Disaster in Georgia

Somewhere back when, Fiorella sent her vampire romance off to an adventuresome new publisher in Georgia and got THE CALL. An editor was assigned to her and Fio worked on revisions all summer, buoyed up by the promise she would be a published author by the new year. But such was not to be. Just before Christmas, Fio got THE LETTER, that the publisher had decided to drop her.

Fio was devastated--and also embarrassed. After all, she'd alerted everyone she know that her vampire was about to take wing. But Fio, being Fio, she didn't let things rest there. She tracked down her editor with the help of her cousin, who lives in Georgia and got a kick out of the detective work, and learned the editor also had been fired, along with most of the rest of the employees. The publisher was going under.

"Be glad you got away while you could," Fio's former editor said. "Your story is good. Someone else will pick it up."

No one else did, but if Fio gets Princess of Bosque Bend on the supermarket racks, you can bet she'll be updating the vampire story for publication. Her time will come.

Former Agent

About ten years ago, Fiorella acquired a literary agent. She was a part-time author who had just been turned down on her latest book. That should have been Fio's first clue, but instead, being Fiorella, she was sympathetic.

The second clue was that she admitted she didn't know anything about the romance market. The third clue was that she sent Fio's dark romance to Harlequin. The fourth clue was that she was unavailable for long stretches of time, taking care of sick relatives.

It was the fifth clue that did it--she couldn't sell anything Fio had written and couldn't give any suggestions as to what Fio could do to fix the situation.

Luckily, no contract had been signed. The parting was amicable.

But just think of all the wasted time.

Transportation

Mother didn't drive so Fiorella walked three blocks to and from kindergarten, first grade and second grade. Then, when the family moved to Texas, she walked ten blocks home from third through sixth, thankfully getting a ride from neighbors in the morning.

In junior high, Fio was entirely on her own to and fro, but North Junior was just six blocks away. Needless to say, she developed good walking muscles, which served her well when she rode her gearless bike back and forth to Catechism classes every Saturday. High school, on the other hand, was downtown, so Dad dropped her off on his way to work. But after school, she walked several blocks to a bus stop and rode the city bus home.

Walking to school was okay in Ohio because all the other kids walked and she was not alone. But in Waco, all the mothers drove their kids to school, even from two blocks away so those elementary school treks home in the afternoon were lonely, and, Fio now realizes, dangerous. And sending a thirteen-year-old girl out alone on a two-mile bike ride was was tempting fate.

Fiorella may have developed good calf muscles and a lot of self-reliance, but she also developed a firm determination to learn how to drive, for the sake of her future children.

Joy in the Morning

The sun is shining, the sky is blue
It's a great day, good morning to you!

Bullying, Part I

Bullying--everyone else is talking about it, so I guess Fiorella should. But the plain truth is that Fio isn't quite sure what the word means. It's being applied to everything from kindergarten name-calling to murder.

In Fiorella's ideal world, everyone would be nice to each other, but that world doesn't exist. Fio would bet that even Mother Teresa had her days.

But, Mother Teresa or not, Fiorella thinks the word has been been over-applied. A while ago, an ARWA friend of hers was accused of being a big-time bully because she made a clever remark about an anonymous contest entry she was judging. Stupid, stupid, stupid. No one was hurt, no one died, no one even knew. The accuser, who raised a big hullabaloo over nothing, was the bully.

Sonya, Continued

Those puppy days are flying by fast. The doggie in the mirror no longer holds Sonya's interest, and she's figured out that when Mommy is looking in the glass and talking, the sound is coming from the person, not the reflection. She doesn't chew as much either so there are fewer strange sticks in the house for Mommy to trip on. And Mommy's stigmata are almost all healed.

Obedience-wise, she's caught onto "sit" and "stay" and is working on "leave it" and "heel." Fio and Husband can take her outside with them and trust she won't bound away from them off into the woods. Cleverness-wise, she's figured out how to let herself into the house by leaping up and batting at the door handle.

Fio enjoys Sonya's maturity, but she misses the cuddly little puppy who--uh--dogged her footsteps everywhere she went, the little baby she had to sing to sleep each night.

Oops. Just a minute. A warm, furry mastiff has just leaped on the couch beside her and gone to sleep. Awwwwww.

Eastertide

Holidays build memories, and as Fiorella stuffs her face with chocolate, she thinks about the year she and her little brother found sugar eggs in their baskets--hollowed-out sugar eggs with Easter scenes inside of them. Eggs that were for enchanting rather than eating. The eggs appeared in our baskets for years afterwards, the sugar browning around the edges and the paper cut-outs wilting with age. Then one summer the ants got to the storage room and the eggs were goners.

When her own children's first Easters came around, Fio looked for hollowed-out sugar eggs with scenes in them, but to no avail.

The magic only works once.