On “What it Takes”

Freshly posted from the Geek’s Guide to the Writing Life: Do You Have “What it Takes?”

over on the Huffington Post.

Meet my new friend, Bea

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been driving  hard on a new book this summer that I feel pretty passionate about, The Geek’s Guide to the Writing Life: An Instructional Memoir for the Rest of Us.  In fact, the first draft is almost finished.  In trying to do better with clearing the way for more writing in my life,  I have really been streamlining my material life and my time.  I had a huge garage sale, getting rid of a lot of crafts materials and flea market finds I used to sell on ebay and in a booth I had.  Someday, perhaps when my life is less crazy, I’ll get back to it, beccause I did enjoy it but right now I have a lot of writing projects I want to finish so I don’t have time for a lot of hobbies.

Except for Bea, short for Beatrice, the 1963 Beeline travel trailer I just purchased from a good friend who is moving and who took excellent care of her.  I have been lusting after such a trailer ever since my parents would take me to look at them as a child–of course we were always just looking–to say we were not a camping family would be a colossal understatement.  Remind me to tell you about our experiences with tents sometime.  Suffice it to say, just because your family buys a  big tent and sets it up in the yard to “air out” doesn’t mean they ever have any intention of using it.

Bea isn’t really going to be camping much either, not yet anyway.  She’s going to be spruced up into a guest cottage and an alternative writing space–she even has air conditioning.   She could actually be a guest cottage right now but Wordamour has some, shall we say, feminizing plans for her that involve some paint and new linens and the like.

Emotionally it’s been an extremely rough past few months, especially the past few weeks and about that all I can really say is that my family is healthy and happy and it has nothing to do with them, which is a blessing, I know.  So this is the kind of project I need; something I can work on, mindlessly, as I have time, a project I don’t have to take out and put away but just pick up when I can.    I’ll keep you posted on her progress.  But I’ll tell you right now, just looking at her makes me smile.

Bye y’all,

SV

The Geek’s Guide to the Writing Life: Choosing a Partner

The first in a series of excerpts from a book I’ve been on fire writing all summer, The Geeks Guide to the Writing Life: An Instructional Memoir for the Rest of Us can be found on the Huffington Post.

Meanwhile, Arkansas itself seems to be on fire, almost literally.  Praying for rain.

Bye y’all,

SV