My blog has cobwebs. It’s been such a long time since I’ve posted anything here. It’s not so much that I haven’t been writing but rather that I haven’t been writing anything that fits into the categories on my blog. I originally began this blog as writing practice, thus the title writing scales. I’d given myself a year to write Mourning Has Broken and now that the year is up and I have the collection of essays, which still need editing I’m thinking of publishing it on Kindle. For free. For my family. And anybody else who cares to read them, which would make me happy knowing that all my hard effort might end up, not in someone’s slush pile but being of comfort to someone. So that’s it for this category. At least on this blog. For now.

Brenda’s Disaster Dates is another story.

Recently, while walking along a beach in Jaco, Costa Rica I had an inspiration. I would tell Brenda’s story from first person viewpoint. Initially writing in third person and then switching to first is how my writing tends to develop. Maybe it’s because first person is too intimidating and I need to gently slide into it. I did that with the crime novel I’ve been writing for the last four years. Yikes! Has it already been four years. And what do I have to show for it? Well, actually I do have a proposal which I sent out to an agent who wanted to see the first fifty pages. You can’t imagine how that zippy-dee-dooed me up and boosted my writing morale. I was back on the drawing board with full force, re-editing the fifty pages to send to him. There’s nothing like some stranger who has the power to sell your work to pick you up. Better than martinis simply because the buzz doesn’t die down.

In two weeks time I was sending off the fifty pages and just before my trip to Costa Rica I received this in my e-mail. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t find the plot quite enticing or unique enough in the first section to make me want to continue. The writing was fine, but not very compelling. Sorry.

Well, there was no one sorrier than I was. I tried to focus on the part about my writing being fine but still it left me feeling dismal, gloomy, filled with self doubt and sorry for myself. Then, to I starting thinking about what I’d do if I won the lottery: living in swanky hotels, going to yoga retreats, drinking expensive wines and attending writing conferences in Hawaii, say, or Barcelona. The fantasy cheered me up for about half an hour hatching enough dopamine through my brain to provide me with the motivation to go fishing again.

Finding where to send my writing is the part of the writing process I like the least. There’s the subtle fear of rejection or that I’m wasting my time and along with that is which magazine, publisher, and agent to choose from. It’s very confusing out there. That’s likely why I have so much writing accumulated, that when I’m not even finished a piece I’m off writing another one. Which brings me back to Brenda. I got a new title for her. Kissing Frogs (diary of an online dater). I recently heard that skill and talent don’t count for very much if you don’t have the desire. I guess what I need more than anything else is faith that in the end everything will tie together.