Off to Florida

We/re taking off amid rain and snow for sunny Florida tomorrow. I'm attending a writing conference, and doing a reading with a manuscript critique and an agent/editor appointment. In other words, the Full Monte. I practiced the reading twice, once before my writing group and again before a public speaking group. Still am not perfect, to wit, I stumble over a few word, especially introducing myself.

This is kind of a last ditch effort to revive my so-called career as a crime fiction writer. No matter what the upshot is, it will be fun to be in Florida with fellow writers, schoozing and boozing and talking writing.

The last time I attended this particular conference, four years ago, an agent asked for the completed draft of Promiscuous Mode, and guess what? I'm still waiting to hear from him. He didn't take phone call or answer emails, nor did he return my SASE. This is the kind of action that knifes a writer's heart. (See a previous post from Kate Flora's blog).

This morning I gave myself possibly the worst manicure in the history of hands. Somehow it's all chipped and icky looking and it takes a lot to make colorless nail polish look icky. I managed.


Last night I watched the ending of Pride and Prejudice, with forays to the Academy Awards. Lots of drama and conflict on both. I'll miss "In Treatment" while I'm gone, but there's always a way to catch up on HBO programs.

We watched Frederico Fellini's 8 1/2 last week. What an interesting film. And how Felliniesque, with a few touches I had noticed in La Dolce Vita. There were tons of roles for aging women, not something you often see. Anouk Aimee (not aging) chain smoking and looking incredibly cool. If you haven't seen some Fellini movies, hie thee to the nearest rental store. Or Netflix. We are liking Netflix a lot.

Maybe I'll have writing tips, or writing gossip, or even good news when I return. To repeat, this is sort of a last ditch effort. In March I'm going to plow full speed ahead, damn the torpedos into Such Stuff As Dreams.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Schmoozing and Boozing

Last weekend I spent 3 days thinking about writing, talking about writing, schmoozing and boozing with writers, and then of course, I returned home exhausted, but all fired up to write.

The idea of a new beginning for Festival Madness has been percolating in my head for months, and after listening to a panel discussion of "Beginnings and Endings", I knew I had to do it. So I did. Just three pages, but what a difference it makes.

Now I'm on the 5th draft, really the 7th of Festival Madness. Tweaking stuff, mostly. Paring words, always. Nothing like getting rid of useless words to make the story move, although this is a somewhat cerebral story, there is still plenty of action in the big scenes.

I need to get back to my web site. With a few more pages, I'll be able to put it out into the world wide web. How exciting!

Browsing the holiday catalogs and recipes! Lots to do. Busy is good.

Grapeshot