June 1 Brian Dolton The Gray World
June 2 Greg Likins Cavedweller 2.0
June 3 Tels Merrick Say It With Flowers
June 4 R. L. Copple The Captain’s Chair
June 5 Catherine J Gardner Burying Sam
June 6 Gay Degani Spring Melt
June 7 Margaret B. Davidson Homecoming
June 8 Harold N. Walters Stumped
June 9 Ann Wilkes The Heist
June 10 Sylvia Spruck Wrigley Listen
June 11 Nick Logan Desert Island Solitaire, or, A Good Cigar Is A Smoke
June 12 Lee Beavington Second Opinion
June 13 Bill Ward Junkyard Rats
June 14 Jennifer Tatroe When She Comes to It
June 15 Gianna De Persiis Vona Sacrifice
June 16 Madeline Mora-Summonte The Salute of the Old And Crotchety
June 17 Rosie de la Mare A Moment
June 18 Nicola Horn The End
June 19 Kevin Shamel Mail
June 20 Milton T. Burton The Watchers
June 21 Chaz Siu Prodigal Piano
June 22 Oonah V Joslin Missy’s Summer
June 23 Sarah Hilary Waste of Space
June 24 Andrew Males Mars Ascent
June 25 Mark Ward The Devil and the Details
June 26 Jason Stout Larry Legend
June 27 Frank Roger The End of Time
June 28 Kurt Rice A Legacy of War
June 29 Gustavo Bondoni Virtuoso
June 30 Harley Crowley There When You Need Them

My story “Spring Melt” will be published by Everyday Fiction on June 6. I’m hoping everyone will stop by for a quick read. It’s only 1000 words so it won’t put much of a dent (dint??) in any one’s work day.

Everyday Fiction has been a terrific boost for me as a writer who needs a lot of reassurance. It has provided me with a place for people to see how and what I write. Print is so hard to share when it comes to short stories. While I am thrilled to have a piece published by THEMA, it’s not something people can actually put their hands on easily. The two anthologies are available through Amazon, but I’m in the dark as to whether any one out there has bought them, let alone read my stories.

But EDF is instant gratification. Of course they have to say “yes” but if they do, then it’s out there, being read by fellow writers, friends, family, strangers, even my PMC teacher.

Yesterday. Me on line, interviewed by Jordan Lapp at Everyday Fiction. Wow. I have to say I am extremely excited. It’s such a boost to know that after all these years, I actually have something to say that people–writers in particular–just might want to hear. I admit my ego has been deep-tissue massaged!

The trick now is to actually live up to all that “experience” I claim I have. Like any self-respecting self-doubter, I’m a wee bit worried. Notice the “wee.” All this attention has whittled “wee” down from “quite.” And I’m finally old enough–waaaay old enough–to know I have to ignore that doubt and move on. So I thought I should blog to dust away any remaining detritus of angst. Nothing like the act of writing to make writing easier.

As it turns out, a friend from Goodreads sent me a lovely note this morning. He had a question about my time. I thought I might answer that question here.

He asked: Interested to know how much work you do (A lot of reading too!) – and still bring up kids etc. I’ve got teenage daughters and tend to blame them for lack of production but it’s laziness!

My Answer: I need to clarify about my kids. They are basically launched, though I still get weekly phone calls from my daughter! So I have more time. Not that there aren’t family obligations, there are, but they are no longer interrupting me at the computer to ask what time dinner is or to beg me to read an essay due in fifteen minutes.

For years I wrote in whatever cracks and spaces I could find. And I was able to do it by keeping my writing in the front of my brain. This is the trick that Jerry Cleaver discusses in his book Immediate Fiction. He allows that we all have busy schedules and distractions, but suggests even one fifteen minute period with the work will keep a writer in the game.

I wrote in a daze for years, mind cluttered with REAL LIFE, but I still learned what I could about writing and wrote some trite, unimaginative stuff. I taught Freshman Comp at a community college and decided I would never focus on my writing if I didn’t quit my job, so I did.

Remembering an old Tupperware axiom, Your intention gets your attention, I promised myself I would get published. And to my surprise, all my years of kind of writing–learning to write, getting better at writing, discovering my voice–and kind of submitting–sending off one piece at a time and waiting six months to be rejected before sending it off again–finally led to seeing my stories in print.

Even though I’m beginning to write decent stuff, I have a long way to go, but I am relishing every little positive thing. And I am so grateful to discover Everyday Fiction because they accept 365 pieces a year. Best odds out there I think!!!

I’ve grown into the gift of time as I’ve gotten older. And I am grateful for it.

As for the reading, I’m addicted to audio tapes (free at most public libraries) and since I hate mundane chores (emptying the dishwasher, running to the dry cleaners, exercising) I am usually plugged into some good book. There’s something special about being read to. The words come through the sense of hearing and highlight the “music” of writing. Listen to anything by Carole Shields.

Often too, there is cross pollination. If you believe in Jung’s collective unconscious, you’ll understand. For example, I might be stuck in a story. I’ve been to the library and just picked up some obscure book because it was THERE and when I start listening, up pops a slice of synchronicity. Something clicks. The author gives me a clue to help me solve some knotty writing problem.

This synchronicity happens with novels, short stories read the regular way, the newspaper or a TV program, but it doesn’t happen if I haven’t kept my story in the front of my brain.

What the REAL WORLD calls “laziness,” writers call contemplation. There can’t be any good stuff coming out of fingertips if we don’t loll around checking out navel fuzz. My husband was on a business trip last week and I declared to everyone I knew that all I would do was write and to stand off. But I goofed off. Uninterrupted, unadulterated, mostly peopleless goofing-off. And I loved it, my pleasure tinged only with the slightest guilt.

But then I got fed up with myself, got out my egg timer ,and set it for one hour and made myself focus on my novel outline (boring mundane stuff I hate), but I once I got started–it took three one-hour forced chain-gang sessions–I didn’t need the timer any more. Suddenly I was filled up with all kinds of solutions. While I’d been lazy, I also had been mulling, trusting in my subconscious to work out the details, aiming all my cells toward the next step in the process.

Now I feel exhilarated about my project. Again. The underlying truth for me is to have faith in my own process. Finally, after all these years, I know I can do it and I will do it. Then I get to feel that glow .

An instructor at UCLA Extension once told me that writers must be risk-takers. I was devastated by this bit of news–in those days I was always looking for an excuse NOT to write–and this comment proved that being a writer wasn’t something I could do. After all, I was a coward. I wouldn’t even get on a roller coaster. And my survival mode since I was a little kid was to keep everybody–and I mean EVERYBODY–happy, to give them what they wanted which meant the very act of writing was risky.

Why? Because writing takes focus. Writing takes passion. Writers take RISKS. And what about time? What would happen if I couldn’t fulfill everyone’s expectations in REAL LIFE? What would happen if I couldn’t fulfill anyone’s expectation in my WRITING LIFE? Danger, Will Robinson. Danger.

Lucky for me, I was reading Natalie Goldberg at the time. I don’t remember which book, but she said something about how our fear is greatest when we are about to escape our own orbits. Her advice was to charge toward the greatest fear, face it, and shatter it. I determined this was exactly what I needed to do, confront my fears instead of avoiding them, in life and in writing.

I went to Magic Mountain and rode roller coasters. It was amazing. I loved it. And the most important part is that it showed me that I could conquer my fears. The memory of that first roller coaster ride (I didn’t count Space Mountain ) has kept me at the keyboard.

My life has changed through my writing. Striving to write, spending my time alone at the computer, ignoring my family felt selfish, uncomfortable, dangerous. After all, who the hell was I, anyway? But I did it and began to believe in myself and my right to write, growing with each unhappy and discouraging moment, each tidbit of praise.

It’s taken me a very long time to learn that success in writing doesn’t have so much to do with talent or lack of talent, or being in the right place at the right time, or even knowing what magazines might publish. While these are important aspects to making a living, they aren’t important to the writing itself. Success in writing for me must be defined in a larger way: learning to accept myself as who I am, accepting not only that I want to write, but that I don’t need anyone’s permission to sit down at the computer and spend hours doing it. And it’s not only okay for me to write about who I am, how I feel, think, and understand life, but necessary to do so for the work to be good. Once I accepted these truths, I could begin to look outward toward sharing with others.

I’m just beginning to find places that will accept my work and it is thrilling, but more important for me has been my own acceptance of myself. To be oneself, expose oneself, and then face an indifferent and skeptical crowd, that’s the risk every writer takes. I can do it. I am doing it. I’m still on the roller coaster and loving it.

Okay. After today I will never write another blog about not blogging. I promise. But I am really bad at this.

It’s not that I don’t think about blogging. I do. But then I stop myself. “Oh,” I say. “THAT’S a good idea. I should save that and write an article and try and get it REALLY PUBLISHED.” Of course, I never finish–sometimes never start–said article.

It’s not that I don’t like blogging. I love it. It’s fun because it doesn’t feel real when I first sit down to write. It’s a journal. A diary of everyday thoughts. I’m free to not please an editor, a reader, no one but myself. Then I reconsider. “Hmmmm, people (all one of my fan base) might actually read what I write. I’d better make it good because I don’t want to, you know, embarrass myself.” So I end up spending hours rewriting and editing and then realize I shouldn’t publish this masterpiece HERE. I should try and get it REALLY PUBLISHED.

It’s not that I don’t have time. I’m blessed with time that I sometimes waste. I could probably write a blog and an article and have hours left over for my book, my short stories, and a nap. Yet I am lazy, tremulous, distracted, worried, and completely disorganized.

JCO-how the hell do you do it?

Indeed, I know the answer. Focus, passion, and the willingness to risk being bad. Even Professor Oates isn’t perfect all the time (not that that keeps her out of the America’s Best series year after year). Tomorrow I’ll write about focus. (See how I’m tricking myself into blogging manana?)

In this first post of 2008, let me just say I have no memory of November and December of 2007, so if I did anything embarrassing or illegal, just give me fair warning and I’ll head to a nunnery in Italy and do a few hundred Hail Marys.

Highlights from the blur appear like cows in a tornado. Whish. Here it is. Whoosh. There it goes. Finishing a small remodel, hosting the college friend weekend, having a party for my son and his new fiancee, selling jewelry in a boutique, signing for the anthology, all good things, but overwhelming. Now it’s a new year, the rain has freshened the air, and it’s time to get on with the year of the Book and the Body.

Although I have over 90,000 words written for What Came Before, most of it needs editing. Every time I tried to get into that deep place last year, the blur got me. This year that will be different. Mostly because I am tired of having an unfinished book hanging over my head, but also because I believe in that book. And no time has been wasted. Not at all. My divergence into short stories is unregretted. I managed to get a short story in the mystery anthology Little Sisters and “One Question” posted at Every Day Fiction. These have given me that little extra shove I needed to believe in myself.

The body. HMMM. Too old to neglect. Sugar has a way of landing on my hips and creating jello. I have to be self-disciplined. Eat right and exercise more. Predictable I know, but also necessary. Staying healthy will also enhance my efforts in writing so it’s all good.

First post of 2008. We’re off.

No excuses for not being around, but I’m back. Here’s what been going on:

“Oh Hell,” the second story featuring Nikki Hyland, Slacker Detective, has been published in the new anthology Little Sisters, Volume 1, edited by Loretta Scott Miller and is now available at Amazon.com.

The launch is Saturday, December 15, from 2-4 PM at Mystery & Imagination in Glendale. Hope to see you there.

BOOKFELLOWS/MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION is located in the Los Angeles area, at 238 N. Brand Blvd. in Glendale, California 91203

Also:

My story “One Question” has been selected to arrive in your mailbox on December 19 via the website Every Day Fiction. Sign up now for under-a-thousand-words of flash fiction each and every day.

And despite having lost a considerable amount of ground, I don’t have time to write now either. But I will.

Today’s post may be somewhat incoherent as I am very tired today. It seems as if I’ve had no time lately to just contemplate–my navel or otherwise. Jewelry, writing, those breakfast room chairs I just had to stencil!! And I cut the stencil myself since I couldn’t fine anything else I liked. Off in a million directions with lots of crowd immersion and traffic stress. But today, it’s really back to basics which for me means priority 1: the novel.

And I do have some momentum going. Last week I squeezed in some work every day and it’s looking good. I did some minor editing of the first 70 pages and today I begin to revise parts that have only been touch a couple of times. It’s exciting because PROGRESS seems imminent.

This isn’t much of a blog, but it’s all my brain can conjure. (I’m so tired I typed conger!! What is the hidden meaning of that? Slithering eels gnawing holes in my brain?? I may need to take a nap!)

Thank goodness I have only one or two readers out there!

What a hectic two weeks and it’s all good.

First. Last week (was it only LAST week?) I was bent over my computer trying to get to the end of my short story “Oh Hell!” to meet a May 31 deadline. Second. This week I was bent over my work bench trying to create some “Koi” specific necklaces for a June 6 deadline. Results? I’m tired, but it’s that self-satisfied kind of exhaustion that comes with hard work and recognition that your efforts are appreciated.

Last Saturday, after turning my new short story (7000 words in need of a honing, tightening, motif insertion editing job), I received the terrific news that the editor of the Little Sisters, Volume 1 anthology had accepted my draft. Hooray!! Edits to start in July. I can’t wait to see Loretta’s notes.

Loretta Scott Miller, a mystery writer and publisher, has a passion for helping new writers (Too many times the “call for submission” editors specify “young”!!!) As a Sister-in-Crime, she created an anthology to publish those writers who seriously pursue the mystery-suspense genre and have joined Sisters-in-Crime.* She is also on the look-out for novels by emerging writers. She can be reached at Shannon Road Press.

So that adventure was terrific. Now it’s on to the book and to FINISH the edit.

However, I have also fallen into a beading frenzy. Since going with my mother-in-law to Tucson in February for the Gem and Jewelry show, I’ve been hooked. My original goal was to bead while watching T.V. or rather, while NOT watching T.V when my husband is on one of his click-click-click nights. Keep him company but also to do something with my hands. Stringing works well in this capacity, so I’ve made a lot of necklaces to learn how to do it better and started giving them away. My friends have been generous with their praise so I finally took them into a local shop called Koi. The owner is an extremely nice person and was willing to look at what I had. She bought four of my necklaces. Hooray!!!

A friend of mine has expressed a concern that beading might supplant writing in my life and I have to admit, sometimes it’s tempting. Let’s face it, something new always seems more exciting than something you’ve done for a long time. And it is FUN.

So now to the question, to bead or not to bead.

One of the major snags in my writing process is intensity. This isn’t the same thing as passion. Intensity is more binding, more limiting, more apt to paralyze. More like being UPTIGHT. Passion opens the heart, allows you to take risks, frees your mind.

Writing has been so important to me for so long that it’s worn me out. I wanted to please. I wanted to make people love my writing. And wanted to do it right. And all that concern about acceptance played into my self doubt. Sapped up my passion. Where in those desires was my initial reason for writing? No where. And it ceased to be fun.

Eventually, I got tired of trying to please anyone but myself. To let go and let it be fun again. That doesn’t mean being self-indulgent and not working hard. Using my craft to create something good is always the goal. Now I want to focus on what will please me. This idea of “doing it for myself” is also my attitude toward beading.

Stringing little necklaces in front of the T.V. has helped me to appreciate the lesson of acquiring skills without worrying about being perfect, published, or praised. No one session is any more important than anything else I might do. I don’t have to have stellar results EVERY TIME.

I work at my beads, practice to get better, play with it. I am relaxed and my whole ego is not tied up in whether or not anyone will like my jewelry. I’m not saying I’m not pleased when someone says “This is pretty. ” I am saying, wow, I like it too. Cool.

And sometimes its better if I’m not paying much attention. My best ideas and combinations for beads come when I’m distracted by the noise in the room, the conversational between me and Tim. When I’m distracted, I let the creative part of me to seep out, unedited, uncensored.

I’ve noticed this too in writing. Best place for me for writing is the elliptical at the gym with my Ipod on, folding laundry, taking a shower, sleeping. I’m not trying to so hard then. I’m distracted by other things and the creativity has a chance to emerge.

When I sat down to write this, I was thinking that beading had shown me this lesson of relaxation, but I now realize that I’ve learned it through writing too. When I started beading, it was always in my mind to “give it up to the universe” and “what happens happens.” And I can see that’s exactly where I arrived in my writing about two years ago. And putting words on paper became fun again.

I love writing. I won’t quit. And I’ve come to believe that beading will actually enhance my efforts to write. It’s a better “break” from writing than the hours I’ve spent playing “Bejeweled.”

*Becoming a member is a great idea because the meetings are packed with speakers on crime, police methodology, pathology, etc. The membership includes professional writers, as-yet unpublished writers, and fans. This coming weekend, the Los Angeles Chapter is holding their conference “No Crime Unpublished.” Go here if you’re interested. You can sign up at the door.