Susan Buffum's Blog: Welcome to My World, page 28

All the Pretty Words I Know Fail Me Tonight

All the pretty words I know fail me tonight. My mother-in-law passed away this evening. She had been on hospice since coming home from the hospital in mid-January. I do not like the terminology hospice uses at the end of life- actively dying.

It frustrates me that I know so many beautiful words but I cannot come up with a better phrase- separating oneself from the mortal vessel...preparing to depart from this existence...turning one's face into the Light...

Nothing takes away the harsh sting of loss. No candy coated words can soothe a wounded heart.

We all lose our parents, our loved ones eventually...yet it leaves this writer at a loss for words because suddenly they all seem so inadequate...like tremulous soap bubbles so easily burst by the heart wounding pinprick of loss.

A Winter Virus

A winter virus has struck my home and we've all been laid low by it. Kelly's had it for three weeks, I'm at the end of week two and John has just come down with it.

On the brighter side, a retired MD at the office where I work as a medical secretary stopped in on Friday. I hadn't seen him for over a month and a half, but I left him a copy of Yuletide Stories in his still open mailbox in the office. As he walked past me he asked if I'd been on Amazon and I said, "No, not in ages." He said, "I gave you two five star ratings." He is the king of BS so I thought he was just pulling my leg. He didn't say anything else and left. Last night I typed my name in the search bar on Amazon.com under books to call up all my books on the sight and-Wow- there were two five star ratings with comments that could only have been left by him. I knew he'd liked The Archetypes-First Generation because he likes action and adventure novels. I didn't think it was exactly his cup of tea but he'd told me he'd enjoyed it- "Couldn't put the book down," were his exact words. (I hear that a lot.) I know he's not a big Christmas guy so was surprised that he actually read that book I'd left in his mailbox a couple days before Christmas. I experienced one of those rare moments of absolute joy reading his comments and seeing how highly he'd rated my work. He's difficult to please so this, from him, was high praise indeed...and I am grateful.

Helped immensely to make me feel better- good medicine!!

Cupid's Darts Proof

The proof copy of Cupid's Darts arrived today. I'm home sick from work with bronchitis so that was a pleasant diversion from not feeling well. I always get two proofs- one for me and one for Kelly. I already know I'm changing the color of the cover from red to pink- it looks too much like a Christmas book! Have plowed through three or four of the stories already and finding very few corrections that I need to make. Guess I'm getting better at the proofreading and editing the books to death step.

Meanwhile, continuing work on a final major revision of The Archetypes-Shockwaves. One of those instances where it's already been proofread and edited once, and now I've read it again and found more things to correct, plus margin adjustments that I failed to make the first and second time around...still one of my favorites with so much going on in the lives of Beans, Amanda and the rest of the Rex family.

Off to drink more ginger ale...

Love Me Knots is next Giveaway

Starting January 27th 6 signed first edition copies of Love Me Knots will be available as a Giveaway. Watch for the book with the purple cover with the daisy in the middle. It contains five of my very favorite little romance stories.

Thank You

A big thank you to everyone whose shown interest in Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II which was a recent Giveaway. I'm currently putting together the fourth book in the series and hope to release it later this year. Will put a post up on the blog when it comes out.

Miss Pecliar's Haunting Tales, Volume II Giveaway

The giveaway for Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume II ends on January 24th. This book has three novellas. The first novella was developed from a short story I was writing. The magician characters are also going to be in a novel I am jointly writing with my daughter, Kelly. It's my turn to write a chapter, so I really need to get back to that with her. The second novella also evolved from a short story, The Girl in Drawer Four and a novel in the works called The Cedars. This is Adrian and Eveleen's story. The third novella, Thunderheads just basically wrote itself and while it has the most dysfunctional family I have ever written- the most violent and disturbing- it is the mysterious Pen, dwelling in the attic, who orchestrates the grand finale to this tale.

Watch for Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume III to be offered in a giveaway. It contains short stories and a novelette.

I am putting together a Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume IV, but right now I need to concentrate on doing the layout for the magazine I have been editor of since 2007. Have to have the magazine out by mid-April of this ear for Massachusetts vintage and antique button collectors. Once that is done I'm free again to work on projects and write new stories.

A Quiet Day

It's bright and sunny but cold and windy here in western MA so I am spending a quiet day indoors cleaning up some chaos in the dining room where all my printed stories dwell. It's time to weed out the binders with the stories that have been published in book form. Revere is helping me while Riley Beans takes his morning nap.

After breakfast I proofread and edited the last story for a new collection of sweet little romance stories that I am putting together. Will do the revisions on the computer later, after lunch and some errands to put together a get well gift for a friend who had some surgery yesterday. She's an artist and has been one of my biggest fans since day one. I'll bring her an adult coloring book, some colored pencils, some tea and goodies to enjoy while she recovers.

More Romance

Am putting together another volume of collected little romance stories. Not sure what I'll title it yet. I have 15 stories gathered- some from the archives and some newer. I have nine of them edited as of tonight. I probably won't be doing too many projects this year, but thought a few more romances with Valentine's Day coming up might be nice.

Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, IV

I have all the stories together for this 2016 release- a mix of never before released tales from the archives and new material written this past autumn- my annual Halloween stories for friends and family. I just finished arranging them- now comes the big proofreading task and then the final edits and revisions. Not sure when it will all be ready but I'm hoping in a few months. The Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales books seem to be drawing the most attention. Kelly has always liked my weird stories best of all, but my circle of friends like the little romances, even the quirky ones. Then there are the friends who think I am the Countess of Christmas stories (there's already a Queen out there). I see my self as genre defiant...my writing is more literary in style and each book contains a blend of genres so that they really don't fall into any hard and fast category. Maybe I write mongrel fiction and should open a little book store where people could come in and adopt books off the shelf and then go out and tell their friends they own a rescue book and will give it a nice home, and maybe they'll rescue another book later! Wouldn't that be fun?

zuzabel on wattpad

My twenty-something daughter and her former college roommate, and a young lady in high school here in town who is a fan of mine all write on wattpad and have been urging me to put something up there, so tonight I chose two short pieces of prose that will be included in the upcoming Miss Peculiar's Haunting Tales, Volume IV and put them up on wattpad. If you're interested in a preview of what's to come this year when I get the new book proofread and edited check out The Fly In The Ointment and Angels Battle While We Sleep. My ID on wattpad is zuzabel. The interesting thing to note here is I wrote Angels Battle While We Sleep in 20 minutes when Kelly and I were bored and issued one another a writing challenge. We came up with a first line and then set the timer for 20 minutes and just wrote, back to back on the computers in the den. Sometimes interesting things are created when one is challenged! And, the little story is based on something that actually happens in my own backyard that I can see from the kitchen window while my cat circles my ankles in the morning, if I'm up early enough to witness the sunrise. The peak of the mountain is behind us with the cellphone tower "blinking its lazy red eye" atop it. When the sun comes over the top of the mountain the rays of sunlight shaft down through the oak trees like spotlights on the lawn. It's so beautiful! I have captured a number of pictures of this phenomenon and that is what inspired this piece. The Fly in the Ointment is a short psychological terror piece written before 2000.