continuing

WHAT TO DO? REVISIONS!

~ lakeafton ~ Leave a comment

I’m more than willing to revise my picture book. However…

I’ve now written a half dozen revisions. Some bits of each of them are pretty good, some are not so good, some may be awful, some may be just right. Figuring out how to choose those bits and eliminate the rest has become my dilemma.

This is what I’m going to try. I will put each revision in the same document, but each will have its own color. Then I will cut and paste bits of the different colored versions that are related to one another.

My hope is that when I see the opening page in all the different colors, I can meld the best words and phrases together.

Maybe it will work. May not. If not? Try again!

WHAT IF?

~ lakeafton ~ 1 Comment

This morning I asked my daughter, “What if I hadn’t said you couldn’t be a nurse when you were ten, because you fainted when having your finger pricked? Would you have become a nurse sooner?”

Her answer, “I don’t know.”

Her question, “What if you hadn’t told me I was adopted all my life, how would I have reacted when I was older and you told me? I might have been angry, but knowing, it was just part of life, I didn’t think about it.”

There have been so many times I could ask myself, “What if…?”

No one can answer the question. To spend time lamenting my choice is to deny my life as it is. My choices have given me life now. The question I need to answer is not what if, but what am I going to do with my life now?

I could mourn all the choices I didn’t make. What would that get me? A sad life.

I can look for opportunities to help someone have a better life, to learn something new, to understand another part of the world I live in, to write stories to share with children and adults.

The world is full of possibilities. I have no time for “what if.” I’m busy with “now.”

TIME TO START AGAIN

~ lakeafton ~ Leave a comment

It has been quite a long time since I last posted. The main reason is that I am starting a new life as a single. After knowing my man for over 60 years including 58 years of marriage, we said “I love you, good bye”. Not easy, but right. To prolong the goodbye with artificial life on machines would have been cruel and against his will.

I come and go on my own schedule. I am learning to cook for one – not always easy. I always make too much. I don’t have to get up to care for anyone but myself.

Tears fall sometimes, but there are times to laugh and smile with my family and friends, who bolster my spirits, take care of details and put me back together.

I am still an author. So I continue to write and edit and write and edit. Isn’t that what an author does?