In Just Spring, New Life

Ah, spring. e e cummings best described my favorite season as, "... mud luscious (and) puddle wonderful ..."

Emergence and warmth, color and sound return after the doldrums of ice and forest silence. When winds that herald rains and the smell of earth suffuses my backyard, my gardening fingers get itchy and visions of flower beds dance in my head. Morning birds help remind me that rising early--rising at all--is a blessing that I should never take for granted. Sunlight feels like a delightful heated cloak, even when the breeze still chills a bit.

Forsythia, hyacinth, crocus, daffodils and magnolias ... Honey, you know it's time to put down that TV remote and join eddieandbill in a game of marbles.

It's spring. Time to walk the dog just a little farther. Yes, and enjoy washing the car yourself and not at the carwash. And better set out the humming bird feeder and await their return. Don't forget to tidy up the remnants of dead leaves and windblown refuse that was once buried by winter snows. Renewal, renewal.

Spring brings new life. Like a grandson. And a granddaughter. And new joys that come with another generation with which to share small things: The growing of flowers, tree leaves, the multi-colored marvel of a butterfly wing ... the sheer happiness of life, itself.

It's spring. Run along with bettyandisbel and play hop-scotch and jump rope. Be glad for the end of cold and look forward. The summer is nearer and we will continue to cast off heavy clothing, strap on our sandals, and worship long days replete with bar-b-queues, picnics, fresh fruit, and fireflies.

I love spring. Why I can almost hear that little goat-footed baloonMan whistling far and wee.

Interracial Romance: Fad or the Future

One might wonder why I would bother to ask such a question given the proliferation of interracial/multicultural romances with the last 10 years. If you are wondering if this is a fad or a harbinger of things to come, let me begin with this hypothesis: Mainstream literary agents and some publishers have two perspectives.

One, they consider this a fad; a recent boom coming from minority writers who dwell within our urban landscapes. They see the scores of self-published fiction on Amazon and elsewhere, and since this literary trend seemed to "come out of nowhere", it may fade as quickly it rose.

Two, they see it as the future. Yet because interracial (or "IR" as it is known in the trade), is a sub-genre within a sub-genre, my hypothesis is that it is still far too esoteric to be profitable. After all, the great amount of IR romance involves black women and white men; and because we always read about a heroine with whom we can relate, why would a white female want to read a romance wherein the heroine does not reflect her? Fair enough.

And we know that the largest demographic of romance readers are white females from the southern half of the United States, so it stands to reason that a literary agent who looks to the marketability of a good story first is going to decline representing a project that they perceive has limited sales potential. After all, this is business.

Yet I would like to add in a third variable which in no way impugns those in the business of representing authors for a living.

Might it not be that the many rejections that go out from long-established mainstream literary agent houses are because of a failure to fully perceive the rapidly changing racial, cultural, and "inter-relational" world around them? That from the competitive realms of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other literary strongholds there lacks a visionary outlook which says, "We should represent more of this kind of literature"?

In part, I say, yes. Interracial romances are not a fad, and are not only here to stay, but they are going to grow and flourish. It is the future of romance much in the same way music like rap and hip-hop (once an anomaly of the urban fringe) have now gone mainstream.

I look to Kensington and Harlequin Publishing houses whose IR imprints do sell, and sell well enough for these giants to see profits generated from stories that feature non-white protagonists. Sadly, the reality is that by virtue of numbers in the population's demographic, white men/white women will continue to dominate mainstream romance submissions, acceptance by agents, and will end up on book shelves from publishers from now until romance writers go extinct.

But as the hearts and minds of people progress toward greater understanding and acceptance (notice, I did not say tolerance), of love across color lines, I do hope more agents realize they stand to profit by taking a chance on an ever-escalating trend.

Or perhaps I should reassure them that there are more than enough fans of IR romance; readers like me who would make it worth their while.

The Ides of March

Unlike Caesar, I don't believe I should be wary of anything except the ever expanding mud puddles forming in my front yard.

Yes, the weather is changing, and as the Sun grows warmer and the days longer, I feel that sense of incubation so prevalent in the final stages of winter. Call it the end of a hibernation? Not really.

Dormant, I am not. The winter for me is a chance to regroup, renew, and prepare for a "coming out".

What do I mean?

I am not sure, to be honest. Perhaps it is an anticipation of results after spending much in the way of  sweat equity, and other investments into my future. Right now, the investment I am making in my writing will, I pray, result in the acquisition of a book contract. It has been a long slog through piles of rejections, requests for chapters and manuscripts, and still more rejections.

I do take heart that my editor, author, J.J. Murray (who I also count as my mentor), keeps encouraging me to stick with it--something I intend to do, since the only way I can fail is to give up.

So write on, I say! Write, read, reflect, incubate, and write some more. I know that I have great stories to tell, stories that come from hard knocks, tough experiences, from pain and glory, and from the heart.

Is all that enough to sell a book? I shall be able to tell you that once one of my books is sold. And that will happen since I am not about to give up.

March has arrived. And it's snowing outside my window. I could lambasted this situation by hurling explicatives at the heavens, but would no nothing to influence the snow itself. I move on.

A recent comment from a fellow authoress bid me to consider venturing out on my own and self-publish my very excellent books. I am giving this some serious thought. Why?

Partly because after nearly three years of querying and receiving rejections for a genre that is a little too "fad" or marginal (I write interracial romance) for most agents; and in part because I get tired of waiting the months it takes for agents and editors to review my work. Why can't they just shove the gargantuan piles of queries aside and read mine first? Too much to ask? Really?

I believe the time has come to grab the creative bull by the horns and Kindle my way to success.

Yes, I know. There is no guarantee that success will fall into my lap--but if I seize it, hold it in my clutches, never let it go--yes, that's it... I...

Oops. Sorry. Don't know what came over me. Ahem!

Yes, self-publishing. It seems like a quick fix and a whole lot of work. Then there is the marketing, the need to get the word out in order to stand out. Internet access, blogs, book signings, media outreach; yep, a whole lot of work.

I could just wait and allow time to be my best friend. An agent does the footwork of getting the book sold to a publisher. The publisher does the leg work of formatting, printing and binding, or formatting and uploading, and some marketing. There's contracts all along the way, which nibbles at the take home revenue, but hey, they have to make a living, too. Right?

With that in mind, the thought of self-publishing look ever more appealing. After all, I believe in my work. I want the public to have access to it, I don't mind working for my success--not one bit!

Perhaps it is best to consider entrepreneurship, self-determination, and grabbing that bull.

And I've wrestled with enough bulls on this publishing quest to know enough to watch out for those horns!

Woodlands Awakening 2015

From a recent journey into the forest:

I stalk along watching above as trees barren of foliage sway in a wind that I cannot hear. Towering sentinels with sunken sap gelled behind bark skins stand in cold and silence, their gnarly limbs as bent and twisted carcasses, but still living, and they watch how I journey within their realm.

And I know the woodlands are full of life yet the living sequester themselves in fear and in comfort to avoid the icy hold of winter’s grip. A grip that does not claw with icy fingers piercing down through my neck or up my sleeves, but that cloaks me and chills me from the outside in, until there is no warmth, but always the hope of warmth.

I look down. Tracks of denizens, long trails searching from far beyond their origins and slinking to where they disappear into a distant gray curtain that is broken only by flecks of lighter gray. Movement, color, sound ... All lay denuded, insipid, and silent in a frigid kingdom of snow and ice.

And the bitter wind stings the face, cracks the lips, and forces the eyes to well with freezing tears. I walk with a heaviness that draws my cold feet to the earth like an icy magnet; they are numb, unwieldy, save for the ache of slowly freezing toes.

But I stand and I listen. Deliberately. There is a creak of limbs grating against each other; a snap of an ice-laden branch. I hear the rumbling of a silent wood broken but by the rapping of russet leaves of long dormant oaks, tapping on bark as icy fingers on glass, shivering as they await their mortal descent  to the forest floor.

Homeward, I walk on, rapt in muse of a realm where the language is a tongue of a sharp ear, a keen eye, and a clear scent. Here where God dwells, the road, not given, is shared. And I continue on into the wilds I love, aware and attentive—and I belong.

Getting Serious or Take a Breath and Start Again

Who am I kidding? How much more serious about being published can I possibly get? Any more serious and I would have to try bribing literary agents; you know, start selling stuff, like the family heirlooms, my dog, my firstborn ... Or I could fling my body across the desk of an agent, clinging to their lapels while bawling out his or her name, begging on pain of death that they represent me. Yep, that's pretty serious. Manic, but serious.

But who's got the time?

So I continue commit myself to more practical solutions to getting published. For instance, I have upgraded my website to where I'm quite proud of my branding and marketing. I now have website profile pages on Goodreads, on Romance Writers of America, and Wattpad (whoever they are). Speaking of Wattpad, I've even posted a novel for folks to read and offer comments. And there are the many Facebook pages that I have LIKED and groups for black women writers that I've joined. Now that's fun.

I'm starting to enjoy this writing community-group-profile-member-interracial author-kind of thing. I've entered contests (won first place in the 2014 CIMRWA), I am submitting to anthologies, sending out queries, sample chapters, and synopsizes. I stare at this screen until my eyes go blurry, I will be attending conferences, meeting folks, I may start a local writers group, and I may also find time to sleep.

And when all is said, I continue to write and envision what I will write next. And life will go on even after I get published.

Creative Hibernation

You heard me.

It's winter. Let's admit it. All most of us want to do is curl up under the covers with our favorite steaming beverage-- and a steamier body beside us to cuddle. I certainly do. And with the limited chances to stray outside and enjoy nature (for you urban dwellers), it comes to pass that indoor pursuits are a priority for spare time amusements. Am I right?

What about me, you ask? Well, I love winter. The more severe, the better. I know that sounds sadistic and insane, but ask me why.

Okay, I'll tell you. I, like my colleagues in the arts, take this cabin fever afflicted opportunity to flex creative muscle. Plainly, I write and I paint. Well, I write more than I paint. I have no garden to tend, I limit my walks to de-iced foot paths (something non-existent around here; everything is icy), and the hunting season is over. Not much point in venturing out-of-doors, so I stay within the confines of my cozy woodland home and I tickle the keys of my laptop, bringing to life those machinations of my romantic imagination.

There's something about gazing out the window at a stark winter moonscape--watching the swirling wind whipped snow, the denuded trees, and best, hearing haunting wind howling through the forest--ooh, that gets my prolific author on!

So until spring sets its combative sights on this dormant season of hibernation and quiet, I shall happily take the time to write, to breath life into my characters so that I my fall in love with them.

Ah, yes. Winter is good.

Back From the Brink

    Ah, tis a weary road I've travelled in these last six months. To start, my home of 20 years at New Hope Farms in New York came to an end. The owners sold the property where my husband and I worked as equestrian caretakers since 1994.
     Thus began an era of my life that involved finding a new home, yard sales, selling our horses and the horse trailer, disposing of sundry accumulations of stuff we didn't need, packing things into boxes, more yard sales, surrendering our beloved greyhounds, Dot and Dash (I don't want to talk about it), getting through my youngest child's high school graduation, sorting through mountains of books, selling fish tanks, finding a home for Jasmine, my eight foot boa constrictor (I don't want to talk about the, either!), helping realtors show the farm property ... Let's see, what else?
     Did I mention that I was doing my utmost to ignore my health? It's a crime of omission that caught up to me right around Labor Day, when on a sweltering 90 degree day, I hauled six heaping 55-gallon garbage bags to the dump, vacuumed four second floor non-air conditioned bedrooms (with a Shop Vac), and all without drinking anything but an iced coffee.
     Combine that with a visit to an acupuncturist for my heart, liver, kidneys, and a recurrent back problem, on the following Wednesday, I lay in bed giving my husband my last rites confession before I closed my eyes for the final time.
     Yes indeed. I felt that bad.
     After a visit to the emergency room, a very irate doctor chastised me for being overwrought, clinically exhausted, and acutely dehydrated. Yep, when your pee-pee is the same color as your hardwood flooring, you've got a big problem.
     Suffice it to say that I put the brakes on everything and slapped myself into the bed with a pitcher of liquids, my Kindle App, and my TV remote.
     Things occasionally came up:
     "Lesa, could you handle a class?"
     Nope.
     "Lesa, could you help at church?"
     Nuh-Uh.
     "Lesa, I need ..."
     Sorry. Not gonna happen.
     That was the first week of September, and here we are about to enter February. I'm finally feeling better, although every time something physically challenging arises, my body sends out the war party, telling me, "You better nor, or else!"
     And since I tend to take the lemons handed to me and make them into applesauce, I've spent these last months in cocoon mode, writing, editing, and sending out queries to agents and publishers.
     And you know what? I rather enjoy sitting here in our new Pennsylvania home, looking out over the 12,000 acres of state land butting up against my backyard. Like in the days when Mary Shelly and friends wrote their best works in the foul weather of 1816 (lucky her-it was summer then), I look out on a two-foot plus white mantle of snow, icicles draping off my eaves, and the barren trees surrounding my house.
     And I write.