Launch date

Maybe we should ask Leroy to launch our website Editors2.com on All Souls Day or All Saints Day, Oct. 31, Nov. 1. I am beyond my first panic paralysis and now doggedly determined to start marketing the heck out of Editors2.com. Literary agents, publishers, BSU profs, journals we have written for, FMRI docs - the few writers that I know, Ann, Brian, Waj, Dave, Ted, Diane, Sheila, and a select email list of goddesses, family members (?), and anyone else in my contacts that I think might be a friend of a friend who needs an editor. If we can get in with literary agents and/or small presses, show them samples of our work, we can get assignments as they receive things they like but that need help, OUR help. This will happen. I think the free try is the most compelling thing on our website and in our personal marketing. Who can resist free? Wish us luck.

back-pedaling

that is me today. november begins writing month. have ideas popped into my head for the novel? no. criticisms about the ideas and characters already in mind have come up of course. And twenty reasons why NOT to go ahead with novel month. (I'm listening to a forties station "there is no business liike show business") okay the show must go on. i'll show up at rediscovered bookstore at 10 PM for the party to kick off novel month. and dive in with my fingers tapping. no plot yet.

in a way deciding to have a "quantum year" is like a long writing project. you can't just say "I'm going to have a quantum year" and then sit on your hands. all the same puzzle pieces of life will arrange themselves as they ever have. with indrmental changes sifting through. a quantum experience is a verb experience. so it is a year of picking up the pen so to speak. taking a walk tuesday night instead of turning on "so you think you can dance." going outside the usual edges. paying attention is crucial as well. look to see the interlocking pieces and find a way to pry them apart. the characters in the novel can do things that i cannot or am not doing.

Nearly real

We are on Test 4 of our website...what a trip! Fortunately laurie and I are sympatico tempermentally and so we've enjoyed the process. Our web designer? Not so much. But then he gets paid for our changes, edits, and whims. My life needs editing...such wise words from Mort Sahl. I am constantly revisiting the home page of my life to tweak with furnishings, lighting, and entry ways. Whom do I let in? How do I view that relationship? What are my exit strategies?

bootcamp!!

okay i'm going to do it. join the november is novel month experience. the commitment? you have to write 50,000 words by November 30th. yesirree. how many pages is that a day? will i still get to watch top chef? does there need to be a beginning, middle and end? can i use purple prose. YES to all. turn on the tv if you need to. but write write write . the only rule. one i used to tell my ex when he went bowling. don't think. every character you ever thought about - bring them out of the closet. mix them and match them. rearrange them. take them to court. kill them off. dress them up in sequins. write. this will be life changing even if no one ever reads a word of what you write. even if YOU don't read a word of it. write. you'll emerge off the mountain of november like charlton heston in ten commandments. hair turned white (wait it already it white) light in the eyes. ferocious with knowing what to do next. write. (I'll keep you posted)

At last!

Finally, we sent the web designer the text for Editors2.com. A year's worth of meetings and discussion has turned into a concrete vehicle for our combined interests and expertise. I am grateful for Laurie's patience and perserverance, for this opportunity to help others realize their written dreams, and for being here in this place at this time.

quantum year revisited

okay i told myself this morning. i was driving to meet mary and thinking about choosing this year to be "the quantum year." think about quantum year as a verb rather than a noun. life tends to settle into fixed patterns. for me, i have work, projects, and recreation. all those are set in the field of being that streams in from the news, my own life situation with its cast of characters, the criss crossing lines of unconscious expectations and hopes. these pieces all crowd together on a confined landscape. to speak "quantum year" is to say...."hold on. let me push all the known pieces of my life apart. let's create some space....and what will happen if i don't tamper with the space. what if i walk around in it without commentary." quantum year is opening up to the unknown before taking next steps.

This is a test.