"Far and Wee"

This late-night posting is just a short note to say that the tutorials I mentioned in my last postings haven’t happened yet. My own physical ailments and the busy life of my niece kept us from being able to get a start on scaling my learning curve.However, we are both hoping that October will bring those much needed lessons in how to market through social media.

In the meantime, I’m doing the final bits and pieces for the convent memoir: table of contents, ISBN/copyright page, acknowledgements, note from the author, back-cover copy, author blurb for back cover, memoir blurb for Amazon. Well, I suspect you get my drift—all those parts of the book that accompany the main text.

During the writing of the many drafts of the memoir, I used simply “Chapter 1,” Chapter 2,” “Chapter 3,” etc. to label each new chapter. Now I am rereading the chapters, trying to find four words or less for a “catchy” title for each. That’s not easy for someone like myself who tends to say more, rather than less. (You may have noticed this in my writing!)

The back-cover copy for the print book pretty much becomes the book summary that appears on a book’s Amazon page. That’s the summary that begins with three lines or so and then a “Read More.” With that copy, I need to present the arc of the book as I build suspense and tension. I find that no easy task.

I hope to return this week to reading your blogs because I find myself missing what is happening in your lives. I have such a quiet life, bordering on reclusive. All of you introduce me to the world beyond the chair I’m sitting in, the computer I’m staring at, and the home in which the cats and I are living. Thank you for enriching my life with your posted words.

Enough for now. Glass Houses, Louise Penny’s latest mystery, has kept me awake way past my bedtime.  She has become my favorite writer. The wonder is that each of her books just keeps getting better.

If you like mysteries and she’s not on your reading list, I’d suggest that you start with her first book, Still Life, which introduces the ensemble that you’ll meet in each succeeding book. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is one of the most finely drawn characters I’ve meet in all the reading of done through the years.  

So in this posting we’ve traveled “far and wee” as the poet e.e.cummings would say. From ailments and learning curves to book parts to Amazon summaries to one of the most gifted novelists of today. Now I hope that when I post this and turn off this computer (“Maggie”), I will find sleep patiently waiting for me by my pillow. Peace.