I am a work in progress

Hey everyone. Perhaps some of you wondered why I haven’t posted anything in nearly a month. I haven’t forgotten  – life just got in the way. Oh and I  joined a couple of online writing groups and next thing you know, there were more interruptions than I knew what to do with, and didn’t have time to remember I wanted to blog about them. So, I thought about this today, how I let so many distractions pull me in all sorts of different directions. Pause,  breathe, wait. In my mind, I heard the words:  “Pause, then rewind.” That sounded like a great line and motivated me to write about what I’ve been up to.
First off, I want to share how I found SCRIBOPHILE. It is an online writers group I joined after I  heard about it in a writers workshop. I was enrolled in this free online course through the University of Iowa (https://iowa.novoed.com and P.S. – its free to everyone!)
The next thing I knew, I was finding more and more groups, and I became very involved. Or as Chip likes to say – obsessed.  Anyway, once I joined Scribophile, I found one of the memoir writing groups. Each week I had to post one of my 3,000-word chapters. My fellow groupmates critiqued my writing and in turn, I had to critique what theirs. This was pretty time consuming but the feedback I received was most helpful. Next, I joined a couple of writers groups on Facebook. Then something incredible happened. An editor decided he was interested in my story, perhaps something about what I said intrigued him. To make a long story short, he has offered to mentor me, as long as I accepted his terms and conditions!
You might be wondering what were these terms and conditions? He insisted I write a short story in a completely different genre and gave me an assignment –  write a fantasy story, and get it published! I probably rolled my eyes, thinking what did that have to do with my memoir. It didn’t make any sense. But now, I am glad I agreed.
Thank you Dave! I don’t think he enjoys being thanked, but I had to give a shout out. As an editor, he points out what agents and other editors see. The red pen comes out and when I look at the mark-ups I am not sure I even know if I can write!  Nevertheless, he is helping me. And we haven’t yet begun working on the memoir! I am still working on the short story!
About a month ago, when Dave contacted, he told me he read my posts about the constant rejections. We were getting to know each other when he asked me to send my  1st chapter. After Dave read it, edited and critiqued it, he said he understood why I was receiving so many rejections. “you are not using an active voice….you have too many ing words, your writing is filled with adverbs, pronouns, …actually his list went on and on! I wanted to throw up my hands and give up, but I didn’t. The fantasy story is nearly finished. He says it will be published. I tend to believe him.
One last bit of news. Good news! In my local writing group, there was a sweet couple who said they belonged to the South Florida Writers group. One day, as we were leaving, the man, Thom, handed me a newsletter. Thom pointed at one of the ads and said,”try sending your work to this magazine. They publish everything.” So I thought, why not? I didn’t believe anything would come of it and when I didn’t hear anything, I was certain that was true. But I thought I ought to check their lastest issue. This is what I found:
https://45magazineiwa.com/2018/11/08/ill-be-leaving-you-behind
Thom wasn’t kidding.  The magazine published my story.
Note:
If you read the article, it might sound really familiar. That’s because I submitted the story about my mother, which I had written about in this blog.

UPDATE! Sadly, my partnership with Dave ended about a year after it began and I no longer work with him. At times I wish I could call him up and talk about my latest successes but he did something that alarmed me and made me stop talking to him. I’ll never know if his tongue lashing was truly deserved, but I could not subject myself to someone who resorted to browbeating and put downs. It was fun while it lasted. Continue Reading