Short Story Cornucopia

Fiorella is going to be dropping short stories on you every now and then, rewrites of a treasure-trove she wrote through the years.  She liked her stories then, but likes them even more now that her skills have been honed by seven years of RWA membership.  Yep, all those critiques, contests, and conferences were worth it.

The World According to Fiorella

All  hail the mighty Fio! This last week, she not only turned in her book, but finished off the negotiations for the refinancing of the house.  And today she will (gulp) start cleaning up her office, the most daunting task of all.
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Fiorella has read that Donald Trump's poll figures are unreliable and his audience numbers are exaggerated.  How does he get away with it? By yelling a lot lot, like a spoiled child--he throws a Trumptrum,
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Have you ever noticed that in Doonesbury, no one ever gives birth more than once?

Where Fio Is Now

Howdy, there, folks!  This is the day before the due date, and Fio is in semi-good shape. She finished marking the whole manuscript yesterday and also added in the necessary bits and pieces.  She even finaled out the first three chapters.  Today she tackles the last nineteen. Yes, it's lock-yourself-in-the-tower-room day because she has to send everything in by 10:00 on Tuesday.

God bless electronics, which is something you never thought you'd hear Fio say.  She is able to make corrections using computer keys rather than retyping an entire page, and she can send a three-hundred-page manuscript off to New Yawk City in a second rather than having to bind it up, cart it to the post office, and pay the freight.

See ya tomorrow.

Fiorella's Day

Fiorella's day is shot.  She's under the gun--a barrage of guns, in fact.  Not only is she engaged in a massive GERD attack (wonder why), but she also has to make a whirlwind clean up of the house, back porch, and adjacent yards because a refinancing appraiser is coming this afternoon.  And she's been asked to dig up records she's never seen before on property she and Husband own in Colorado.  And she has to get her final, line-edit revisions in on Tuesday, but they disappear the second she turns off the computer.

Needless to say, she's canceled the dental appointment.

My Uncle Omar

Fiorella slept well, but fitfully, last night.  Her brain was struggling with a problem generated by a correction that her line-editor suggested in WHERE THE HEART LEADS, which will come out November 17.  Let Fio explain.

The hero has an uncle named Omar, whom he refers to, of course, as "Uncle Omar"  or "my Uncle Omar."  The editor suggested I change the latter reference to "my uncle Omar," which didn't sit well with Fiorella, but she couldn't put her argument into logical form till she woke up this morning.  Yes, the ol' pop-up toaster brain did it again.

Fio's construction is a REFERRAL, not an APPOSITIVE.  Would you write "your queen Elizabeth," or "my president Obama," or "my cousin Itt?"

Good Tidings!

Fiorella may have had a a rough time going to sleep last night, but she woke up feeling G-R-R-R-E-A-T!

Reviewing her yesterday,  Fio and Husband finalized the refinancing of la casa, she managed (with the help of Husband and Minnesota Son) to put another picture on Facebook, heard from a high school friend she has been trying to get in touch with for a while, and tore into a rewrite of her novella.

Then, this morning, she read several heartening stories in the newspaper--like that xenophobic Germany will accept 500,000 refugees a year, the Pope is easing  the process for annulments, and almost 10,000,000 people have health insurance now (through Obamacare),

Afterwards, she checked her calendar and learned that today she has brunch with Friend Evelyn and lunch with Friend Paula.

Ah--life is good in FiorellaLand.

Shifting Priorities

Fiorella has been trying to get back to writing again.  She really has, but everything she postponed until she had sent her revisions in.has come back to haunt her--the house, the yard, the laundry, the refinancing she and husband planned to do, the the critique she promised, the luncheon dates with friends she had canceled.

Writing can wait till another day.

Writer in Throes

Fiorella's life is a see-saw.  She's either hard at work on household affairs or hard at work on her writing.  Right now, the household stuff is shot to hell.

Yes, Fio is in the throes of final (or semi-final) revisions, which means she is tossing golden words--remember, Fio is a poet at heart--and rending the fragile cloth of her story from end to end.  Also upping the heat index.

WHERE THE HEART LEADS--written in blood.

Stressed, You Say?

This has been a hard week for Fiorella,  That engine light was still on so Fio had to take the car to the dealer for a $400 repair, she was diagnosed with GERD (good-bye, chocolate), attacked by a herd of mosquitoes, hit the concrete face-first again, is still recovering from having her false vocal chords shot up with botox, is agonizing over revisions of her new book, and is preparing not only for the NY writers' conference, but for her birthday,

The good thing is that she's lost two pounds.

Dance and Sing

Dance and sing, clap your hands, leap for joy!  Fiorella's revisions are few and far between!  Yes, she has received the critique of WHERE THE HEART LEADS from her editor, and whole clumps of pages go by without a single red mark!

Now to tackle those pages that do have red marks on them.  And to consult the critiques her beta readers turned in.  And to finish writing COMFORT OF THE HEART, or whatever she's going to name the novella.  And to celebrate Father's Day and Husband's birthday.  And to clean up the house.  And to go through all the old photos and label them.  And to repair some old oil paintings,  And to get those little booklets made up for the NRWA conference.  And to revise and publish her short stories and her poetry,

Somehow, your Fiorella will work it all into her schedule.

The Book IS Done

Fiorella finished the book at 12:15 last night.  Finished her first draft, that is.  She has two whole days to review and revise before she forwards it to her editor, who will send it back for further revisions in a couple of weeks.  And during those two or whatever weeks, Fio will race around like a demon trying to get everything done that she didn't do while she was writing.

And she will.

The Three Shocks of Fiorella

The road to becoming a published author is a learning experience--a rough one.

Fio's first shock was when her agent asked for revisions.  Revisions? Didn't Liza sign Fio on because the book was perfect?  After all, it had been written out of Fio's heart and soul.  But heart and soul don't always sell so Fio revised, and her book became deeper because of it.

Fio's second shock was when her editor asked for revisions.  Fiorella went into shock for two weeks before she even attempted to follow through.  But again, editors know what sells.  And Fio was not being asked to change the plot in the least.

Fio's third shock was when she leafed through the book after it had been published.  Ye Gods!  Why hadn't she noticed she'd used the word "children" in two successive sentences?  And that the construction of the sentence on the following page was so clumsy that she changed it when she was giving a reading?

Now you know why authors drink.

Official News

Husband is retired now so yesterday afternoon he and Fio spent a couple of hours working on his home office.  Fiorella put together a wall design of his various awards and commendations--mixed in with some of Son's artwork--and Husband did the grunt work.  Today we'll look at rearranging and organizing.  Who knows what will turn up?

Fiorella's office--notice how now that she has a publisher, she's calling it an office rather than a study--is still uninhabitable, but there's hope.  There better be, because she's just received a second round of revisions from her editor.

Anti-climax

Yes, Fiorella is running late. Yesterday evening, just one day till completion of the requested revisions for her book, Fio's hard drive crashed. Husband put in a good hour this morning wrestling with Fio's back-up computer to hack her into her own blog, but the only way she can get into her latest version of WHAT THE HEART WANTS is through Mozy, her cloud carrier.

Maybe we'll give it a try later, when Husband has recovered from this round.

Keep on Chuggin' Along

Slept well last night and woke up late
Which mean right now I'm feelin' great
Hope to finish revisions today
Then send them on their merry way
And while Michele is taking a look
I'll start in on writing another book

Three More Snippets

Fiorella has a new theory about that still-missing Malaysian plane. She thinks it was drawn into another dimension, that the passengers are seed stock for a new world.  Maybe that's what happened to Amelia Earhart too.  (Anyone who wants to use that plot is welcome so to do.)
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Fio loves the intensely chocolate cookies that can usually only be found at the Leander HEB--which is the reason she doesn't go there very often.
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Now for a day totally devoted to revisions. It's embarrassing, but Fio has discovered a couple more holes in her book that she needs to patch up. And, by the way, please notice that what she was calling a "manuscript" when she was submitting it to agents, and a "story" when her agent was submitting it to publishers, she is now calling a "book."

Good News

Things are looking up.  Fiorella finished her revisions yesterday evening and will proofread today, with the goal of sending the ms off to the  divine Liza by Friday.  Also, Fio is beginning to get the hang of FB and has made contact with several old high school buddies who seem very interested in the fact that she is writing sexy romances.

Also, two of Son's submissions have been accepted in a local art show.  Also, he's survived both of his fall classes so far, despite the fact that he's been working an average of sixty hours a week. Also, most of his college loan creditors are off his back because he signed up for those two classes.   

And Husband's second-degree burns still hurt, but they're scabbing over nicely.

All is well.  All will be well. 

Crunch Time

Let me tell you what happens when you've promised your agent that you'll get final revisions to her over the weekend.

1) Husband scalds thirty square inches of his foot and Fio must take him to the doctor's office an hour across town, then assist him around the house for the next several days.
2)  Son's pug eats through the printer cord in two places, dividing it  into three sections.   Even after Husband jury-rigs a substitute cord, the printer misbehaves, trying to print out the whole 400+ page manuscript when what Fio is working on is just he last chapter.
3) Fio confuses her new-style potassium chloride pills with her hydrocodone and winds up with a night of insomnia.
4) Fio discovers they've run out of dog food, dog treats, eggs, tall kitchen bags, and her own personal staple, spoon-sized Shredded Wheat.
5) Realizing Fio is not keeping her usual eagle-eye on him, the pug starts decorating the floor again.
6) The downstairs air conditioner drain backs up and floods the foyer.
7) Son gets mandatory overtime which means he's gone from7:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. and thus not available to help around the house


Also, Fio has not had time to wash her hair, practice piano, pay bills, or read the newspaper.  Nor has she raised the blinds, cooked, or picked up the house.  And she's nearly out of underwear.

The Dog Ate My Homework

Fio's having a a tough time of it.  She told the divine Liza that she'd send PRINCESS OF BOSQUE BEND in this weekend, the Lord be willin' an' the creeks don' rise.  Well, apparently the Lord WASN'T willing and we KNOW the creeks rose, so Fio is running late.  That last chapter isn't moving along as quickly as she thought it would, and she'll need a full day after that for  proofreading.

Maybe it would help if Fiorella had ever learned how to type properly.  Yeah, it's one finger on her right hand the and two on her left.  She can actually rev up to fifty words a minute, but, needless to say, strange things happen when she mis-aims.  Computers have all those auxiliary keys that can do such weird and wonderful things.

In her case, more weird than wonderful. 

Serial Revisonist

Fiorella's dirty little secret is that she loves doing revisions.  Yes, while everyone else in her RWA chapter is complaining about revisions, she revels in them.  It's another chance to improve her manuscript, to get it right. 

Of course it helps that the divine Liza hasn't given her a deadline.  Fio may revise her  opinion of revisions when that occurs, but for now she's wallowing in perfectionism.

Besides, it's exciting to be on the cusp, not quite there, but able to see over the mountain.  Sliding down the other side might not be quite as comfortable.