I'm losing my mind. I can't get to my lake belle blog and though I have waited and posted and posted and waited I've yet to hear anything from blogger about solving the problem. You can't call these people, so I just keep clicking and clicking and getting the same error message about too many …
Author: mapelba
I'm a writer, artist, teacher, mother, wife, daughter, friend, coffee addict... What else? A success, a failure, a mess, a fan, a hater of housework, a lover of dogs, a liberal, an obsessive, and a bunch of other things that probably would never occur to me. I reveal myself in more ways in my writings and art than in any list of adjectives. And whoever you are, I hope most of all that you are a reader.
Where’s the damn cat?
The lack of pictures for Lake Belle is a problem. One coworker suggested I take images from google, but that wouldn't work even if I were inclined to do it. Sure, in a novel people don't expect pictures, but lake belle isn't a book-it's a blog. And on blog people post pictures and join my …
Writers Are Mean People
I was being good and grading papers (granted, I was drinking red wine and watching WKRP at the same time) when I was overwhelmed with an urge to move Mercie's story along. Now I feel both thrilled and guilt-ridden. Writers must be a mean lot. Just think of all the terrible things we inflict on …
Fictional lives crash and burn…
Mercie is headed for disaster because, as a friend pointed out, she wouldn't make a very good book if you could warn her off her present course. The question is--how far is she going to go before she learns the truth? The longer she goes, the bigger the burn, of course, but I don't really …
moment of insanity in tech hell
So, I bought my domain name because I suffer from the delusion that one day I might be a professional, published author and I don't know if I did something wrong or not but my blog seems to have disappeared. God, I wish I had taken more tech courses! Anyway, it is possible that the …
Oh, Madeleine, La Madeleine
The one Christmas my mother and I lived together she gave me a hardcover set of A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Wind in the Door. I loved those books and twenty-four years later I still have them--stained pages and torn jacekts. Just a note in memory of a writer who …
Too Much Plot?
I'm editing NaNo novel 2006, and I'm on page 65 (single-spaced, mind) and I'm thinking--wow, that's a lot of plot. There are a few magical transformations, an explosion, a death, and a very unfortunate first kiss. Or looked at another way, my main character discovers she can channel some starnge magic energy for good and …
Is it cleanliness that is next to godliness? Are we sure about that?
Who is to say that having a clean house isn't a higher calling than writing a novel? Maybe all this time I've been feeling superior to housecleaning-tip-exchanging moms for no good reason. Sure, I've got all these words blackening pages of bleached stained printer paper, but half the bills get paid late simply because I …
Continue reading Is it cleanliness that is next to godliness? Are we sure about that?
Instant Gratification
I used to wonder how some of my friends could spend so much time blogging and zipping around the internet. Now I know. At least for me this medium provides feedback in a way that sitting away writing alone in my closet does not. Anytime I get a reader who is not one of my …
Hey, Rejection! I’m over here…pick me!
I'm waiting for rejection. Or I could put my postive face on (dust it off first) and say I'm waiting for acceptance. Oh, though one agent might give you a few precious moments of her life and then promise to support you for better or for worse, through sickness and in health, until death (or …
Marta Pelrine-Bacon 