I haven’t blogged in ages. (Warning! String of excuses to follow.) I’ve recently gone back to work full-time. Combine that with raising my daughter and trying to finish two books at once, and you’ll see why blogging has been neglected. But this weekend gave me cause to celebrate and so here I am, blogging once more. I pitched both my current novels–the Old & Lost Rivers and Brie and the Robber Baron (book 1 of my middle grade fiction series)–to enthusiastic reception from several agents and one editor. While this is great news for my career, I’m afraid it’s horrible news for my blog. Expect not to hear from me for a month or so as I feverishly polish the books before submission. But send me good vibes!

You may have noticed that I deleted a bunch of posts and it now looks like I haven’t blogged in absolute eons. I’m in the process of setting up a separate blogging site for my YA and MGF that will incorporate a blog of Charlotte going to the Waldorf School and how her journey impacts, well, me and my work. Brie in B&TRB also attends Waldorf, so it’s somewhat relevant but mostly lots of fun. When that site is up and running I’ll post a link here. This will become the site for promoting TO&LR to my women’s fiction audience. ‘Nough said.

I’m thrilled that I won a photo caption contest on an English editor’s website. Any little victory just fuels my writing furnace. I’ll definitely be putting the prize to good use. I guess my love of Oscar Wilde finally paid off.

Thanks, Oscar!!

I named my current novel after a real site in Southeast Texas: The Old River / Lost River bridge on I-10 between Houston and Beaumont. These rivers feed two tiny lakes: Old River Lake and Lost Lake. I googled them and have attached the map. In the book these rivers symbolize memories, and the flowing tide of the past. But, if you look in the top right corner of the map, you’ll see Lake Charlotte. While not in the book, this certainly represents my future…
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Okay, okay, this post has nothing to do with arithmetic, but I couldn’t help myself. So, I just finished “Her Fearful Symmetry,” which managed to give me nightmares about ghosts, and have started William Maxwell’s “So Long, See You Tomorrow,” which I can’t believe I’ve never read before. It is novel-as-poem. I wanted to share this quote, which I just might ask to use as a sort-of frontispiece to my book, “The Old & Lost Rivers.”

What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory–meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion–is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

I have a beautiful study whose walls are lined with books. A Room of My Own, just as Ms. Woolf suggested. Do I do any actual writing in it? No. Ever since I did my “work from home” year, wherein my study was a satellite office for ADC, I have been stymied. Luckily, I have been writing quite a lot lately, almost every day in fact. But not here, not with my feather-touch keyboard or my 19″ flat-screen monitor, or my Relax the Back lifesavingly comfy chair. No, not in my study. I take my tiny 10″ laptop to the bookstore and write in their hardback chairs with people milling all around me.

I have asked my daughter and partner to do a cleansing ritual, wherein they dance around and do funny chants. This ritual worked quite well in Charlotte’s room, to rid her closet of monsters. They performed this ritual a few days ago. It did not work so well in my study. Laurel asks, why stop a good thing? She tells me not to beat myself up for having to write at the bookstore, where I tell myself the Internet doesn’t work and I believe my own lie. My novel is flowing. I should go with the flow… Instead, I’m thinking of burning sage.

My submission to Austin Makes A Book has been accepted and will appear in the published book. Look for “Do They Still Throw  Pickles” when the book is released.

Visit Austin Makes A Book for more information.