Author: afthead

Johanna Levene, aka Afthead in San Francisco

No More Clark Kent – The Afthead Revealed

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized15 Comments

Did any of you notice the slip up on my last post?  It was right at the top of the Glimmer Train image.  It was my name, and guess what?  It was no slip up.  Yes, dear readers, the bureaucracy is over and I have a signed piece of paper that says, “Heck yeah, you can have a blog, and write a book, and tie it to your name.  We, the big bosses you work with, don’t care.”  Okay, it doesn’t exactly say that, but that’s the gist of the three pages.  So I finally get to turn the Afthead around and introduce you to the forehead.

I wish I had glasses to whip off and a suit to pull open revealing the AFTHEAD superhero costume underneath.  Alas, I do not.  My superhero powers are limited.

My human name is Johanna Levene, but you can still call me Afthead in the blogsphere.  Watch as the two identities meld. If you type in my name as a URL (http://johannalevene.com) you’ll get redirected to this blog.  In the near future I’ll set up something more slick so that typing in the johannalevene domain will take you to an about page explaining how you ended up on Afthead when you typed my name, but for now I am Afthead and Afthead is me.

Why the change, you ask?  If I still want to be Afthead why would I do something like this?  A couple of reasons:

  1. The Writer’s Market book told me to start a blog and to name it firstnamelastname.com to make it as easy as possible for agents, readers and publishers to find me.  I do not want to mess with making things easy for those people.
  2. Right now If you search Johanna Levene using something like, oh say Google, you don’t find my writing stuff.  You find me the person at my job, me on LinkedIn, or me the Pinterst person.  I need the writer me to start rising to the top of my search results which means I need to start using my name on my blog.  Johanna Levene, Johanna Levene, Johanna Levene.  (I can’t wait to see if that changes search results tomorrow.)

It is so freeing combining two of my personalities into one.  I am Johanna Levene.  I’m a writer who just finished her first novel and submit her first short story to a contest.  It’s really nice to meet you.  I hope you enjoy your time on my blog Afthead.

I am Afthead.  (Remember, read that last line with a Batman voice.)

Glimmer Train Submission

Get it Out There – The Short Story Edition

On By aftheadIn Publishing Process11 Comments

Back in June I blogged about going to see my BFF Neil Gaiman speak and his message to new writers.  Like many other established authors out there, his suggestion was to finish something, then get it out there.  Since that day I have finished a first draft of a short story and my first novel.  While waiting for my novel age, I have been working on nine tasks to get me ready for the effort of creating a second draft of my novel then finding an agent and publisher.  One of those tasks was to polish my short story, The Fisherman, and get it out there.  Well, I actually said “see how I feel about getting it out there,” but honestly, I feel pretty darn good.  It is out there.  Monday night I corrected my last few inconsistencies, paid my $15 and hit submit. My story is now officially in the Glimmer Train Press “Short-Story Award For New Writers.”  Can I get a hallelujah?!?  I’ll find out by November 1st if I win or not.  Time for more waiting.

I’m really, really glad I submit The Fisherman before tackling the editing process on my novel.  My story was SHORT (1241 words) and my novel is LONG (98,942 words).  Editing my short story was a gut wrenching crabby weekend of work.  If I edit my novel at the same rate I’m going to be crabby for 80 days!  (At one point this weekend I remembered another message from Neil Gaiman where he said people think that writing is ethereal but really it’s wandering around grouchy in a bathrobe.  Yep, he was talking second drafts, I’m sure.)  However, I learned some great stuff that I think will make editing the novel easier now that this effort is under my belt:

  1. I need a reader who believes in me, loves my work, and will remind me why I’m doing this when the bathrobe lady takes over and wants to hide in the basement burning my novel.  I’m lucky enough to have two of those readers.  One of them is my mom who also happens to be my ideal reader and my first editor.  The other one is a dear friend who makes time to encourage me even while she’s living her own crazy life.  Having that really honest joyful reassurance is so important.  Find that person. Buy them presents.  Nurture them because you are going to need them.
  2. I need a reader who is pragmatic and good at the rules of grammar.  My husband had to read my story twice this weekend.  The first time he agreed with my mom, “Yeah, you’ve got a lot of ‘ands’ in this story” and the second time he found two inconsistencies that were nit-picky but the difference between a kind-of-final draft and a final draft. Having someone who will know if your prepositions don’t match is awesome.  He never gushed about my story, but that’s okay.  Other people handled the gushing.
  3. I need a plan.  If the story doesn’t make Glimmer Train, that’s okay.  The deadline for the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story competition is November 16th.  That’s where The Fisherman is going next if it doesn’t find a home at Glimmer Train.
  4. I need a deadline. Once I found my competition and realized it was due 8/31 I got motivated.  I couldn’t hang out in the bathrobe too long.  I’m hoping that I can make deadlines for my novel that mean something to me and keep me motivated.  Otherwise I might have to find some weird novel competition.  (Hopefully this means I’ll be good with deadlines if and when someone else ever cares about my stuff getting published.)

Those things are all great, but I also learned one really big writing lesson.  A game changer of a lesson.  I am chickenshit.  Once my mom and Mr. Afthead pointed out all the “ands” in my story I realized what I was doing.  I was making the reader do the work.  Description after description read,

“When the sun is low and the puffy cloud-filled sky is painted pink, purple and orange, and the shadows are deep enough to hide details of faces and bodies, the door will open and he will slip out to join the families on the banks of the river with his rod and reel.”  – 4 “ands” in one sentence

I had 69 ands in my first draft. Let’s pause and consider 69 of 1241 words were AND: almost 6%.  Ugh.  I cut that down to 31 through updates like,

“The sun must be low in a sky filled with orange puffy clouds.  The shadows must be deep enough to hide the details of face and body.  When the conditions are right he will slip out to join the families on the banks of the river with his fishing rod.” – 1 “and” in 3 sentences

What’s the difference between the first and second versions.  Lots of stuff, but in my mind the difference is that in the first version I am paranoid that the reader won’t see what I want them to see.  So I paint a very detailed picture in a very complex sentence.  I give them a magnifying glass and some paint of their own – in case they don’t like what they see – and a guided tour of the picture complete with one of those narration phones you get at a museum.  In the second version I am brave.  I assume the reader has their imagination on and can paint their own picture in their mind and we can move on together.  Are their orange puffy clouds the same as mine?  Do they really understand the conditions?  That is scary, but my favorite part of the story is the magic, but through over-describing (The child is excited and terrified.  The dad is teary-eyed and proud.) I was losing the magic.

Thank goodness by nature I’m a taker-outter and not a putter-inner, so the edits weren’t hard once I knew what they were.  I honestly believe that every reader has “better things to do” than read a book.  They have bills to pay and mother’s to call and a house to clean and kids to bathe and endless ands to stick into their writing.  If I make them work too hard they will leave.  If I tell them exactly what they need to know, and maybe a little less, they will keep reading because they can’t stop.  They will paint their picture in their head and want to know how it turns out.  I want my stories to beg to be read, but if they are tedious because I am scared they won’t get read.  So watch out novel!  I’m coming to you and I am brave and ready to chop you down to size.  I’m bringing my cheerleader readers and my nitpicker with me too.  We are a fierce team and taking on new members if you want to join us.

Only 59 days until I find out if I won the competition or not. 23 days until I can read my novel. Tick Tick.

Rebranding: Periodic Publishing Posts

On By aftheadIn Publishing Process10 Comments

ANNOUNCEMENT!  ANNOUNCEMENT!

The feature formerly knows as “Weekend Writing Update #x” is being rebranded to “Periodic Publishing Posts.”  This move is being made for several strategic reasons:

  1. The posts are not about writing at all.  I am writing the posts, but I write all my posts.  It is the nature of posts.  The posts are about publishing and the steps I am taking to get my work out there.  So the new brand more accurately reflects what in the heck I’m taking about.
  2. Weekends are terrible for blog traffic.  I don’t know if you other blog writers see the same thing, but my readers just aren’t interested in reading over the weekend.  This does not surprise me because personally I have time to type a post over the weekend, but no time to catch up on my favorite blogs until the week.  I’m busy babysitting chickens (yep, that’s a real thing,) coaching soccer, and setting up obstacles for our backyard “Kids’ American Ninja Warrior” game.  So my weekend post may become a Tuesday or Wednesday post.  I’d pick the proper alliteration day of the week, but none of them start with “P”.  Any foreign speakers out there that can tell me a day that starts with “P?”
  3. Update is the most pointless word I have ever put in a blog title.  I’ve used it twice.  That is enough.

Guess what all is up in my publishing process?  Still no approval paperwork from the office.  I’m getting annoyed, while trying to understand that my bosses boss probably has more important things to do than sign a piece of paper approving me to work outside of the office.  Still, I’d like to start moving on my new domain and my CV.  Bureaucracy.  Annoying and hard to spell.  I hate it.

I’ve made other strides though.  Tomorrow, or Monday at the latest, I’m sending in an updated version of my short story The Fisherman to Glimmer Train for their Short Story Award for New Writers competition.  I spent one evening this past week searching through the contests and awards in the 2015 Writer’s Market trying to find something that appealed to me.

Stop.  Funny aside here.  I can submit an optional cover letter with my story.  I am a staunch believer in cover letters.  When I hire for a position I am unabashedly biased against people who do not include a cover letter.  In the first version of my cover letter I said, “After perusing the Writer’s Market I decided that Glimmer Train had the right combination of openness to new writers and success producing excellence that I wanted.”  Both my mom and my husband said using “perusing” was shorthand for “I’m a smarty smart with a big vocabulary.”  So I came up with some other wording options:

  • After slogging through the Writer’s Market…
  • After being overwhelmed by the Writer’s Market…
  • After contemplating the Writer’s Market….
  • After scanning the Writer’s Market…
  • After waking from my nap and wiping drool off of the Writer’s Market…
  • After scouring the Writer’s Market….
  • After removing the breakfast dishes from the Writers Market…

Guess which one I went with?

After scouring through the Writer’s Market, I had a list of 23 contests I felt my were a fit for my story, but I decided on Glimmer Train.  Why?

  1. They only take unsolicited work.
  2. They have a new writer’s contest that closes August 31st.  This forces me to do something right now.
  3. The contest is only $15 to enter.
  4. I love why the publication exists.  They want to discover new writers.  They read 30,000-40,000 stories a year and publish 40-50, but every story gets a chance.
  5. I love the tone of their site and the stories that they publish.  I rush ordered Issue 92 of their magazine this week to read it and make sure my story is a good fit.  I think it is.
  6. They accept simultaneous publications, so that means if I want to chase after some of these other contests it’s okay with them.
  7. They’ve got a pretty good track record of their stories going onto bigger and better things.

I’m waiting for a final review from my mom editor, and then I’ll submit.

Stop.  EEEEK!  I’m going to submit a story to a publication that receives 40,000 stories a year and publishes 40.  (Worst case scenario.)  That means I have a ONE IN TEN THOUSAND chance of getting published.  If you like percentages, that is 0.1%.  I didn’t pursue an acting career out of high school because there was only a 5% chance of making a career out of it.  I do not do things that are this unlikely.  What am I thinking?  Deep breath.  I really am quite glad that I’m not an actor.  Deeper breath.  I have a 0% chance of getting published if I don’t submit my story.  Deepest breath.  It’s okay.  The worst thing that will happen is my story will not get published and that’s exactly where I am right now.

I also started doing some searches about finding an agent and found this gem from our own WordPress community.  The Color the Books Blog has all kinds of great information. Want to know how to search Twitter for what topics agents and editors are looking for?  Search #MSWL for Manuscript Wishlist of course.  Or just check out http://manuscriptwishlist.com/, which I also learned about from this blog, and it will just aggregate all that information for you along with tidbits from agents about what they want.  Oh yeah, that’s kind of handy.  He’s also got stuff about how to keep track of your queries and what tropes are popular.  (Prior to this blog I didn’t know what a trope was.)

I also spent some time building a list of books I love that were first books for the author and reading through the acknowledgements and about the author pages to see who their agent is and looking them up.  Nothing concrete happening there yet, but it’s an interesting list.

Finally, I’ve almost finished reading the book that my friend’s ex-wife wrote.  When I’ve read that I’ll ask for an introduction.  I’m also going on a walk with another friend of a friend who published a memoir.  I’m working the network, because four weeks from now I will have just finished reading Hallelujah for the first time and will need to figure out my next step: copies for all my friends from Kinko’s or moving toward publication.

Hard Knock Cats

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized3 Comments

I’ve owned four cats in my adult life, and have developed a reputation with my vet.  I feel like my cat carrier should display a plaque with these words from The New Colossus,

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Our first cat, Neko, was two when we adopted her.  She was a skinny wisp of a thing who loved to fetch.

Neko fetch (2)

When she was ten she was diagnosed with diabetes.  She was wasting away to nothing and we took her to the vet.  Only two shots of insulin a day would keep her fit and healthy the vet assured us, the parents of a newborn baby.  Really, the one thing missing from our sleep deprived spit-up stained life was two insulin shots a day.  She died of a stroke when she was thirteen after three years of twice daily shots.

Boo the cat

We adopted Boo when he was somewhere between five and fifteen years old.  He came into our life as a sweet stray who sneaked into my great-aunt’s house and took up dominion under her dining room table.  I loved him from the moment we met.  When my great-aunt died my mom asked if we would take him, and we brought him home.  A few years later, he developed glaucoma.  Two pet ophthalmologist and two different opinions later, we opted to not have his eyes surgically removed.  He lived out his days blind with great big creepy eyes swelling out of his head.  Kidney failure claimed him, somewhere between ten and twenty years old.

After Boo died, but before Neko died, we adopted Hazel.  I’ve written about him before, and sadly he passed away this summer.  When we adopted Hazel from the shelter he had a bald spot on the top of his head from having a benign growth removed.  My husband accused me of taking him home just because of his head wound, and asked if we didn’t want to adopt the three legged cat instead.  (To be fair, the three legged cat was in quarantine and I couldn’t adopt him.)  Hazel was the sweetest cat I’ve ever owned, and the head wound healed over beautifully, but we only had three years with him before he wasted away from kidney failure, even with a round of dialysis.

After Neko we adopted sweet Katie.  A teeny kitten who loved Hazel and who was loved by Hazel.  The only creature she loved more was me.  I remember, less then fondly, her early days where every night she curled on my chest, waking me numerous times with her tiny disgusting kitten sneezes from the respiratory virus she picked up in the shelter.  She still falls asleep every night nestled in my hair bathing my neck and cheek.

Katie desperately misses her best friend Hazel.  She was a fostered cat before we adopted her, and I’ve decided that I need to pay it forward and try to foster a few cats before we find a new “forever” cat.  I figure I have experience.  I can give shots; I can hand feed; I can deal with knowledge that some of the sick kitties may not make it, and hard decisions might have to be made.  Today I took Katie to the vet to get her immunizations up to date and make sure she’s healthy before we foster.  Turns out she has this cat syndrome which causes her gums to reject her teeth.  She’s already lost four adult teeth, at the age of two, and the rest of her teeth are filled with holes.  Her gums are red and bleeding, and she is in pain.  I have an appointment for next week to have all her teeth removed, the only way to solve this problem.

I love my vet.  She and I talked through Katie’s options and agreed that this was the only choice we had.  We laughed about my horrible cat health luck, and we bored the vet tech to tears with all the medical woes we’ve been through together.  She assured me that I am not her only client that attracts a mix of sweet cats with horrible health.  She predicts I’ll make it one round of fostering before I fail and adopt one of the cats. She tried to shorten that cycle by offering me a stray cat that was left outside her clinic last week.  I think I’ll hold out for a three-legged cat, or a deaf cat, or whatever foster kitty is the next best friend to Katie, the toothless wonder.

Afthead reading in a hammock

Weekend Writing Update #2

On By aftheadIn Weekend Writing6 Comments

This week was not productive in the “getting my book published” journey.  This week my other life took over with a vengeance (you know the work, mom, wife, child, pet owner, friend life).  That’s okay though.  I’m halfway through the six week moratorium on my book and it’s becoming fainter and fainter to me, which is what I want to happen.  I’m also looking toward the timing of week six, and realizing that weekend I’m volunteering at a cross country meet, coaching two soccer games, attending a birthday party, and throwing a movie watching party.  Not the ideal weekend to cram in a marathon read-my-manuscript-in-one-sitting session as recommended by my mentor, Mr. King.  However, there is a weekend just past that, one where Mr. Afthead will be out of town.  If I can get my parents to watch the little Afthead for a night I’d have the perfect quiet time to read my book.  So that’s the plan.  (Mom, if you are reading this, I’ll call you about babysitting.  No pressure.  Just my hopes and dreams on the line here.  Thanks!)

I did get some things accomplished this week. I filled out my approval paperwork for my director to sign.  (I don’t have it back yet, so no big identity reveal yet.)  I shared my book and blogging efforts with some friends.  I finished listening to Stephen King’s On Writing again and started reading my friend’s ex-wife’s book.  (It’s good, but not intimidating good, so it is giving me hope.)  That’s about it.  I didn’t fish out my short story to clean up for submission, I didn’t do anything with all those publishing books and magazines except move them off the table so we could eat dinner.  I haven’t reached out to my friends with publishing connections.  I did learn how to be a foster cat parent, have dinner with a friend, get back-to-school clothes shopping done, attend the mandatory soccer coach meeting, take the summer homework “place I like to read” picture for my daughter, finalize a work proposal, throw a work celebratory picnic, and go to the back-to-school watermelon social.  All priority items for this week, thank you very much.

One funny thing I’ve started noticing is the press, the announcements, the joy around “first time novelists” all around: in book reviews, on jacket covers, on the back of a book.  I have realized that this is my one chance to be a first time novelist, and I want to enjoy the journey.  After this one, I’ll have expectations for myself and baggage about how it went last time: why it worked and why it didn’t.  Right now though, it’s all new.  I get to make mistakes, I get to learn, and I get to chalk all that up to, “Well, it’s my first time writing a novel.”  I haven’t been able to be a newbie at anything since my daughter was born, and for that one there was little joy in the “I don’t know what the heck I’m doing” because there was this tiny life on the line.  This one is fun.  I don’t know what I’m doing, but I am excited for the ride.

Thanks to everyone for coming along on my journey with me.  If in case you are like my friend over at Kwoted by K E Garland and are wondering if you can learn from my process, I give you a resounding, “Please, please do!”  I hope that by sharing this I can make things easy for the next person behind me.  In case you are like my friend over at Around ZuZu’s Barn and are wondering if I have a working title for my manuscript I keep awkwardly referring to I can say, “Yes, yes I do.  The working title is Hallelujah.”  This is a great title, except, like bureaucracy, it’s a word I can never spell correctly.  Maybe I’ll title it Hallejulah and know that I’ll never have to worry about copyright issues.

Have a great weekend and enjoy whatever adventures come your way.

Surface screen showing date far into the future

Hello from the future!

On By aftheadIn Tickles my afthead4 Comments

Today I logged into my writing Surface and was shocked by the date that appeared in the corner of my screen.  Apparently, while walking downstairs to my study, I miraculously transported almost 64 years into the future!  I’m feeling pretty spry for 103 years old, and look darn good if I do say so myself.  My 66 year old cat jumped onto my desk: for sure a record for world’s oldest cat.

The future was not without disappointment.  I was horrified to find that my Surface was still running Internet Explorer 11 and Windows 8.1.  Still no invitation to upgrade to Windows 10 either.  A quick glance out the window verfied that there are no flying cars, at least, not that I could see from the basement.  I’m off to see if Google still exists, and if it does, try to find where my ancient husband and 71 year old daughter are.  I bet they’ve been worried sick.

Pile of books and magazines on a table

Weekend Writing Update #1

On By aftheadIn Weekend Writing4 Comments

It’s time for my first Weekend Writing update, where I let all you excited blog readers learn what steps I’ve been taking to inch my way toward blog publication.  Last week I came up with a list of nine items to get me started.  Shall we see how things are going?

I start all new projects at the bookstore.  I know I should start at the library, but I love owning books, especially when they are books I am going to need for some time.  Also, just the mere permanent presence of books in my home makes me better at things.  The whole shelf of parenting books with uncracked spines lead me to be a caring, disciplinarian, listening, happiness inducing ninja of a mom.  It’s a form of osmosis I think.  But, I digress.  These writing periodicals and books have already been opened and perused.  (Okay, the top three in the pile have been opened and perused.   The others are feeling jealous.)  Here is what I have learned from my study this week.

  1. If I don’t have a blog, I should start one right now.  How awesome is that.  I HAVE a blog.  Check off that item that wasn’t even on my list.  One article said I should make lists in my blog.  Yep, I’m making a list.  I’m awesome.
  2. My blog’s URL should be firstnamelastname.com to make it easy for agents and publishers to find my blog.  Uh oh.  Well I’m keeping Afthead and purchased my name URL to redirect to Afthead.  If anyone is interested in the land of domain registration and how you redirect multiple domains to you blog let me know.
  3. There are short story competitions out there, and you can only publish stories that have not been published before, except on a personal blog.  What!?!?  This means I can dust off The Fisherman and submit it.  That’s my plan for the next couple of weeks.
  4. The Guide to Literary Agents freaked me out at the beginning.  All the examples of “new authors” seemed to be “Joe Smith has worked as a freelance writer since he was born, and has been editing 18 periodicals since he was weaned. He was approached by his best friend, who happened to be an agent, who asked to represent him when his novel was a mere 1000 words long.”  Translation: the only “new” authors that get published are people who have been working with words their whole life.  Downer.  However, I skipped to the back of the book and started looking at the listing of agents and lots of them take new writers.  That made me feel better.
  5. I read a fascinating article in the Novel Writing magazine about the genre of magical realism.  I’m thinking my book could be in that genre.  (Previously I was thinking science fiction or fantasy.)  The downside is that the magical realism genre is “controversial” so I should be aware of that.  I am always amazed at the specific areas of controversy sprinkled throughout all aspects of humanity.  The other plus of this article is that I realized I LOVE magical realism books and now have a whole new list of books to read.
  6. My meeting with my boss was put off for a week, but I’ve filled out our “Conflict of Interest” and “Approval for Outside Activity” forms.  Once those are signed I can actually set up my name URL and formally tie myself to Afthead and stop living this crazy double life…OR I could get a cape and a mask and start introducing myself in my best Batman voice, “I’m Afthead”.
  7. Once I’m out of the writing closet at work, I am going to see if a colleague will introduce me to his ex-wife, because she just published her first novel.   They are still friends, so this is not a completely weird request.  Before I ask him, I want to read her book.  That seems polite, right?  I’ve got it next to my bed to start tonight.
  8. My mom found an online class at our local community college on getting published.  I just missed the start date for the August class, but may sign up for the next session in September.  It’s 6 weeks and covers some things, like copyright, that I haven’t even considered.  September is an easy month at the Afthead house with school starting, coaching soccer, playing soccer, and normal work stuff., so I’ll have lots of time to take two online classes a week.  Tee hee.

Things are moving along on this adventure.  My book is still hiding in my desk, calling out to me when I’m in my study.  I am ignoring her though.  I reread On Writing again, and am convinced this is a good path forward for me.  I’ve still got some work to do on my pitch and CV, but that will wait for a couple more weeks.  For now I’m enjoying my little dips into this new world of publishing.  Hopefully by next week I’ll have identified a contest or two to submit to, have my paperwork done and my new domains set up.

Have a great weekend and enjoy whatever adventures come your way.

Shelf of favorite books

The Liebster Award – Socrates Edition

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized6 Comments

Thank you so much to Tracey Rains for nominating me for the Liebster Award.   If you don’t know her blog, check it out at http://socratesunderground.com/.  She is a high school English teacher, like my mom, so I automatically feel kinship to her.  Her blog has insightful posts on today’s education mixed with personal tidbits about her life.  If you have any interest in education her stuff is worth reading.  (She also called me quirky and inspirational, so I adore her.)  So now, onto her questions!

If you could travel anywhere tomorrow, where would it be?  I am itching to go to London, because my husband just returned there from work, and I haven’t been to the United Kingdom since he and I got married in Scotland ten years ago.

What do you like about your hometown?  I grew up just outside of Denver, Colorado.  I love the mix of city life and outdoor life in Denver.  When I was a kid we used to go to the theater downtown, and if you wanted dessert after a play you had to drive to a Village Inn or Perkins in the suburbs.  Now we have a vibrant downtown less than 20 minutes from my favorite hiking trail.

What is the simplest thing that makes you smile?  My seven year old and her glorious sense of humor.  Only she could make me smile by noting my haircut and telling me, “Well mom, I’m glad you didn’t get doll hair this time.”  Doll hair?

What is your favorite meal?  Beef stew with dumplings on a snowy day.  The whole house smells good all day and I enjoy the anticipation of the meal as much as the meal itself.  Also, it’s even better the next day and I love leftovers.

What’s your least favorite chore to do at home? I really, really dislike taking out the trash.

What’s your favorite book? This is a question I feel the need to cheat on.  I love so many books.  I love paper books and audiobooks.  I have a shelf where I keep my all time favorite paper books, other than Harry Potter.  In the interest of answering the question, I’ll give you my favorite book I’ve read this year:  The Bees by Laline Paull.  It’s an amazing tale told from the perspective of a honey bee.  It’s unique and a great story.  Now I’ll cheat and say that the book that I recommend the most is The Martian by Andy Weir.  If you have a geeky scientist non-reader in your life buy them this book.  I am surrounded by geeky scientists and this book is a winner every single time.

What is your most unusual or unexpected talent?  I am a spreadsheet whiz. I even named my daughter using a 13 factor algorithm I built to analyze our name options.

What’s your favorite animal and why?  Cats. Until people can purr, like in Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, then maybe I’ll switch to people.  (See what I did there?  Snuck in another favorite book!)

Who is your greatest hero or inspirational figure?  My mom.  She has taught me that it is never too late to make a drastic change in your life and do something you’ve never tried before.  When she went back to school to become a teacher she was told she was too old to ever get a job.  She didn’t think she could handle the math, but she proved herself wrong.  It took a long time, but she finished her degree and went on to become a high school English teacher.  I might think I was a crazy person for starting a writing career at 40, were it not for her example.

What was your favorite game or toy as a child?  Pink blankie, but I also loved pink baby and pink bear.  I’m so grateful that my descriptive language capabilities have matured since childhood.

What’s your favorite beverage?  Diet Dr Pepper.

Now to pass the nomination forward.  I nominate the following bloggers:

Amie Writes – An aspiring writer who will consistently cheer up your weekend with her “Casual Friday” posts, which may appear any day from Friday to Sunday.  I love the casual nature of her timing.  When she’s not in a life transition, she’ll post some fiction from time to time too.

Duck and Cover – A knitting blogger who will throw out great book recommendations if you ask her.

Say Yes to the Mess – A brand new blog that is about a foster mom.  I like what she’s done so far and love her topic.  I hope she publishes more!

Writing Blissfully – I’m addicted to the Between Breath and Suffocation series here.  The characters are raw and the story is captivating.

The Totally Serious Absolutely Professional Blog – If I am quirky Ditrie is quirky cubed.  Go check out her beautiful new site layout and best ever tagline.

Kwoted by K E Garland – Wait.  She has 209 followers now?  Nice work!  Well she’s not eligible, but check her out.  She’ll inspire you with pictures and quotes, and she’ll make you think about the world in a way you might not expect.  She has a series of gut wrenching posts on the honest realities of conflict and healing in families that I recommend.

Another non-eligible nominee (over 300 followers!) that I beg you to go read is A Funny Thing Happened when I was Learning Myself – She will make you laugh.  I love her.

And I ask these bloggers the following questions all centered around your personal process of writing.  How do you do it, why do you do it, and what keeps you from doing it the best you could?  (Tracey, I’d love to hear from you too!)  Feel free to just use this as a prompt or ignore me as you wish.

  1. Why do you blog?
  2. When is your favorite time of the day to write?
  3. Where is your favorite place to write?
  4. What device do you prefer to write on or with?
  5. What is your favorite blog post you have ever written?
  6. What is your writing dream?
  7. What keeps you from realizing that dream?
  8. If you could have an hour with any author, who would you spend it with?

Now for the rules stuff.  I didn’t follow them all.  Eleven questions is a lot, and I mentioned a few of my favorites with over 200 followers.  I’m a blogging scofflaw!

liebster award seal

Rules

  • Once you are nominated, make a post thanking and linking the person who nominated you.
  • Include the Liebster Award sticker in the post too.
  • Nominate 5 -10 other bloggers who you feel are worthy of this award. Let them know they have been nominated by commenting on one of their posts. You can also nominate the person who nominated you.
  • Ensure all of these bloggers have less than 200 followers.
  • Answer the eleven questions asked to you by the person who nominated you, and make eleven questions of your own for your nominees or you may use the same questions.
  • Lastly, COPY these rules in the post.
Yarn on fence

Mrs. Knit Purl’s Obituary

On By aftheadIn stories14 Comments

I was given a remarkable gift.  A gift on many levels and remarkable on many levels.  At a local auction, there were five bins of yarn available:  three filled with wool, bamboo, boucle, and mohair and two with acrylic.  My parents texted and wanted to know if they should bid; I said yes to the wool and no to the acrylic.  A few hours later they texted again.  All three bins were mine.

At first it was like winning the lottery and my birthday all mixed up together.  My parents had spent $70 on these bins, gave them to me, and the value of the yarn was well over $1000.  There were skeins and skeins of remarkable, expensive, luxurious yarn.  It was not all yarn I would have picked out for myself, but it was all beautiful.  As I poured through the bins there were patterns with the yarn, and there were start of projects, and projects half done.  Suddenly, this wasn’t just a bunch of awesome yarn, but another knitter’s stash, and she was no longer around to finish that sweater, that blanket, or whatever that swatch was going to become.  The deeper we dug the more real she became.  She loved yarn and knitting, and this is what my heart has invented of her story.

Mrs. Knit Purl never skimped when she bought yarn.  She wasn’t one of those optimistic knitters who thought, “Oh well maybe I can make do with just 5 skeins of this gorgeous boucle.”  She bought 6, even if it was $40 a skein because she knew that if a pattern said she needed to have 1000 yards, 1200 was safe and 1000 was cutting it just too close, especially given her growing waistline.  She held onto projects for years waiting for the right time to turn yarn into a garment.  She prided herself on knowing what she was going to do with every skein in her stash, but a smart knitter knew that it was easy to use less yarn than you have but hard to use more.

Knit wasn’t afraid of having multiple projects going at once, in fact she loved the variety of a purple itchy wool sweater on one set of needles, a boring brown swatch for her grandson’s Christmas sweater started on a second, and a fluffy soft Alpaca cardigan in vivid jewel tones halfway completed on a third.  She wasn’t the knitter she used to be, anything smaller than a size 5 needle made her fingers ache, so the variety of projects gave a routine to her knitting days.  As she was drinking her morning coffee and smoking her first cigarette, the smaller needles and wool helped loosen her hands.  Late in the evening, while she was watching the evening news, and smoking her last cigarette, the alpaca on the giant size 15 needles was easy for her eyes to see and her hands to work.

Her projects also gave a routine to her years.  She told people she loved them through her knitting.  Every April she started a sweater for her grandson, and she had it finished and wrapped every December.  She knew that he didn’t love her sweaters  – who needs a new sweater from his grandma every year – but she still loved the tradition of him wearing her sweater every Christmas Day.  She’d made his first one when he was just a tiny baby, and this year would be her twenty-second sweater for him.  He was in college now, and maybe he wouldn’t mind wearing a brown cardigan on cold winter days.  Now that he was paying his own heating bills he might appreciate something to throw on in the house instead of turning up the heat.  She saw boys his age walking down the street in sweaters.  Maybe this year would be the year she would finally make something he would cherish.  The one he’d still be pulling on years from now when his own baby woke in the middle of the night.

She loved color and dreamed of making a knee length sweater for herself: a statement piece that would show everyone that she was not just a knitter, but an artist.  One winter day she found a yarn that reminded her of the sunsets she during her Alaskan vacation.  She was stroking the yarn and counting the balls when the lady at the yarn shop asked if she could help.  Knit told her about the dream, and the yarn shop lady found her a pattern she loved; it looked like a housecoat, but in the sunset yarn it would be a housecoat she could wear with pride.  She’d waltz into her knitting group and her friends would gasp in admiration at her masterpiece.  Oh, but there wasn’t enough yarn in the stacks.  The shop lady smiled, went to the back and came out with four full bags of sunset yarn, each containing twelve balls.  Knit never considered not buying the yarn and the pattern.  Each time she finished a project she would pull out those bags of yarn, and each time she started something else.  She loved the idea of the coat, but she never felt ready to actually cast on the dream.

Knit’s collection has been donated down to two bins of yarn. Every Thursday, when I work from home, I place the yarn in my backyard to let the sunshine and chlorophyll in the grass work their magic on the cigarette smell.  As I set them out I appreciate her plans, and make my own.  The sunset yarn will be shared with a knitting friend who loves color the way Knit did.  The jewel toned yarns are beloved by my mother and will make a blanket, or a shawl, or a cardigan.  There is an afghan kit I will make for myself and five different beaded scarves that will become lovely Christmas presents.  With every packing and unpacking I appreciate her artistry and promise to make something, different than she planned, but equally lovely with her beloved yarn.  I’m sorry she never got to make her sweater, but I won’t make it for her.  That was her dream, and I’m sad she never got to realize it.  My gift to her is to love her yarn and to make my own dreams.  I hope that someday my yarn will go to someone like me who appreciates it and laments the fact that I had cats the way I wish Knit hadn’t smoked.

Thanks Knit.  I love your yarn, and I’ve loved having you as an imaginary knitting friend over the past few weeks.  May you rest in peace.

“The End” Part 3 – The Next Beginning

On By aftheadIn Uncategorized11 Comments

I am so grateful that I am a process person and not a product person, because now that the first draft of my book is written, I don’t feel done.  I’m excited about the next part.  As far as I know right now, these are my immediate next plans:

1. Print the book out.  Done!  Look how gigantic big it is.  I love it.

2. Let the gigantic book sit a bit.  I really enjoy Stephen King’s book On Writing (except the grammar bit because he makes me feel like a nincompoop).  He recommends that you write the first draft “with the door shut”.  There is just you and your story.  No input from anyone.  When you are done with your first draft, you let the book “rest…a minimum of six weeks.”  Then you take the book out and read it, ideally in one sitting, and work on fixing the dumb basic mistakes and the enormous plot holes.  That’s what you do in the front of your brain.  In the back of your brain you are looking for theme, character development, and how to make the story coherent.  You take notes on all of this as you read.  When you have read all your glorious words, you go back and make the revisions you noted.  Draft two will be done at that point, and you open the door, meaning it will be time to get those friends and family who asked to read my book to read my book.  I’m hoping it will be my Halloween present to everyone.

3. Finalize who my readers will be.  Reader one is my mom for sure.  She was an English teacher and loves books as much as I do so she’s a double whammy reader.  She’ll find my glaring grammar and verb tense errors, but also be able to tell me where the plot goes astray.  I probably won’t let anyone else read it until I get it back from her with a stamp of approval.  She reads fast, so even if it’s a brick, it won’t take much of her life away.  Then it will probably go to 2 or 3 other people.  My husband for sure, but I’m not certain who the others are.  I’ll spend the next six weeks feeling people out.  If they are still interested in my project when I’m ready for them, I’ll hand them a copy.

4. Start work on a new project.  As much as I want to start pouring over this book, I really believe what King says, and I love how he says it: “It’s always easier to kill someone else’s darling that it is to kill your own.”  The 6 weeks gives me distance and perspective from the work, but only if I find something else to occupy my time.  So I’m going to polish up my short story, The Fisherman and see how I go about getting that out there.  I’m going to dust off the first novel I started and see how I feel about working on that.  I am not going to start working on the sequel to this book, but I might make some notes about where I think it’s going.  I’m going to blog and enjoy the last few weeks of the summer with my family.  Oh, and I’ve got a sweater on the needles that is going to be done by fall!  (It was supposed to be done by last fall.  Ugh.)

5. Find an agent.  I want to at least try for conventional publishing of this book, and everyone I’ve talked to who has any connection to the publishing world says the only way to do this is through an agent.  So, I’m going to get a Writer’s Digest.  I’m going to surf the web.  I’m going to read blogs.  I’m going to get coworkers and friends to introduce me to their coworkers and friends who have published or who know someone who published.  I’m going to work my network and my network’s network.

6.  Figure out what genre this thing is.  I think I need that to find an agent.

7.  Develop my elevator pitch.  When someone asks me what my book is about I sound like a bumbling idiot.  I want to be able to tell someone in less than a minute a tidbit that will excite them about my story.  Also helpful in the agent hunt.

8. Put together a CV and letter of introduction to agents.  For fiction, I have a pretty pathetic track record, but I am published in my career field.  I have a book chapter out there, journal articles, and scientific papers.  I need to figure out how to tell a my story of techie-geek turned fiction-maven in a coherent way.

9. Fill out dumb bureaucratic paperwork, because I can’t go any farther in this without approval from my job.  I can’t find an agent.  I can’t publish.  I can’t tie my real identity to afthead until I get work’s blessing.  (This will surprise you, but I don’t want to publish my book as Afthead.  I’m not Prince or Madonna.)  For those of you working in real jobs it probably behooves you to find out if your company has any conflict of interest or copyright restrictions that might be a problem if you ever want to publish.

That’s it.  My list for what I need to do over the next 6-8 weeks.  I don’t think I’ll be bored.  With regards to #5, if any of you glorious readers have any ideas on how to find an agent, let me know.  If any of you have read awesome blogs or books about this phase, I’d love to hear your experiences.  I’m going to try to have a regular weekend blog to discuss where I am in my first draft to second draft to publication process.  (See, look at me working #4 already!)

With that, my string of book blogs is complete!  Tomorrow it’s back to more normal stuff.  I’ve got a yarn lady obituary to write, a work conflict to chat about, and a post on web statistics in my drafts.  So much good stuff that I can dive into now that my orange covered “First Draft” is tucked away and aging.  I love it so much.