Hello on this final Thursday of July. I’ve been away from reading blogs and posting on this on-line memoir for a whole month. Today, I’d simply like to share with you what I’ve been doing.
As
you know, in late June an agent expressed interest in seeing three of my
manuscripts: the Palestine novel, the cat fantasy gift book, and the convent
memoir. The first and second manuscripts are completed and I sent them as
attachments in late June.
The
convent memoir, however, is a work in progress. So for the first two weeks of
July, I continued to write stories for it. I then sent the agent a partial that
presents an introductory arc of those eight and one-half years plus stories
about the novitiate and my first two and one-half years in the scholasticate—so
four years of my convent life.
Dad, Mom, and me as a postulant in 1958.
I’m
pleased with the partial. I asked a friend, who used to be in the convent, to
read it. After she read the 37,000 words of this submission, she
e-mailed and said the following:
I just finished reading the opening
part of your memoir and it is very moving and interesting and so well written.
I think this is going to be a "best seller" because you are setting
the record straight about why we entered and why we left.
Your writing is clear and focused and
your examples are wonderful.
Sister Madonna and the Good Samaritan
analogy was right on about how we are good Samaritans to others and others have
been our own good Samaritans, binding up our wounds.
It is wonderful and I would not change
a word of it if I were a copy editor!!!
Of course, this review pleased me mightily. She
later sent another e-mail with her final thoughts on the partial: “Dee, It was
like I was reading my own years in the convent. I could relate to
everything. Keep on writing.” Her words are just what I need right now to
continue and complete this memoir.
I’ve
gotten no farther than the partial because after those first two weeks of July,
I flew away for a vacation with friends. I’m home now and recuperating from
vacationing. You all know how that is.
Next
week I hope to begin reading your blogs again. If there are any postings that you
especially want me to read, please let me know via a comment or an e-mail.
Next
week also, I’ll continue posting on my life after the convent. I want to
share with you my three sessions with the psychiatrist who catapulted me into feminism.
Finally today, I want to thank you for all your encouraging thoughts, visualizations, vibes, and prayers for me as I work on the convent memoir and as I await word from the agent. I haven't heard yet, but I continue to be hopeful that she will choose to represent my writing. Please do continue to send me your support for I can feel it as if it were, as the song says, "the wind beneath my wings." Peace.
The photograph of the red kite was taken by James Barker for FreeDigitalPhotos.
Finally today, I want to thank you for all your encouraging thoughts, visualizations, vibes, and prayers for me as I work on the convent memoir and as I await word from the agent. I haven't heard yet, but I continue to be hopeful that she will choose to represent my writing. Please do continue to send me your support for I can feel it as if it were, as the song says, "the wind beneath my wings." Peace.
The photograph of the red kite was taken by James Barker for FreeDigitalPhotos.
