Sherri Cornelius

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.

(Had to change the title from 4 to 9. Who knew an Ice Age 4 was actually coming? Did anybody watch 3?)

I never did find my camera cord, so I guess I'll never get those ice storm pictures uploaded. I'm sure I put the cord somewhere that made sense at the time, but only my other personality knows where it is.

I'll go on record as saying this is the strangest winter I can remember. Normally here in Oklahoma we have a couple of little snows a year, with one big, bad winter storm every two or three years. Ice, snow, power outages, the whole shebang. Any accumulation melts within a day or two, at the most a week, and many times I can remember wearing shorts one week and earmuffs the next. We don't have extended periods of deep cold. My pear trees try to bud a couple of times every winter, it can get that warm.

This season we've had a blizzard with record snow totals followed by a cold snap that kept the snow around for weeks, an ice storm with record ice accumulation and another record snowfall on top of that, with a bunch of little snows in between. I'm seriously thinking of investing in a snow shovel. Yesterday I bought a chainsaw so I could cut up all the limbs that fell off the trees, and if it will ever stop snowing I will do that. Lingering snow makes me nervous. I'm used to the landscape looking a certain way, so those few weeks when the snow just stayed gave me a constant, vague feeling of suspicion.

People like to say, "I thought the globe was supposed to be getting warmer, yuk yuk." Well of course if the global average temperature is raised or lowered it will cause weather patterns to shift, and that means different weather, not necessarily warmer all the time. I don't know if global warming is real or not, and frankly, I've stopped caring. I live as simply and consume as little as I can, and that's all I can do.

Not sure I've ever been this ready for spring. Geez.

I've been a bit obsessed with this song, "Still In the Dark" by Aranda. Finally googled Aranda, and guess what I found out?? Aranda is from Oklahoma! I know I seem a bit over-excited, but I love finding out that cool people came from right over there.

Since I prefer live performance to canned, I'll give you this video they made promoting KattFest, a local radio station's annual rock festival. I think the dark-haired guy sounds a little bit like Richard Marx, but obviously cooler. I think I just dated myself. Anyway, enjoy!

This started out as a "treadmill" post, but I see it has turned into a real one.

I had a very good writing day yesterday, one I hope to duplicate today. By "good" I mean I sat for over an hour thinking/working on only the WIP without being distracted by anything else. No Twitter, no kids, no laundry, no daydreams.

I still didn't finish the chapter I was working on. I'd thought it was almost done, but nope. That's been happening a lot lately. The thing that's bothering me the most about this chapter is that it's only about 4 pages long. Why has it been so hard? I blame the fic blog. All y'all waiting for another chapter over there, I don't see that happening anytime soon. I'll probably get the chapter done in a couple of days, but I think posting these one at a time just causes me more pressure. I might do a section at a time instead, but then it'll be hard to keep the readers' interest. So I don't know.

I did set myself some incentive. Gave myself permission to buy a new laptop once the WIP is completely finished. That lit a fire under my butt. Don't know how I'll get the money, but that's my promise to myself.

Got some good news yesterday. Did I mention that I'd called my agent after all? I think I did. Anyway, I mentioned a publisher here in OK that might be interested in Ea's Gift. She jumped on it. She researched the guidelines and had me write a bio to send with the package. They requested the full manuscript within days. You know, for a while I was depressed about not having any control over my books once they are at the agent's office, but now I realize I was focusing on my old control. I have new control, I just didn't see it for looking backward.

Here's something cool: I didn't realize until later that I'd sent sample chapters to this pub back when it was still Stolen Magic, and before the book was even sort of finished. The editor's reply was so encouraging it gave me the push I needed to finish the book and look for representation. I still have the email, and I might share that after this all shakes out.

I like to think I'm being rewarded for taking charge of my own happiness. Identifying the things which weighed me down and doing something to change them. It's not an offer, but it's more activity than I've had in a long, long time.

On tap for the day: revamp the vision board, housework, and come 12:30 or so, writing. What have you got going on today?

I love warm spring mornings, waiting for the bus with the two oldest children, soaking up nature's joy in the rising sun. Today the kids almost missed the bus because of the distractions awaiting in our front yard. They lamented the violets losing their blossoms and reveled in the luxurious blooms of roses. They shed their jackets (thrust upon them by an overprotective mother) and skipped through the grass. Then a bird landed in the mulberry tree a few feet away and ate some breakfast, which, of course, the children then had to do. "Let's go eat the mulberries before the bird gets them all!" they cried.

They picked a few before the bus came, and then had to rush to make it to the street in time. "Have a wonderful day," I called as I do every morning. They chorused, "We will!" They sat in the front seat of the bus with their heads together and forgot to wave at me out the window, as they do more and more. That's all right.

Oklahoma is a great place to live. Really fantastically awesome. It has it's challenges, as every state does, but I couldn't imagine living anywhere else.

A.C. Crispin of Writer Beware liked it when she came to the OWFI conference a couple of weeks ago. In the linked post she compares the Nebula Awards banquet with ours, the professional writer and the amateur. She talks about the enthusiasm and joy of writers who attended the conference, and through our example realized that once you're a pro it's easy to forget to enjoy writing.

I'm enjoying it, that's for sure. I finished my longer synopsis, which ended up being 2 1/2 pages. I know this is weird, given the general feeling floating around cyberspace about them, but I love writing synopses. It is a unique challenge, word-for-word taking about quadruple the time it takes to write the book itself, but when all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, it is immensely satisfying.

So now the synopsis is finished, and while I wait for proofreaders to get back to me (anybody else who wants to volunteer, I'll love you forever) I'll insert the changes in the first three chapters that somehow didn't get saved the first time I did it. Then my proposal package will be complete, and I can focus on editing the rest of the book. IF I can stay inside during the lovely summer evenings and get it done.

I think the next topic I post about will be a fatherless follow-up.