Sorting old family photos, came on this one of my husband’s aunt with an orphaned crow.
It was coming winter in the Midwest and the baby fell from a tree and was injured. The family brought it in and raised it until spring.
They named it Cookie. It liked the kitchen.
Early reviews are just starting to come in for Come the Morning.
So far, so good, so really good. Reviewers are saying about Come the Morning: “Wow”…Deep”… “A book to be read over and over again“.., “Well done”…”Brings to mind Crane’s MAGGIE, Sinclair’s THE JUNGLE, and the more genteel worlds of Henry James and Edith Wharton”…”A top recommendation”.
It’s wonderful to have this incredible response. Knock wood it continues.
After being a laggard for the better part of two years, I’m traipsing back into the world of social media. It’s intimidating, and I think I will look for some hand holding this time around. I never was real good at this. Maybe this time. Maybe.
Just two months to the day before Come the Morning launches. I’ve already gone through this a few times; it’s exciting but it never gets easy. Does it ever get easy? Is publishing a book just a piece of cake for John Grisham? Elizabeth Stout? Stephen King? Louise Penny? I wonder.
Exciting news: Come the Morning will publish October 15!!!!
This closing-in on a book launch is one of the most fun as well as the most nail-biting times of any for me, but the urgency of it makes me want to close myself into a closet and suck my thumb and just escaping the world and melt writing something.
But this time also is an over-the-top time of excitement: the book is written, the cover’s done and some pre-pub interviews are coming in. (So far, knock wood, they have been wonderful.) Here’s the cover and a little write up:
In 1883, orphaned fifteen-year-old Ezekiel Harrington is sent from his home in remote Nebraska to Philadelphia to live with strangers, who steal what little money he has. He flees their treachery and sets out to make his way on his own. His life is never easy. Ambition drives him to disregard all else, even love. In time, he longs for the woman he can neither fathom nor master.
“Philadelphia’s art world at the turn of the century receives close inspection and serves as the historical backdrop for Come the Morning, a novel about a struggling gallery owner. Evocative, reflective, and historically revealing, Come the Morning does a fine job of dovetailing a sense of self with a sense of place and purpose, also revealing the plights of women, artists, entrepreneurs, and the circles that both support and defeat them. A top recommendation”
–Midwest Book Review
“COME THE MORNING is a deeply satisfying novel of scope and depth. This is a beautiful book, a throwback to an earlier time in American literature. I loved it.”
–Tim Bazzett, author of Booklover
Tune in again for updates as things breathlessly move along.
Writing Anxiety
Writing anxiety? Me? You bet, even after years of laying down story after story. As much as I love writing, I’m a nail-biter about it. I love writing, love a story, whether I;m wrii=ting or reading it. It’s the anxiety I can’t any longer.
After all these years, just this morning, I got a hint what I’ve been doing to myself for so long., and I want to quit. Not the writing, just the winding up about it.
A few moments ago, my husband laid a hand on my shoulder and said something about how wired I’d been lately. It’s true, I have been, with Come the Morning’s pub date just three months away and stuff is requiring some exacting effort. Just saying “requires” cramps my gut. Requires? Requires? Not. Nothing’s required. My husband’s hand relaxed as I held forth acknowledging what a mess I’ve been.
So where does that leave things?
Maybe I don’t need to drop ambition at all. I like ambition. I work hard, and I like that I write the sort of stuff I like to read. I am proud of what I write. Here’s what my husband’s warm hand allowed me to realize: it’s a game.Writing’s a GAME! Ah. Ah. A game.
And what’s a game? Something fun, right? Whoa, new concept!
So, how many times do I need to acknowledge and break this old anxiety habit, replace it with something else? Twenty times? Thirty? Can a habit of years be broken in twenty or thirty rethinkings? It’s got to be. The old way has pestered my life and my husband’s long enough.
It’s a game. It’s a game. It’s a game. It’s a game. Not sure this counts toward the twenty or thirty but it’s a start.
March I just finished Geraldine Brooks’ March. What a read it was.
Ostensibly a takeoff from the story line from Little Women, it is written mostly from the viewpoint of the girls’ father, Mr. March. A segment toward the end gives us Mrs. March’s take on things. A lifelong kind and compassionate, Mr. March loses his fortune to the abolitionist John Brown’s fight for the Negroes. From the start of their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. March had lived with luxury and plenty. Until Mr. March finally had to confide their circumstances, Mrs. March had no hint of the decline in their finances. Though she supports the freedom of all people and does not regret her husband’s support, part of the story highlights her internal and bitter feelings about her husband’s squandering it all, leaving nothing for her and the children to live on.
To make a small living, Mr. March becomes a preacher. He becomes obsessed with the plight of the Negroes and when the Civil War erupts, his compassion and conscience drive him to action. Without including his wife in the decision, he abandons her and his family for the battlefield to serve as chaplain to the Union.
In the course of the war, he encounters a beguiling and refined slave woman owned by a rich landowner.
Guilt about his feelings for this woman and his sense of his abundant inadequacies, Mr. March takes readers on a wild and somewhat pity-filled ride. It is no wonder the novel won the Pulitzer prize.