Category Archives: My Novel- Anne

Wannabe designer

Family, HGTV/DIY/Design, My Novel- Anne, Writing July 21, 2013 Comments: 2

My daughter Joy has graciously allowed me to stage her cabin at Mountain Lakes. I’m hoping it will help her sell it while allowing me to leverage the thousands and thousands of hours (it only seems it, really) that I have spent watching HGTV and DIY.

I purposely went to the cabin alone. With my notebook in hand, I toured the cabin and recorded measurements of windows, chair cushions and beds, easy, inexpensive projects that mainly involve buying or sewing. I indulged myself just a little by listing the projects I would do with an unlimited budget. And more skills than can be learned from watching TV.

That’s where husband Steve (pretty talented as a handyman, simply lacking in motivation at this point in his life—he’d much rather be on the golf course) comes into the picture. He wasn’t invited because he would have found plenty of reasons why the DIY projects can’t be done.  He should know by now that the majority of them will be done. And he will help do them. Or rather, I will help him do them!

I watched a video on replacing the screening in window screens (amazing how easy it looks!) and think I’ll tackle a few windows at the cabin. That way when I get to replacing them at our house I will be an expert. This I can do on my own….I think.

It’s such a cute cabin, it would be so much fun to add my stamp to it before it is sold. Joy hopes that the next time she sees it is for the closing. That’s liberating for a wannabe designer like me as it will be too late for her to complain about my decisions!

Joy doesn’t know that I spent some time there the other morning actually working on my Anne novel. Writing! I know she would be happy that the cabin is serving a purpose even while it is unoccupied. Amazing how a change in environment can get the creative juices flowing. No TV. No telephone or cell service. Nothing to distract me from that blank piece of paper. I wrote a page about Anne doing renovations to an apartment she owns. Next thing you know, I’ll find a way to incorporate cancer into her life……..

Of course, that was before my decision to stage the cabin. Now if I go out there I’ll be compelled to do something besides write. Probably involving a paint brush.

S is for Survivor

Cancer, My Novel- Anne July 17, 2013 Comments: 4

It’s mid-July and farmers are trying to get in a second haying. Trying because we’ve had rain every day for about the last month, with some rainfall significant. This is their window of opportunity as we’re promised a dry spell for a few days.

I always feel like getting back into finishing my book about Anne whenever I smell the freshly mown hay and see the rows lying in the fields, waiting to be bundled into bales or rolled into those gigantic marshmallows that have become the norm. In the book, that’s when Anne feels close to Christian. After “Fifty Shades of Grey,” I’m not certain his name will remain Christian but that’s what happens when it takes you 27 years to complete a project—someone else steals your characters’ names–even your ideas.

Not to imply that I am anywhere near completion. Actually have no idea how much more work it will take for me to finish it but I certainly won’t be able to write “The End” (and mean it) without spending time every day working on it. I keep saying once I get the Chamber tax information to the accountant and all of the visiting family has returned home and the books are closed on the sold apartment building I will have entire days spreading out before me in which I will be able to attack Anne. Sounds so violent. But at least it implies expending energy, which I’ve been lacking. Or is it simply motivation?

Saturday was the Prouty, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock event to raise money for the Norris Cotton Cancer Center—my cancer clinic. Visited the SAG (Stop and Go) site in Newbury that’s sponsored by Wells River Savings Bank for the bicyclists. Katie, herself a breast cancer survivor, had written my name at the top of the memory board. In large letters with an “S” next to it for survivor. Not something I ever expected to see. I don’t mean the “S” of course just my name on display as a victim of cancer.

I was proud to be standing there as a survivor. Weird.

Why should I be proud? I’ve really done nothing to be where I am at this point. It’s the doctors and other health professionals who have gotten me here. And they are the ones we should be honoring.

Kindle

Family, My Novel- Anne, Writing July 16, 2013 1 Comment

My 85-year old mother asked for my old Kindle. I was surprised but thought she wanted to be able to read the same books that I’ve read, a compliment to my reading taste, though I wasn’t certain how she would react to the “Fifty Shades” trilogy. This was my original Kindle and the battery empty screen had been visible for a long time so it took a lot of charging and restarting to get it to fire up.

We were sitting on the couch and I showed her the Kindle, explained that it would take a while for me to teach her how to use it. I showed her the nine pages of books that had been downloaded onto it. She wasn’t interested in those, however. Said she had plenty of her own books stacked on her nightstand.

She wanted to read my book. I laughed. And laughed.

Somehow she had gotten the impression that the novel I have been working on since 1986 was on the Kindle. I’ve been struggling with which of my many writing projects I am going to tackle. Suddenly it is clear. She wants to read my novel before she dies. I want to finish my novel before I die. So Anne it is.

I’d love for her to be able to read it on my Kindle. That would mean it was a published novel! The reality is that is years away, if ever. Even if I can complete it by the end of this year (impossible!!), I’d need to find an agent and whatever else happens after that I don’t know except I am certain it would involve a lot of time. Something I may not have. So maybe I will have to consider self-publishing IF I ever finish the novel. I’m not opposed to that. If the alternative is never to see it in print before I die I will do it.

But first I have to finish it……

%d bloggers like this: