Category Archives: my novel

Three erasure rejection letters

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I saw someone online making erasure poems out of their query rejections and thought it might be fun. I love erasure poems, but maybe “fun” is the wrong word here — too much bitterness and dejection at play. I’ve not queried in a long, long while.

Note: there are four versions of a single rejection below. The fourth version is pretty much the gist of letter — in other words not done in the true spirit of erasure poems which seek to pervert the original meaning or discover some other meaning. I include it anyway.

Speaking of one of my detailed and well-imagined characters (Eliza Lucas Pinckney), here are a few erasure poems based on a single letter to her father.

Woods, words, and stitch

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Discovered a new park. Less than two miles away!

Reading my book again. Primary take away: it’s really good and I shouldn’t give up (good thing that’s my takeaway because I checked Query Tracker this morning and there it was in red : 49 queries, 100% rejected). It’s also good to reread to catch more typos or content questions.

Mixing cowries and pawpaws? Must research a little more and then fix.

Still life. I’m gonna make a heart for myself. What do you think of that?

I continue to populate this one with windows and roof outlines. With all the dire climate news this and last week, part of me wants to either : fill in all blank areas with scarlet red stitches or surround the piece as is with some of the Global Warming sections I have downstairs. They’re full of hot colors, swirls for storm maps, out-of-control vegetation — all overstitched with words like “hoax” and “try raking the forest.”

What is THIS?
Sweetspire everywhere!

Happy fourth everyone! I may listen to Frederick Douglass’s speech as read by James Earl Jones over on YouTube later this afternoon.

Tuesday. It’s Tuesday.

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In thinking about how my snapshot of days through haiku differs from my usual blog posts, I realized that the short form doesn’t allow room for complaint or self-denigration. I might do too much of both as a rule.

So here’s to a fresher, more immediate style of blog posting.

With K at the office today, I can watch Kimmel at lunch without restraint.

I made too many lentils for last night’s linguine/lentil dish, so I may be on the hunt for a good lentil burger recipe this afternoon.

Finn did not bark at Winnie today. Winnie did not bark at Finn.

I don’t know why but watching a squirrel cross the sidewalk with an apple core in her mouth this morning filled me with gladness.

Trout lily’s up. Solomon seal is not. Will I or won’t I see a jack-in-the-pulpit this year? The suspense. Virginia bluebells have spread — how nice!

Going to California for three weeks next month and early June. Given that it was 27 degrees here yesterday and that the weather in LA seems to have calmed down, I can’t wait.

Of course, it’s not about the weather.

Finished round 8 or 10 or who’s counting anymore of my novel. Cut around 5,000 words. But not enough. So later today I will copy the file, rename it “shorter Weight of Cloth” and delete five chapters. I have a pretty good idea which ones.

Maybe I’ll publish those orphans here?

Good thread on SC history

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It’s a long thread but interesting. The term “maroon” comes from the Spanish meaning, “untamed.” It is not, as one might think, a reference to skin color. In my historic fiction manuscript, three characters run away to a maroon community in Cane Creek. This was a real place in the swamps west of Charleston.