Sherri Cornelius

Well. So here I am again. These long absences of mine stem from having nothing good to say, nor any pressing news to share. If I have one or the other it seems worth it to post, but otherwise I won’t bother.

Today I have something good to say, and the news, while not pressing, is at least news. I had a rare phone conversation with Sara, my agent, in which she said she loved my newest book, BVA. That’s the news, that somebody loved my work. Lame, I know. But she’s never said how she feels about my work one way or the other, so although the assumption is that of course she likes it or she wouldn’t have represented me, it’s nice to hear, out loud, that she kept sneaking away to read it, even though she was on vacation.

I wasn’t sure she’d like it because it’s so different from EG, the one that caught her eye in the first place. I was absolutely sure she’d tell me she couldn’t represent it, but of course that was just my writer’s neurosis kicking in. Or as Marta puts it, Melodramatic Mind.

So as soon as I correct all the typos she found, it’ll be going to the editors who’ve requested it. *sighs in relief*

Speaking of EG, I’ve thought about publishing it through a small e-publisher to gain some traction, if only in my mind. It’s basically done, because even if a publisher buys BVA, EG is so different it’s unlikely the same person would pick it up. Sara’s advice was to go for it, but not to sign any rights away. This eliminates any publishing company, small or not, because they will want to have a contract for 2-3 years or forever. If EG caught a big publisher’s interest while the electronic rights were tied up, they probably wouldn’t touch it no matter how much they loved it.

So that leaves self-epublishing, as Dane just did with his short story collection. I just don’t know if I want to work that hard.

Man oh man, a cold front came through yesterday and dropped our high temp by about 30 degrees. This morning it was cool enough that I could actually go in the shed without dodging wasps–they get active at about 80 degrees, and the hotter the better–so I denimed up, grabbed a broom and got to work. I straightened shelves, picked up all the tools I’d flung in there to avoid the wasps, swept, rearranged. Took me a couple of hours. Just as I was finishing up a wasp or two started a lazy circuit near the ceiling–I’m guessing it was about 75 by then–and seeing how it was also lunchtime, I closed up and came on in. What a great morning!

Many of you may not define a morning spent cleaning the garage as “great”, but I love taking care of my home. Let me say that a different way: I love when my home is not chaotic. Since I’m the only one who cares and I don’t have the means to hire the necessary laborers, that means I get to do it. So while I may not love the work, I love having done the work.

I feel that way about writing, too. Most of the time I’d rather be doing something else, but once it’s done, my satisfaction makes it all good. I guess a lot of worthwhile, fulfilling things are that way, like college and childcare and marriage. Sure, you like the work enough to keep doing it, but the real reason you do it is the payoff. A degree, well-adjusted children, partnership. A novel. A place to put the lawnmower. You know, the payoff.

What’s your payoff?

I’ve been busy, but when I look around the house it looks pretty much the same. With the kids gone to school, I’d planned to scrub the summer’s grime from the house, a layer at a time. Instead, I’ve been focusing on projects that keep me busy but don’t really have to be done. Like putting a drop-leaf on my new desk, and starting a braided rag rug out of old towels. Wow, I’m crafty. In all fairness to myself, I have scrubbed a layer or two, and I haven’t played Metroid Prime once.

It was pretty easy to fall into the school year. Easier to be alone that first day since I knew what to expect. However, we were all nervous about their first day, especially my oldest, who went into middle school. The poor thing was so wired she cried about it several times in the days prior. Of course, on the second day she skipped out to the bus and waved good-bye with a grin. She was fine, as were the other two. And me.

So with the kids at school and my obsessive craftiness satisfied, I’m turning my thoughts toward my next project, whatever that will be. This morning I brainstormed story ideas but didn’t get very far. I think I’ll start with this half-done middle grade fantasy, to let me sink into the familiarity while I get back into the daily writing thing. I think the creative floodgates are about to open. Y’all stand back. Don’t want to get brain juice on ya.

Today’s Friday, right? During the summer the days just melt together. I feel guilty for being so happy school’s starting soon, and I can be alone for a portion of the day. I also feel guilty that I won’t be getting a job, but I always feel guilty for not having a job, so that’s nothing new. And before you cry, “Writing is a job!” just remember that I am not getting paid for it, and also it’s a lot of fun and therefore suspect. The real reason I don’t have a conventional job while the kids are in school is the fragrance thing. Periodic exposure I can handle. Daily exposure would surely put me back in migraine territory, and nobody in the house wants that. I do have a few very large home repairs I can’t afford to hire out, so maybe I’ll call myself a carpenter and that’ll be my job.

I will probably start looking for some sort of job to do from home, but I don’t know if I’m enough of a self-starter to follow that through. One interesting development to report is that I’ll be the senior editor of a little startup e-pub called Cove. The details haven’t been hammered out yet, but I’ll let you know what happens. It will at the very least be a huge learning experience, and at the most a financially successful venture. Can’t lose.

My brother is also starting school this month. It’s a huge change for him, as it would be for anyone going back to college after 20 or so years (25?) And I’m super-proud of him for even attempting it. I’ve never had the guts. And like my venture, this is also a can’t-lose. I also win, because he’ll be living right down the street from me.

Hope you all have a great weekend.

I’ve been a busy little beaver the past few days, trying to get my writing space up to snuff. It’s moved around the house periodically as I try to find a suitable spot, and every one of those places has been unfinished. Back when I had children in the house all day, I made a spot in the upper level of the wasp-infested, uninsulated barn so I could write at night while the hubs was home. I built a wall to keep out the wasps and keep in the a/c, but I never sheetrocked. Since the littlest baby went to all-day kindergarten last year, the shed office didn’t get much use. Instead, I put a chair and a tv tray in the corner of the bedroom. Totally in the way and uncomfortable. I wrote at the kitchen table, on the floor, on the couch…each one a no-go.

Finally I moved into the eye sore which is my porch room. My favorite desk is still in the shed, way too big to fit in the 6′x10′ space, so I set a board across the top of my wobbly tv tray, and that’s where I finished BVA. Ridiculous, really, how I dedicate only the barest of resources to my writing space, using only whatever detritus isn’t in use somewhere else in the house.

I refuse to go another year as a writing vagabond, so last week I decided to get a real desk to fit the space. I declared I would find one just the right size at a garage sale, ugly enough to be cheap, but sturdy enough to last, with drawers, a top where I could spread papers next to the laptop, and if I was lucky, a keyboard tray.

First garage sale, I found it, keyboard tray and everything, for ten bucks.

It was meant to be. The lady who sold it to me breaks out when she comes in contact with fragrance, so she uses no air freshener or anything. It smelled like wood, that was all. Hallelujah! (The little drawer thingy off to the side smells like cigarettes, unfortunately. It’s been airing out for three days in the sun.) Then I lucked out and found a beautiful blue-gray color for $3 on the oopsie shelf at Lowe’s. I had some old knobs from another dresser, so I spray-painted them silver, and this is what I ended up with:

It took a little work (and it still needs another coat of paint) but it’s perfect for the space. Did you notice something in the background? That’s right, this room is also unfinished. Sigh. My next goal is to somehow get some sheetrock home from the store and patch those holes. Even better, I’d like to tear it down to the studs and make sure it has great insulation and a smooth finish and no leaks. We’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, I have a great desk on which to compose my next masterpiece. I’m using it right now. I love it.

Most of you probably already know my grandma died last week. She was my dad’s mom, the only one on that side who kept in regular contact with me. I made the trip to Arkansas for the funeral with my mom and brother. So many emotions are still jumbled up inside me that I don’t feel I can write about it yet. I just wanted to mention it so you’d know I’m fine since I’ve been incommunicado for a little while.

The kids are all registered for school, and they start in two weeks. I can’t believe it’s that close! We even bought most of their school supplies already, a nicer experience now that I know I can buy the cheap stuff if necessary. The registration was also better than in previous years, because they put the forms online to fill out in advance. The whole thing took 20 minutes instead of two hours, which was heaven for my fragrance sensitivity.

My older daughter is going into middle school, and looking back at when I was her age, that seems to be the most pivotal time in my life. We moved to another town that summer, where the girls already had a grasp on fashion and firm, if unspoken, rules in place. It was a hard transition I was never able to solidify, and so began my life on the fringes of society. I’m glad my daughter won’t go through that. I guess there will be other trials waiting for her, but they will be her own.

So summer vacation is almost over. I’ve met the goals I set for myself at the beginning, which were to finish my book and forget it, and after that, to read a lot, spend time with my kids, and work on household matters. I still don’t have a proper desk, so maybe I’ll make that my goal for the remainder of the summer. That way, when the kids are back in school I’ll be ready to write again.

Have you met your summer goals?

Printing out a novel for editing uses a lot of paper. Combine that with the kids’ 2-hour-long scribbling sessions, and it makes perfect sense to use my old manuscripts as scrap paper. I mean, it’s still good on one side, and though the kids can read, there’s nothing OMG-terrible in BVA; it doesn’t have sex scenes, per se, but the MC does think about sex in a flippant, jaded way, and there is colorful language. Still, nobody cares about the pieces of story on the other side of the page. The occasional cussword would go unnoticed.

So I thought.

I forgot my 11-year-old is a voracious reader with a vocabulary as big as mine. She wants to read all kinds of inappropriate books, as I did at her age, just because she’s already read everything appropriate in the house. Last night she told me she’d been reading the backs of these scrap papers, because BVA was “awesome.” She said sometimes she even gets several consecutive pages so she can read a bigger chunk at a time.

It’s hard to turn down someone who’s dying to read my work, and who will undoubtedly be complimentary. So after she begged me a while, I told her I would edit out the objectionable parts and let her read it. She’s already bugged me about it twice more this morning.

So now I’m wondering, will this affect how and what I write? I want to write things my kids will love. The hubs doesn’t read fiction anymore, so he doesn’t factor in. Sex scenes embarrass me. It seems like a no-brainer to stick with Middle Grade or Young Adult. BVA is going to YA editors, I think.

Something to think about.

Somebody just spam-commented every single post on my blog. And though the format makes it obvious it’s the same spammer, it appears each IP address is unique, though I didn’t check all 300 of ‘em, obviously. That’s crazy. Crazy spammers. That’s the biggest reason to love WordPress, their excellent spam filter. All I had to do was hit a button and they were all gone. But if I continue to get that much spam, I won’t be able to check it for false positives like I have been. They are few and far between, but occasionally one slips through. So if your comment doesn’t show up, holla and I’ll go check the spam. I promise I haven’t moderated you. I’ve only ever deleted angry and/or crazy comments, and that totals about four.

I don’t know what in the hell happened to me, but I woke up early this morning, like five o’clock, when the hubs got up for work. I usually sleep right through his morning routine, but not today. It may be that my aching bones made it hard to get comfortable. I’m so old.

My mom turned 59 last week, and my dad will be 60 in August. My in-laws are in their late-60s. My step-daughter is married with a baby, and all my cousins’ kids are grown up with mates and kids of their own. Makes me wonder where the time went. Have I done everything I was supposed to do? I know I have many years left, but I used to believe I had greatness in me. It turns out I’m just a regular gal after all. Even if I do something great, I’ve established my regularness.

It’s pretty nice, actually, knowing I’m regular. Back when I thought I had a special purpose in this world I felt a lot of pressure. Now if I accomplish any kind of greatness, it’s all gravy.

On tap for today, in no particular order:

• sucking up spiders with the vacuum;
• putting on a bra;
• buying a bag of Quikrete and some sheetrock to maybe finish out the porch room;
• more coffee;
• maybe a movie. Gotta love Netflix + Wii.

So here are some links I’ve come across through the week for your lazy Saturday surfing pleasure. First one came from Marta, about how writers have to be attractive and/or photogenic nowadays, not just good writers. Ack!

Here’s a funny video poking fun at the toxic chemical lobby.

Since I won an autographed copy of Ghost Swamp Blues, by Laraine Herring, I thought it would be nice to give linky love to all involved. I was introduced to this author’s work when Sarah Stockton kindly sent me Writing Begins with the Breath. Laraine’s writing speaks to me on a cellular level, so when she pointed her Facebook friends to a contest on Lisa Romeo Writes, I jumped on it. And it paid off. Woo! Can’t wait to read it.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend.

What’s up, my peeps? I don’t have anything to say today, but has that ever stopped me? Well yeah, sometimes. Not today! Aren’t you glad? *snicker*

So there’s this hurricane rain coming up from Texas. All around us, creeks and rivers are overflowing their banks, flooding populated areas. However, I think they closed the invisible dome over my city again, because we’ve fallen into the same pattern as last summer: rain dissipates as it approaches Tecumseh and re-forms on  the other side, or else we watch the rain curl around us on the radar while we enjoy white puffies and peeks of blue. I see the dark clouds on the horizon in all directions, but they stay on the horizon. I don’t want the flooding, but the anticipation of rain with no release is putting me on edge. Open the dome, people!

Still not writing, and I’m okay with that. The ol’ batteries are about half-way charged, so I’m on track to be ready to go when the kids return to school in a month and a half. The pull is getting stronger. When my agent sent me line edits on the rewrite of my synopsis, I was ecstatic to actually have something legitimate to do. I love the process, I love having a job to do. Working for someone else has priority for some reason, as when I was editing for Eternal Press. I’d spend hours on it, take pride in turning it in early. When my own manuscript was nearing completion, I worked toward the day I could turn it in to my agent, and somehow it made it more urgent than when I was writing for myself. I know for a fact when I have an editor waiting for my edits, or for a whole new manuscript, I’ll be working twice as hard as I do for myself. I’ll close the dome over myself and let the distractions glance off.