First I want to acknowledge Veteran’s Day tomorrow and give a shout out to the veterans in my immediate family. My son, David, a Marine who was in Dessert Storm. My daughter, Dany, who was in the army and was lucky to avoid combat duty. My brother, Michael, who was also in the army and served in Vietnam.
Hurrah and Semper Fi, and all that.
My family has a long history of service to the military, and while I am proud of the patriotism, the pacifist within wishes that war did not have to happen. This quote from the book of Isaiah (2:4) in the Bible has always resonated with me:
And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
Okay, now the fun. Since I am so incredibly busy with an editing job, preparing to move, and various other things, I thought I would go back and share some older posts, starting with a piece I wrote a few years ago for The Blood Red Pencil blog. I got my professional start writing a weekly humor column for a suburban newspaper, and I won’t tell you how many years ago that was.
Primarily the column focused on antics within the family, but occasionally, I would write about the joys of the writing life. I took some of those old columns and shared them with the readers of the BRP blog, and now I share it with you. Enjoy….
I suppose we’re all entitled to our glory dreams, and it sure was fun while it lasted. But now that the excitement has died down to a dull roar and the rejection slips have started to litter my desk again, we have resigned ourselves to the fact that perhaps we’ll have to wait a while before we start recklessly throwing money around buying mink coats and hamburgers.
Anjanette has given up her dream of a whole new bedroom set with maybe a new bedroom to put it in. David has gone back to mowing lawns to save the money for his new mag wheels, and Michael is collecting cans for recycling to keep himself in spending money. I’ve resigned myself to another year, at least, in the bargain basement, and unfortunately, Carl still has to get up every morning and go to work. (Someone has to keep me in typing paper and postage.)
Meanwhile the check isn’t even cashed yet. I’m afraid to cash it because I know it will be gone all too soon; and besides that, it’s still a big thrill to go into my office and look at it every now and then. (I know that will pass, since it only took me two weeks to stop opening the magazine every five minutes to see my name in the credits.)
From here on in, no other acceptance will probably ever mean as much or create quite the stir that this one has.
Someday, discussing the terms of a sale with an editor in New York will be old hat. I won’t have to try to act cool and professional on the outside while on the inside I’m jumping up and down for joy.
Someday, I won’t call my best friend to announce, “You are now speaking to a famous writer person!”
“Who is this? Is this some sort of crank call?”
Someday, selling stories will all be part of the routine around here and no one will stop by with champagne to celebrate. The kids won’t be announcing it to every creature that moves up and down the block, and my husband won’t run around the grocery stores making sure the magazine is prominently displayed. (I told him I didn’t get any royalties, but he did it anyway.)
But until that someday rolls around, I guess I can stand all the excitement just a little bit longer.
That short story has been revised and is now available at Amazon with a new title “Making it Home.” It was first published in Lady’s Circle Magazine, and the rights reverted back to me, so I published it via Amazon. One reviewer said that it “Is a sweet tale of growth and love.” Check it out.
That’s it for me, folks. Have a great weekend. And if you are a writer and would like to share a fun story about writing, please do share.
I’m happy to hear that story, Maryann .Wish I could have been around then.
Thanks, Ann. That actually did pre-date our friendship by a few years. So glad we are friends now. 🙂