Today I spent most of the day painting a picture that was a total flop. I disappointed myself and the lady the picture was being done for. I may try it again another day but for now I have to live with it. And I'm not even sure what happened to me, and yes, I feel like a loser to a point. Of course, I lose a lot of the time, so am familiar with that feeling, have come to accept it. Doesn't mean it's going to last forever. It used to bother me a lot, which had no relevance to the passed outcome I could not change.
One day, along came The Darrel, who pointed out to me the assets of the ******* bucket, where all things failure are to be tossed. So I learned to toss, which took a really long time, but it's the road to sanity so was critical that I learn it.
Meanwhile, the offset prize was a signing at the Cumming Women's Club meeting at the home of Katherine Sulak last night. I love bookclub people. My first love outside of my family has always been real estate. That segued into writing. But now it's rivaled with talking about books. Of course it's a personal delight to hear what people have to say about Auraria Dead but discussing other books is almost as much fun.
People last night asked me about what Emily looks like, about where Mason's name came from, about Casa Grande, Arizona, American Indians, gold mining, Auraria, Ga. All sorts of questions. I've lived with these characters for so long it was easy for me to explain them to others. It's very comfortable talking about those you know so well. I've learned to not be intimidated when speaking about my people. When I first started after the book was out, my knees shook. It was too long ago I took my two Speech classes in college. I guess I was afraid I wouldn't be able to answer a question somebody might ask. But the commonality of the story and the enthusiasm of the people who've read the book opens the door beautifully to fun discussions. I'd love to make each of these real people my new best friends.
I'm thankful for my life.
Melody
See, Melody? Told ya!
ReplyDeleteI told you it would be easy to do the book talks once you got past your first one. (I'm Melody's publisher, and I get to say "I told ya so!"
Tony