Faster than a Breaking Heart

Well, I've heard back from Maple Tree's appropriate imprint called Trumpet Media.  They are currently not taking on new manuscripts.  Which is something I wasn't able to glean from their website.  I get that there are a lot of unpub'd out there wanting to find that one kind and generous publisher that will take on the adventure of a new author.  I get that, really.  What I don't get is why they are willing to get unpub's hearts and hopes up because they don't post it on their website instead of sending out a curt "We're not taking submissions at this time" e-mails and making them waste time filling in their forms instead of letting me send a querry letter.  So, now that my head has stopped spinning, stitch things back together and find another publisher to send my work to.  Chocolate would be so good right now. {{sigh}}

I Done Did It Again

So, I planned to send my Soul Searching: House of Dragons to Walnut Springs Press yesterday, in honor of my "anniversary". Yea, I know I said I'd do it last week, but the way my chronometer works, then is now, so I'm on schedule. As I was trying to find the newest copy of my novel I realized that leathertreepress.com is where I sent it last June....essentially I already sent it to them, never heard back. Now that we're 'friends' on Facebook, I'll have to poke them and ask them why.

What shocked me the most was how familiar it was to fill out the submissions page for Maple Tree Publishing Company. I'm pretty sure I filled it out once before but abandoned it for some reason or another. Hopefully I'm not being redundant by sending it twice.

I'm wondering though if by sending it to Maple Tree, which is the umbrella publishing arm of four imprints if that means I've met my New Years Resolution of sending House of Dragons off to four different publishers in the year 2011? There's the lazy writer in me that says "Yes!!!" so I don't have to hold my breath for four different "Thanks, but no thanks." or if I just need to pull up my big-girl writing pants and suck-it-up and find another imprint to submit to.

The Dreamer and the Dream

Had one humdinger of a dream last night. It haunted me most of the morning until I realized what it meant. To start with, I went to bed dizzy. Not the my-feet-aren't-completely-on-the-floor kind of loosing balance but the effect when you turn your head and the vitreous fluid that surrounds the lobes continues to flow in direction of the turn. If I sit still I'm fine.

The dream had me at an event where there were different games and I was winning (which I never do), but I kept on thinking I needed to feed the dogs. I don't have dogs in the waking world, and essentially these weren't my dogs in the dream either, I was just responsible for them. I always made a point of feeding Sammy (my beastly bird) first thing in the morning, and I remembered in the dream that I did that. Days were quick in the dream, and each day I would remind myself to feed the dogs. Even wondering at one point if they were even still alive considering how long it had been since I fed them.

The final game happened and I tied for first. It was this game where I had to roll a bocce sized ball on a U-shaped track with my left hand, catch it with my right and then shoot it over to my left and send it on the track again. The one who make the loop the most wins that bout. I was able to do it fifteen times before time was called, the guy I was competing with did the same. I wanted the big plastic bag of sea shells and plastic dinnerware and I gave him the trophy, it wasn't that important to me.

I found my family on the beach, walking with the two girls that were refereeing the game, they were heading in the same direction. They were doing this for college credit and were amazed that I wasn't a college student too, as if only college kids could play games or were supposed to play games, I don't know. We talked about the dogs and I realized, again, I hadn't fed them.

With the magic of dreams I was at the house I grew up in, the one place that I still think of as home, and I saw the dogs. One was my sisters deceased 16 year old Australian cattle dog and then my nephews Peke named Gratch. Though I recognized Gratch as Gratch it didn't look like his dog. It was completely shaved, including the mohawk, bigger and more brown than cream as his little pooch was and completely emaciated. Shaunzie, Sandy's dog wasn't as bad off. Joey was there, feeding Gratch, rubbing salt in my already wounded heart for neglecting these little animals. Not mean, but well intended berating of sorts. Gratch filled out after one bowl of table scraps and dog food, while Shaunzie really didn't need anything. Neither of the dogs wanted anything to do with me.

It startled me, because, even though I've been a neglectful pet owner in the past (like decades in the past when I was still a kid) I would never do anything like that, consciously starve an animal until I could see their ribs. I've had tug-o-minds with a dog that refused to eat cheap dog food, but I always made sure he ate. (he won by the way, he got the good stuff in the end. Cheeky beast.) That's why it stuck with me so long today, the neglect, the absent mindedness, it's just so not me these days when it comes to living creatures and humans.

Then it dawned on me....

The dogs aren't dogs, they are my creative projects. Clarissa Pinkola Estes talked about dreams in her "Women Who Run With Wolves" book. It's an excellent read if anyone is looking for a chance to see themselves differently and to get a little more comfortable in their own creative skin. Shaunzie represents the book that's finished. It could use a little more work on the end, but I'll wait for an editor to help me through it. It ended where it ended, and that's normally where I make my end, whether it makes sense or not. The starving, smaller one is Gratch. The work in progress. The characters haven't spoken to me in a long time, not since I wrote Purple People Eater and it's like they are always in the back of my mind that they need to be fed, but I never feed them because they won't have anything to do with me. I guess my subconscious is tired of having to do all the character-husbandry and wants me to kick in again and get back to the keyboard and edit the monster down to a more comfortable book. To put it on par with the dream, editing down to me is like wandering through a yard with a shovel to pick up the piles left behind by dogs. It's hard, smelly, dirty work. But it's got to get done. That's not saying my story is poo, I personally enjoy the characters when they fat and happily fed, it's just the work of weeding out the verbose from the sublime. 

I guess it's time to let the dogs out......

Checking the OIL

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage in our country. Well, there's a very simple reson. Nobody bothered the check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low. The reason is purely geographical. See, our OIL is located in: Alaska, California, Costal Louisiana, North Dakota, Costal Florida, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Philadelphia. Our DIPSTICKS are located in Washington DC.

Happy Aniversary.....Again

Looking back over my blogs I found one that dated back to April 8, 2008, it said it had been two long years since I tried to get published. That was three years ago, which means it was five years ago that I began my quest for publication. I'm sorry to say that it has been mostly fruitless because of my lack of trying. Yes, the responses I've gotten so far have been positive 'no's, but they are still nos. I'm trying not to take it personally, but it's like having the ugliest baby in a baby contest. No matter how dog-like your baby, you expect it to win with distinction. So, tomorrow, come hell or high-water I will be finding a publisher and sending off my baby off for judgment. If time is going to fly, I'm going to soar under my own volition!!

Networking is as Networking Does

I have been toying around with the idea of sticking my electronic hand out there and introducing myself to total strangers to assist in my job search as well as finding in-roads to getting published. I understand the idea of networking, I do, but it's never been a strong suit of mine. Making *friends* of people I've never met seems a little pushy but I'm receiving a welcome far beyond anything that I would have given in return (Says a lot about me, doesn't it). It's not that I'm rude, I try hard not to be, in public anyway, but I've always been more intro rather than extroverted and vain to think that people will want to seek me out instead of the other way around. No one is that good!

So, now I've got more friends on Facebook than I've ever had, I've got leads for associations that I've never known before and people that are willing to help a introverted writer become an extroverted author. I gotta say, than you to all my new friends and a bigger thank you for my friends that have always been there for me. Networking is a good thing.

PS, those in the Bay Area area, I am still looking for work if you know of anyone that needs and admin, office manager, event/tradeshow/project coordinator or a phlebotomist, please let me know. There is a fresh loaf of hame-made bread machine wheat bread in it for you.

Taking Flight into My Future

Well, I finished my exam, and I have to say it was a transformative experience. I didn't expect that. I was thinking it was from a grub to a butterfly but that didn't seem to encompass my feeling completely. The grub (or pupa or worm...whatever you want to call its pre-flight stage) always knows that she is supposed to have wings one day. A dragonfly starts off as a nymph, a complete and whole as an underwater being skewering small fish, mosquito larva and anything else they can fit in their mouth. This state can last for a few years, and then one day, they drag their wet bodies out of the water and shed their skin and wings appear.

This is a whole new animal, well, insect. She can fly up to speeds of 30 miles per hour. With her four independent wings she can fly forward, side to side and even backwards. When I read that it clicked! That's what happened to me. I pulled myself out of the pond of self oppression, of chasing the wrong dreams, of allowing myself to just slide by with good-enough. I'm not that girl anymore. I'm flying! I can see clearly now, the pond is gone. I'm no longer in still stagnating water, but I have the dexterity to fly to chase my quarry; becoming an author. I still have work to do to become a fully fledged phlebotomist, but for now, I am quite content to just stretch my wings and fly.

Mammon Mammon Everywhere But Not A Thought To Think

Okay, strange title I know. I'm in a strange kind of mood. I'm observing Lent for the first time ever. Parts of it, I'm regretting, like the exercise part, but I'm enjoying the 30 minutes of reading every day for pleasure. So, not the books I should be reading for school, not the books I should be reading for Church, not the books I should be reading when I exercise, a pleasure book. So I chose Paradise Lost by John Milton.

I know, you're thinking, what kind of pleasure reading is that? Patrick wasn't very helpful, he told me the ending....The Devil did it. Well duh. I'm not that dumb to not know that. I was however caught off guard in regards to Mammon. I always equated Mammon with Manna from heaven. Which is why the verse in Luke confused me...you can't serve God and Mammon. If you substitute manna with Mammon, you'd think like I do that you're turning your back on the physical gifts from God to serve Him. But serving him, even if it meant ignoring the blessings from Him was the path we were to take, so the path was correct, the intention behind it not as clear. So, it didn't make sense, turn your back on the blessings of Heavenly Father to serve Him in which you will gain more blessings to ignore. (The title should start making more sense to you now, hopefully).

Today I read....

"Mammon, the least erected Spirits that fell

From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beautific"

Mammon isn't bread that falls in fluffy clumps from heaven but a demon, or a really ungrateful Spirit. But how often I find myself looking at the ground (figuratively) completely engrossed in the things that I don't have. I don't have a lot of money, I have too many things (but in my defence they all fit in my garage now). No, I don't have the shiny brand name uber-expensive cars, I wear my clothes until I pinch every last bit of value out of them, and I don't always have the rent in one place when I need it. But I am so blessed. Unlike Mammon I look up, I walk confidently towards my blessings and trials because by looking up I have my Father and His Son to guide me. To be hunched over, or downward bent, is to welcome more weight onto your shoulders and honestly, who wants to serve THAT? Not I. But it is EVERYWHERE you look. I'm not saying I don't have the odd flash of "Gee, I wish I could buy a new car." "Golly, I wish I could go out to eat at fancy bistros and restaurants," Or "Jimminee, why can't I win the lottery like those rednecks, I'd use it for good, I promise,". More often then not they are just fleeting thoughts and I move on.

Something else I know to be true is who you serve in the name of Heaven you become more heavenly and when you serve Mammon, you become more hunched, more downward bent, more hyper-focused on the pavement that you become trapped in Mammon's snare. When you look up, when you see the infinity that is the sky and space beyond, you see that nothing is impossible, nothing is more limitless than serving. So, yes you end up focused on the manna from Heaven when you learn to stop looking for pennies on the ground to appease Mammon.

My Marbles Moto To Live By

I've not lost my marbles. Some of them may be cracked and not rolling around anymore, but I have all my marbles!

First Storm of The Year

I am so grateful fall and winter are finally here! You would be too if you didn't have a working air conditioning unit in your car! It's un-freaking-believable to have the season nip at my nose and to come in dripping wet from rain instead of sweat. We are so abundantly blessed! Okay, maybe it's just me. The rain is playing havoc with Mom's arthritis, she doesn't want to come out from under the heating blanket.


I think of how desperately the Bay Area and parts south need the rain, and how lucky we are to have it. It seems though every blessing is a double edged sword. If too much rain falls in the fire ravaged areas then it will cause ashy mud slides, and in some towns where the elected people didn't keep their word, will be underwater if the storm is as ferocious as the weatherman promised. For now though, I'm not going to think of the mud, the ash or the floating towns. I'm just going to enjoy the sound of the rain as it dances on the pavement to the song of wind in the rose bushes outside my window.