Peacocks: a short story available at Smashwords.com

I'm trying something new: Smashwords.com. Here is my first story published through this service. Tell me what you think!

-m



Click here to get this book at Smashwords.com

In this short story, Sherri wants a new start, so moves from California to rural Oregon where she takes a new job as a bartender and befriends a wild female peacock. Unfortunately, her former husband manages to track her down just as she is beginning to feel at home. Is she strong enough to send him away and face the loneliness of starting over in a new place?

Camp Nanowrimo

http://campnanowrimo.org/

Hey!

Because life isn't crazy enough, I am going to do Camp NaNoWriMo this August! Actually, I need the kick in the pants to get back to writing regularly, and Nano has always done that for me.

Also, I'm cheating this summer: I am going to use Camp Nano to finish my BIAM novel from last August. 50K words are a few more than the novel technically needs to be "finished," but it is easier to cut than to add (some say).

I'm inviting my writing friends to join the challenge! If you sign up for Camp Nano, friend me! I'm "Marenster."

ta

m

Rev #2 of Dragon Book DONE

Hooray!

I'm done with my revision of my "Dragons in Oregon" novel. I like the book a lot, and I hope some publisher will scoop it up and ask me to write books 2 and 3.

Ah, it feels good to finish a project. Now to print it and stick it in the mail.

Now, to finish the "Alpaca Romance Novel" project.

m

Brief Update 7/2011

Hello!

Well, I have emerged from the infant-induced hiatus to another summer when I am not teaching. I am learning the trick of getting both the girls down for a nap at the same time so I can actually work.

The other trick is to put them both in daycare for a couple days a week. Maybe later this summer I'll blog about the guilt associated with paying a babysitter so I can write, but not today.

My brief writing update is as follows: I am finishing a full revision of my fantasy novel, working title Something. I thought that I had made edits/revisions to the whole book last summer before WWC, but I had only done the first half, thinking anyone who would want to see it would only ask for the first fifty pages first.

Here's a tip: DAW wants the entire manuscript right off the bat.

So, before I send the book to them, I needed to finish the edits. Plus, one of my first readers suggested a couple revisions to the characters arcs that made a lot of sense to me.

The good news is that I am totally in love with this book again. It is as much fun to read and work on the second time as it was the first. I really hope someone wants to publish it.

After I finish that book, I'm going to finish writing the alpaca romance novel I started last August. I think I'm about 60K into it. I need to flesh out the "B" plot, and then revise it to go into the mail to publishers.

That's it for now!

m

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY&sns=fb

This expresses the quintessential debate I have with my husband about grammar, and why, though I teach Writing to Freshmen in college, I am not hugely devoted to prescriptionist grammar, as my husband is.

Ironically, he is the person who sent this to me.

I love that man.

m

I'm a professional!

...at least by some definitions.

I received my very first writing paycheck yesterday! Hooray! It was for this play review. I'm going to frame a copy of the check and hang it in my office.

I needed a boost yesterday, too. :)

m

Late-term pregnancy really kills the drive to write...

Just as my first trimester was marked by complete exhaustion and no writing, these last weeks have also been characterized by me sleeping as much as possible and writing very little. Given my druthers, I would take a nap at 10 am and another at 2 pm. That rarely happens, but this means that I am walking in a fog most of the time.

This isn't to say that I haven't written at all: I banged out a 600 word flash fiction story based on the prompt from the NPR "3-minute story" contest, and I wrote a play review for a local paper. However, I've done nothing toward the BIAM 2010 book, nor have I re-revised or submitted the other two books.

The good news is that the editor of the Salem Weekly like the above play review so much that he's asked me to write more often for them. Heck, yeah. I'll take some freelance work to keep my mind in "drive." I did tell him that my second child is due any minute (literally, though the due date is Nov. 9), but that I definitely wanted to write for him.

So, sleeping has replaced writing and will soon be replaced by infant care. Perhaps by Christmas I'll be in a position to begin writing regularly again. I'm not expecting more than that any time soon, though.

m