Susan Buffum's Blog: Welcome to My World, page 26

Stepping Down as Editor

I have been the editor of and a contributing writer for the annual Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin since taking on the job in 2006 and putting out my first magazine in 2007. This is my tenth year putting the magazine together and it has been the most difficult year with a death in the family, my husband losing his job less than 3 weeks later, more stress at work for me with the changing face of health care, personal health issues, coping with my husband's depression and moodiness as he struggles to find a new job, my father-in-law's recent hospitalization after a bad fall, and no contribution of articles from anyone in eastern MA where the majority of local clubs are located. Four of us in the local western MA button club and one collector from New Hampshire- the same people who have carried the burden of producing this usually 42-page magazine since I took over as editor- contributed. It's been fun in the past. I've earned Massachusetts the best state button society bulletin ranking but the joy has flickered and died out right now. When I asked for help at the beginning of February no one stepped forward, so this year the magazine is ten pages shorter. It will still be full color. I did the best I could with what I had, and am thankful to Kelly, Betty, Pam and Lorna for their articles. I need to get it printed and then distributed at the April 16th show in Shirley, MA and then I'm done.

It's time to concentrate on my own writing projects and let someone else take the reins and lead the Bulletin into the future.

That's why I've been on the quiet side this past week-just trying to get that magazine together and ready for the printer. Finished it this afternoon.

Finish Line is Near

Wrote the epilogue to the new novel today. Now, at Kelly's suggestion, I need to write little blurbs- designed like newspaper and magazine articles, or quotes from TV, to flesh out a group of characters who come and go throughout the novel but remain rather undefined except for what they are (not giving away secrets yet!) That will help define these characters and also speak to what the novel is basically about (also a secret at this point). I'm really not saying much here at all, am I?

Then I will do a major reading and overhaul to fix continuity issues and other minor issues (thank you Pat for pointing out the oopsie in My Magical Life- I've read it over and over and never noticed the error, but will fix it. Evangeline is actually 24. And thank you for the review and rating, I appreciate it.)

When it's all done I'll make the magic happen and create the book!

Stay tuned!

Books Updated

I've been meaning to do this since January when Cupid's Darts- A Sweet Hearts Collection came out. I have now updated/revised the first two books in the series so they now have the 'A Sweet Hearts Collection' designation/subtitle. Therefore, the covers, title pages and headers of Love Me Knots and Auspicious Beginnings will now look slightly different with the addition of the 'A Sweet Hearst Collection' designation, making Cupid's Darts the third in the series..

I apologize if there's any confusion. The interiors/stories remain the same. (Sometimes the lightbulb clicks on after the fact!)

The current book in the series, Cupid's Darts: A Sweet Hearts Collection, will not be altered since it is already published with the new designation. That book is my current giveaway book. The giveaway ends March 11th.

Just This

In my house I have two phrases that I use a lot when writing because Kelly is forever correcting these things in my manuscripts-

the first is, I get tense when it comes to tense,
and the second is, I suffer from comma trauma.

This is the kind of stuff we come up with when we sit across from one another and write...

New Giveaway Begins March Fourth

A new giveaway for 7 signed first edition copies of Cupid's Darts: A Sweet Hearts Collection starts tomorrow, my favorite day of the year, March Fourth! I like March 4th because it has a brisk, no nonsense, straight forward sound to it- get it done! This giveaway runs for a full 10 days. Good Luck!

Three More Big Scenes To Go

Since John's loss of job a week ago, the mouse hunting affair and work I have been devoting every spare moment to the new novel, as yet unnamed, about vampires in modern society (something a little different from what's out there now because of how I'm working this angle I came up with into the story). Kelly has been reading as fast as I have been writing, so while continuity issues need to be addressed (I never plot and plan-just sit down and write and never take notes although I should so at the end I always have to go back and fix little things) much of the verb tense, spelling and punctuation issues caused by flying fingers on the keyboard and occasional interruptions that cause me to lose focus have been fixed. All continuity issues and such will be taken care of during it's final overhauling phase but I'm pleased with how it's going and she is really enjoying the emerging novel (nearly 59,000 words). Both are good signs.

Today's amusing moments consisted of trying to shoot portrait pictures of my husband with my little Cool Pix camera for his LinkedIn page. He hates having his picture taken. I'm short, he's tall, so with him standing it was like I was shooting up his nose, definitely not a good angle for him, and he was looking down at me which gave him a sleepy-eyed appearance. We solved the problem when he grabbed a kitchen chair and sat down- much better angle! Only now he was getting antsy and tired of the camera's flash, so I had to get him laughing. I started pretended he was at a beauty/fashion photo shoot, calling him "Darling!" and saying, "Look here, not at my chest! Up here!" Had him laughing, but then of course I was laughing, too. In the end I managed to get two very nice shots of him with a smile on his face. So he chose the one he liked best and posted it- task accomplished.

Progress Has Been Made

Not letting my husband being laid off get me down. I had two bad days but I've bounced back.

I'm working on a new novel, a vampire romance novel as they still seem to be very popular judging by the number of people entering the giveaways for these books. Ardis was cool in My Magical Life, but this vampire is a totally different being.That's all I can say at the moment. I've written nine chapters, 22,221 words so far. Kelly was reading another book but was bored last night and picked up the binder I'm putting printed pages into for my edits. She is literally devouring the chapters. I can barely type fast enough to keep up with her reading! And she's given me a big thumbs up on this one- and a smile! (I don't know why but she didn't care for My Magical Life, which was a huge disappointment to me, but everyone else has liked it so far.) Therefore, high praise from my daughter!

I thought I'd have some trouble with this one but once again I have tapped into the literary muse that resides in my brain and he has not disappointed me!

I'm thinking I might query a few agents and try to go commercial with this one as it's got a twist on vampires I don't think anyone has done before and a more complex romance than I've written previously.

I'll wait and see how it goes...

Mouse Hunting

We had a pretty wild rain and thunderstorm most of last night here in western MA. It was warm and muggy for February so I didn't expect the cats to come and hunker down for warmth, but they do come and jump on the bed during the night. I woke at three with thunder crashing, lightning flashing and windswept rain lashing the windows. Getting up, I began searching for the cats because neither one had woken me. I saw hide nor hair of them. I went down to the cellar and prowled around with my flashlight, primarily checking to be sure water wasn't coming in on the driveway end. Normally Revere and Riley come running when they hear me get up and follow me around- and there were no cats. Now I am getting nervous because this is highly unusual. No cats waiting on the cellar stairs to try to trip me. I start looking in cupboards and closets where they like to sneak cat naps. No cats. I opened Kelly's door thinking they may have gotten trapped in her room. I woke her up unintentionally and found no cats within. Now I am starting to worry. I shine my flashlight into the living room and there is Riley sitting behind my chair. He's kind of looking at me but also looking into the dining room. I still do not see any sign of 15 pound Revere- he's a big cat, hard to miss. I talk to Riley and he doesn't move. So I walk around the chair to go into the dining room to try to see what he's up to and ever so slowly Revere emerges from beneath the dining room table. Ordinarily they ignore the dining room because it's full of file boxes containing binders full of my writing-overflow from the den. This is weird, but then it occurs to me that we have been hearing scratching in the wall at night and the cats have been hanging out on the cellar stairs watching something. Mouse, I think. So I go back to bed and let them hunt.

I went to work but was sent home because both John and I are still sort of in shock and trying to cope with his job elimination. He was having a bad day home alone and I was having a bad day trying to work. My office manager is very understanding and at 10Am told me to go home. So, I go home. John is on the phone in the den reaching out to former co-workers who'd been eliminated from the ranks in the past so I sit down in my chair in the living room and Revere jumps on my lap. As I am cuddling him I hear a scratching noise n the dining room, not too far from my chair. He looks at me and I look at him and it's clear feline friend and I are having the same thought-mouse. I put him down, went to the kitchen and grabbed my flashlight then returned and stood quietly, listening, Revere was pacing around. I heard a sound between my lap desk and the china cabinet. Very carefully I moved the lap desk a little bit and caught a glimpse of brown fur shivering in the corner. I wrote "We have a mouse in our house!" on a Post-it note and took it down to the den, sticking it to the computer screen. John rolled his eyes, but he got off the phone a few minutes later. he went to Home Depot and got a live trap. I put some peanut butter in it and it is now under the china cabinet where little brown mouse might slip in for a nosh of Jiff and not be able to get back out. The instructions say to take the trap and release the mouse TWO MILES from the house. If he goes in tonight I will take him with me to work tomorrow (FIVE MILES) and release him there because the river is just down the embankment, there is a dumpster at the rear of the property, and Agways Home & Garden is right next door where lots of seed gets spilled in the warehouses there- an ideal new home for a little brown field mouse.

Now we'll see who the better hunter is- the one with claws and teeth of the one with a plastic humane trap.

(John got the live trap because on Christmas Eve afternoon when I got home from work I pulled up too far in the driveway, rolled backwards, got out and was absolutely horrified to discover I had run over a mouse! I still cannot get that image out of my mind. (I buried it in the flower bed before going inside.)

Not in A Good Place Today

The large insurance company my husband has been employed by for the past 32 or so years is once again doing their usher the gray hairs out the door job eliminations this month while putting a "job restructuring spin" on the whole nasty business of getting rid of higher paid wage earners. Well, the axe fell today and my husband is now out of a job. It was not unexpected because they have been maneuvering him around and setting him up for this since last year at least so we've been preparing for it because that's how it is in corporate America- but it is really dirty pool firing an excellent employee who knows what he's doing and has bailed them out of jams multiple times through the years with his expertise less than a month after he's suffered the death of a parent. Two major life changing events in a month is a lot for anyone to handle, so now I have the added stress of having to monitor him for signs of depression (which he has suffered from and been treated for in the past) while scrambling to find a better paying job since he'll never find a new job that will pay him his current salary, so I need to step up to the plate to help make up the difference in what we've just lost. jointly. This sucks. (We're having a thunderstorm as a warm front collides with the current cold front- how utterly appropriate to my brand spanking new dark mood!

Sorry to vent here but this has a major impact on our life and I'm angry and upset today (and he's in shock at being suddenly unemployed). It is so not a good day here.

Down Time

I have been the editor of and a contributing writer for the Massachusetts State Button Society Bulletin, an annual 42-page publication since 2007. Every year I need to set aside my personal writing projects in order to put the magazine together in time for the mid-April button show. So, if you don't see me here that's where I am, wearing my green editor's visor while laying out my 10th issue. I have established a standard that Massachusetts antique, vintage and modern button collectors have come to count on, so I can't disappoint them. And I need to decide if I want to keep doing this or not...10 years is a long time of trying to get society members to contribute articles. Maybe I'm getting tired of the chase and our local club's burden as we write and contribute the majority of the articles. I'm just grateful for Betty, and my daughter Kelly, the society's VP who has been my photo editor for the same ten years. I couldn't do this without her doing what she does best!

I plan on a couple more giveaways in March...so I'll be around, but just won't have much time to write my blog. In April things will go back to normal- I hope!