Rainy Day

It rained here in Northeast Wisconsin today. I worked at my desk, took a nap, and colored Easter eggs.

Then feeling restless, I got my car and drove back to the Shiocton marsh on Van Patten Road to see what was going on.

The sparrows, crows, wild turkeys, northern harriers and red tailed hawks have been in the marshes all winter but now there were new arrivals. There were, of course, Canada geese. Just a smattering so far, but in another week there will be gazillions, which means far too many too count.

Killdeer scurried along beside the road.  The red-winged blackbirds were working at the gravel along the ditch. A big flock of mallards had just settled in.  As I drove, I had been following them to their landing place.  And of course, there were sandhill cranes everywhere.

Give it a week and there will be swans and more migratory birds.  The first is usually the hooded merganser. When the hoodies show up, the season has really started.

Next week, I'll be in Illinois probably meeting some of my friends heading north.  That's why I'm only staying three days and coming back. I hate to miss a minute of the spring eruption here at home.

The Book Arrived!

First thing his morning, I set to work to finish this week's short story for our Black Coffee Fiction blog.  I had a very rough draft, but the rest had to be done and ready for review by noon.  In fact, writing the story only took 45 minutes. Most of the work on any of my stories comes during long, long walks. Friends driving by may beep their horns but I can't hear them. I am in the middle of thinking through the action, the description, the denouement. 

I did all that work on Thursday, so the actual writing was easy.  

The fun part was the murders.  As gruesome as it sounds, I love killing people in these stories. I think it is why I am such a peaceable person otherwise. Any aggravation, any irritation, any anger is washed away in the act of writing. 

You can read "A Beautiful Day" at Black Coffee Fiction.  http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com

When the story was done, I went to check the mailbox. There it was, something I never expected to see until April 2:  the proof copy of my short story collection, Decades of Love and Other Disasters.  I am giving myself five days to proof the book.  At first glance, I've spotted some minor errors, but I will go through it really carefully before I send it for final publication.  I am sure to find more typos.  They are always there. The one worry I had was the cover photo and that turned out fine.  

In the past six months, I've had three books published, one with Wade. 

In a couple of weeks, I'll have four books on the shelves of the Muehl Public Library here in Seymour, including a childen's book published in 1992.

In September, Bettyann Moore, Wade Peterson and I intend to publish another Black Coffee Fiction collection.  I want to have another novel ready to go by the end of the year with another short story collection to follow soon after.

This means another book signing at Sissy's on April 27.

Slow Thaw

The thaw continues.  As the snow receded, I got out a rake for the first time since November and started clearing beds.  I found these snowdrops under the leaves. 

It's only one small bunch of snowdrops, nothing like the hundreds behind  the Muehl Public Library, but they are my snowdrops, and I am so happy to see them.

The first crocuses should have been in bloom, too, but the bunnies got at them.  In a day or two there will be hundreds of crocuses and from then on the bunnies can't destroy all of them.

Next to the dining room, I found a single vinca blossom, not fully opened.  When it does, I will have essentially the same setting I want for my book cover. Tomorrow I'll take a photo with higher resolution in case the one I submitted doesn't work out.

Flocks of geese are beginning to pass over Seymour. I want to join them on their trip to the north, but it is still too soon.  We got an e-mail message from the Department of Natural Resources that the sturgeon are not ready to run.  We won't be guarding on the 13th of April, they've moved back our date to April 21.  Nothing happens until the ladies want it to. They don't like cold water for spawning. No matter, when they are ready, Gary and I will be there.

What Makes Spring

I have a friend who keeps insisting it isn't spring, it's still too cold.  But temperature isn't what makes it spring.
The date of course, makes it spring.  We've just passed equinox.  But there are other things that do the trick for me.

Spring is migratory birds gradually passing through. Sandhill cranes, robins, red winged blackbirds, swans.  Each flock in its turn and I am waiting for them. These days I keep binoculars in my car to check out the new arrivals. When I walk I am looking up to the sky.  I listen for the call of the white throated sparrow.

Spring is the arrival of flowers. Today the first snowdrop bloomed through the snow in my yard.  Crocus shoots are showing everywhere.  On the west side of the house the tulip shoots are up.  East of the public library hundreds of snowdrops are blooming.  I walk over there every afternoon to see if anything else is blooming.

Spring is the packets of okra and roma tomato seeds I found this week. Now I have everything to start plants in the dining room windows.

Spring is finally being able to get out and walk.  February was terrible with icy streets and sidewalks and daytime temperatures just above zero. During that month the best I could do was four miles a week.  Now I am walking three miles a day.

Spring is greeting neighbors I haven't seen since the snows set in in late November.  We catch up on gossip and know that for this season we'll see each other to chat over the fences. The barbecue grills are coming out of storage.  Today I could smell hamburger somewhere down the street.

Spring is so much more than a temperature.  Hot weather will come soon enough.

And We Have a Book!

Create Space finally OKd the cover and the rest of the book, too.  I received the acceptance e-mail early this morning.

The next step was to order a proof copy which I did by 9:00 pm.

Fifteen minutes later I was told I would get the book within ten days, but by the afternoon another e-mail came to tell me the book had already been shipped.  Now that is fast service! It is likely the book will arrive sooner than that outside deadline of ten days.  That's been my experience with Create Space.

That means I should have the book in my hands by April 3, when I must go to Illinois to help Gary pack up for his final return home.  I'll have the book to check over in the evenings. I assume there will be a change here and there, but once I make those changes, I can order the first case of books.

It is time to think about the next book signing, but first there is another story to write for Black Coffee Fiction. I outlined the story this afternoon.

So goes the writing game. 

More on Writing

This morning I set to work again. I went through the book again, removed one short story and replaced it with another.  I sent the whole thing to Create Space again.  Now half the page numbers were on top of the page instead of the bottom.  If they had all been on the top that would have been fine, but I wanted consistency.

I revised it again. This time it looked pretty good and the interior was probably OK. Now it was time to design the cover.

In the middle of the night I remembered a very old photo, one that Gary took one year around this time of year.  I had kept it on this computer all these years because I liked it for some reason.

It would be perfect for the cover for this book. However, when I sent it to Create Space I got the response that it didn't have the right number of pixels or whatever they call them.  The resolution wasn't good enough.  Yet here it is on this blog and it seems fine. I instructed them to try anyhow. Tomorrow I will get the approval or disapproval from Create Space.  If approved, the book goes to the next step:  a proof copy that will arrive here in around ten days.

If I were willing to wait a week, the vinca will be blooming in the exact same place. I could just take take another photo with a better camera.

Writing Redux

I set to work yesterday on the short story collection.  I didn't intend to finish it in one day but once I was started, I kept going and finished it....I thought.

I sent an attachment to Susan to start on proofing.

Next, I started the process of putting the collection in book form at Create Space and immediately ran into a problem with the gutter. The gutter is the extra space needed to make up for the book's binding.  All of my pages had that space on the left side, which would only work on the odd numbered pages.  Take a look at a book and you will see what I mean.  That took another hour to straighten out but then somehow, the page numbers were in the wrong place.

OK, I took care of that and entered the entire book into the self-publishing format later.The numbers were still wrong.

I'll think about something else for a while, I thought, and come back to the number problem.  I'll do something fun.  I'll work on the cover. I'd thought it over before.  I loved the cover for my previous book, Yesterday's Secrets, Tomorrow's Promises.  (It's to the right of this post, the green one.)  I thought I would use the same format in another color, but there was a new problem:  the book wasn't long enough.

Short story collections shouldn't be too long.  They are intended for people who don't have much time, who can read a story now and again.  However, I do want my name on the spine of that book and that requires a wider book.  When Wade and I published Black Coffee Fiction (the other book to the right), it wasn't wide enough and that means the spine is blank.

So it was back to the computer to change the format.  This time the space between the lines would be a space and a half.  This will add over 40 pages to the book.  The problem with this is that the page numbers are still off, so I have to go over every page again.  I hope to have that done yet tonight.

When all that is done, I'll try entering the book into the Create Space format again, but if the book is still too short, I'll have to add another story.

Next I need a great photograph.  I found one in my own collection last time. This time...we'll see.