My first publication was a short story called “The Weather Man,” which I wrote in 1989. It found homes in a couple of basement zines. I was paid in contributor copies. If I ever become a well-known author, the story may pop up again in a book similar to First Words, which showed the first efforts of authors like Stephen King and Michael Crichton. It will prove that everyone starts at the bottom, especially me, whose first story belongs on the bottom of a bird cage.
The second story I published was called “The Children.” It made its way into my college literary magazine in 1991. The story itself was terrible, but apparently I had some skill with dialogue, which is how I got in (but just barely).
If you don’t count snarky letters to the editor, I was published in my local newspaper twice, once about being lost in Verona, Italy while looking for Juliet’s (of the Shakespeare play) house and once about my first date with my husband, which I called “The Anchovy Criterion.”
In 1998, while my husband was out of town, I took five days off from work to write “The Pretenders,” a script for the Highlander television series. I was naïive enough to believe that I could submit it to the producers and get it made into an episode of the show. With only a couple of pages to go, I took time out to watch the show only to see Ritchie, the character my script was built around, killed off. Still, I registered it with the Writers Guild, and I like to think that one day someone will make a movie with a similar storyline and have to pay me for the original idea (instead of suing me for copyright infringement). Everyone has crazy dreams.
My writing professor insisted that I take a poetry class, and despite my reluctance, three fairly good poems resulted. The first, “12:00” was published in my college’s literary magazine in 2000. The second, “Epitaph” won an honorable mention in a regional contest in 2001 and second place at another the same year. The was the first time I ever earned money ($50) from my writing. The last poem, “For Hal,” is a love sonnet for my husband, written while he was still alive, and may only see the light of day in the front matter of my books, although I did submit it to a small quarterly contest held by the Virginia Writers Club.
My first—and so far, severely flawed— novel, Dancing Lessons is a science fiction story about a grounded military pilot who is placed in command of a small detachment on a planet colonized by humans. He discovers that the colonists have been secretly living and working with an alien species, the first ever encountered. I may turn this into a graphic novel or a screenplay, perhaps even a miniseries. I fantasize that it will be shown to great acclaim on the Syfy channel. In the meantime, I entered a sample chapter or two in contests, winning an honorable mention in 2002.
My most successful piece to date is a short story called “The Gift,” which first won a contest on a writer’s forum I belonged to that is no longer operating. I won a Sensa® pen and have used Sensa® pens ever since. It also won an honorable mention and a first place award ($100) in 2003. Both were contests held in conjunction with regional writers conferences.
Following “The Gift,” I wrote “Role of Stamps.” (That’s not a misspelling.) It’s about dinner at an Italian restaurant and the strange conversation I had with Hal about some leftover one-cent stamps. I think it’s funny and insightful, but so far no one agrees with me. I last submitted it to Smithsonian magazine and got a quick rejection.
In September 2006 I entered a short story called “The Turtle” in a state-wide contest held by the Virginia Writers Club, where it won first place ($100). I am most proud of this accomplishment, since I was up against writers I knew and respected.
In April 2007 I took an old short story that I’d been fiddling with for a few years and reworked it as a piece of flash fiction. Originally called “The Transporter,” it had never quite come together, but in its new incarnation, “Cabal,” it seemed to work. I submitted it to my writers club, hoping to win one its quarterly contests and get published in the newsletter. I didn’t win. I’m currently reworking it in the hope that it will be accepted by Norm Sherman and read on his Drabblecast, a podcast for “strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners.”
Also in April 2007 I was hired by a writing and research firm to write web content. For the first time, I could call myself a writer without feeling pretentious. I worked as an independent contractor for a little over a year, earning about $8,000 before the work ran out. Somewhere on the Internet (I can’t say where), there are about 500 articles written by me, but the copyright is owned by the firm’s client.
In September 2007 my mother died, and my father lost not only a spouse of 46 years but his proofreader. Like most left-brain types, Dad’s not really good at writing, and he needs someone to check his reports and correspondence. I took over this task, but it came after my paid writing work. It didn’t take Dad long to figure out that he’d be at the top of my “to do” list if he started paying me. So now I can call myself an editor as well.
In the summer of 2008, while I was grieving Hal’s death, I learned about a national essay contest called First Person Impressions, which was being held by First Person Arts in Philadelphia, PA. I wrote “Dextrose,” a memoir about Hal’s last week of life. I had high hopes for this piece; at the time I was more interested in getting it in print to memorialize Hal than in earning a writing credit for myself. For a while, I made plans to attend the 2008 “Take a Meeting” screenwriters conference in New York, NY and then stop in Philadelphia for the literary festival held in conjunction with the contest. When I didn’t win, I decided not to go to New York either.
Which brings me to why I was considering attending a screenwriters conference. In August 2008 I started another novel, a contemporary romance about a musician and an astronomer who had a terrible sexual secret. After many false starts, I realized that the darned thing wanted to be a movie, not a book, so I wrote a screenplay in a four-day fit of creative mania. As I always do right after finishing something, I at first thought it was perfect and brilliant, and so made plans to go to “Take a Meeting” and pitch it. By October, I realized I needed to do a lot more work, which is why I didn’t go to New York. However, I did join the Virginia Screenwriters’ Forum, where I learn ed more about screenwriting and got some useful feedback on my work. It seems now that screenwriting might be my niche, because I’ve since started a second screenplay, completed and registered a short subject, The Hook, and have an idea for a third—all these in addition to the adaptation of Dancing Lessons.
In June of 2009 I moved to a new apartment and soon after began writing for Examiner.com. For 6 months I was the Norfolk Brights Examiner, exploring issues related to atheism and secularism. Bright is a term coined a few years ago as a way to describe nontheists in a way that doesn’t involve what they are not—a-theist, a-gnostic, etc. Brights aren’t necessarily atheists, but they do have a naturalistic worldview, which means that they don’t think, for instance, that prayers can be answered or that miracles occur.
In December 2009 I moved to Denver, and I decided to treat the first year as an extended writing retreat. In March of 2010 I began attending a weekly screenwriting workshop, and in the summer of 2010 I found a writers group in Boulder to help me workshop my novel. I joined the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and attended a 3-day conference in September 2010.
In August 2010 I rewrote "Role of Stamps" as a short scene for my screenwriting workshop. The workshop leader liked it so much he decided to create a web series called Waitress Interrupted, which will include this scene. It was difficult to let go of "Role of Stamps" because it's a fond memory of a conversation Hal and I had, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be produced and get a WGA credit. I hope to see my scene on the Internet sometime in 2011.
On September 24, 2010 The Drabblecast published a 100-word story (a drabble) I wrote called "The Wholly Babble Drabble." I wrote the story after confronting a few atheists in an online forum about their ridiculing religious people, justifying it by saying they're poking fun at religion, not believers. I called that a distinction without a difference and eventually left the forum on principle.
In October 2010 I was asked to return to work writing web content, so I am once again earning money from my writing. I have also been asked to act as a script editor for screen credit on a locally produced feature.
My current projects include a new novel, The Residuum, (also a screenplay with the same name) and two works of nonfiction about my struggle to recover from Hal’s death.
The second story I published was called “The Children.” It made its way into my college literary magazine in 1991. The story itself was terrible, but apparently I had some skill with dialogue, which is how I got in (but just barely).
If you don’t count snarky letters to the editor, I was published in my local newspaper twice, once about being lost in Verona, Italy while looking for Juliet’s (of the Shakespeare play) house and once about my first date with my husband, which I called “The Anchovy Criterion.”
In 1998, while my husband was out of town, I took five days off from work to write “The Pretenders,” a script for the Highlander television series. I was naïive enough to believe that I could submit it to the producers and get it made into an episode of the show. With only a couple of pages to go, I took time out to watch the show only to see Ritchie, the character my script was built around, killed off. Still, I registered it with the Writers Guild, and I like to think that one day someone will make a movie with a similar storyline and have to pay me for the original idea (instead of suing me for copyright infringement). Everyone has crazy dreams.
My writing professor insisted that I take a poetry class, and despite my reluctance, three fairly good poems resulted. The first, “12:00” was published in my college’s literary magazine in 2000. The second, “Epitaph” won an honorable mention in a regional contest in 2001 and second place at another the same year. The was the first time I ever earned money ($50) from my writing. The last poem, “For Hal,” is a love sonnet for my husband, written while he was still alive, and may only see the light of day in the front matter of my books, although I did submit it to a small quarterly contest held by the Virginia Writers Club.
My first—and so far, severely flawed— novel, Dancing Lessons is a science fiction story about a grounded military pilot who is placed in command of a small detachment on a planet colonized by humans. He discovers that the colonists have been secretly living and working with an alien species, the first ever encountered. I may turn this into a graphic novel or a screenplay, perhaps even a miniseries. I fantasize that it will be shown to great acclaim on the Syfy channel. In the meantime, I entered a sample chapter or two in contests, winning an honorable mention in 2002.
My most successful piece to date is a short story called “The Gift,” which first won a contest on a writer’s forum I belonged to that is no longer operating. I won a Sensa® pen and have used Sensa® pens ever since. It also won an honorable mention and a first place award ($100) in 2003. Both were contests held in conjunction with regional writers conferences.
Following “The Gift,” I wrote “Role of Stamps.” (That’s not a misspelling.) It’s about dinner at an Italian restaurant and the strange conversation I had with Hal about some leftover one-cent stamps. I think it’s funny and insightful, but so far no one agrees with me. I last submitted it to Smithsonian magazine and got a quick rejection.
In September 2006 I entered a short story called “The Turtle” in a state-wide contest held by the Virginia Writers Club, where it won first place ($100). I am most proud of this accomplishment, since I was up against writers I knew and respected.
In April 2007 I took an old short story that I’d been fiddling with for a few years and reworked it as a piece of flash fiction. Originally called “The Transporter,” it had never quite come together, but in its new incarnation, “Cabal,” it seemed to work. I submitted it to my writers club, hoping to win one its quarterly contests and get published in the newsletter. I didn’t win. I’m currently reworking it in the hope that it will be accepted by Norm Sherman and read on his Drabblecast, a podcast for “strange stories by strange authors for strange listeners.”
Also in April 2007 I was hired by a writing and research firm to write web content. For the first time, I could call myself a writer without feeling pretentious. I worked as an independent contractor for a little over a year, earning about $8,000 before the work ran out. Somewhere on the Internet (I can’t say where), there are about 500 articles written by me, but the copyright is owned by the firm’s client.
In September 2007 my mother died, and my father lost not only a spouse of 46 years but his proofreader. Like most left-brain types, Dad’s not really good at writing, and he needs someone to check his reports and correspondence. I took over this task, but it came after my paid writing work. It didn’t take Dad long to figure out that he’d be at the top of my “to do” list if he started paying me. So now I can call myself an editor as well.
In the summer of 2008, while I was grieving Hal’s death, I learned about a national essay contest called First Person Impressions, which was being held by First Person Arts in Philadelphia, PA. I wrote “Dextrose,” a memoir about Hal’s last week of life. I had high hopes for this piece; at the time I was more interested in getting it in print to memorialize Hal than in earning a writing credit for myself. For a while, I made plans to attend the 2008 “Take a Meeting” screenwriters conference in New York, NY and then stop in Philadelphia for the literary festival held in conjunction with the contest. When I didn’t win, I decided not to go to New York either.
Which brings me to why I was considering attending a screenwriters conference. In August 2008 I started another novel, a contemporary romance about a musician and an astronomer who had a terrible sexual secret. After many false starts, I realized that the darned thing wanted to be a movie, not a book, so I wrote a screenplay in a four-day fit of creative mania. As I always do right after finishing something, I at first thought it was perfect and brilliant, and so made plans to go to “Take a Meeting” and pitch it. By October, I realized I needed to do a lot more work, which is why I didn’t go to New York. However, I did join the Virginia Screenwriters’ Forum, where I learn ed more about screenwriting and got some useful feedback on my work. It seems now that screenwriting might be my niche, because I’ve since started a second screenplay, completed and registered a short subject, The Hook, and have an idea for a third—all these in addition to the adaptation of Dancing Lessons.
In June of 2009 I moved to a new apartment and soon after began writing for Examiner.com. For 6 months I was the Norfolk Brights Examiner, exploring issues related to atheism and secularism. Bright is a term coined a few years ago as a way to describe nontheists in a way that doesn’t involve what they are not—a-theist, a-gnostic, etc. Brights aren’t necessarily atheists, but they do have a naturalistic worldview, which means that they don’t think, for instance, that prayers can be answered or that miracles occur.
In December 2009 I moved to Denver, and I decided to treat the first year as an extended writing retreat. In March of 2010 I began attending a weekly screenwriting workshop, and in the summer of 2010 I found a writers group in Boulder to help me workshop my novel. I joined the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and attended a 3-day conference in September 2010.
In August 2010 I rewrote "Role of Stamps" as a short scene for my screenwriting workshop. The workshop leader liked it so much he decided to create a web series called Waitress Interrupted, which will include this scene. It was difficult to let go of "Role of Stamps" because it's a fond memory of a conversation Hal and I had, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be produced and get a WGA credit. I hope to see my scene on the Internet sometime in 2011.
On September 24, 2010 The Drabblecast published a 100-word story (a drabble) I wrote called "The Wholly Babble Drabble." I wrote the story after confronting a few atheists in an online forum about their ridiculing religious people, justifying it by saying they're poking fun at religion, not believers. I called that a distinction without a difference and eventually left the forum on principle.
In October 2010 I was asked to return to work writing web content, so I am once again earning money from my writing. I have also been asked to act as a script editor for screen credit on a locally produced feature.
My current projects include a new novel, The Residuum, (also a screenplay with the same name) and two works of nonfiction about my struggle to recover from Hal’s death.
