Working

I’ve been working pretty intensely on short stories to submit to Woman’s World and Country Woman, both magazines I’ve published with before. Years ago, there were plenty of women’s magazines featuring short stories. Now, these are the only two I see on the magazine stands in my area. Both require only 750-1000 word stories, more flash fiction than anything. Both require positive, upbeat stories.

I’ve been working on a few stories I wrote before I got sick. The word requirement has changed in the last two years, so I’ve been eliminating words in my existing stories. Surprisingly, that has improved the story. That is an old lesson I am relearning. Tighten my work. A blog of interest to anyone interested in writing for Woman’s World: http://womansworldstyle.blogspot.com/ Very helpful and interesting.

I’m also working on two short stories for the Family Circle Fiction Contest and some poems for a chapbook. I’ve mentioned all this before and I’ve mentioned the desire to begin again on a novel. Yet, I don’t pursue that, nor do I work on editing those books I have filed away. That nags at me and ideas for new novels nag me. Yet—

If you’re not quite sure what to do, don’t do anything yet; more will be revealed. —Toas

And this is how I feel: Just like that nut (I know, I know, but seriously…) hanging in my walnut tree with the little red-capped Downy Woodpecker incessantly tapping on the shell. The nut just doesn’t get it. It just hangs there, without falling, without breaking, not going with the program at all. I hope more will be reveal...soon.

Maybe, this journey has been to find this story that is tap-tap-tapping at my mind and heart. I feel I know it. I feel as if I just need to brush the bead curtain away (hey, I am a child of the 60’s, you know.) Somewhere, in there ( I don’t really know where-head, heart, memory) there is a story that hurts and heals and is the reason I write. I just haven’t found it. I hear echoes or shadows though and they keep me searching.

I’ve found some wonderful things, some good things, some terrible things to write about, but there is something else. Something wanting to see the page. I know it, I feel it. I search it. I try to stay open for it.