Writing – Writing Wrongs

Gearing up for the Deep Valley Book Festival

I’m no longer living in a construction zone! On a related topic, words you never want to hear in the same sentence: water and structural damage.

It’s been a long haul, but the water damage has been repaired! And I have new patio doors, which I’ve been gazing at and through. I even put up an extra hummingbird feeder, although that doesn’t seem to have stopped the territorial battles.

Hummingbirds = fierce

So, a month or two back, I was apparently feeling extra sassy, and I put myself on the exhibitor waitlist for the Deep Valley Book Festival. I didn’t think I’d get a table, and if I did, well, that was a problem for future Charity.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. I now have a four-foot table at the festival. Not only that, but they also invited me to be on the author panel (!).

I’ve been busy creating things for my table: business cards, a pricing sheet, an ebook postcard giveaway, and bookmarks for Booking Through Thursday.

Collage of author assets, including bookmarks and business cards

I’ve also been mentally gearing up for the author panel. The topic is:

Ever wonder where authors get their ideas, how they create memorable characters, or what really happens behind the scenes of writing and publishing a book? This lively, audience-driven panel puts you in charge of the conversation. Bring your questions and ask our participating authors anything about their books, their writing journeys, and the creative process!

I’m hoping for more than a deer-in-the-headlights response and “I have no idea. It just happens.” That wouldn’t be very lively.

If any of you would like to lob some practice questions my way, I’d appreciate it. I’ll also answer them here on the blog.

Happy Sunday. I’m off to refill my hummingbird feeders and referee some pitched battles.

Summer slips away

Seriously? How is summer suddenly slipping away? Between COVID and the construction zone, I seem to have lost some time.

At least my hydrangeas are on point.

Lime and pink hydrangeas — My hydrangeas, showing off

And now that I have my energy back, I’m once again taking longer walks in the wetlands.

Gravel path beneath trees in the wetlands. — You can already see that hint of autumn in the leaves

Plus! Editing! Here’s my current editing stack:

Printed pages and notebook for editing — Hand edits and notes for *The Marigold Miracle*

Parts I and II of The Marigold Miracle have been redrafted. That stack of pages above is Part III. Yes, Part III happens to be 183 pages, which for some writers is a novel. Y’all, I’m not sure why I decided to write such big books, but here we are.

Slow and steady and all that. I will turtle my way through this edit.

Now if only summer would slow down just a bit.

Negative! At long last!

Finally, finally I tested negative this morning. For the last couple of days, I was in that in-between spot: not truly sick, but not fully recovered, and feeling cranky because I didn’t have the energy to do ALL the things.

You know that saying everyone has the same twenty-four hours a day? Well, I’m here to tell you, they don’t. In fact, that saying has always left me feeling a little salty. It made me feel even saltier after I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that left me with no small amount of brain fog.

So, I did what I always do when I’m feeling a little salty:

I wrote a story about it.

“Just a Matter of Time” first appeared in Sucker Literary Magazine (which is still available in Kindle Unlimited) with ten other young adult short stories. Young adult short stories have always been a hard sell, and I was so excited that editor Hannah Goodman picked up my story for the anthology.

“Just a Matter of Time” should be free everywhere, but if it isn’t on your retailer of choice, drop me a note, and I’ll send you a BookFunnel link.

Like a house finch

I sometimes feel exactly how this fledgling house finch looks.

Fledgling male house finch at the hummingbird feeder

What am I doing?
Is this edible?
Where’s Mom?

Maybe it’s the thunderstorms and fireworks we’ve had all weekend long. I should go out and weed the garden, but the grass is up past my ankles, and it’s far too soggy for that. For today, I’m letting the jungle continue.

Even so, I’ve made a fair amount of progress on the revision this week, and I’m pleased.

The next challenge, of course, is weaving the new scenes back into the narrative. I have a dual-timeline narrative (because I can’t make things easy on myself; I suspect when I stare at the manuscript, I look like the house finch above), and I pulled the two narratives apart to work on each separately.

Always a thrill ride, this writing thing.

Speaking of this writing thing: writers, heads up!

If you don’t already follow the Writer Beware blog, head on over there. This week, Victoria Strauss breaks down clues to spotting an email scam. If you publish your work, eventually you will end up with one (or many) of these in your inbox. Forewarned is forearmed, and all that.

That’s it for this week. Today I plan to read while expressly ignoring the jungle.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

This way to the cat tour

My sister was visiting this week, and we decided—as one does—to attend the Wedge Live Cat Tour in Uptown Minneapolis.

Yes, a cat tour, with cats and kittens, some in houses, some in strollers, some on shoulders.

It was amazing. The crowd was diverse and chill, and, of course, we were all there for the cats. As I overheard one person say:

I’ve never said ‘so cute’ so many times in my entire life.

So cute was the phrase of the evening.

Some pictures:

Yes! People did stand in line to pet/see the cats. Also, that gazebo? #goals

In actual check-in/writing news, the new opening seems to be coming along. Maybe the third time’s a charm? We’ll see.

Mini-garden project

I’ve had my eye on a spot in the front yard that gets a fair amount of sun, enough that I was tempted to try planting some sun-loving perennials. Most of our yard is far too shady for those (although we try; we still try).

Also, I thought the clump of hostas looked lonely.

And one week later:

Garden bed with blooming purple and pink flowers

Once upon a time, those lonely hostas weren’t so lonely. The hosta beds lined the entire driveway on the left-hand side. Over the years, the soil compacted and wear and tear took their toll.

For my next project, I’m thinking of using the sheet-mulch method to line the area between this clump of hostas and the ones in the front of the house. The local garden center has some lovely spotted dead-nettle that might work nicely in that in-between space. It’s shady enough under the trees for it to be happy and sunny enough in the yard that it shouldn’t take over the entire space.

We’ll see how much energy I have for that.

In writing news, I completed what I wanted to on Rose’s portion for The Rose Rebellion, and now I’m moving on to The Marigold Miracle. I had one of those shower epiphanies this week on how to revise the opening, and I’m excited to dive in.

This and that

Garden this and that, in no particular order:

A buck has been skulking down by the pond, aggravating the dogs every time we go outside.
Relatedly, someone with hooves investigated the herb garden last night. They devoured one of the volunteer lettuces.
They left the herbs and marigolds alone. Since I don’t like lettuce, this is fine.
They also nibbled on the phlox and decided, like last year, it doesn’t taste all that great.
They left the newly planted blackberry bush alone.

Writing this and that:

15,000 words in Rose’s POV for The Rose Rebellion. I’m glad I listened to my intuition and didn’t dive into editing The Marigold Miracle. Several things came up this week that I need for that. So, for now, the printout of The Marigold Miracle will continue to sit on my desk, waiting patiently.

Some garden pics:

Current state of the cottage garden. Try to ignore the recycling bins and the Boler that needs a power wash.

The peonies, back for an encore.

Whimsy in the garden

Stone hedgehog and rain gauge by hosta plants.

Whimsy is maybe the watchword for the garden this year. Above is a stone hedgehog that used to live in my mother’s garden, along with a dachshund rain gauge. After all, if you’re going to have a rain gauge in your garden, make it a dachshund one.

Some things we’re trying:

An old-fashioned herb garden in the raised beds (inspired by a chapter in The Northern Gardener by Mary Lahr Schier).
A blackberry bush (we’ll see if it takes)
Carving out a few more corners for cottage-like pollinator gardens.
Possibly reclaiming a stretch of the lawn by the pond and returning it to native grasses and plants (this is ambitious, and I’m not sure it will happen this year).

I took some photos, but it’s cloudy today (you can tell that in the photo above). Everything looks rather dull, so I decided to hold off on sharing any more pictures for now.

And while I’ve been out lugging mulch and compost around (lots and lots of lugging), I’ve been writing. How, you ask.

Well, technically, not writing. I’ve been using text-to-speech to listen to The Pansy Paradox. I need that in my head as I revise book two and look forward to book three. Listening while working in the garden has been surprisingly enjoyable.

Workshop weather

We had the perfect weather for an author workshop/online conference last week. Cool, cloudy, rain on and off. I had to turn the heat on at one point.

Mama duck and ducklings in the wetlands — Mama duck and her ducklings, braving the chilly weather

If you’re a writer, you can get a great overview of the workshop on Becca Syme’s Patreon. This post here sums it up nicely.

Granted, we went way more in-depth over the three days of the workshop. I’m still processing all the information.

I’m also looking at the weather report. The sun is making a grand reappearance. The heat is headed our way. I must head off and procure more compost and mulch (I live a glamorous life) and stomp around in the garden for a bit.

Sun on the wetlands — Here comes the sun

Sunshine and Shakespeare

Look at what we found in the yard. A Fivespot! A volunteer fivespot since we have no idea where it came from, and we haven’t been scattering wildflower seeds yet.

Fivespots are annuals in Minnesota. Perhaps this little one self-seeded and somehow survived the brutal winter. If so, it’s resilient.

In any case, it was a nice surprise.

This week, I managed to combine my Shakespeare class and gardening. Part of the course includes studying an adaptation of one of the plays. This week, it’s The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, a retelling of The Winter’s Tale.

The library has the audio version, so I’ve been spending hours working in the garden while someone reads to me. It has been lovely.

In writing-related things, I’ve been doing some preliminary work on book three, The Rose Rebellion. There are things I need to know before I tackle revising The Marigold Miracle. Rose has presented her story to me as a series of sent and unsent letters.

Yes. Because I can’t make anything easy on myself. But I’m having so much fun writing these letters, and I’m hoping that I can (fingers crossed) make them work in the overall narrative.

Next week looks busy, what with an author workshop, but I’m hoping for more Shakespeare and sunshine nevertheless.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30