Fake Rock, Real Book

My mom bought me this fake rock at The Dollar Tree. It’s supposed to go in the garden to mark your herb planting, but this one is not going there. For one thing, if I put anything in the garden Charlie would go ape-shi… Librarian-poo. Since he’s the one who weeds it, he gets to say what goes in it. For another thing, my sage is in a planter box up on the porch, and I know both where it is and what it is.

Mostly, it’s going in my office because Mom bought it for a reason: SAGE is the name of my Big Fat Fantasy novel. It took me about 15 years to get it the way I like it, what with conflicting advice from a series of agents, time out to raise kids and work on short stories and other books etc. etc.

My #4 daughter grew up with SAGE. She knows the characters better than I do, myself. She keeps me from just putting it aside and not trying to sell it. I’m like, “I’m totally satisfied with it the way it is. If I sold it, they would probably want me to change it, the way the agents did, and that eventually killed it. I brought it back to life, and I’m not going to kill it again.”

On the other hand, Norilana Books, which has published two of my stories in their SWORD AND SORCERESS series, has replied to a query and has said I could send a book proposal in May, so I will do that. Vera Nazarian is one of the world’s best editors and one of the world’s best writers, so I would totally trust and editorial suggestions she would have. I only hope she accepts the book. If she doesn’t…. The book is exactly the book I want it to be, so I’m satisfied.

How boring of me!

MA

Writing prompt: Take a scene you’ve written that you really like. Write down a list of the things you like about it. Rewrite it, changing one of those things. Does it make the scene better? Worse? No difference?

About

M a r i a n A l l e n writes science fiction, fantasy, mystery, humor, horror, mainstream, and anything else she can wrestle into fixed form. For as long as she can remember, she has loved telling and being told stories. When, at the age of about six, she was informed that somebody got paid for writing all those books and movies and television shows, she abandoned her previous ambition (beachcomber), and became a writer. Allen has worked as a high school teacher, an executive secretary, an accountant, and in Red Cross Youth Services. She is married, with three step/adopted daughters, one birth daughter, and varying numbers of cats, dogs and Other.She has been published in anthologies, on-line magazines, print magazines, newspapers, on electronic disk, coffee cans and the wall of an Indian restaurant (see Links). Folklore, mythology, and archetypes are basic to her writing. She is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, the Southern Indiana Writers Group and, when her finances run to another membership, Green River Writers.