Better Late Than...

Okay, did I totally forget I had a blog? Looks like it. I blame my move. Moving is stressful. Yeah, that’s it. I also hear blogging’s going the way of the pterodactyl, so maybe it's not just me.

I know—excuses, excuses.

But way, way, back in November I did promise to give out more details about my big announcement once it’s confirmed. So here it is:

I’ve posted this all over social media, so this is likely old news for some of you.

The newer news is that I’m a member of a group of kidlit writers with middle-grade novels coming out in 2024. We’re called the 24/7s. If you’ve got a minute, please check out our website! You’ll find inspiring interviews, and for the month of June, we’re hosting a giveaway where you can win a critique or one of our members’ already-published books. Click here for more details.

Okay, I’m keeping it short and sweet for now—maybe save up my energy for a new post!

It's Happening!

GREAT stuff has happened on the writing front since my last post! I have an agent now, Amy Thrall Flynn from Rubin Pfeffer Content! Things fell into place in a way that completely snatched me by surprise and threw me into a whirlwind. I wish I could give more details on how it all unfolded, but that would give away the other big news, and since that official announcement hasn’t happened yet, I have to keep quiet.

So I’ll wait…

Speaking of waiting—looks like my blog reboot failed again, as evidenced by the gulf of space-time between my last post and this one. So without further ado, here’s some birds and stars stuff:

Project FeederWatch has officially begun! I haven’t started yet, but there’s no pressure since the event runs through April 30. This year I’ve got suet, Nyjer seed, and a no-frills mix. The birdseed market hasn’t escaped inflation, so the neighborhood birds will have make some sacrifices, too. No fancy deluxe blends, unless I can score some on the black market. Just kidding. (Although, if any of you know a guy…)

As for the stars, I got a thrill—and I mean, THRILL—watching that DART spacecraft hit the asteroid at the end of September. Just seeing the asteroid getting bigger and bigger as the spacecraft got closer and closer…and then bam! The picture cuts off. Which some people actually found anti-climactic. I guess I can see that, but the thing was torpedoing into the asteroid, so I didn’t expect it to film its own destruction. Those ultra close-ups of an asteroid millions of miles away was totally enough for me.

Dimorphos asteroid shortly before impact. Kind of looks like something breaded and fried. (NASA/Johns Hopkins APL, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Okay, that’s all for this post. I hope to be writing a new one in the next week or two with the big news. Until then, in the immortal words of Casey Kasem:

“Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!”

Birds and Stars

Years ago I thought I'd be “musing” once, maybe twice a month. Didn’t seem all that ambitious. I mean, there’s stuff floating around in my head all the time. Just type it up. Well, it’s been over five months since my last blog post, so you see how that’s going. I could blame the pandemic or any number of modern day traumas, but I’m tired of that. Instead, I’m going to reboot my blog based on one of those floaty ideas.

From this point forward, “Musings” will be “Birds and Stars.” Why? Because birds and stars pop up in my writing on a regular basis. Also, I won't run out of stuff to talk about. By latest estimates there are over 10,000 bird species in the world, and when it comes to the universe, I've got light years' worth of material.

So let’s start with the birds. I just finished my Bird Nerd novel and took the big step of printing it out for its final fine-tuning before querying. What had begun as a short story, morphed into a novel, then morphed again into a rather different novel is finally done. I’m so thankful to my critique group and everyone else who had eyes on it (or parts of it) along the way.

Now to the stars (representing all of space—planets, nebulae, etcetera and so forth). I was pleased see my poem “City Girl Stargazing” published in the June issue of Spaceports & Spidersilk. Inspired by my childhood backyard stargazing in Philly, it tells the story of a girl who gets transported to the Andromeda galaxy. Since the earliest “wow” experience I remember was seeing Jupiter for the first time through my telescope, that’s how I opened the poem:

Last night I visited Jupiter—

a tiny, striped glowing bead that
grew into a monstrous world
that pulled me through its cloudy
swirls down, down to a secret core.

And there I met metallic giants
dancing on a molten sea.

I’ve also got more stars in my future, as I embark on another rewrite of my novel The Star of Moon Village. It’s been waiting in the wings for a couple of years now, and I’m chomping (champing?) at the bit to see what I can do with it to make it bigger and better. That should keep me busy well into 2023.

Okay, that’s enough for now. I’m already thinking of my next post, so that’s a good sign! Here’s to another attempt at blogging!