When Winter Passes, Spring Work Begins

Editing my novel that had a successful pitch with Heidi Taylor Gordon at our IWL conference last summer kept me very busy all winter. Editing is harder work and less fun than writing. I read, corrected, cut, and elaborated three times, winding up with 25,000 words less than when I finished the writing. My two beta readers did good work on it, too, and when I got their comments back, I went through the whole book two more times. Probably it would have benefited from even more work and another 25,000 words cut. The book is at the publisher now. If it is not accepted, perhaps that will happen, perhaps not. My hope is that it will be published. Spring arrived with the apricot tree in full bloom and no frost to kill the buds this year. The garden is in the first stages of preparation. I plan to plant a variety of this this year hoping I am able to do justice to it. I missed fresh beans most of all last year and hope to fill all my pint jars this summer. It's also time to prepare for Idaho Writer's League contests. I have a teen story and a serious poem in the works and will probably write an article. I usually win a prize or two and keep trying for those first place awards. We had some interesting stuff read at chapter meeting last week, so I know the competition is stiff even just in Pocatello let along the whole State of Idaho.