Is it Spring Yet? (and a ballsy writer's story)

Me, wind-whipped

I was in Florida last week with my family.

It was a nice reprieve, if we only got
a whopping two days of sun out of five.

And even on the sunny days, the wind was whipping.

I mean, 30 mile per hour winds.


Still, I lay at the pool,
grateful to soak in the sun and relax.

self portrait in bathingsuit

I swear, if I could, I would do little but swim and lie in the sun. . .

Alas, I am back, and have a shitload of writing stuff on my plate:

"Frankie Sky" is finally on it's way to copy edits which puts me in the throes of doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff -- getting permissions, fretting over my author photo ;\ , and mulling over new titles, because my editor has concerns about "Frankie Sky."

Next will come cover ideas and the dreaded, dreaded jacket copy. How can that be so hard?

In the meantime, remember my women's fiction? Well maybe not since it's yet to be published. :\

But it's never far from my mind.

So, I did something ballsy the other day and it paid off, if only in the quietest "validation" sense of the word.

What happened is this: Looking for something else, I inadvertently pulled up an old email rejection letter from an editor who had read Swim Back to Me in 2009 (when I was with my first agent), and it filled me with the kind of longing that only that manuscript (and its history) can fill me with:

I know that one doesn't look like a rejection and it isn't. It was this one that had followed:

Well, especially if you are a writer reading, you can see how it was hard to let go of this one after feedback like this? And, I will tell you that I had at least three other close-but-no-cigar encounters with major publishers like this one. . .

So, anyway, back to my balls. Turns out I had this editor's email and I reached out as politely as I could, starting with the fact that I had no idea if she'd remember me or the ms, but that, if she did, I had done a subsequent rewrite with my next agent that had left the manuscript just the tiniest bit less (in their words) bleak.

I figured that was the end. She would write me off as a crazy stalker-writer-girl and change her email address as fast as she could. But instead, she wrote back to me within the 1/2 hour, told me she remembered me and Swim and asked if we could to talk.

I've seldom been as blown away -- or felt more validated -- in my ten-plus years as an aspiring writer.

Anyway, we had a great conversation and if nothing else comes of it, that was enough.

What she told me was that she had -- and still does -- love the book as is, but that she could not ever sell it this way. . . but that, if I wanted to try to tackle a few of the other editors' concerns in a rewrite, she would look at it again.

So, that's what I'm doing. I'm attempting a rewrite, which, as always, is way harder than I thought.

But whatever happens, that? That was a good writing moment.

In other (and final) book news, The Pull of Gravity is now out EVERYWHERE in paperback and I would surely love you to go out and grab a copy from Barnes & Noble or your local indie bookstore. It's also got a spiffy new trailer that was made by a 15-year-old kid named Jude Bourke.

He's the son of a friend and his dad, Karl, did the amazing original drawings. If you like it, leave him a note, and please, please, please pass it on.

Anyway, that's it for now.

Come on, Spring!

xox gae