Well, it kind of was a blast. The space was packed and I got to see many faces I’d not seen in years. A very gratifying turnout.
Guna praising the heck out of me which is why my arms are crossed!
Who did I see? One of the boys’ elementary school teachers. A writing friend who dropped out of the Thursday class long ago. Friends from Arlington and Watertown. Neighbors from down the street, around the corner, and a friend from Maine. Parents from the boys’ elementary school days. My sister-in-law, with her friend. My therapist was there!
There was one young person there. Very mysterious. She stayed for the whole thing and at the book signing refused to supply her name. Who was she? And why the secrecy?
I’d say there were about 40 people there, 30 of whom I knew.
I brought a handwoven indigo cloth with me. Bought in Colorado years ago but probably from the west coast of Africa. Benin? Nigeria? It sat on my lap during the signing and the book group portion.
There were really good questions, lots of positive feedback (hard for me to take it all in, honestly), and very good snacks during the book group portion of the afternoon.
A few remarks? They learned a lot (x7). The writing was beautiful (x8). They liked how well-developed the characters were. There was an interesting layering to the story-telling.
Welp. While I was writing that paragraph, our water heater failed. I smell gas, Ken! Why do I smell gas, Ken?
And meanwhile, the upstairs furnace didn’t come on at all last night again. Discovery: sleeping in a 60 degree room is tolerable. It’s getting up in a room that cold that’s hard.
So what’s next? A roof collapse? Fridge failure?
Off goes husband to buy a new furnace. He’s installed the last three.
Here’s a partial list of gifts given in The Weight of Cloth:
A Bible / a caramel candy / a pearl necklace / a cotton lawn handkerchief / figs / a packet of candied orange rinds / an assortment of perennial seeds / a turkey feather / three grains of rice / a broom made of dogwood sticks / an alligator tenderloin / a carved wooden bowl / shared tricks on how to foil the patrollers / a tortoiseshell comb / a moss green gown / a set of dainty silver spoons / yardage of lace / a mechanical wooden duck toy / Madagascar rice.
The Weight of Cloth: A Novel is available on Amazon now! A day early. For Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple Books, and others, you need to wait until tomorrow.
Drayton HallCollage using image of The Door of No Return, Elmina Castle, GhanaSlave quarters at Aiken Rhett House
I offer this telling in the same spirit that I sometimes collect images of Kimberly Guilfoyle — like, is this shit for real? please feel free to skip. But if you skip, be sure to see book updates below.
Sat down to begin the Plan B Medicare sign up and noticed that the required PDF proving I currently had employee-provided health care was not signed. Ken’s was. Mine wasn’t. Okay. Sent it off to HR in Houston.
This pisses me off a little. Reminds me a lot of our financial counselor whom I have to inform at EVERY FUCKING visit that I’ve been collecting SS since age 62. Why is this so hard to remember? It’s literally his job and he has computer programs to track the data.
It gets difficult to not take this personally. The wife. The non-earning wife.
Fortunately HR in Houston responds quickly with new PDF.
Meanwhile, I have a Social Security account and a Medicare account but now you need to use login.gov.
In trying to set up a login.gov account, they offered first the typical six-digit verification code, but then a longer one that for some insane reason they would only mail to me. It would take a month they said. Well great, because I have two more weeks of employee-provided health care.
I called the number on the website and spent an hour and twenty minutes on hold (because the three times I tried to leave a call back number, I was interrupted before finishing the area code. They couldn’t hear me?) (It’s okay, the wait — I worked on my jigsaw puzzle). Of course the result was a distant voice saying they couldn’t help. “Go in person,” she said.
Mailed verification number? Go in person? Seriously?
So we went to the Social Security office first thing the next day and in a very orderly process got an authentication number in person.
Back to signing up for Plan B.
When we finally figured out how where to apply ( hint: it’s not on the Medicare site, it’s on the SS site), they wouldn’t accept the PDF of my now signed employment verification form.
But wait — first we had to track down the email with the HR PDF attachment. Having not used email on the desktop in months, I had to use two step verification to sign in to Google. By some fucking miracle I could readily find my most recent password. But they didn’t send the code. And they didn’t send it some more. Not in my stated email. Not by text to my phone.
Was I losing my mind? Was this part of a plot to make seniors stroke out and ease the burden on our health care system?
Finally! Finally! Saw that they send a notification (not an email) to the google mail app on my phone. Huh?
Now ready, we filled everything out on the required form but it would not upload the required PDF. We tried and tried. Watched the spinning circle. Walked away from the spinning circle. Tried again.
WTAF? Mercury retrograde anyone?
Finally, started over and it was a go. Probably the form had timed out. Maybe should have considered that sooner.
This was a day and a half process that I thought would take 15 minutes. I’m not stupid, I tell myself. Really I’m not.
Still have to sign up for supplemental and drug plan. Wish me luck.
Meanwhile, this is happening.
Amazon’s mysterious algorithms have me as #1 in New Releases for biographical historic fiction. The book hasn’t even launched yet and pre-sales are barely double digits so I truly don’t get it.
Still it was a thrill, so official looking and all.
You can preorder the EBOOK version of my novel on Amazon, Kobo, and Apple Books. You’ll be able to order the paperback on 9/5.
The Weight of Cloth tab up in the menu is getting lots of my attention. Grooming with related links etc. Check it out. You can tap the link here or go up to menu and tap the link there.
South Carolina. Mid-1700’s. Four narrators: one privileged and three enslaved.
When Eliza is just sixteen, her father departs for the West Indies leaving her in charge of three heavily mortgaged plantations. Her authority will be challenged, including by her mother. A second epidemic erupts and a slave rebellion sweeps the countryside, upending assumptions about safety and order. Can Eliza survive and bring a profitable indigo crop to market? Can she hold out for love rather than settle for a marriage of convenience?
Melody, also sixteen, fights against the constraints of slavery with small rebellions. Her most subversive act? Teaching her sons to read. Will freedom lay down a path near enough for it to matter?
July sews like a Parisian couturier, but her defensive pride crumbles when two boys die of the pox. She cries out to the Ancestors for help.
Saffron and her daughter, Maggie, are bewildered and traumatized by the harrowing voyage from Africa. Saffron calls upon her innate gift of language to make sense of things, but Maggie’s nearly catatonic. Meanwhile, the plantation’s best hunter, Indian Pete, catches Saffron’s eye, and she wonders if love can exist in such a place. His knowledge of the landscape holds the key to a daring opportunity that could change Saffron and Maggie’s fate forever.
The Weight of Cloth offers an unflinching view of history through facts gleaned from the letters of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and extensive research. In spite of the relentless degradation of slavery, the story speaks to the power of resistance and love and highlights both small and large acts of courage. These characters and their stories will stay with you long after you finish the last page.
Tomorrow my first proof arrives! It’s coming from Amazon.
I’ve set a publication date for September 5, 2024.
Even mid morning, it was too hot to walk for long. I could’ve kept going, but Finn seemed not into it, which is saying something.
AC cranking, I’ve got the finish line in sight for the reread of Section One of my manuscript. As usual, this puts other reading on hold. I finished Series One of Deb’s Prophets Tango and can’t wait to get to the middle volume. Because I’d read it all before, this read really allowed me to focus on just how good the writing is. The writing is really so good.
