The Undiscovered Country

Little Things

Here I sit in the middle of the night with a slight headache (muscle ache to be precise. I think I’m spending too much time holding my head in one position such as sitting in front of a computer, and my neck isn’t liking it), and waiting for the Excedrin to kick in so I can sleep. Bummer, too, because I need to be up before 6am (5:45 is what I’m going for), so I can go to the gym and work off some more fat (and give my heart a workout).

I’m liking parentheses for some reason.

Based on the two paragraphs above, I will now apologize in advance if the rest of this jumps around too much, or doesn’t make any sense.

Tomorrow will be my husband and my twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. It’ll also be the twelfth anniversary of finding out we were pregnant. I can’t believe our son will be entering sixth grade this August!

Another milestone: I will turn fifty this year. A half-century. Although my mind doesn’t feel it, my bones sure do!

On the writing front, a story I sent for an anthology didn’t make the cut, but I’m no surprised. The competition was pretty fierce. I still have another story for a different anthology that I had mentioned before (speculative stories on the Beatitudes) that seems likely to be included. The publisher is also in the military, and he’s been out of the country since March, so any suggested edits haven’t reached my email, yet.

I also signed up for Realm Makers (https://realmmakers.net) writers conference in July in St Louis, Missouri. I went last year which was a lot of fun. I also took Tom, and even though he spent a lot of it in the hotel room, he also had a great time. So much so, he’s coming with me again this year. The last day we’ll be taking a ride up the Gateway Arch (formally known as the St. Louis Arch), as well as a river cruise afterward.

On a whim, I submitted the first fifteen pages of my fantasy to American Christian Fiction Writers (https://acfw.com) annual Genesis contest (a contest for unpublished authors). I had submitted the same one last year, but it didn’t even make the semi-finals. I’ve since rewrote the prologue entirely, and the first chapter I changed to a different POV. I think it turned out much better. The judges seemed to agree, because this time it did make the semi-finals. I’ll find out June 15 if it made the finals or not. If it does, I won’t know if I won or not until the end of September during the ACFW annual conference. I considered going, but since I’m already attending Realm Makers, spending another $1000 minimum (by the time I add the flight, hotel and conference fee) to go to another two months later may not be economically feasible, let alone wise.

I’m a little anxious about Realm Makers this year, because I secured a fifteen minute mentor appointment with fantasy author Terry Brooks (he wrote the Sword of Shannara series). The last thing I want to to is act like a giddy fan girl for fifteen minutes, but as of now, I’m not quite sure what I’m going to ask him. I also have two agent pitch appointments which I’m less nervous about.

Well the Excedrin kicked in, and this entry is getting a bit lengthy, so I will close for now. Hopefully I won’t wait another three months before writing a new one.

Enjoy the rest of your week!