tax time...

Yikes--had to open a business banking account in 2009, so said the agent for Lambert Academic Publishing, as part of the contract last summer even though they only send $$$ once a year! (And mine certainly will not sell much at that ridiculous $113.00 price!!!) Anyhoo, as Patricia Canterbury (EVERY THURSDAY) of Sisters in Crime would say, now my tax guy wants to go over my numbers and reminded me that I needed to have kept the writing business items separate! Yikes, had to go back last night and try to find those few things, like $200 for a novel workshop last summer in Moke Hill, and a few other things.

Guess I need to keep better track now of the costs and income (!), because the IRS wants you to show a profit two years out of five in order for you to be a legit "enterprise"!!!!

And yes, wrote again a couple hours on the polishing--writing a new outline along side the text of the whole novel to firm up for the LAST TIME! the flow of the novel...

onward...

keeping on keeping on...

A couple more days with a couple hours each, polishing cloth at the keyboard *:)

Last night, a couple of writer/teacher colleagues helped me think outside one of the boxes I'd written my novel into, for a more subtle way to increase the tension in the beginning and yet keep the reader's attention--yahoo and let's hear it for our writing group buddies!!!!!!!

onward...

same-o, same-o

A picture worth a 1000 words.

what's in a name

Reworked the name of the wine in scene one; wove in Amy's return to her maiden name... continued pruning deadwood and polishing prose...

45 minutes

Just worked in 45 minutes this morning as am off to help 1st graders with their reading at Emily's school--really fun to experience those little ones as they become readers *:)

met sunny frazier

The Capitol Crimes meeting yesterday was headlined by the entertaining and informative writer, Sunny Frazier, see http://www.sunnyfrazier.com/ About 25 folks in a room at the Rancho Cordova Library heard Sunny describe her life and how it has all led up to her becoming a mystery writer, inexorably so. The author of FOOLS RUSH IN and WHERE ANGELS FEAR (put them together they spell Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries), she gave us lots of marketing tips and details about how Kindle publishing works.

The $15/year membership dues are more than worth it if every month brings such delightful speakers! Capitol Crimes is the local Sacramento chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Also, read more of John Atkinson's TIMEKEEPER, a shockingly vivid account of a young man's wandering to escape torture at home and at school.

onward...

such fun to be a writer

Just now am writing an updated "pitch," on House of Cuts, to offer at my first visit to the Sacramento Capitol Crimes meeting, a local branch of the national Sisters in Crime writers' organization I've belonged to for years now. Never got to a local meeting due to family responsiblities, but can go now.

Just learned one of my poems, "The Coming Dust," has been accepted for Manzanita, Poetry and Prose of the Mother Lode and Sierra, Volume 6. Yahoo! It is so much fun to get your writing published. Am thinking (again) of creating a non-profit publishing organization for the Sacramento Area to let other writers have this joy, too. More to come on that later.

So, I had to update my biog for the Manzanita collection and wrote:

• Upon discovering Ferlinghetti in the stacks at Sacramento City College Library decades ago, June Comarsh Gillam fell in love with the embodied experience of word rhythms and kaleidoscopic images, whether reading others’ work or creating her own. She has taught writing and literature at San Joaquin Delta College since 1990.

onward *:)

ditto

More of the same this morning.

I've been asked to be a featured reader at Luna's Cafe March 20, so that will be a good motivation to get some of the most juicy parts selected for reading aloud!

Onward *:)

two more hours

Two hours seems to be my new "normal" for weaving and polishing, as again that time span today with practically no effort, in order to have the 40 pages ready for my 3-writers group next Thursday--hurry on!

two hours today

Cutting and pasting scenes to increase the logic of the flow of the story today--creating a new scene needed to establish setting earlier--lots of pleasure getting the first 40 pages ready for a new critique by my writer's group of three. onward *:)

busy weaving in research

90 minutes again, the magic number 90, weaving in bits of learning all coming together pretty quickly lately; just got a huge water chanels map yesterday that helps pull together more of the setting. Really amazing all the learning that goes on when writing fiction and getting to the verisimilitude aspects *:)

yikes, awol or awl?

Have been away yesterday, today and will tomorrow, too! Is that "away without leave" (the military AWOL) or can i give myself "away with leave"?

AWL.

Hmmmm--sounds like it might contain something helpful? Preparing to lead an out-of-town Reading Group in a discussion of Laurie R. King's Art of Detection. Did pick up a few bits from preparing for this which are useful for my book, so even though i was not at my dining room table "desk" and laptop, was (as always really) working/playing *:)

Onward...

90 & 60

Ninety minutes Tuesday and sixty today: same-o, same-o, weaving in research bits, Find and Replace aspects of names, etc. Polishing cloth is getting hot!!!!

and onward...

90 minutes more of weaving in research after doing more of same on phone chat with nephew who is in law enforcement *:)

online research

Two hours from 7 to 9 googling and learning--so much faster than Thursday's in-person research, yet both have immense validity for

verisimilitude |ˌverəsəˈmiliˌt(y)oōd|
noun
the appearance of being true or real : the detail gives the novel some verisimilitude.

(from my iMac dictionary *:)

hop skip and jump

Skipped writing and posting yesterday but squeezed in 30 minutes this busy-day morning to weave in some of what I learned yesterday on research travel. Really fun to firm up my facts!

cheers!

90 more minutes, sorting through research, weaving into novel--reviewing characters, shaping into final forms, taping character sketches to dining room wall; very cool--feels like a party!

Jiveo! as my 100% Bohemian Czech dad used to toast, but I can't find that word anywhere... What I can find: na zdravi (Czech) to your health!

characters united

Today reviewed and refreshed the list of all the characters, printed out and will tape to dining room window--surrounded now by my imaginary world of folks in prep for another "last" read through the whole novel, looking for inconsistencies to fix.

onward,
write hard, die free,
as i always say *:)

a day of rest

Took Sunday off but back at it today for an hour, still sorting seeds and weaving in stray bits.