Life Goes On No Matter Where I Am

As much as I complain about technology today, I am glad I can continue with my job as program coordinator for NCWN-West even when I am away because I have a computer. This afternoon I spent a couple of hours communicating with members by e-mail. 

I am fortunate to have wonderful volunteers who support our writers' organization. Part of my job is to teach the history and the guidelines we must follow as a non-profit. I want these leaders to be able to take over if I am out of the loop for a while and I feel sure they will and can.

I am scheduled for knee replacement in February and will be with my sister as I recover. As much as I dread the recovery, I will be so happy to walk again without pain, to stand in my kitchen for more than fifteen minutes with no pain. It seems my knee issue is stage 4 which is the worst and I need the surgery. I feel good that one of the best orthopedic surgeons will be my doctor. I have friends who recommend him and my physical therapists have told me his patients do really well in recovery.

Meantime, I am beginning an exercise program to best prepare my leg muscles for the surgery. I was told I would go home the same day I have the operation. "You will walk out the same day of the surgery," a nurse told me. But I will probably be under the influence of pain meds at the time.

Bad news caught me by surprise last week.

A couple of sensors in my 2007 car lit up on my trip down to Roswell. I took my car in to be diagnosed and was given a litany of problems that needed to be fixed. The total price for all that was around $3,000!!  I had to laugh. I could not get that much for my car if I sold it.

I settled for having my brakes repaired and that cost hundreds of dollars. I plan to have my car repair center back in Hayesville give me a second opinion. I feel sure they would not charge me this outrageous amount and if the sensors are the problem, maybe I don't need them.

My little Lexie is sleeping, snuggled up against me in bed and I need to go to sleep, too. 

Tomorrow we will get started with Christmas plans here. I will order a few gifts and Gay will begin decorating her house. She does a beautiful job of making her house ready for the holidays. They still put up a big tree which makes the room glow with lights. I have always loved Christmas but not the commercialism that it has become today.

Have a great week, my friends, and I will be back next week. Tell me your plans for Christmas.

Remember: Paws, Claws, Hooves, Feathers and Fins, is a great little Christmas gift. Order from City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, NC or pick up at Tigers on the square in Hayesville, NC. Or email me and I will send you the book at a reduced price.

Thanks Jackson County Netwest and City Lights for a Great Open House

We had such a great time in Sylva at City Lights Books. Kathryn Byer and Ellen Schofield organized a terrific event with good food and drink and time to chat. Sylva, NC is not too far from Hayesville, where I live, and the drive is beautiful over Standing Indian. Staci Bell and author, Nadine Justice, rode with me. I was happy that Nadine had the opportunity to show off her memoir, I'm a Coal Miner's Daughter But I Cain't Sang. It is now available for sale at City Lights.

One of the featured readers for the day was Pamela Duncan, delightful novelist, who might be interested in teaching at Writers Circle next year. Her short story was met with long and loud applause. 

It was good to see poet, Michael Beadle, who is one of the busiest people I know, teaching, writing and working in schools in North Carolina. To get to know him better, visit this link and hear an interview with him. 

Newt Smith, Jackson County Representative and treasurer for Netwest, was born to be an M.C. He is clever and witty and we all enjoyed him today. 

My long time friend, JC Walkup was present today. Her first book will soon be out and I look forward to reading it. Susan Snowden, author of Southern Fried Lies, edited JC's manuscript.  

I picked up a few copies of Fresh, the literary magazine JC brought over. 

Once again I was struck by the caring and encouragement of the successful writers for those who are still struggling, hoping for their first publication. That is what I found in NCWN West seventeen years ago when I first joined.

Today a young woman, maybe college age, read three poems. She said she was not yet published, but I am sure her work will be out there soon. By joining NCWN she will find a large group of writers and poets who can meet her needs. 

Some Netwest News for our Readers, Happening on November 10

This should be an afternoon of fun for all writers, as NCWN West invites you to come to meet and greet other writers in the area and hear from some outstanding writers, Catherine Carter, Brent Martin and Pam Duncan. 

• Save the date: Sunday, November 10, for the Netwest Open House at City Lights Bookstore in Sylva, from 1-4 pm. From 1-2 pm, we will enjoy a social hour upstairs, where we will serve light refreshments so that we can mingle and perhaps find some great reading material. 
• From 2-4 pm, we will go downstairs to the cafe, where drinks and additional goodies will be available for purchase during the readings and open mic.  Guest readers will be: poet Catherine Carter, naturalist writer Brent Martin, and novelist Pam Duncan, with an Open mic to follow. Please mark your calendars for this outstanding event.

I plan to attend this event and hope to see many writer friends, bloggers and poets there.

A WRITING COMMUNITY HERE IN NORTH CAROLINA

Writers in North Carolina are extremely lucky to have North Carolina Writers Network, and we in the southwestern part of NC are fortunate to have NCWN West or Netwest as we often shorten the name of this chapter.
Tonight I read the article by Maureen Sherbondy http://www.ncwriters.org/news/553-why-i-belong-to-the-ncwn ,on how NCWN made such a difference in her writing achievements from learning to write to publishing and marketing her book.
I could write that article on NCWN West and NCWN. I had been writing all my life, but it was not until I joined NCWN and automatically became a member of NCWN West that I really became a writer. In my hometown I never knew a writer. I didn't think any writers lived in our town.

I once saw in the newspaper where a writing class was being offered at the junior college. I gathered up my courage to register. I was a young adult who had not shared my work with others and certainly never spoke of my goal of being published one day.

The night of the first class I sat near the back but could clearly see the pompous young man who sat in front of a room half full of wannabe writers. I only remember his smug expression and his words: Most of you won't come back next week, and half of you who do will leave here crying.

It didn't take a brain surgeon to know that this was not going to be a learning experience, but an opportunity for this jackass to wield power over those who had the gall to stay in his class. I left and did not go back.

Many years later I moved to North Carolina and joined NCWN where I met Nancy Simpson, Program Coordinator for NCWN West. That was a major turning point of my life.

I urge anyone who wants to write, whether for a hobby or for more serious reasons, to join a supportive writing group and attend writing conferences, workshops, take classes with good teachers, and stick to your dreams.

The NCWN Spring Conference is coming up April 24. Go to http://www.ncwriters.org/ and look at the schedule of presenters for that day. Go for the classes, but go for the opportunity to meet other writers and vendors, publishers and authors, new and old. Sometimes I think only writers understand other writers. I know that writers love to gather and talk about writing.

Here in North Carolina we are extremely lucky to have a terrific writing community. If you live anywhere nearby, take advantage of it.

Writing on the Ridge

I want to welcome an excellent poet and good friend, Robert Kimsey, to the blogging world. He is a former member of NCWN West, but now stays busy with his group in Blue Ridge Georgia.

Read his work here at this site: Writing on the Ridge.

THE TIME IS NOW! DO IT!

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. Dale Carnegie

Have you known people who were always going to write a book, or always going to take that trip to Europe? Some of us spend so much time planning what we are going to do someday that we never seem to get it done.
I've heard the term "writer wannabe" spoken of people like me. I have that book in my mind, but can't get focused on the actual theme and how I will tell my story.
Do I zone in on the depressed child no one understood?
Should I disclose my anger and feelings about a father I thought didn't know I existed or that I sometimes wanted to disappear? Or begin with the misconceptions I had about my father, and go on to describe my journey down a winding road that ended in the mountains of NC. A place where I discovered something inside myself, something that made all the pieces of my life's puzzle fit on the page.

Shelley Lieber offers a four week teleseminar I'm very tempted to take. Perhaps she can help me find my focus and get me started writing the book. For years I've postponed, procrastinated, made excuses and overscheduled my life so that I just couldn't get this book written. My most recent excuse has been "I'm too old to publish this book," and "my time is better spent taking care of my beloved who needs me."

I will shortly be turning over the leadership of NCWN West to the capable hands of Kathryn Stripling Byer. I have found a wonderful young woman who helps me with much that has taken up my time in the past. Joan Cannon who is 80 has written and published two novels in recent years.
I have no more excuses.
If I can get all my ducks in a row, I hope to have a poetry chapbook published this year. That has encouraged me. Maybe it is not too late.
By George, I think it is time I got on with it.

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE MAKES GREAT GIFT

CHRISTMAS PRESENCE, a beautiful book of holiday stories, poems and essays written by 45 women writers, edited by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, will be one of the gifts I give this year.

Many of the writers are my friends and members of NCWN and Netwest, but more than that, I've enjoyed everything I've read in this book.

Some of the titles of work: Grandpa and the Snow Snakes, Memories of Wartime Christmases, Jewish Christmas, Miss Bessie Mae and the Christmas Biker,

And the Animals Knelt, A Logging Camp Christmas, and so many more.

The Christmas Socks touched me deeply. It is a war time story by Sonja Contois.

I haven't read the entire book because I want to savor it and read a little every day throughout the holidays.

Local bookstores in western NC are carrying the book and it can be ordered from Catawba Publishing.

After thirteen years of writing poems, stories, essays and newspaper articles, I finally decided to begin a scrapbook. Over the years I cut out articles I'd written, articles about me, and saved them all in a file folder. I had another file folder for my acceptances and rejections. On my computer I made a file to hold the compliments or kind words of others about my writing or my work for NCWN West.
The problem with my file folders is I never go and look at them or show them to anyone who might appreciate them. Tonight I made a start by inserting some of the many articles I've written over the years. I had also saved some articles written about me and with my photo.
The scrapbook has a 41/2 inch square in front for my picture. If I were a good scrapbooking person, I'd know how to make the pages look pretty. Maybe I'll take a class in scrapbooking with my friend Wanda who did a beautiful scrapbook, but left it on the coffee table and Spencer the lab chewed it and ruined it. I won't have that trouble. Rocky is not into chewing now that he is ten years old.
My favorite things I want to include in my book are the wonderful words of writers, close friends, and family who have supported my efforts as a writer and as the leader of NCWN West this past year.
Those are things I will cherish always.