SORTING THROUGH OPTIONS

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 sold many. Marketing again! My technique leaves a lot to be desired.

When I taught high school English and was about to plan a new section--The Romantics, for instance--I began with a bulletin board design. So in publishing I start with the book cover. I Googled images, and I looked in my own photographs. Nothing satisfied. Then I thought of Shiloh Sophia! Now an artist of international renown, she and I met in the mid-1990s and became close friends for over ten years until life with its resettlements left large spaces of time when each of us followed separate dreams. We did come together briefly for shared creative work. Neither of us ever doubted the love and responsiveness of the other. So I emailed her.

Her generosity was overwhelming. Not only could I use one of her paintings, she would also give me ideas for a marketing plan! This comes as good, good news.

WIDOW'S WALK should be out in the beginning of the new year.

Comments

WomanChrist: The 30th Anniversary Edition

A few weeks after my novel, Widow's Walk, was released I was visiting with my neighbor, Cecile. She was c urious about one of my first published books, WomanChrist, and asked if I had a copy. I did. It was a second-hand Amazon.com copy, rather battered, with a sticky-note inside the cover that read: “Cheryl--yes, this book is Really weird! (I had no idea when I bought it 😊 ) But bear with it—she has a lot of good ideas about being a woman today while also being Religious. Hope you enjoy it— (it’s not just to skip around and browse through)!!” Cecile might get a laugh out of that, I thought. Her reaction after reading the book was, “This is your best book! It’s so current. How could you have written this all those years ago? It’s actually prophetic.” She was the first one who told me to republish it. It had been written on my very first computer, more like a glorified typewriter and neither DOS-based nor Windows-based. I had only the published book; if I intend

Carol in the Hand of God

Carol in the Hand of God My friend Carol died yesterday. She'd been ill for a while and was on dialysis, but none of us thought her passage would come so soon. She already was on her journey from this world to the next when I took this picture of storm clouds at sunset Tuesday evening, just hours before her death the next day. At first I saw only the amazing combination of clouds, rainbow and color. And I saw the strange burst of light. But not until yesterday evening, after I heard she had dropped her body and was on her way, did my eyes adjust to see that Hand formed by the clouds. Nor did I see that the light seemed to have a human form, leaning foward, a spirit taking flight. Carol? Some of us do this--see the Virgin Mary in the ice crystals on a window, Jesus in the bark of a tree. Normally we'd see ice; we'd see the tree. It's the timing that makes the difference. It's the coming together of two realities, normally disconnected, but suddenly one even

WIDOW'S WALK IS PUBLISHED

I Have Always Been With You Artist: Shiloh Sophia WIDOW'S WALK, A NOVEL · FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2018 A sense of loss followed me like a shadow all my life. Real loss. Actual dead and gone kind of loss. Maybe it’s like that for everyone; who can know unless they tell you? From early childhood I knew I’d have to do something about this haunting or it would eat me up. There’s an old 16 mm film of me as a three-year-old circling the tiny grave of a bird that died--a tiny yellow chicken that my neighbor Minnie Osborn gave me from her coop. I’m performing a kind of ritual, like a priest circling the altar with incense. You can see the tears on my cheeks. As life goes on we lose a lot of who and what we love, those people and things that make us what we are. Maybe every experience of love continues as a part of us. Maybe we are made of the bits and pieces of the content of every moment we’ve lived--all we’ve seen and heard and touched and smelled, every gaze, embrace,

In the Spaces

Search This Blog