Well, the time has come for me to put away pen, paper, and all things computer to welcome in the holiday season. I would like to work up until the very last minute; say,  Christmas Eve, but with a teenager and two babies awaiting Santa’s arrival, it is just impossible. There is too much to get done!

I’ll be back in the new year - until then, I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! Eat up, enjoy each other, and remember: Santa is real!!

CG

My publicist emailed me today with a letter that a woman from Oregon sent her after reading The Patron Saint of Butterflies. After reading the letter, I just sort of sat back and sighed. And smiled. A lot. Butterflies has gotten a lot of recognition in the eighteen months its been out there, as well as a few awards. It’s been added to a whole bunch of high school curriculums across the country and even got the golden nod from Oprah. But none of it has affected me quite the way this woman’s letter did. I may just be getting sappy in my old age, but I think this is what writing is all about.

Read for yourself:

I am Michelle Rochette (73) and I live in a senior community on the Rogue River in Grants Pass , Oregon .  Winters are pretty dreary around here, but it warmed up to 30 degrees yesterday and I bundled up and wallked to the river; stopping at the rec room library for a book to read later.  I scanned the huge assortment of mystery, adventure, historical, autobiographical, etc. and just couldn’t make a selection. 

Having been an avid reader all my life I enjoy something I can sink my dentures into.  I have read everything from Steinbeck to Stein, Cussler, LaMore, Dostoiyovsky, Tolstoi, and plenty of self-help from “Be Here Now” to “The Secret” and all of Robert Monroe’s SRV info. plus Coourtney Brown’s “Cosmic Voyage” to Dr. Pat Allen’s ”Getting to I Do”, “The Rules” and hundreds more.

I was leaving when I saw Cecelia Galante’s book just laying on a shelf  as tho someone dropped it off and didn’t file it in the G section.  I glanced through it and took it with me.  What a great read!!  I came home and got some coffee and sat and read from 4 p.m until 1 a.m.  I finished it today.  It is perfect for all ages and I hope she will continue to write as she does.  It would make a fine movie.  The characters are finely drawn and it just flows.  You have to keep reading to see what happens next.  Obviously I loved it.  I thank her for this gift.

The copy I have says “Advance Reading Copy - Not for Sale “.  I hope it will be available to purchase on the net or in stores as I intend to recommend it to friends.  

Sincerely,

Michelle Rochette

I think I will send Miss Rochette a copy of her own - as well as a big ol’ thank you note from a very humbled and appreciative author.

Onward.

CG

Shhhh…..

Scribblescribblescribble….

Writing….

CG

So, at the gentle prodding of my editor at Bloomsbury, I am starting my very first adult novel. As in not children’s or young adult. Big people. My age. Engaging in adult-type of activities like dating and marriage and child-rearing and car insurance. That kind of thing. When she first mentioned it to me, I stared at her blankly and then said, “Me? I don’t know anything about being an adult.” She laughed. And then she told me to write about exactly that.

So I have begun.

The fact that I am absolutely terrified about it is, I hope, a good thing. Fear has always motivated me more than anything else. I’ve been asking a writer friend of mine who also writes young adult and has recently completed her second adult novel, what the major difference between the two is. She said there really isn’t one, except for the character’s ages, and that if the story is compelling enough and the characters believable, I don’t have to worry about anything else. I do have this nagging fear though, that I still haven’t “learned” enough yet to be writing an adult novel. Most days I feel as though I am still wading through these incredibly murky waters of adulthood, parenthood, marriage. Some days I’m not even wading. I’m floundering, struggling to keep my head above the water.

Despite all this, I am about a third of the way through a draft I have been stewing about for months now - and it feels awful. Horrible, even. Kurt Vonnegut said that most day when he sits down to write he feels like an “armless, legless man.” That’s pretty much how I feel. I’m in the throes of First Draft Horror. I’ve got to trust that I will come out the other side - and that when I do, maybe, just maybe, I’ll have something to start with.

Hey, now that I think about it, maybe that was a pretty grown-up thought after all.

Onward!

CG