do I really know about the craft of writing. Not much really. I must know something, because MMP is publishing Moonlighting in Vermont. But most of what I know is not in the forefront of my mind. It's more of a feeling, a sense of what sounds right. It's about how my body responds to the words on the page. Don't get me wrong, I learned all the usual stuff about structure and grammar in college, it's just that I'm not thinking about that when I write.

What I think about when I write is does it sound right to me. Does it flow. How does it make me feel? Does it make me laugh or cry. Does it make me cringe, my jaw ache, my stomach drop? That's how my body reacts when I don't like the way the words are put together. When I like what I'm reading I get lost in the story and forget to edit. Writing is more about storytelling than structure. Oh I know that structure is important, I'm not disputing that, it's just that structure doesn't really occur to me.

I'm going to contradict myself now. Sound, flow and physical reaction don't really come into play during the first draft at all. During the first draft I have pictures in my head. I'm watching what's happening and recording all the details I can before the scene moves on. During the rush of discovery it's all about getting what I "see" down on paper. (Well electronic paper, but you know what I mean.) The other stuff becomes important the second time around when the story is already in place. It's when I'm editing that the feel of the words becomes important to me.

So what does that have to do with the craft of writing? I don't know. And I'm thinking I may have to change my tag line.

July, Already?

I woke up today and it's July 2nd! When did that happen? Summer should be a time to relax and unwind, hopefully get the weeds out of the garden, but my summer somehow gets out of control before school's even out.

My kids' dad likes to make sure the kids don't get bored, but that means I spend the summer as an unpaid taxi driver traveling Vermont taking unwilling children to camps, activities - oh you name it, we do it. Meanwhile, the writing doesn't get done, the house doesn't get painted, and the housekeeper (me) doesn't do her job.

I wanted to say and Suddenly it was July 2nd - but my friend Joni B., who teaches writing skills, says that's a no-no. No more ly words for me. Except for this strange desire to write the sentence -

And who knows what I had a strange desire to write because as of today it's July 9 or 10, or something. That's how fast time goes for me. I wish I had the same ability to slow it down. The only thing I can say for myself is I've made some progress on my books. Yes plural. Right in the middle of writing Tank and Maggie meet the Mob I got this strange compulsion to start another Bree MacGowan story. Yikes. Now I'm left with trying to keep my characters out of each other's stories. Good luck.

Happy Summer all.

Line Edits - done!

I pleased to say that line edits on Moonlighting are done. Yippee! Now I can go back to simultaneously writing a sequel to Moonlighting that I'm currently calling California Scheming, and another Vermont mystery called Tank and Maggie Meet the Mob. The advantage to writing two at once is if I get stuck or bored with one, I simply switch to the other.

The down side is it's hard to keep the characters straight. Sometimes they get into each other's story. That's not too bad, as they are both set in the same town and it wouldn't be too unusual for them to cross over - as long as I can keep the story lines straight!

Update on the Skunk

For those of you who were worrying about the skunk, I'm relieved to tell you that we didn't catch him. I'm assuming if he was rabid that he went and died somewhere peacefully, if you can die peacefully with rabies. The same is probably true if he had distemper. Either way, he's either alive and has decided to leave us alone or is off in skunk heaven, and I didn't have to do the dirty deed myself.

What we did catch was a very angry grey cat. When I opened the cage she took off like a shot and will probably never grace our lawn with her presence again.  Sorry kitty.

Skunk 4, Kate 0 - The Skunk is Winning

Yes, you read that right. The skunk is smarter than I am. This will be the fourth day in a row that I will have to wash the skunk smell out of my dogs. The dogs are even dumber than I am.

The first time the dogs warned us - but it was too late, the skunk got them anyway. And then it came up onto our porch and taunted the dogs, trying to pull the bed out from under Annie and out between the bars of her crate. It didn't succeed. So, in revenge, it sprayed poor Midnight through the door of her kennel. It came back four times, regardless of the bright lights, barking dogs and door banging humans. A neighbor came and tried to kill the skunk with a 22. No luck. Skunk 1, Human 0.

The next day I cleaned up the dogs, the porch and the dog crates. Such fun. I left to pick up children and take them to ball practice, and when I got home (in daylight) Moose was in the brier patch next to our garage with the skunk in his mouth. That didn't last long. The dogs chased the skunk into the woods and the neighbor appeared again, but couldn't catch up with the skunk who rushed across the road and up a steep wooded slope. Skunk 2, Human 0.

Now before people start writing me about cruelty to animals let me say I'm usually against killing creatures just because they are inconvenient. I'm inconvenient myself sometimes. But this skunk was acting a tad strangely and Rabies did occur to us. A rabid animal will die anyway and is a danger to us all.

However, as our friend wasn't having any luck killing the skunk we put out a trap. The dogs smell like skunk again, but he's nowhere to be found. Certainly not in the trap. Skunk 3, human 0.

I was hoping like anything that when I got home today I wouldn't have to wash the dogs, AGAIN! Ha! Got home, no skunk in trap Dogs smell to high heaven.

We caught the neighbors grey cat in the have-a-heart trap.

The skunk wins.