Whoa, Girl!

Whoa, Girl is the sort of thing you'd say to a lady horse, right? Well that mare is me -- and it turns out I need to "hold my horses." I sent the first three chapters of the new novel I've been tinkering with to the publisher at Orca Books, and though he likes my narrator, he doesn't think schools -- one of the main markets for their books -- will be comfortable with a story where on-line pornography plays a major role. Though he didn't exactly tell me, "Whoa, Girl!" that was basically the gist of our phone meeting. But because I follow Harriet Tubbman's advice and I do my best to keep going despite barking dogs and shining lights and less than wonderful news from my publisher... I'm still going... in fact, during our phone meeting, we settled on a new story idea altogether. This one involves some research though -- I'm going to need to poke around before I can actually begin writing this new book which involves guard dogs. I suspect there are lots of lessons here about the writing life, but mainly that occasionally, a writer needs to be able to shift gears. When Plan A fails, turn immediately to Plan B!!! This particular writer who so enjoys the writing process will have to focus her creative energies on getting that research done -- hope to be starting a brand new book in about two weeks. Until then, you'll have to settle for reports about the pre-writing process. Well then, off I go to make a phonecall -- a friend of mine knows someone who knows someone who works with guard dogs. Let's see if they'll let me come and learn about their operation. Bye for now. Good luck with all your Plan A's -- and B's!!!!