apace
Things proceed apace.
Due to a confluence of things, I have more free time for the moment than I’m used to. I made myself a schedule to keep myself on track, with designated times for job hunting, for Clarion West work, and (yes!) for writing. I’ve got about four hours every afternoon designated for writing, and it is glorious.
I finished the first draft of the orca selkie story (currently untitled, after the original title stopped working for the story), finished edits on the pomegranate goddess story (which, alas, also needs a new title), and finished polishing “Ghost-Apples.”
I’ve been working on “Ghost-Apples” on and off for the past year, including something like seven complete rewrites, and at this point I am ready to shove this thing out into the world and hope that it finds a home. A friend referred to it as “the most Midwestern thing I’ve ever read,” which made me happy because the story is steeped in the culture of rural Minnesota. The town and the farm are based on the place where my dad grew up and where I spent a week or two every summer. I have an enormous affection for the place, but it was also alien to my California-bred self: different smells, different weather, and unspoken rules of adult behavior that it took me a long time to unravel.
I hope I’ve done the place justice. We’ll see.
