Holiday happiness

I had hoped to be back on here regularly but life got in the way so I'll try to do regular postings after the Christmas weekend. I hope everyone that reads this has a safe and happy Holiday and is ready to rock and roll on Monday. There is some hope that I can get back to some re-write activity by that time. It will depend on the situation with my sister who is on the last part of life's journey thanks to a long bout with Altzheimer's. I can only pray that she does not suffer and that God realizes that he's getting one of his best angels. See you next week.

My dilemma

Has anyone seen my muses lately? I have a feeling they gave up on me and went elsewhere and that is why I can't write. Maybe if I leave a bottle of booze under the tree for them, they'll come back. they are a bit fond of the stuff. I received a letter from Highlights foundation about the new conference center being built at Boyd's Mills and am really impressed. It will be interesting to see what they use it for but of course, I'll probably never get back there again. Oh well.
Is everyone ready for the Holidays? For me, it's all about family and sharing. Now, if the weather man will just cooperate. It would be really crappy if we couldn't get together at least once.
I miss my critique partners but that was an impossible situation and totally unfair to them. The on-line group fell apart before it ever got off the ground and I haven't tried any others yet. Not much point in it if the force is not with me. Well, it's off to make the kiefles again so stay warm,take care and God bless you all.

He's back

Well, after a long absence, I'm back . The format will change a bit as writing has not been my focus for a while and won't be until I can focus again. Just can't get into character on these meds. I can tell already that this winter is going to be harder to handle and it would be nice to be able to get away from it but that's out of the question so I'll just hunker down and do the best I can. I at least managed to get some editing done today and I'll do some more tomorrow while the wife is making
kiefles with the daughter. I'm only good for taste testing but damn, I'm good at that. So far the new car is performing well. I"m averaging 23.8 in the city, which is where we do most of our driving these days. That's about 7 mpg better than I was getting on the van we traded in. I still have not been able to make my scanner work with Windows 7, even with the new driver I downloaded. I guess I'll have to prevail on our tech minded son to figure it out and maybe at the same time he can find out why the printer doesn't work on the network, even though the status says it does. Our days are made better by the love of the newest grand daughter, who I am trying not to spoil...yeah right. Only a few more weeks before the new one is due and I'll be forced to spoil her too. Oh the stress and strain of being a grand father. We won't see her as much though, due to the distance and both parents working. That will make a total of 21 grand kids between the two of us, some of whom are step kids but who cares, and 9 great grand kids. There aren't very many of them local any more and the grand kids, for the most part are grown and living wherever. One in Washington state, some in Oklahoma, some in Ohio, some in Grand Rapids. We'll never have them all together at one time, unfortunately. So anyway, I'll be posting again and we'll take it one day at a time. God bless everyone and keep you safe and healthy.

The man is back

I've been gone for far too long due to illness and other factors. I may have lost all my followers but it couldn't be helped. Life hands us these challenges at times and it's what we do with them that defines our character. While the writing has suffered the most, everything has been affected in one way or another so it's a transitional period and to tell the truth, still don't know what direction I'm going in at this time. Loss of the ability to focus has been the biggest disappointment and it would change things a lot if I could get that back. In the meantime, I will try to stay connected and hopefully return to whatever passes as normal in the near future.

Revelations

If you ever want to know if you' ve progressed in your writing skills, go back to old manuscripts but be prepared to be amazed. In seeking out old files for "Crystal Magic", I came across some from about five years ago. They are terrible. I mean really bad. But that's okay, and in fact, it's a good thing because it encourages me and motivates me in my rewrite of the book. There's nothing like some cold water in the face to get you going again. The story is still as good as it ever was and possibly even better, so now it's up to me to take it back to the core and start layering on new images, new dialogue, and definitely new abilities. The characters are just as strong and the plot line will change very little, only the telling will change. It will take some time and some help from my friends but it can be done. My goal is to have it ready for submission by the end of the year so it has a chance of being available for the next season for Christmas books. It's a reasonable goal, I think but we'll see.

So That's All For Now

As of today,the Mystery is 'hystory.'. After struggling for years with the story, the solution to the problem came to me during the night...too many characters. Simple as that, but it will require a complete re-write so it went back into the drawer this morning and Crystal Magic came out. This was not an easy decision to make and it came after I don't know how many critique group reviews and discussions with a dozen others. It's hard to believe none of us saw the problem but it just goes to prove that no mattter how many times you critique a book or story, the answer can be right in front of your nose. I'm actually glad to get back to Neufie and Elizabeth's story anyway. It won't be a 201o release but perhaps 2011 and there are still those that think it should be a made-for TV movie. I don't see any of them coming forward with the cash it takes to get the process started though so we'll see what happens. I still have hopes of getting to at least one more conference this year but the likelihood of that happening gets smaller every day. It is just so expensive that a person on a fixed income doesn't have much of an opportunity. Even if I were to drive every day the cost for gas would be prohibitive. Stay tuned. I haven't given up hope yet.

Critique Talk

I've been agonizing over my critique group situation and I realize that the one I'm in probably isn't the best fit. Not because of theother members,k because they have helped me a lot, but I'm not helping them. It's primarily due to genre differences since they all have young children so they write for picture books and early readers. I suck at writing picture books (although I'm taking a class on it,) so I can't give them really solid critigues. I know what I like and why I like it but when it comes to the technical aspect of the genre, I'm a dunce. We don't have many critique groups here and the ones we have tend to be large and therefore don't give the writer a good platform for periodic critique. I know of one group that a member can only get read about once every six or eight weeks and that's just not enough. The other problem, and it's a big one, is that most groups are general interest groups that tend to favor romance and adult thriller type works. So I'm going to try addding an online group or forming my own on line group. I have contacted other members of SCBWI and I'll see what happens. Remember when selecting a group, try to get an idea of their focus before you join because it's not fair to either party if the mix is wrong. You might even ask for samples of their work so you can see if style and/or focus is wrong for you. There's probably no such thing as a bad group, but it has to fit your style and genre or it won't work as well. I'll let you know how I make out.