To A New Year

This new year for me is about moving on, realizing a dream, and hopefully things will improve somehow.

2010 was a rough one on Dennis and I. Too many things to even go into, but if you've followed my blog, you know what I'm talking about. There was also sickness, ailments, backs going out, and a growth on a tongue that really had us worried. And don't even get me started on the phone company who yanked the cord on my Internet. You don't do that to a writer who's life-line is connected directly to the Internet.

Sure there were up times. We went on vacation, and that was wonderful, although feeling guilty for doing so since Dennis' mother was very ill.

Went and enjoyed a winter get away in a nice rustic cabin, wonderful food and a winter wonderland for us. We didn't know that we would have a lay-off, and we could have used the money from that, but I think that the getting away from things was more important.

Another up-side: My first vampire novel, Vampire Ascending has been published and I'm about to go to its first book signing. I hope a lot of people show up for this, I don't care if they don't buy a book. Showing up to support a writer is just as important. I was unable to afford to buy any books to sell hand-to-hand because of the lay off. I'm sure that I'm not the only struggling writer out there, from the blogs I visit on a weekly bases. We have to work to pay our bills. We don't have the option of quitting our day jobs. Many of you have families and that takes a big chunk of time out of your day as well. So, you find the quiet times during the night or early morning to write. We've all done it.

I've done it for so long, I'm quite used to the dialogues and scenes playing out in my head while at work--whatever job I had at the time. We're a unique group, creative people need our space. Mozart and Beethoven didn't create their wonderful masterpieces with people standing around them in a factory. I think Beethoven would have poked someones eye out with that baton.

I'd like to let it be known for those of you who may be new to this blog, that I've struggled for decades, trying to become published. My efforts often came to a screeching halt with one deadly rejection from one magazine, or an agent. The emotional break down of such rejections can really ruin ones day, week, month, whatever. I remember all of mine before I took the plunge into self-publishing. I may share a few of the rejections I've had at some point. Some may not be horrible, but the way they hit you, because you're so hopeful, is what stuns you. There was one black moment where I had been crying so hard upstairs that my husband came up to console me. I told him I'd given up. I didn't want to go through with it any more. What he told me to this day, I'm simply amazed at his ability to pick me up and then support me however he could. He said simply write because you want to. Don't worry about what anyone says, just write.

The message here is DON'T GIVE UP! If you give up, they have won.

In this new year I'm thinking of doing a few new interviews. I'd like to invite all my writer friends out there--unpublished or not--to allow me into your life as a working person, mother, writer, and get your thoughts, hopes, and whatever else you want to share. I was always amazed at how no magazine I approached thought that the lonely life of a writer who is struggling is not worth bothering with. Let me know if you think it is. Leave a message if you like the idea and would like to be part of this in the coming year.

I'm hoping to interview Ruth Brookshire of Indiana, who runs a small publication called Weed's Corner. She was the first publisher to take any of my poems, and then stories, articles and so forth, followed in the three years, I believe I was published in this quarterly. It wasn't my first published pieces, but the first place where I did get my poetry published, and after that I felt more confident. That's what it's all about. Someone gives you that grain of hope, being published anywhere tells you that you're actually "good enough".

So, on to 2011. I'd like to make more new friends and keep those of you who enjoy my interviews, quirky insights and my writing advice coming back for more.

I hope to see all of you in this coming year!