Good Night, 2012

Me and Lisa with Bugs Bunny at the ballpark

                It’s the end of another year. It seems like 2012 both flew and crawled by. There have been days I wished would end sooner than later and others I wished would never end. But end they all did, inexorably bringing us to this day, the day before the last day of the year.

                Overall, this has been a wonderfully stressful year. A year of transitions, a year of learning, a year of slowing down. It’s been a year I’ve been able to pull off surprises, something that’s hard for me, a mouthy type-A personality, to do. And through it all I’ve survived, some days with great joy, others with great pain.

                Transitions have always been a bit of a problem for me. Change has never been my best friend. After being married to a career Air Force man and moving more often than not before we got settled in, it would seem as though change wouldn’t throw me for such a loop. But it does. And for some reason, I don’t foresee that ever changing.

The major transition was the closing of the Forensic ID department at LabCorp. I was their customer service representative/administrative assistant/go-fer and I loved every minute of it. My supervisor decided every case file of every case the department had done – all the way back to ’96 – needed to be scanned and saved as a PDF. Guess who that task fell to? Little ol’ me. We all miscalculated the amount of time needed to do this monstrous task and I’m still at it. I started with the most recent files and am working backwards. I just finished 2005. Once this is done, I’ll be working for the Research & Development department as their administrative assistant/go-fer. I’m blessed to have such a great job and even more blessed to have the wonderful supervisors and co-workers I have. They have made this transition as easy as possible for all concerned.

My daughter and her husband on her 30th birthday

Another transition was actually one my daughter experienced. She turned thirty in April. It’s hard to believe that pretty little baby is the beautiful young woman married for twelve and one half years to the love of her life. I was able to pull off one of my rare surprises, along with the help of my daughter’s husband, by flying home to spend her birthday with her. I had a wonderful time and I was impressed once again by what a thoughtful, generous, loving person she is to all she encounters.

One of my largest blessings was a reconnection I made with a friend I thought was lost forever. We’d had some misunderstandings and bad timings back in 2000 and hadn’t spoken to one another since. I always prayed that one day we’d be able to put the past in the past and move forward once again as friends. That prayer was answered when she contacted me in July. It was bittersweet in a way though. While our friendship has been renewed and we both feel so blessed to be back in one another’s lives, one of the reasons she contacted me was to let me know her daddy was dying. I was surprised to find they lived about eight hours north of me so I made arrangements to go see them. In August I was able to kiss the man I considered my foster father and tell him how much I loved him. I also got to visit with his wife and my friend. Unfortunately, my foster daddy lost his battle with leukemia shortly before Thanksgiving.

It’s been a year of loss. Not only did my foster father pass over but a dear friend was murdered by her ex-husband who subsequently also took his own life. His selfishness left three beautiful children without parents. They’re blessed to have a grandmother who loves them and is giving them a home.

When Out of the Past arrived from L-Book.

I lost my publisher, Roxanne Jones, just a few days after my novel Out of the Past was released. Shortly after that, the company closed and my book was no longer available.  Now neither of my two novels are available and I was faced with a tough decision – just let them disappear from everywhere but my heart and computer, shop them around to another publisher, or self-publish.

I thought about those choices long and hard. I discussed them ad infinitum with my partner and my kids and anyone who would listen. I asked for, and received, advice from other authors who are self-published and took their advice to heart. I read blog after blog after blog and more than one book. And finally I took the plunge.

Because of a more than rocky personal financial situation, I decided to ask for investors to help me get started. If I was going to do this, I wanted (want) to do it right and not take any short cuts. I’m notorious for taking short cuts in things I do and then getting frustrated because those things don’t turn out right and then I quit. I’m bound and determined that’s not going to happen. I was blessed to have three people step up, tell me they believe in me, and invest money in order to help me get my first book out.

Rainbow Tales Publishing released its first book, Out of the Past, on December 20 and as of this writing has sold quite well. The print version will be available in mid-January and I’m confident it will also sell well. With the royalties from Out of the Past and possibly another investor or two, I will release Welcome Home in mid-spring of the new year. And I hope to have a third novel ready to go by mid-autumn, using only the proceeds from my novels to put it out.

My long-term goal for Rainbow Tales Publishing is for it to clear enough money that I’m able to quit my “day” job and concentrate on writing and publishing the best quality books possible. Will I open the company to other writers? That remains to be seen.

This long-winded blog just scratches the surface of my 2012. My biggest blessing is I’ve shared all of this and so much more with my loving, patience of a saint partner, Lisa. Her encouragement and her support are a godsend and I love her with all of my being. As soon as same-sex marriage is federally recognized, we’ll be tying the knot and all of you are invited!

One of the gourds I Zentangled this year

Atlantic Beach, NC, at sunrise in early fall

My old kitty, Geri.

I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year.

Your Help is Needed!

I started writing almost as soon as I could hold a crayon. Mom would tell me to draw a picture and I would draw a story instead. I always loved the English assignments that called for an essay or a research paper to be written. I was in my element. In High School, Creative Writing was by far my favorite course. I dreamed of being a journalist, and an author with books in my bookcase with my name on the spine. But real life intervened.

I was prevented from going to college because of family dynamics and I was expected to get married and bear children – after all that's what respectable girls did, even in the mid-1970s after the feminist revolution that supposedly changed that. I did get married and I had two wonderful children. But during the years they were small and I was a stay at home mom, my writing was solely in my journals.

In the mid-'90s, when my kids were well ensconced in school, I started writing a novel. Even though I'd never been there, the novel was about Charleston, SC. Through some serendipitous events I was able to visit the city – on my own, no children or husband to slow me down – and I knew for sure my novel had to take place there. But when I returned home I discovered my fledgling manuscript had "accidentally" been thrown away. I was so discouraged I threw away my dream of writing too. I went back to my journals and gave up the idea of ever writing anything anyone would ever want to see.

Fast forward to 2006. I was ten years into being single again, had come out as a lesbian, and my children were grown. The love of my life, Lisa. blessed me with her presence early that year and one of the things she kept asking me was what were my dreams. For ages I insisted I didn't have any. But I finally relented and told her I wanted to be a writer.

With her encouragement I wrote my first novel, Welcome Home, and submitted it for publication. Imagine my surprise when it was accepted. My dream was coming true! The book was released in 2009 and got good reviews and I felt awesome.

I was introduced to the concept of National Novel Writing Month in 2008. I decided to tackle it with the idea of the novel I had started in the nineties brewing in my heart and mind. Out of the Past was born. After a lot of hard work I submitted it to a different publisher and was thrilled when it was accepted and released in September, 2012.

Then the bottom fell out. First, due to issues with the first publisher and some downsizing they were doing, my contract for Welcome Home reverted back to me. Okay, I thought. I'll fix this baby up, do some rewriting and re-editing, get a new cover and re-release it myself. I was working on that endeavor when Out of the Past was released on September 12 and then the owner of the publishing company passed away on September 26. The company shut its doors in early November and now neither of my books is on the market.

From that adversity another dream I'd been toying with for years began to take shape. I would start my own publishing imprint, Rainbow Tales Publishing. I'd talked about it for years and a dear friend had designed me an awesome mermaid logo. So, I started doing some research. I discovered self-publishing is easy if you want to take shortcuts, but not quite so easy if you want to do it right. And not so inexpensive.

I began asking people to invest in my idea and so far, to date, two wonderful people have been quite generous. But I still fall short, very short, of the amount I need to put these two books on the market plus one more next year. Hopefully, the royalties from the sales of those three books will finance further books.

But before that can happen I need to raise some money. After doing some math, adding up the costs of what my team will charge for book cover design, editing and formatting and multiplying that by three and throwing in a little extra for padding, I decided I need to raise approximately $3000. To that end I started a campaign on a website called Indiegogo, which helps people raise money for various reasons.

I'm not asking for money with nothing in return to the generous people who donate. There are perks involved – the more you give, the more you get. You can find my campaign at http://www.indiegogo.com/rainbowtalespub. If you would like to see my business plan before donating, please feel free to email me at rainbowtales@outlook.com and I'll get one to you ASAP. And if you want to experience some of my writing, as well as see my photography and art, visit my website at www.GlendaPoulter.com.

Some people think I'm begging for money and that it's unseemly. Yes, I am begging. But I feel it's for a good reason and there will be great returns for the money once my books are back on the market. I'm proud of my writing, of my talent, of the gift I've been given. I want to share that with others, but I won't be able to without the help from you.

Thank you for your support and I look forward to hearing from you.

                   

Putting the Slut Monkeys to Bed or How I Defeated My Internal Editors

             

                                                       

I used to call my internal editor "Mom" but I realized recently that I have more than one internal editor and they sure aren't Mom! So now I was facing internal editors that were telling me I'm no good, no one wants to read what I write and why bother, as well as editors saying "That word? Why in the world are you using that word?" and "Shouldn't you use a semi-colon there and hey, you're not supposed to use any exclamation marks." And the worst one wasthe one that kept telling me I can get to it later.

There were so many of these bothersome things I knew I couldn't name them all and keep them straight in my head. And I knew if I called one of them by the wrong name, it would get all huffy and give me an even harder time. In desperation one day, I screamed "Would all of you slut monkeys please go find another corner?" It shut them up for a few minutes but then they were back in force. But now I had a name for those pesky internal editors – Slut Monkeys.

But I still had no idea how to shut them up until I truly needed them, when it was time to edit my first drafts, and second, and third. I tried to appease them by telling them they are welcome to hang around but aren't to bother me until I invited them. They just laughed and turned up the volume.

I resorted to listening to the monkey that advocated procrastination. The TV had something interesting on and I'd write later. I really did need to see if Amazon had posted any more free Kindle books I wanted to download. My ideas could wait until after… You name it, the monkey found some reason to talk me into NOT writing. The monkey was winning and it knew it.

Then one day, on a whim, I pulled out the writing prayer beads my partner, Lisa, bought me for Christmas a few years ago. I carry them with me everywhere I go and pull them out and lay them across the top of the keyboard when I write. But on this day, I held them in my hand and did a guided meditation, moving my hand from bead to bead as I named my intentions for the day – none of which had anything to do with writing.

When I finished I realized I had gone deeper than I had for a long time and wondered if the beads had anything to do with it. I mentioned the phenomenon to a friend who also meditates and she admitted she uses prayer beads all the time – different ones for different types of meditation and prayer. She asked me why none of my intentions were about writing and I was at a loss. After considerable thought I realized it was the slut monkeys' fault. They had intimidated me into believing I wasn't truly a writer.

"Nonsense," my friend said. "Meditate with the intention of writing as soon as you're done and let me know what happens."

The next day I followed my friend's advice and low and behold the monkeys left me alone. I could almost hear them snoring in the background. In calming my mind, I also calmed them and they were able to rest up to bother me later about something that had nothing to do with writing.

Now meditation with the intention of writing is a part of my writing preparation. When I take a shortcut and don't meditate, the monkeys rejoice and are they ever loud in their partying.

Will meditation put your slut monkeys to rest, at least temporarily? I don’t know. You'll have to try it for yourself. But it works for me and not just for writing. I try to find time to quiet my mind before tackling any kind of task that uses a lot of brain cells. I'm able to concentrate and be much more productive without the monkeys' constant yammering that I'm doing it wrong and shouldn't even be trying in the first place.

So what do you do to prepare to write? Any routines, superstitions, must dos for you?