In the Spaces

MORNING INSPIRATION AT CASA CHIARA The options for publishing WIDOW'S WALK seemed to be three: 1. A big publisher such as I had for ALTAR MUSIC, but this would require getting a new contract with my former Literary Agent. 2. A small literary publisher with a long queue of already accepted manuscripts. I was told to expect a 3 to 4 year wait. 3. Independent Publishing. The agent didn't even acknowledge receipt of the manuscript. I was told by a writer-friend that non-response is the new normal. Maybe that is true. I'd promised myself that I wouldn't spend too much of my precious and limited time trying to find a new agent. And I really like Independent Publishing! Marketing is difficult for me, but even the large publishers now expect authors to present a marketing plan. So...I will learn. And I brought up my Amazon.com /CreateSpace account. They have acted as printer for six of my books, and I've enjoyed the process. The only problem is that I haven't so...

The light and shadow, solidity and wisp, Autumn. I had more brilliant pictures of Fall color more intense than any here since I arrived eighteen years ago. But this one captures best the complexity of my readers' comments and the effect they have had on my re-write of Widow's  Walk. Five talented and generous people have now read my first draft, and a few more are right in the middle of it. Already their comments are giving the narrative more depth and filling it in where I took too much for granted. I spend from three days to a week or more with each reader, returning to the narrative through their eyes, listening as deeply as is possible for me to their questions, suggestions, confusions, reactions. Each reader has his or her unique gift that motivated me to request their assistance, from personal experience with the flow and content in this novel, to a particularly accomplished sense of literary structure, to a creative ability with language, to a habit of reading contem...