Pearls My Mother Wore

Here we are again at another Friday.  The week has been quiet, with just a couple of interesting writing related blips.  One, I received a check for $219 from Readers’ Books for my commission on sales of Pearls My Mother Wore.  It may be tacky to share such info, but enough friends are curious about the money end of self-publishing, and that’s where it’s at.  Pearls has been on their shelves for over a year.  The math is not impressive.  What excites me is that my novel sold at all, and that the folks who bought it have come back and said how much they enjoyed it.  That’s golden.

Another writing point of interest, more probably to me than anyone else, is that I responded to a topic posed in The Sun magazine.  The section of the magazine is called “Readers Write.”  They throw out a topic that’s broad enough to encourage writers to tell their personal experience, and if what you wrote gets printed, then you get a free one-year subscription…and your words in print.  The topic I wrote on was “Warning Signs.”  I’ll know by Aug. 2nd if my 300 word essay will be used, and then I’ll tell you about it here.

For several weeks now, I’ve been mulling over a short story that I’d like to try and write.  I’ve started it this week, but it’s going slow.   How I wish that they would spring forth fully formed, but that is not the way. This is the first creative fiction writing project that I’ve done in over a year and a half.  As much as I’ve enjoyed writing this weekly blog, it has been the place where I have put all of my writing energy, and it’s time for me to change that.  If I’m ever going to write another novel, I need to get back into the creative writing grove.  I’m not a speed reader, and I’m not a speed writer; therefore, I’m struggling to find time to get it all done.  I’m not abandoning this little blog, but I will be shortening the subsequent post to the bare minimum.  Unless, of course, I have some kind of big news.

Before sidling up to my short story, I enjoyed the mind numbing task of organizing and sorting out all of my Word Docs into their own folders.  It took hours, and I was able to discard several megabits of duplicate and unwanted material.  When I was done, I felt that I had accomplished something significant.  I had that satisfied clean-house feeling, but honestly, it was mostly a procrastination tactic.  It’s amazing how clean the house gets when I’m avoiding something.

While sorting, I finally put all of the writing I did in another blog format into one folder.  That blog writing group was called, “A Writer is Someone Who Writes.”  I’m still friends with several of the folks from that group, who live all around the country, but alas, we drifted and our little on-line community disbanded.

Here is a flash fiction piece I wrote from a prompt thrown out in “A Writer is Someone Who Writes:”

Compelled

The doorway didn’t appear until after I had reached the end of a long, whitewashed, adobe corridor and was forced to turn right.  The grey-stone pavers were cool and rang out with my every footfall.  I slowed at the right-angle bend in the passageway to peer around the corner.  Straight ahead, molded into the thick clay walls, was a stout, ornately carved, closed door.  It couldn’t have been more than five feet high for I was taller than that opening.  I waited and examined the aged wood with its intricate carvings that seemed to expand and multiply with every passing minute.  Depicted were all varieties of plants and animal – birds in flight, swirling fish, sleeping cougars, butterflies and caterpillars, trumpet-vines, swaying cypress, lilies and cat-tails; there were snakes and beetles, monkeys and alligators, kangaroos and cockatoos.  The longer I looked the more I saw.  I was captivated by its beauty and wanted to gaze upon the wonders indefinitely, but yet, something compelled me forward.

To open the door required all of my strength.  I had to push down with all my might on its ancient, spring-loaded, cast-iron lever.  It refused to give way.  My palm blistered and stung from the urgent pressure I exerted.  I held my breath and bared-down with one final immense effort, and it released, sprang wide open, into heaven.

Frightened, I turned and ran the other way.

Have a great week, and I’ll post a little something again next Friday.

 

 

This entry was posted on Friday, July 22nd, 2011 at 10:17 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.