A touch of Drambuie to couple the clippers
big enough to trim a horses overgrown hoove;
the liquer is a necessary, the wee burn
at the lips close upon the sweet scent
from the snifter, the miracle
of rounding physics to take what is
and compound almonds, or whatever the hell
makes heaven in a brown bottle,  more.
It is necessary,  an enabler.
Now I am done; toes dusty rose enamel;
heels, like butter; soles --
god dammit!  ok.  another half glass
and there go the soles.

now that's a sole poem I can like.

LOL, pedicure with alcohol.

rick, el vee -- grins here for finding you'd stopped by.  At 12:25 on May 31, I am on the last chapter of Irene to sift through with 3rd draft edits.  It is currently 6500 words in length, this last chapter -- and the longest chap in the whole shebang -- which seems wrong, somehow, but I am trying to save something for the editors of the huge, as yet unnamed and unknown, publishing house that will certainly pay somehwere between six and eight figures for this epic family saga, replete with its serial killers and cannons .... [where was I?] ah yes, I am trying to save something for those unknown editors to offer suggestions about.

back to it.  so sorry for being so absent on site! 

I simply cannot wait for the day I can walk into a book shop and buy this book!

Cannons AND serial killers?  A winner for sure!

Rick

Rick -- one cannon and one serial killer.  Thanks for the votes of confidence, y'all.

Posted to blog http://itcouldabeen.wordpress.com/  the following.  Not sure it works, but did think there's some info buried inside there in re: agents and waiting game. 

Two weeks lasts nine years when you’re eight or twelve and waiting for summer vacation to start, waiting to break free of desks and chairs and have more than a minute-long recess wherein you barely get a win in against Jimmy on the tetherball court before the buzzer sounds.  Then, after a month or so of freedom, of walking country roads and memorizing every blade of grass, where every pirate hides in the farm equipment on the dairy — the remainder of summer lasts and lasts, stretching into an endless sort of eon before you can catch the school bus again.

Just so with sending a chapter of Irene off to be read by an agent.  The exhileration of finally accomplishing this goal, the self-satisfaction of knowing, whatever the results may be, that the novel, one chapter of the novel, is within readable reach of someone who might give it the push it needs to become an actual book — all of that lightness of spirit, that incessant humming and silly grin for no apparent reason — leaves by the end of the week.  By the third day, you’re checking the calendar to see if a week has gone by.  You know it’s only the third day, but there’s always that outside chance you’ve somehow slept through a day,  or four.  After two weeks, you ask your editing coach and Beat the Book writing friends, “How long should I wait before I send a note around, you know, to make sure the doc file arrived ok?”  You’re told, “Let’s give it a few more weeks.”  “Is one week considered a few?”  “Let’s give her two.”  “Ok.”

You think you’ve said “Ok” out loud, but you say it again, resignedly:  “ok.”

Later, during the reunion phone conferencing call with the four other writers who’ve helped you hone the work and pumped you up when you’d felt certain of failure at completing The True Life Adventures of Irene in White Tights, during talk between the others about the work in progress with one of your friends on the call, you interupt and say, “Would it be wrong to go ahead and submit a query letter and chapters to another agent now?”  One of those Time Warp things happens.  The silence is maybe a nano-second but you feel  minutes slip past.  You have over-stepped.  You’ve been thoughtless.  You have every reason to still be dancing the streets.  Your first chapter is out there, within reachable reading distance of an agent already.  You are greedy.  Someone should give you a Time Out corner to sit in and the chair should be uncomfortable.  There shouldn’t be a chair.  Just the floor.  No carpeting.

“You could submit to other agents,” you’re told.  Then you’re told about ‘exclusivity’ and that some agents like this.  Exclusivity is a feature they can pitch to a publisher.  Exclusivity has worth.  On the other hand, you’re told, by sending to more than one agent, your agent audience is broadened, more chances to be read, to be picked up.  The main thing, you’re told, is to keep the agent who currently has the mss. (within reachable reading distance) informed of any additional queries to other agents or the sending out of mss. pages.   “It’s up to you,” you’re told.

“Ok.  I’ll wait the two weeks.”  Then, the nudge will take place to find out if the first agent has read the first chapter.  If not, then, then the information to the first agent that you’re considering sending out to a second agent.  Then the wait to find out if this information will have any effect on the first agent.  Has she read it?  Will she now?

Ok.

You can wait.  You will wait.  And, at the top of your Things To Keep Your Mind Occupied While You Wait List, write a note of apology to Susan for interupting her time to talk about her project during the reunion Beat the Book conference call.  Check.

This is great news, great comment and great prose.

larry

Thank you, kind sir!  I've posted today's installement on the Irene blog at
          http://itcouldabeen.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/fictionalizing-facts-inventing-others/
and I'm posting it below as well.  May not be the best place to post in Journalese, as I'm looking for any glitches or confusion that may be in need of edits.  But the work is what I think of as 'Irene Journaling' and so I post here.  This entry has more to do with process; I have no idea if it has any "interest" value . . . ah well.

Fictionalizing Facts, Inventing Others

What began as one story meant to fill out the true life of a true person who lived recklessly, a dare-devil by all accounts, and died young – became more than one story. 

What is or was “true,” I came to realize, can be no more than fuzzy at best.  Take me, for instance: How I remember the events of yesterday or a year ago or the sequence of climbing out of bed and finding the coffee filters to brew a first pot of coffee a few hours ago are fuzzy.   Recollections get warped.  Did the sun wake me?  Or a barking dog?  Did I fill the coffeepot reservoir first, then put the filter into the basket – or vice versa?  Did I spill coffee grounds on the counter because I glanced up to see why the neighbor’s dog was barking?  Or was that when the wayward bird thumped into the window?  Does it matter?  Not really.   

What came to matter in the “one” story, Irene’s “true life” story, was the need to write the resemblance of a life lived true to itself, to herself.  And if my own moment-to-moment life experiences were difficult to pin down, how could I possibly capture and pen to paper the moments of Irene Lowe? 

Thus the invention of Irene Johns. 

And if a wayward bird was the cause of spilled coffee grounds in my kitchen this morning, what cause or causes may have brought a vigorous and headstrong girl such as Irene Lowe to such a life as she lived, such fortunes and misfortunes? 

Thus the invented lives of characters to surround my fictional heroine, Irene Parilee Johns.  Thus an invented grandniece to rediscover a secreted-away and long-dead aunt.  Thus an imagined Depression Era venue on Coney Island called Poseidon Park.  Thus any number of stories “true” to this writer’s imagination:  invented lives and invented places, invented events, rivalries and affections.   

No evidence of coffee grounds on my counter remains.  Only the memory, only the reconstruction of that recent incident in my thinking is yet with me.  And, other than these words recording that event, the mishap will be forgotten.  I believe wayward events happen everywhere and all the time.  Beyond the reach of the Hubble telescope, a speck of matter moves.  A few inches under the earth, worms are making choices about which way to circumvent a pebble lodged in their paths.  Imagination carries my beliefs, my “inventions” of what I believe to be “true.”

Thus The True Life Adventures of Irene in White Tights became.  It is what it is – inspired by a real life and true to my imaginings about the nature of we human beings – regardless of the century we are born into, or will be born into.   

Wow.  Check you out.  (I need to more often.)  This is exciting, Lynn.

cheryl

thanks, cherylanne.  appreciate the look!

Parallels made today between Annie Oakley and my Irene.  Annie was older by nearly four decades, yet I was really surprised by the number of similarities in the lives of these two women.  It's almost as if I'd gone in and read about Annie and then took some pertinent facts of life and applied them to my Irene.  Or, maybe it's like stories, like poems -- maybe lives are that way too.  Maybe they've all been lived, are being lived, parallel to one another.  I mean, it's not like I'm the only old widow whose ever found a paradise house on a hillside above Popotla.  Nor will I be the last.  Nor, more than likely, am I the only one here at the present!

  http://itcouldabeen.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/research-parallels-in-lives/ 

I subscribe to dictionary.com's word of the day and also to dictionary.com's Spanish word of the day.  Yesterday (ayer?) was Thursday (el jueves?) and the Spanish word of the day was "imagen" which means image or picture.  This example was used:

Una imagen vale más que mil palabras.
A picture is worth a thousand words.

And I wondered if that is true.  Wouldn't it depend upon the image, the picture?  Wouldn't it also depend upon what thousand words? 

hello my friend,
                    popping by to say I miss you, N

Love this thought, Lynn:

Or, maybe it's like stories, like poems -- maybe lives are that way too.  Maybe they've all been lived, are being lived, parallel to one another.

....

thanks so much for sharing things like this.
cheryl