grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

on being an author… keeping it real today

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On being an author - keeping it real.
I’m two-and-a-half years into this author gig. At times, this new journey has been fantastic, at times nerve-wracking. Always it’s surreal. Opening myself up to feedback and criticism and whatever comes next (or doesn’t come at all) can be exhilarating and scary, sometimes within ten minutes.

Nearly every day someone asks me for advice. What’s it really like? Do you make any money? I’m always willing to share the tablespoon of knowledge I’ve collected. Today, I’m keeping it real, bringing you the great and the not so great. I’m sure other authors have different experiences, so as always, I’m only speaking from my limited perspective.

What’s it like?

In a word, rollercoaster.Continue Reading

I don’t want to be timely.

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I don't want to be timely...
I don’t want to be timely. I want to be timeless instead.

Timeless, writing stories relatable today, tomorrow, yesterday, fifty years from now. A few lines of prose that grips your gut, makes you weep or howl with laughter. Words that spring from the page in bight blue ink, as blue as peacock feathers.

Timeless. Enduring. Like a number two pencil. A number two pencil purchased for a nickel at the bookstore at school, the bookstore just outside the principal’s office, up the stairs, behind the glass counter, the pencils arranged in a row, ROYGBIV, the colors of the rainbow. For a few pennies, add an extra fat eraser squeezed on top like a snug hat.

I want to sit and write and rewrite and never use up the extra eraser, with no regard for time, lost in the moment, lost on the page, lost between the lines in the story.

I don’t want to be timely.
I want to be timeless. Like the lyrics to a song. Always true.

Always.

Alive in a place alive with imagination and exuberance and endless notions. Made up words. Down the rabbit hole, in and out of weeks, and almost over a year.

To where the dandelions grow. Same as it ever was.

No clocks. No alarms. No reminders to go and do and think certain thoughts. A soft meadow to sink into, float above. A sky with no ceiling. Only blue.

Endless.

Timeless.
Same as it ever was.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]I don’t want to be timely with my #writing. #amwriting[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:
Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

A writer’s (nano) descent into madness.

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descent into madnessYesterday, I open the mailbox to discover a neat, tight envelope sealed on the end rather than the middle (which for whatever reason, appeals to me), and inside, an unexpected book. Not really a book-book, more of a chap-book, larger than pocket-sized but compact and slender and flawless. And the matte cover is fashioned from heavy, charcoal-colored card stock (or a level up from card stock), certainly more substantial than a flimsy pamphlet or typical paperback cover.

Intriguing. Everything about it, including the minimalistic design, an atomic swirl printed in silver with an “N” in the center where the nucleus of everything lives. At the one o’clock position, a simple “10”. Also shiny and silver.

I trace the design with my index finger. I channel long lost junior high science class. I press the silver “N” in case it’s THE button unlocking Narnia for writers.

Or a port key.

Could be.Continue Reading

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!