Catch up on The Rose & Thorn

I'm in South Louisiana supporting our dear friend Angie - so, now would be a good time to check out the Roses & Thorns-the Rose & Thorn Blog.... subscribe while you are there! Scroll down and read the entries. There are some great reading/literary/poetry/etc posts, and as well some podcasts of poetry from the spring issue of Rose & Thorn Journal. I've read a couple even...teehee.

Also, why not stop by the Rose & Thorn Journal and read and support the writers, poets, and the artist? They'd love to hear from you.

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My good friends will be rocking on my porch and listening to my creek and keeping the two dogs and the ghost dog company. They'll keep the birds fed. They'll snuggle in the guest beds and get the best sleep of their life as everyone who comes here to this little log house in the cove does. They'll keep the coons happy and the other critters. They'll bring in the bird feeders so the bears and coons won't tear them up. They'll see me drive back up the driveway and think, "Dang, she's back too soon! We want to stay here forever!" But I will be back in a couple days to my beloved mountains. I'll give Angie a hug from you all.

Information -- Angie Gumbo Writer . . .

Fly beautiful bird fly.

Hi everyone.


Some of you have written and asked for Angie's address to send a card. If you want her address, please email me and I'll get that to you.


Her mother's name is Peggy DiBenedetto.

This has been a long 2 and 1/2 years for her and her family and Angie has been the woman I know and love -- giving and wonderful and unselfish. It's just who she is. I would trust her with my life and I don't say that about just anyone. I've never met another woman like Angie and I don't know that I ever will meet another like her. She's the real deal, as they say.


I saw her mother before she "went way down" and I can only call her beautific. I was spellbound - that's the way I have to describe it. It was as if she glowed from the inside out with beauty and love and friendship and kindness. I can see where Angie received her loving spirit.


Just as I was writing this, I saw where I'd missed a call from Angie. She sounded tired, but okay.


Keep her and her family in your thoughts. Go by her blog and say hello so that when she returns to it, she'll see your "smiling faces" and read your thoughts.

I feel too sad to write anything more on my blog, but I'll be back later with the usual whatever- - and so will Angie be back to her blog - y'all go hug your momma's and your daddy's and your kids and your friends . . . hug them tight tight.

Angie Gumbo Writer's Mother....

UPDATE: Angie's mother just passed away - keep her in your thoughts - thank you, friends. . .



My friends, please keep Angie in your thoughts or prayers or whatever you believe and/or stop by her blog and send your love again. . . her mother is not doing well at all right now. She's rallied many times before in this 2 and a half years that they'd said wouldn't even be a year that she'd make it, but this time seems to be very bad right now.

Peggy Elaine is one of the ones I dedicated SG to - along with our Barry Fraser and Stephen Craig Rowe - all three of them are beautiful people . . . there are many more where cancer has tried to pull out their smiles and beauty, but cancer did not succeed in that respect, and I wish I could have named them all. Bastard cancer . . . .

Hugs and love to you Angie - I'm thinking of you and of your mother and of your family.

Riding in the Convertible with the Wild Girls . . .

Hi Y'all - I'm not here. I'm 'cruising' in that cute red convertible with "cool chicks who rock n' write"

I'm their guest today on my blog tour and I'm talking about a lover I took while writing TG & SG . . . what? you say? A lover? Well . . . sorta kinda . . . anyway *laughing*

Hope you'll stop by and visit Riding with the Top Down. Yes yes, I feel bad asking you all to come visit when I haven't been able to visit you all in some time now - I am working like mad to catch up on a few deadlines and from my sweet brother's visit - *muwah*

Hitting the DELETE key without fear: Cleaning up our Manuscripts

I'm working on the finishing touches in my edits/re-writes of SWEETIE, which will be released this fall. If you were to read the first version of my "first chapters and last chapters" you'd not at first recognize it as the same book.

Because I hit the DELETE key. Oh yes, I dragged, highlighted, and hit "DELETE" and it was good.


Here's the deal: when I first began writing years back, I thought (silly me) that everything I wrote had to stay pretty much as it was; that Real Writers were geniuses whose words were golden once they’d dripped from their golden fingers all from their golden minds and once they were out and onto the page they were gilded in gold and set for all time. I thought if I had to go in and change things, that meant I sucked as a writer since Real Writers had no need to make changes to their genius—oh dear! How could I have been so very very wrong?


As I learned, and quickly thank gawd, re-writes/edits are an important part of the writing process—no, a NECESSARY part. But, what I still resisted is going in and deleting big portions of my work. I’d freeze up, think, “But, I wrote all that and it took me a long time to craft all those words. But, that’s the story and I can't change my story! But, what I if can’t come up with something else? But, this is what the character did/does. But But But . . .” And then, I’d try to work around what I’d already written—ugh…bad. Because when we “work around” something, it shows. And, as well, sometimes when we try to "work around" something, we begin to dislike our own work; we find that it feels stagnant, or boring, or stilted, or "something just isn't right" and many times this is what some call "Writer's Block." Maybe "writer's block" means you need to go in and try that DELETE key.


Highlighting and then hitting the DELETE key frees us to write something else. Yes, it means we have to create more words/scenes, et cetera, but please believe me when I say it is worth it. Heck, highlight the text that isn’t working or is in the way or just sucks and then copy it to another file (or copy one version under one name and the new DELETED text version under another) and then go back to the work and DELETE. See what happens. Try it. You aren’t losing anything since you’ve saved that text, but, you will have a fresh clean space to write what could be the turning point in your novel, or a better beginning, better ending, or some of all.


In Sweetie, I deleted five chapters with just a tiny blink of an eye – D E L E T E D. Gone. I deleted the entire scenes, dialogue, everything. It changed the beginning and ending chapters significantly, and in fact, changed some other things, too, but it was worth it and some. The two chapters that I re-wrote to take the place of the five chapters fit better, are less complicated, are not as, well, boring. Yup, it was B O R I N G. Oh there were good parts, parts I really loved, parts that had poignancy and writing I was pleased with and happy with and oh oh oh!; however, every time I went in to work on Sweetie, those first chapters bored me, frustrated me, and I would stop working on it and go work on something else.

My friends, if your own work bores you or frustrates you or you find you just “aren’t in the mood” for it, then maybe it’s time to hit that D E L E T E and try something else, because if YOU are bored with it, your readers will be too--trust me. When I hit DELETE with Sweetie, it opened the way and I became excited about the work again—ahhh, yes, that was exactly what I needed to do.

It's not the first time I've deleted significant text: in the Secret Graces novel, I deleted about 30,000 words when I went back in to work on it after TG was released, because they were words I'd written before Tender Graces was released, and by time I came back round to SG, those 30,000 words no longer worked. D E L E T E! And it was goooood.

Learn to recognize when something isn’t working. Trust you instincts. And, don’t be afraid to hit the DELETE key. It just may be the very thing that brings your work to another level.




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(I hope to be by your places tomorrow! I'm hard at work on SWEETIE so I an start on the next Graces novel!)

Old Photographs and Time Gone By . . .

While my brother was here, he downloaded to me some of the photos he has been scanning and putting in files. This morning, I was able to look through some of them, and almost an hour passed of me just staring at them, looking at the kids who were once us. I think of us kids, and how by chance we all five were able to be together. Three of us born to a different mother, all of us with our same daddy. How one of us came to live with with us much later. How one of us left us much too soon at 32.


Mostly, I had to fight back tears. Suddenly, seeing these children was just too much. I'm trying to fight tears now as I type this. Those young and hopeful faces. Those little children. The old crooked christmas tree. The oranges and apples we received in paper sacks with our names on them (I never knew what a stocking was until I was older! I thought everyone received paper sacks of fruit and nuts!) when there wasn't money for stockings and lots of candy and things. My hair growing out from where a babysitter cut it all off. The brother who wasn't living with us yet is with us at Christmas in one photo--I wonder where our bio mom was that christmas? without any of her kids. The old houses we rented. There is one photo where one brother wasn't living with us yet, but the rest of us are on the couch with Daddy- and in that strange way that looking back at photos brings, in that photo, Daddy has his arm around one of us, protecting, on the other side of us other kids, and that is the us who would leave us too soon at 32.


One photo of two of us, sister and brother-that was a photo that made it into the SG book, since my brother had sent it to me earlier. The feet touching. It made me wistful and sad.

so long ago.

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(I'm sorry I've not been by your blogs in a while - I hope to come soon and say hello. So much going on, so many deadlines! But I do miss seeing what's happening in your worlds!)

Signing *smiling*

Thank you for the nice time at the signing and for your support - and thank you for the "well -wishes" from all of you who couldn't be there. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed it, even though I was nervous and twitchy *laugh*

First pic is Margaret Osondu introducing me while I kind of get shy and cringy; second photo are friends, readers, and also editors of fresh magazine.

My brother is still here and we're having a great time!

Sorry I haven't been able to come round to visit, but soon ---