T is for Traveling Home

I'm sitting here at the Kansas City Sheraton reflecting on the last week of meet and greets, craft workshops and meals with friends. Some of these people I've known for years on the internet. Some are new friends in every sense.  What a remarkable week of expanding my boundaries, and keeping some boundaries in check.

It won't be hard for me to go back home. I miss my husband, my writing corner, my gardens, the sunshine and that beautiful space that I call my sanctuary, where all the beautiful stories are created. I'd forgotten how much my routine, my sense of place and belonging was to me -- and I'm not complaining. Just noticing how I miss the things I have and do every day. That great old country song comes to mind, How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?

My travels have exposed me to people I would not ordinarily sit and talk to. And we're all storytellers, so the stories are rich. We have new projects planned and this year will be a first for me with hopefully three nice collaborations. I'll be in three collections. More to come.

I'm reminded about what I do because of all these fantastic posters plastered around the lobby, the Mezzanine, and wrapped around the elevator doors. but I miss the two story living and dining room at my house, with the windows reflecting sunsets, and the three beautiful ledges of hand blown glass we've chosen. I am very much about the place. And my place feels like a church. The music I play echoes throughout the house, especially when I am all alone. If I'm not brought to tears every hour, my writing isn't good enough.


I need my fix of the familiar so I can bring all the great success and ideas home and tend them in my writing garden.

It's only been eleven months since I've been able to really call my writing income enough to live on. And last night I got to sit with and talk to people who have done that ten, maybe thirty times over. Wow. Not about all the money. I think about all the fans, the people who got to read such compelling stories. I got to talk to another Indie writer this week who actually has sold 100,000 copies a day for almost a whole month. Excuse me while I bow.

One day, I'll have one of these cool elevator wraps. I'll be flooded at a bookstore signing. I'll have a fan page with 20,000 people on it. But I'll still be the same lady who likes to get dirty in her garden, who writes the kinds of stories I would like to sit down, cuddle up with, and fantasize about. The reality of what I do during the day gives me this fantasy I've earned.

I'll be finishing the A-Z Challenge and, just like Vince Lombardi said it, "I never lost a game, I only ran out of time." My A-Z Challenge will end sometime this week.

And that's okay.

I think this link still works:  Don't forget to catch the other A-Z Blog participants by clicking here.

Going and Coming: Life

A visit to the doctor reminds me of how fragile life is. I'm well. But I get to see a lot of not-well people. And right now experiencing some un-wellness in my immediate family. Along with new birth. I guess I've begun to get it, now that I am 6 decades old: life goes on. I can scream and yell and protest its passing, but it still goes on as if I never said anything.

I guess that's why writing has become so important to me. Taking stories from real life and weaving them into other worlds is what we do as writers. And we take the pain, the emotions, from those life events, and use them. I blogged today about Editing Woes over at RRR, and one of my points was that the reader reads for the emotions in the story, the emotions of the characters, the love scenes, not just the description of what went on and who did what to whom.

We are cheering Ethan's birth and how strong he is, while we are saying goodbye to my dad, who has lived a wonderful life, and been the best dad a girl could ever want. Good time to remind myself it's not all about me, but the people around me. My job is to feel. Sometimes I run away from my feelings because they are just too much to handle. But my job is to feel, and then write them down.

We don't get do-overs like some of our characters get in our stories. Actually, that would make an interesting story concept. Life is not permanent. Neither are feelings. What we do about it is. We love babies because we know we are only going to be around long enough to perhaps see them get married and perhaps have children and grandchildren of their own. These little ones, in the beginning of their lives, will know us, the older ones, at the end of our lives. We each get to discover what the world is like before or after the loved one has been born, or passes on.

It's a pea soup kind of day here in Sonoma County, which is good for the grapes. This misty fog means I can be a bit lazy with my watering, I'm tempted to make a fire, but know my house will heat up like a firecracker soon enough. My hubby is away getting inspiration from a mastermind meeting, and I anticipate seeing lots of friends at the Silicon Valley Romance Writers meeting tomorrow, where I will be a panelist and hopefully will give some nuggets of things I've learned along the way.

Book sales are going well. Accidental SEAL has been in the top 100 for Amazon Kindle paid sales for 9 weeks in a row and made some serious money. Over 13,000 people downloaded Honeymoon Bite on a free promotional 4 day blog, and it shot to #1 for Fantasy Romance for 3 days in a row. Same thing happened in June for Heavenly Lover. So, despite the occasional stinker review (which doesn't affect sales at all) people are liking my books. I don't go trolling for the 300+ reviews like some do. I have a problem with faking things to look like they aren't. Just being honest and taking my lumps as they come. And writing is the best cure for anything that ills me. Anything.

My family is safe for now. Prayers go out to those that have suffered with loss of life: the SEALs and other military men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice recently, and all their families who proudly bear the mourning. The people who have lost their life in senseless acts of violence, and their families. My shock and dismay at the truth being distorted so much in our political campaigns, and all the hate it spews. How people fall like lemmings after slogans and catch phrases like "war on women" when we have more opportunity here than anywhere else in the world. And people have died to make sure it stays that way. I was thinking we were going to take the higher road this election season. I was wrong.

So I guess with this theme of what I have and don't have, in the going and the passing of life, what I'm feeling today is being connected.

And that's a good thing.