Chocolatier's Wife is up at First Chapters Contest, Gather.Com
Wednesday, February 28, 2007

It's up!

Can you believe it? My story is up! And despite my swearing I would not look, I already have one very high vote + comment!

Please vote? Remember, every vote counts whether I win or lose, because I can use the number to prove to a possible publisher's eyes that I can get readers.

First you will need to register. It asks for your first and last name, your location, a user name, an email and a password.

Once you are registered, please go to this link: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976920515

Please vote by Monday, March 12th, because submissions only stay up 14 days.

Below the story, but above the orange framed word balloons (other people’s comments) there is a line of stars, for a rating of 1 through 10. Please click on as high as you feel comfortable voting for my story. 10 is the best.

The top 20 chapters will be announced on April 3rd, 2007. The winners will have their chapters posted the next day.

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Permalink Cindy scribed this at 8:58 PM 0 comments

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  The Chocolatier's Wife
Monday, February 26, 2007

I would just like to announce that I have just sent the entry for the First Chapters contest out at Gather.com.

OMG. OMG. I am so nervous. 70 days, and I've wrote a whole book. Start to finish. I edited it, formatted it, wrote the synopsis. I feel a little dizzy from the wonder, the joy, the relief. I feel like running and hopping and giggling.

All in all, I am so happy because I wrote something that I think is solid and good and worthy.
OK, sweetheart, I said to it, as I hit send. Let's see what the world makes of you.

I hope that it is kind to my little book. I really do.

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Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:51 PM 0 comments

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I finally get to start catching up a little, perhaps. If there was anything in your journal you'd love to have me see, please let me know....I am going to try to catch up reading those, but you know I'll probably miss something important. :( I am at the final stages of the book writing. Tonight I will implement the last few corrections, edit my plot synopsis and bio, separate out the first three chapters for posting, and send my book off. I am terrified, I've seen what they say about people's stories! But I am still going forward. Failure means that I get to wait even longer for Blue Moon to come out...I saw the publication schedule Friday night, and that, combined with another happening which I will tell you about, lead me to just curl up and sleep, hoping to forget life for a few hours in day-dreams and night-dreams.

Anyway, I really wanted to talk about Benjamin Bagby. A few weeks ago, one of my faculty...his wife is an English Professor who teaches part time, and as part of one of her classes she decided to take the students to see Beowulf performed on the stage. She had some spare tickets, and offered me a pair. I took one of my friends, and we had a brilliant time. First we went to Ali Baba's for some excellent middle eastern food. I got to have tabouli and baba ganoush and a wonderful spinach pie, among other things. Then we went to see Benjamin Bagby in this lovely old Synod house. He specializes in telling the tale of Beowulf as close to the way it would have been told by the bards in the Eighth century as possible. (here's a clip. It's very cool, even though you will note it is very hard to make out a thing he says. Yes, it's old English, but it's very old English, and therefore is not easy to make out. http://www.bagbybeowulf.com/video/index.html ) He tells it dramatically, using a traditional harp. A screen behind him shows the translation of what he is saying. There were many highlights...Beowulf being drunkenly goaded by a man of the lodge who is envious, the victory song. What is amazing is that the things that they were interested in back then is a little different. There are long and loving descriptions of armor, who made it, what it looked like. The descriptions of the rewards the king gives is as long, and has as much weight, as the big exciting battle we would normally consider the climax of the story. It is also a very Christian story...the bard ends the story with a moral, and several times the story is almost paused to praise God or as for his help. It was a very worthwhile experience, and I think I carried a lot of understanding of story away from it, and an idea of how it must have felt, what it must have been like. The professor told me to try and envision myself back in the old longhouses, listening to a bard, and it wasn't hard to do so (aside from the damned cell phones. I wish people would realize that they own the phones, that the phones are not pets that must be checked on and babied. How can you immerse yourself in an experience if you are checking youth test messages? And trust me, no matter how much you shade the screen, it is VERY visible.) because the hall was mostly wood, and dark, and the seats were quite hard. ;) Dar and I decided cushions and mead where the order of the day, should there ever be a next time.

Now, for the ice rink story. Friday night I took my lunch at three and went to the Doctor with my mum, then to an outlet store, where I bought a bunch of books, and several other places, all in a quest for book shelves. I also went and bought a bunch of groceries at Wal Mart, until I finally got a pair of book cases at Lowe's. Outside of Lowe's is one of those little caravan type stores on wheels, that serves the best Philly Cheese steaks. My mother and I were very much, "OMG MEAT." because we've not had any beef for a couple of months.

Then we went home. I didn't want to carry the book cases and the bottles of pop and heavy books up the long steep slope of driveway, and I've not had any trouble going up the drive during the day. I new it was ice covered, but I guess I forgot that the temperature drops at night, or something, and drove on up. At the top of the driveway, the car began to turn to the left, I had a hell of a time getting it to stop. Mum got out, and I said, "It feels shaky, I can't leave it here," so I started to back it down, but no matter how much I cut my wheels my car kept going straight for the edge of the cliff.

So, parked at an angle across the top of the driveway, I asked my mum to get me some bricks, and she did. (Already on her way, in fact.) As I waited, I swear I could feel the car moving, even though my foot was jammed on the brake. Anyway, we blocked her, unloaded her except for the shelves (I didn't want to crawl into the back seat and shake the car around. It felt steady...I bounced around on the front seat, and my mother pushed on it, and it stayed put.) and I spent the night having dreams about my car going over the hill...with me trying to ride it down.

I was sure my weekend was ruined. With the above news, it really felt like it, but the neighbor came over, and we attached a come-along (http://www.americantrails.org/i/tools/comealong.jpg) to it and got the back end to slide around. I backed it down the driveway, cut the wheels, and that was that.
Or so I thought. This morning I went down the driveway, and discovered that my car had slid further down the ice, and was an inch from the road. It's only a miracle or mercy from Heaven that no one bashed into my car. :(

But yesterday I built my shelves and put books up. After I finish the book tonight and preparation...let's say tomorrow, my next concentration will be catching up -- making icons, building my dollhouse (it's in pieces. A lot of pieces.) rping, etc. I won't write for a bit, just try and get things back in order, then I'll start thinking about what I want to do next. If you feel like I've neglected you during this whirl wind of writing, please, let me offer my heart felt apology, and beg your understanding.

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Permalink Cindy scribed this at 9:45 PM 0 comments

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