K.B. Inglee's Blog: The Shepherd's Notes, page 12

Friends, friends, friends and lovers

Saturday was my birthday. Three days earlier, I started receiving birthday wishes from people I never heard of. Some elected official I didn't vote for sent me a card and so did my insurance man. Then a few cards and emails trickled in from people I knew to be my Facebook Friends. Finally I got one from a face to face friend. A few more of those followed. I responded individually to most of the emails after I realized what was going on.
I've celebrated a good many birthdays and I knew what I really wanted. I wanted the people I love to wish me a happy birthday. No expensive gifts, just a remembrance. Every one of them came through. Sorry I was asleep when Betsy called, but I was so glad she did.
So thanks to my friends, friends, friends and loved ones.

What else do writers do?

For the last year or so I have been writing every day. Sometimes it is only a sentence, sometimes it is several hours of plugging away. For the last two weeks I have been writing but most of my time has been given over to other writing chores.
I am preparing a presentation on writing historicals which keeps getting longer and longer. I will have to cut it back for an hour long session soon. But getting all those ideas down on paper is freeing.
I have been reading books by members of the panel I will be moderating. Three to go. I don’t even own them yet, so I will have to stop at a book store on the way home from work.
I braved possible snow to join a bunch of writers at a book store presentation. Our work was joined at the hip in an anthology of mystery stories.
I am working on a suspense story that has to be under 1000 words. I have not picked it up for about a week. I must get back to that tomorrow.

That Pesky SASE

Some months ago I sent a submission to one of those markets that takes its work only by mail.
I waited the requisite three months, and then realized that I had not sent a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE) with the manuscript. I would probably hear nothing. Ever.
I was stuck. I couldn't send the story elsewhere until they rejected it, which they couldn't do without the dread envelope.
99 percent of my submissions are done electronically these days. The market has your email address and responds to it. I was no longer in the habit of sticking the SASE in with the manuscript.
What to do? Resubmit the whole thing? Send just the missing envelope? Pretend they had rejected it and send it elsewhere? Forget I ever wrote and submitted it?
So I went to their web site to see if I could find out what to do next. Turns out they have an electronic submission tracking button. I knew the date I had put the submission in the mail. They responded the next day.
So today I am putting the missing SASE in the mail to them so they can send me a paper rejection.

Do you think it is age related?

I went to check on one of my stories that is out with a magazine. It is past time for them to have responded. So I am sending them a query, if only I could remember the name of the work.
I know it is one of four stories about a group of colonists in the mid-1600s. I can tell you the name of the characters, and the plot in detail. But I can’t for the life of me remember the title.
Every story I start gets a working title as soon as the first paragraph is done. My computer is full of titles like Dog.doc, Buff Orffington.doc, attic man.doc, or Parker 2010.doc. The one I am looking for is called Locked Room.doc. Dog, and Buff Orffington don’t have real titles yet, but attic man and Locked Room do. You would think that after all the hours it takes to write a short story, getting down the first draft and going through it half a dozen times after it has been read by my critique partners, I would remember the name. The file names stick with me, but the public names are harder to remember. I could look it up if only I could remember which of my nine thumb drives it is on.

Out in the Storm

Years of experience doing historical interpretation have left me with the habit of asking myself "What would they do?" They are the 18th century middle class, skilled craftsmen and their families, farmers, millers, and weavrers in particular.
This winter has been rough on us. People ten miles to the north of me spent at least five days without electricity. Work and school were canceled. The morning temperature was above freezing only a couple of days since this mess started.
But the sheep have to be fed twice a day, the dog has to be walked no matter how much ice is out there.
This would not be an unusual winter in the early 1700s. Since they didn’t have snow-blowers they had to shovel, and not with the light aluminum or plastic shovels we have.
If they wanted to stay warm and cook, they had to chop and lug the wood. The stream and the millrace would have been frozen solid. If they were lucky the ground temperature kept the well water from freezing.
I have a closet full of sweaters and some very modern long underwear, but their wardrobes were limited by the expense of finished cloth or the time it took to make homespun. If you were cold, you put on as many layers of clothing as you had. Sometimes it wasn't enough. But they were used to the cold. They didn't expect the climate controlled rooms we are used to.
But they didn't worry about the electricity going out.

I have become a wimp

It has been a month since our temperatures have gone above freezing for more than part of a day. It was 28 degrees this morning when I walked the dog. It snowed again yesterday. People ten miles to the north of us have had no electricity for seven days. The museum where I work was without power for 5 days. Two families have been reported dead from carbon monoxide poison from running generators inside their houses.
I was born in Boston where winters are always cold and can be hard. I went to college in upstate New York where the snow began falling before Thanksgiving and we didn't see the ground again 'til spring, and were you could count of one week of 50 below temperatures. It snowed the day before graduation on June 2.
I am puzzled by my reaction to this one hard winter. For years I have lived in the more moderate temperature of the Mid-Atlantic. All I have really suffered this time is lost work days and freezing temperatures. I am not living in an unheated unlighted home; I can walk to the grocery story if necessary. And yet I am becoming more and more immobile. I can't write, I can't cook or do dishes and I am barley caring for the animals.
I have become a wimp.
On the other hand the sheep think this is perfect weather.

moods

I never seem to know where I am in this writing world. Just when I think I am doing OK, something knocks me down. This week I have had two disappointments (no I'm not going to tell you what they are).
At the same time, I am working on the middle of two stories. This is a part of writing that always unbalances me. But I usually am unbalanced by one story at a time.
If things go as they usually do, something wonderful will happen in the next couple of weeks that will make me feel like I really am a writer.
This uncertainty give me drive. These mood shifts fuel my work. I write when I feel low; I submit when I feel great.
That means that today I will try to work my way out of one of the two stories. Maybe both.
Then maybe in a week or two I can send them off to find new homes.

Do Sheep Get Writer's Block?

When I drive up to feed the sheep in the morning they recognize the sound of the engine and start yelling for me to hurry up. When I went over on Friday morning I was met with silence. I saw no sheep in the pastures, and heard no sheep in the barn. Are they all dead? Have they been stolen? Did they get out? There were no fences down, no tracks in the snow. I measured out the grain, pealed off two flakes of hay and went down the stairs. They were all standing in the lower part of the barn waiting for me, still silent. They may have been reluctant to speak, but they dove into the food like they had not been fed for days. I figured everything was OK.

The Other Side of a Pen Name

I have a friend, yes a friend, whom I know only by her pen name. She lives a couple of miles away from me. She has edited two of my stories and helped with others. She is one of the founding members of my writers' chapter. When I first met her, her husband drove her to meetings, so I knew him as well. After my husband died, she came across the room at a book signing to give me a hug that I didn't even know I needed.
Last week she emailed me saying her husband had died. You can't look up obituaries under the spouse's pen name. I identified it because I recognized the photograph. I notified our mutual writing friends, others who knew her pen name, and we managed a small contingent at the funeral. Three of us sat together in the pew in honor of a family with one name, while everyone else was there to honor a family with an entirely different name.

Telling the Futrue

We all knew it would be a hard winter because the wool is so long and thick this year. The sheep were right; my feet are freezing as I write this.
On Friday I have to send my latest manuscritp to a publisher. Sheep, can you tell me if they will like it or not?