EVERYTHING'S JAKE

My Peke’s contribution to the revision process:

‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me. HEY. Are you seriously going to stare at that computer all day? When there are leaf blowers out there to attack? Wild onions to sniff?

Come on—ten minutes. Get in the car; we’ll let our ears ripple in the wind.

You don’t even have to pay me for my excellent idea. Or maybe you do. I’ll take a cookie or a belly rub.

Your choice.

THE EVER-EXPANDING DEFINITION OF A WRITER

The ink is barely dry on my long-coveted first contract, and already, I’ve learned that Webster got the definition of a writer (“one who writes esp. as an occupation”) totally wrong. Here’s a better description:

writ-er \׳rīt-ər\ n : a tech-guru, photographer, pitch-man, publicist, advertising specialist, short movie producer, public speaker, networking expert, and, oh, yeah, an individual who pens novels.

I’m sure I’ll only be adding to this definition as my publication date draws near…and I absolutely love hearing from fellow authors (what an ambidextrous bunch) about all the odd-ball know-how they’ve acquired during the course of their writing careers. Their stories make me so anxious and excited to find out where this (already) amazing ride will take me next...

PURPLE PASSAGE

Redbud trees (sigh—mine died in the Springfield Ice Storm of ’07) aren’t really red any more than red onions are. They’re purple—just like the march of spring across the Ozarks.

Funny place to be in, winding down one novel’s rewrite (coming closer to an end) just as Missouri’s in the midst of a new beginning, tugging open a pastel rainbow of buds—white, pink, and, yes, purple. (I love the way the blooms pictured here are clumped like waded-up balls of paper, as though a frustrated writer’s first attempts are hanging from the limbs. Hmmm. Could this be the Revision Tree?)

Soon, blue robin’s eggs will crack open like the spines of books for the first time.

…And I will be off on a new adventure, tramping through the mud of another rough draft.

TREASURE HUNTING

I am in the process of rewriting two novels. This is not a typo. And, yes, I have read Millay and her warnings about candles with two fiery ends.

I am deep-sea diving in two separate oceans, alternating between the two, spending a whole day on one coast, then a day on another.

Actually, taking a day off one project means that, when I return to it, I find new avenues for exploration, new crevices in which to do a little literary treasure hunting.

…As long as I can keep it straight, which ocean I’m in…