Lynette Bishop Snell

It cannot be almost a month since my last post…it simply cannot!  Unfortunately, the calendar does not lie.  But, I am happy to report, I have not been idle.

I have been writing!

Why? You may ask.  Because it is that time of year:  conference time!  I recently broached the subject of the Glorieta Christian Writer’s Conference with Rita, my writing partner.  She mentioned a different conference in Dallas in September.  The American Christian Fiction Writers Conference.  Together, we researched both conferences and decided this conference might be better suited to our fledgling writers’ needs.  So after a couple weeks of deliberation, we agreed to take the plunge.

All of this meant that I had to pull my writing projects out of the dungeon of neglect and dust them off.  They needed work, most especially my “Tale of Lillian Foster,” which has received a new title (for now at least) of Now and Then.  One of the things I learned from my trek out west to Glorieta last year was that I needed to rework my story.  I had too much backstory ahead of my true story line.  And as one well respected agent put it, “You have identified a major flaw and corrected it.  You can hardly take anything better than that away from this conference.”

Well, I had identified it.  I had not corrected it.  I avoided it, took a break, and then we decided to move.  I thought of little else besides moving for many months.  Oh, occasionally Lillian and her tale would pop into my mind.  Guiltily, however, I would always tamp it down.  I had no time for thoughts of anything save getting through a move and all it entailed. 

Now, ten months have passed.  I have moved, I have activities to keep the children occupied, and I am going to the conference in September.  No more excuses! 

I’ve been working diligently on Lillian/Now & Then, getting edits from Rita and desperately trying to make sense of this creature I call a manuscript.  I vary between elation at my finely honed skill and desolation at the pure drivel I have written.  Isn’t this what deadlines do?  They inspire the best of us (and the not so best, I suppose) to willingly hop on that roller coaster ride toward completion and then complain vociferously when all does not go as we planned.

Regardless of what complaint comes out of me, depending on the time of day, I am committed to having some sort of proposal completed before September 21.  And not just because I purchased a paid critique of my work.  But also because I am committed to finishing this project. 

In the meantime, if I’m not blogging, be assured that I am writing.  And preparing.  And stressing.  And freaking out.  Oh, and dousing all my worries with a liberal dose of Handel’s ice cream.