The manuscript is one step closer to finding its way to the World. My sis did a read-through and caught a bunch of stuff I didn’t notice in my read-through (like using a peculiar word 18 times!). Now I have to make the corrections, and continue the process. But I worked 13+ hours today at my “real” job, so had no time to do any of my own stuff. Tomorrow I have to finish the work that I’m not finishing tonight (I’m going cross-eyed and I have fumble fingers), then I’m taking the evening off to listen to some live music, yay!

Hopefully this weekend I’ll have time to work on the manuscript, since there’s no more football to watch (sob!). Although my family will be arriving for an extended visit, so I am pretty sure there won’t be a lot of work done until Monday.

My brain is numb, as are my hind quarters, so I’m stumbling off to bed. Wish me luck that I’ll get the corrections done this weekend, and maybe next week the book will be ready to publish!

In the meantime….TGTF!

Here’s a song that has become a favorite of mine in the last few months. It’s a great song. Enjoy!

You can read the entire post here, but these bits caught my attention:

What is your intention? To build a successful blog, or to actually say what is inside of your heart and mind and every single bloody cell of your being, and that you must somehow export it out into the world before you die? Much writing I read these days is to sell something by a formula. Is that your highest purpose? Is that the voice that is dying to be let free into the world? If it is, great, that’s fantastic! If not, stop it. Stop it. Sit with yourself and your unique place in the world and write it all down. Write it all down. Speak your voice. So many people say they need to find their voice. You have a voice, now use it, damn it. In the writing comes the thread. In the writing comes your unique voice, your way, your sense-making of the world around you. Can’t say what you want because people won’t understand or like it? Who are you living for? Yourself or people with wallets? Yourself or applause? Yourself or validation?

The writing is everything. Not the publishing. Not the work-shopping. Not the agent-shopping. Not the Amazon sales rank. Not the deciding who will play you in the movie (Meryl Streep, of course, for 90% of us, what with the accents and all). No, just the writing. The unsexy part. The part where blood drips from your forehead and you imagine yourself far more precious and special than you are.

Write your heart out. Put it out into the world (or not) and then write more. Don’t stop to head up your own Parade. Just write. Write like you are dying. You are.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write something.

Okay, not really. Let’s say it’s your chance to put in your two cents’ worth, which might change a very small part of the future, how’s that?

I have to write a description to convince the world to read my book, Soul Searching. Believe it or not, it’s a lot harder than it sounds!

Anyway, here’s what I’ve come up with. Would you want to read it? Does it make sense? Is it too depressing, confusing, detailed, vague? Be honest – my future is at stake. (Okay, it’s not THAT dire, but the truth is a lot more helpful than empty flattery.)

Add your comments! Your thoughts might be the difference between the book being a huge success and dying a slow death in an online bargain bin somewhere…

Thanks!!

(PS – And if you have a better idea for a title, I’d like to hear that, too!)

************

When we refuse to forgive, we lose a piece of our soul. But where do those pieces go? And how do we get them back?

Tara Davies’ life changed forever when she was eight years old. Now she’s 39, and after spending her life roaming the world she returns home to Oregon, hoping to rebuild her relationship with her father.  But an attack leaves him in a coma before she can ask the question that will determine their future, and her dreams of a normal life are once again shattered.

Her aunt Deirdre, who disappeared 30 years earlier, is killed in the same attack. Tara is stunned when Deirdre leaves her the McCarthy family home, promising that if Tara restores the house to its former glory, it will help her find what she’s been seeking – even though Tara herself has no idea what that is.

For a rootless wanderer like Tara, owning a house ranks right up there with root canals and paying taxes. But she decides to stay in Surfside long enough to repair the house in spite of warnings from Lee, a tavern owner who seems to know more about the house – and Deirdre – than he is willing to admit. She’ll fix it, sell it, and move on.

But as Tara works on the house, she discovers that it doesn’t obey the laws of physics. Doors lock and unlock, holes refuse to stay patched, and a mermaid guards hidden treasure. Her nights are filled with dreams of her family’s past that border on nightmares. And people keep showing up on her doorstep, claiming that the house is calling them.

The final straw comes when her mother mistakes Tara for her long-long sister Deirdre and assures her that the house is still guarding their secrets. Tara has to admit that, as crazy as it sounds, the house has something to teach her – if it doesn’t kill her first.

Tara has to battle obstacles, both seen and unseen, to uncover the truth about the secrets that the house protects. And when faced with the ultimate betrayal, must decide what price she is willing to pay to earn forgiveness – or deny it.

Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of steps involved in preparing a book for publication as an ebook; it’s not just a matter of taking a Word doc and clicking “post.” There are descriptions to write, documents to format, and forms to fill out. I’m not even going to mention planning how you’re going to market it!

But first, you have to make sure the book itself is ready. Even though I wrote it, I had to reread it to remember what it was about. After all, it’s been a while. Then I discovered that at some point, someone advised me to delete some chapters. But they were good chapters, and I missed them. So I had to put them back in. Which meant revamping a lot of other chapters to delete redundancies. Not to mention that I’m a better writer now than I was then, so there were corrections to make to tighten up the writing.

Anyway, the last three days were spent reading, and rereading, and rereading again. This afternoon I decided it was as good as I was going to get it – for now – and sent it off to my sister, who will catch any mistakes that I missed.

So now I have to work on describing what the book is about, which is almost harder than writing the actual book. Try to condense 90,000 words into 250 words, and have it make sense…

And that’s where the project sits tonight. Tomorrow I’ll write the long and short descriptions, and catch up on all of the chores and errands I didn’t do while I was manuscript-ing this weekend. And maybe even do some paying work!

Hopefully my next post will report that I’m that much closer to being done. Guess you’ll have to come back to find out when that happens…

Thanks for stopping! Stay tuned…

Well, it arrived yesterday, and I tore open the box with a combination of anticipation and dread. My first impression was disappointment because I thought I ordered one with a dust cover like the first book, but it didn’t arrive that way. I got over that quickly, though, and browsed through the book. And it looks just fine. Granted, there are things I would like to have changed, but all in all, it’s fine. It needs more pictures, but I didn’t take many in 2006. I’m sure there will be more in the following books (since I have over 17,000 pictures, there MUST be a bunch from the following years!).

Anyway, it looks great, and I’m thrilled to have it sitting on my coffee table. Even though I published it myself, there’s just something about a real “flesh and blood” book that you can hold and flip the pages. And it’s made me consider figuring out a way to make my pending ebooks available in print…one more thing to add to the to-do list.

Unfortunately, these books are expensive – I didn’t create them with selling them in mind, just for my own use. Believe me, the novels will be affordable! But if you win the lottery and want copies, follow the links on the “Books” page and order them – I’ll be thrilled and flattered! And would even autograph them for you.

Now I’m off to peruse my book again, and relive good times with friends, and try not to proofread it too much. Then hopefully I’ll find time to keep hacking away at proofing my manuscript, so I can format it for publication as an ebook – it’s taking forever!

Thanks for stopping, and stay tuned for more updates on “Beth finally dips her toe into the digital publishing world.”

I’m working on creating books of my blog entries from my dearly departed blog, a year at a time. (For those of you unfamiliar with the story, Google ate my beloved blog, along with five years of my thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, writing…sob. May they rot in Hades.) In spite of the move toward digital media, “real” books still have their place, and one of those places is on my coffee table. So I’m trying to retrieve my lost posts and get them into book form before they disappear forever. So far I’ve finished two books – tales and pictures from my round-the-world adventure in 2005, and from 2006, “the year after.” If you’re interested in buying one, they’re available here. There’s also an electronic version for iPads and iPhones, if you’re so inclined.

I’m also working on publishing one of my novels as an ebook, as an experiment. It’s not doing me any good stored in my laptop, so why not make it available for others to enjoy? I’m hoping to have that project done in the next week or two. There are a lot of steps involved, and one begats four more, but hopefully I’ll conquer that project soon. I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s available!

I’m trying to limit the hours I work and increase the hours I play, but so far haven’t had a lot of luck with that. Work continues to be feast or famine so when it’s available, I have to bury my head and get it done. I’m trying to find alternative income sources that DON’T cause tendonitis and Numb Butt Syndrome – stay tuned to see how I do with that.

I’ve hung up my traveling shoes – or at least the ones that require spending weeks in the car and driving thousands of miles. Hopefully a weekend here and there will satisfy my wanderlust. Time will tell, but so far I’m very content to wake up in my own bed each day, and make plans for the future, knowing that I’ll be here.

So today I’ll be watching football, and continuing to hack away at the ebook project. NE FL is experiencing beautiful weather – low 70′s and sunny every day. THIS is why we live in Florida, folks. You can laugh at me when it’s gorgeous in the north and we’re sweltering this summer, but today, I’m thrilled to be wearing flip flops, enjoying the warm breeze blowing through the window, and not worrying about icy roads, snow shovels, or frozen fingers.

I’ve made some changes to the site – check out the new “Songs” and “Books” pages, and click on the links if you’re so inclined! And watch for new books and songs to appear on these pages as they’re available – I have a few in the works.

Heartfelt wishes for a healthy and happy 2012 to everyone – stay tuned!

I had a wonderful trip, saw dear friends and beloved family, but am very glad to be home. Now life returns to normal. I’ll be working, exercising, writing, dreaming, planning, and playing – and on good days, maintaining my tan!

Stay tuned for news on the release of my first ebook! As soon as it’s done, you’ll be the first to know. And I’ll try to add some writing-related posts soon. I might even revisit one of my favorite posts from the past, about New Year’s resolutions.

Stay tuned, and enjoy the rest of 2011!

In the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, take a moment to stop and appreciate what you have. Your family, your friends, the many blessings we take for granted. It’s way too easy to get caught up in the commercial aspects of this time of year; in the end, it’s the people in our lives that matter the most, and not the gifts under the tree.

Merry Christmas! I’ll be sipping egg nog, singing carols, watching football, and eating way too much. And hoping everyone is having a glorious day!

It’s strange to return to a place year after year and find that not much has changed. The Donut Man is sitting on the same corner at the same booth, selling pastries. The same waiters are working at the same restaurants. We quickly fall into the same patterns we followed last year, with nary a hiccup. A store might be a little larger, a restaurant moved to a new location, a new coat of paint on the house, another street paved. It’s almost surreal, as though time stands still here. Although the days seem to speed by, in spite of the slow pace we follow. Before we know it, our time here is over, and we wonder how days spent doing nothing could pass so quickly.

I wonder what it feels like to have this small town be your entire world? To not be encumbered with Walmart and McDonald’s and all of the distractions we have back home. Where your evening entertainment is a circle of plastic chairs set up in the street outside a store, where friends and neighbors gather to chat. I wonder how many of these folks never make the trip to the Big City (a five-hour bus ride). What must it be like to be content in the routines of this small town – or maybe not content, but not knowing anything else? My world is so big; I wonder what it’d be like to have a world so small.

There was a hurricane here in October, Jova. We’ve seen damage in the surrounding towns – washed-out roads, collapsed walls, ruined roofs. In one town, half of a restaurant is tilting into the ocean. The tables and thatched umbrellas are still on the rooftop bar…it’s just at a 45 degree angle. We didn’t have much of a hurricane season in Florida this year, so it’s weird to think that there WAS a hurricane somewhere and that it did this kind of damage. Considering the construction here is a wee bit different than back home, I guess it’s not surprising. But it’s still eerie.

Funny how fast we fall back into familiar routines. This is my fourth visit to Melaque, and each year we pick up where we left off the year before, without a hiccup. We stay in the same house, I sleep in the same room, we have our favorite things that we do. We spend the mornings sunbathing and reading, afternoons in the shade, then catch sunset either on our beach or at a waterfront bar (complete with white plastic tables and chairs shoved into the sand at the water’s edge) before wandering into town for dinner. A quick stop at the churro stand, or Donut Man, or ice cream store for dessert, then it’s a slow meander around the town square before heading home to bed. Wednesday is market day, where we wander among rows of tables nestled under tarps stretched across the street for blocks and blocks. The vendors sell everything from shoes to kitchen utensils to food to pottery to jewelry to toys to…well, if you need it, it’s probably there. Thursday we walk down the beach to the next town because Thursday is their market day, and it’s a bigger town with more souvenir-kind of shops. There’s water volleyball and cribbage next door with the gringo neighbors, who have become friends over the years. But above all, we relax and enjoy each other’s company, and the comfort of being back in Melaque.

I’ve noticed more foreigners here this year, for some reason. I missed last year, so perhaps the change is gradual. But it’s weird seeing so many gringos sitting in the town square and walking the streets. It feels like our secret hiding place from the world has been found.

There were two festivals this week, both with parades. The Fiesta de Guadelupe parade consisted of pickup trucks with youngsters dressed as the Virgin Mary, Jesus, and other religious figures perched in the beds, portraying famous scenes from Mary’s life. The Fiesta del Mar parade had homemade floats, marching bands, folks in costumes – and soldiers and sailors with guns. Kind of strange, watching them march solemnly past, following the students from the local beauty school who were dressed in wild colors with sparkles dotting their faces. Gotta love small-town parades.

Even being here just a week, I’ve met people. We find ourselves running into new friends every night. They pull up white plastic chairs and join us for dinner or drinks. I’ve seen more people I know here than I do at home – then again, we don’t walk around a central square back home, like we do here.

The week has passed quickly in some ways. It seems like we just got here, and I’m already leaving. I’ll miss the lazy days, the new friends, the casual pace we set. But even though it’s been a fun week, I’m ready to be home. I will gratefully sink into my own bed when this trip is over, toss my traveling shoes in the closet, and settle into a routine of work, and play, and pursuing my passions. And not go anywhere for a very long while.