Falling in love with your MS again

Have you ever picked up a MS that has been laying dormant and fall in love with it all over again? I use to think when I did that perhaps I was being conceited. That was until I wrote this on my author page on FB and learned that was not the case.  In fact one person wrote, “If you don’t love your work who will?”

And that solidified it. Working on Vol 2 of my Jasper, Amazon Parrot series I realized it would be a good idea to reread the first one so I could bridge the two together. Sitting down on the couch I got my Pepsi and started to read. It had been a while since I had done this and I fell in love all over again. I laughed at the same spots, I smirked at the reactions of some of the characters and just truly enjoyed the read.  There has been an occasion where a friend had read this MS out loud to me so I could catch anything that would need to be fixed. Instead I ended up laughing and then out of the blue it hit me. I wrote this, me.

I truly love this book. I have lived and breathed this MS for a few years now. I think as authors we need to fall in love all over again with our works. Not just a few times but down the road pick it up and enjoy the words you wrote. Enjoy the adventure that falls off the page.  If you don’t, like that comment suggested, who else will? We have to enjoy what we do and trust me it will show on the pages whether the words are works of love or just a task that was done.

Case in point is another MS that I will be submitting soon, “Squirrel Mafia”which is a true story of the war between the squirrels in my back yard versus me. It makes me giggle and I hope it will make others laugh out loud for that was the point of the book. This is my first attempt at true humor. But most important it was a labor of time, effort and love over a topic that was just so much fun to write about.

I truly hope my fellow writers and bloggers that when you put words down that you are having a good time, enjoying what you are doing and absolutely having fun. It makes all the difference in the world. And if you can do that the words will shine through to others.

April 1, 2013: My Contract Arrived

My contract came in last night
My contract came in last night
Heigh-ho, the derry-o . . .
My contract came in last night

Oh my gosh it is a beautiful sight. But it could be written on a napkin and my opinion would not change.

The video is meh but here you go.

Don’t mind my birdies They are normally out with me but they kept on wanting to be part of the video so I had to hold them back for a small bit.

Short Stories

I am a sucker for short stories, love reading and writing them. Most of my stories come from writing prompts. Two of which have been published in an anthology of short stories. That made me puff my chest out a little. But after that I did not think much of what else I had written.

It was not until I reviewed quite a number of ebooks that were collections of short stories that I thought hmm why not? I knew over the years I’ve written a number of them. There was bound to be enough to make a collection that I could self publish.

Gathering my stories together I made a chart. The sheet showed me if the stories were finished, typed, edited and the word count. Then my notebooks came out and the stories found inside were placed on the sheet. The list started to grow until I had to go to page two and make my way down. Whether they were completed made no different. I needed to know what I had written and what state they were currently in. After completely exhausting all my journals I counted and saw I had well over 50 in number. I was floored. Completely.

I sent 17 to my editor to do her magic while I thought of a plan. From the books I had reviewed most of them did not have a major theme that flowed between the stories. The length varied some had just a page while others had up to four in length. I decided to place them with a theme related. This is just me.  But the questions have begun to pile up. How many do I put per book? How long should each one be? What kind of cover should I get for each one? How much can I charge for these?

I am afraid if I think on it much longer more questions will pop up. This is all new territory for me. Each anthology is different and has no specific check off list to follow from what I have seen. It is probably author’s preference how it is done.

Even with the work that is involved in going forward I am rather excited to try this new aspect of getting my writings out there. I have scold myself already for adding more work to my plate. The projects that are already there are tugging at my brain yelling, “We were here first darn it work on us.”  Their right. But yet here I am looking at the other short stories I have to finish, type and get edited. This just gets me going mentally. It would be nice to have them all done and ready to go out into the world. Whether that be for self publication or for a contest it does not matter at least to me.

My written words keep interrupting my thoughts they must not be denied.