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Then and Now
So, last week we started what is going to be a weeks long remodel of our kitchen/dining room/living room. I’ve been anxious about getting it started for month, and I know that the end result is going to be amazing. But right now it’s just kind of a big empty space with some exposed wiring and a hole in the floor.
I’m going to record the progress because I want to be able to look back on the project and remind myself of the work they’re doing on the night a week or two from now when I really miss having a stove to cook on. 🙂
This is the before and as of the weekend. Wish I’d thought to take pics before we started packing….
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I Got an Agent Because I Have An Awesome Husband
My husband, Rich, is truly one of the greatest men on the face of the earth. He has a way of pushing me to do things, try things, and finish things, that my sometimes flaky, sometimes fearful brain really needs. And in 2013, when I was frustrated and defeated after receiving a group of rejection letters, Rich did the research and found a writer’s conference to attend in Las Vegas because he insisted it would be worth it. While I sat on the couch and contemplated whether or not I could do a writer’s conference, Rich sat with his laptop and signed me up and booked us a room. And a few days before the trip, when I had my typical meltdown over our impending travel, he let me know with all sorts of certainty that I would be fine and we were most definitely going. And we went.
I’ve put money into this dream, the convention, an editor, a half dozen half filled notebooks, a Chromebook, and packs of Ink Joy pens, and he’s supported me the whole way. When it came time to send the requested full manuscript for review I dragged my feet. I put it off and put it off for days, all out of fear of being rejected again. Rich bought me the printer paper and the mailing envelope while I was at work one day, and hung out with me while I printed the 246 pages. I had read the manuscript so many times that I was sure it was all good. I didn’t even catch the fact that entire lines were missing in the middle of multiple pages, making it so Liz didn’t get to read that Cole gets a warrant for a storage unit after it shows up in financial records. Sorry, Liz! If I’d asked him to look at it, Rich would have been calm enough to notice for me.
Once I got it printed Rich took me to the UPS store and made sure the package was sent out on it’s way. After, when I panicked and cried a little over possible rejection, he oh so lovingly called me a dork, and reminded me that it was going to be fine. And like (almost) always, the guy was right. If he hadn’t booked that trip to Vegas I never would have sat down with Mia Thompson for a 5 page review, and she never would have suggested I meet with her agent, Liz Kracht, and I wouldn’t be reading through page notes tonight from my agent, Liz Kracht, to start my next editing process. I did it all because of the never-ending support from my fantabulous husband. Oh, and did I mention he is an awesome cook and does laundry? He really is the greatest. -
Death and the Writer
I can’t claim all writers write about death but I can say what I write about often – ok, pretty much all the time – includes death. I started a novel about a vampire who isn’t one of the nice vamps. I started my detective series and there are obviously a few homicides there. Then I started a fluffy romance novel. I was writing it just for fun, to have a light project to work on with a character that I really love. Then I somehow ended up writing a murder for her to solve. I didn’t even mean to that time, it just happens when I start writing. I started another story about a guy, his girlfriend, and their pet raccoon George and they come together to crash a plot to destroy the world. The three of them survive. Not everyone else is so lucky…
I wrote the below poem June 17, 1987 at the insightful age of 11. I know the exact date because I have a copy of it in my little kid handwriting – signed and dated of course. It shows that death has always been one of my main topics.Death by Natalie Dumas (I wasn’t also a Heidt yet)
Death is scary and mysterious
Strikes at any time
For different reasons, and in different seasons
It worries everyone’s mind
But death will soon come to everyone
And everyone will die
Because death is just another part of life -
Said The Cat….
Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite collections of awesome quotes…
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You like me! You really like me!
‘Where are you with your book?’
It’s a question I’ve heard a million times since I started letting people know I’d submitted my manuscript to an agent for representation. ‘It’s a long process’ I would tell them. I’d submitted to agents at the end of 2012 and first part of 2013. By April of 2013 I’d received 12 rejections and it was hard not to be discouraged. Instead of giving up, my cute husband booked a trip for the Las Vegas Writers Conference. The luck of the draw had me submitting 5 pages to be reviewed by author Mia Thompson, and there was so much validation with that review that I was encouraged all over again to keep going. Then Mia suggested I sit down with her agent, Liz Kracht, from Kimberly Cameron & Associates. After attending a few sessions with her, then sitting down with her, I decided to make the process of landing an agent a little more difficult.
I spent the rest of the year cleaning up my story. I hired an editor and then cleaned it up some more. Then I sent a query with my first 50 pages off to Liz, and only her, and I waited. I started working on book two and waited a little more. After a little more waiting I got an email back; she wanted to read the full. I was on cloud nine! But because I’m also the sensitive, creative type, I stressed out about whether or not she would like it every time I thought about it so I tried not to think about it.
I worked on my second story, answered the questions always in the same way, and tried to be the most patient person I could be. In Vegas I’d had someone ask for the full manuscript but I didn’t send it. There wasn’t anything that clicked with her for me and I am a person that tends to go with my gut. She liked my story concept when I pitched it but I wasn’t sure she’d get my characters the same way I do, and that mattered. When I first met Liz I knew she was the agent I wanted to work with. She was so enthusiastic about the industry and her writers. That was the kind of agent I needed. And the events of last week proved that my patience has been worth it.
She liked it! She really liked it!
After all the work and all the waiting I will now be working with Liz Kracht to get my first novel out into the world. I don’t think I stopped smiling for three days after getting that phone call. I’ve become more determined than ever to make this story the best version that I can, and to step it up with the second. I’ve also decided that adding the words ‘my agent’ to sentences concerning my writing is the coolest thing ever.
So, keep checking back while I move this project forward. I’ll be updating here on a regular basis. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to say that not only do I have an agent, I now have a publisher. 🙂 -
The Witch of November
As titled, this is my big blog of stuff, which means I can add any little random bits I wish. And today’s post is definitely random. By night I am a wannabe fiction writer but, by day, I work in the world of international container shipping. It’s an industry I’ve been in for over 14 years now. Being in this industry has definitely given me a brighter insight to how global a community we live in. It’s also given me a greater appreciation for all the bobbles and do-dads that end up on our store shelves. Early on in my career we had a vessel hit by a particularly vicious storm – something not too uncommon in the shipping world. Pictures that came back to us showed giant 40′ containers smashed in at the center to nothing. Some containers were damaged, some were destroyed, and some were washed right overboard. It was losses in the thousands of thousands. But the entire crew made it to port.
Where is she going with this, you might be asking yourself. Well, being in the industry has made me more aware of the difficulties of international shipping. But it was a song from my childhood that has always stood as the most haunting reminder of the dangers of being on the water. Of course I’m talking about The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot. On the right day the song will make me cry, and the haunting retelling of the story is one that stays in your head for days after you hear it. Or is that just me? Either way, I didn’t realize until today that the fateful night was only 40 years ago today, only a few months before I was born. I humbly admit I put this wreck near the time of the Titanic, or even before. In reality it sunk November 10, 1975. The wreckage was found May 20, 1976, 535 feet below the surface, and in August of that year Gordon Lightfoot released his song.
I’ve never dealt with containers on the great lakes but reading up on what they face when winter rolls in was more than I originally imagined. In 300 years of shipping on the great lakes there have been 10,000 shipwrecks with 30,000 crewmen lost. And that’s just our great lakes area. The Edmond Fitzgerald is still the largest vessel lost on the lakes. To this day – although it’s easy to assume that weather played a major factor in the sinking of “The Fitz” – the exact cause is unknown. The vessel dropped off radar and broke up before they could even send a distress signal. All after the other vessel on the lake that night, the Arthur M. Anderson, had made radio contact with the captain who confirmed they were alright and holding their own against the storm.
The captain of the Anderson bravely but hesitantly went back into the storm they were trying to escape from to search for, if not survivors, at least debris that would confirm the Fitzgerald had been lost. The downing of the vessel happened so quick that there was very little signs remaining on the water when he was able to make it back to the last known location of the missing ship. The storm was fierce enough to take the monster vessel down completely, and in no time. It’s probably a miracle that both vessels weren’t lost once he returned to look for his missing sea-mates. I listened to the recording here between the captain of the Anderson and the coast guard tonight for the first time. It’s heartbreaking but eerily fascinating to watch the video attached.
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I'm a Grown-up, Who are you? Are You a Grown-up too?
Neil Gaiman has been a favorite for quite some time. I was so excited for The Ocean at the End of the Lane to come out that I read it in one sitting. The fairy tale story line and adorable characters sucked me right in. But this line? This line made me smile in that “you caught me” kind of way. It’s certainly one of his best.
“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.” – Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The first time I read this it actually choked me up a bit. It comes in a conversation between the two young stars of the story, and when I read it, it was like Gaiman had exposed our little secret to the world. Because we do try to keep it a secret. I’m a grown-up. I’m an adult. I’ve got it all under control now! But inside, in little places, we’re still the same being we were at 5. At 9. At 13. And that makes us all still a little bit shaky on this whole idea of being a grown-up. We just aren’t jumping up to admit it.
We’re so unsure about whether or not we’d classify ourselves as grown-ups at the right time that we’ve assigned adulthood a set age. Somehow, and maybe unwisely, the age of adulthood ends with the word “teen”. Not sure who thought that one up. Honestly, I don’t know. I could Google, but I’ll just put it out there – was this decided when adulthood had to be 18 because dead was usually 40? Would we get a better grasp on the whole adulting thing if we waited until there was another zero on our age, and we were out of our crazy, awkward teen years? We’ll never know now thanks to someone’s bright idea.
It was a big deal to read this line and figure out it really isn’t just me. Hell, The Great Neil Gaiman himself might even fall into the category of people officially aged to adult that spend a whole lot of time just faking it. And boy are there days that I fake it! But we all do, right? You go through your days, you hold together your relationships, you work and pay bills. You get involved, you stand up, you parent and you referee. You find grown-up hobbies and develop grown-up tastes, and you go back to having a bed time. And you tell 13 year old you that you can’t stick your tongue out at people when they bug you. But you tell 9 year old you that it is still OK to carry rocks in your pockets, because you’re a grown-up and you say so… -
A Letter to a Friend
Dear Lori –It’s been almost 14 years since you left us now, and I can hardly believe it’s been that long. You would have been 39 today. Good god, we’re old! Little things have come up as this day approached, making it pretty clear that it was time to get over the emotions writing this letter creates, and get it out there.Days and days and days will go by and I’ll not think about the hurt that losing you caused. Then things come back and bring the sadness I still have for everything we didn’t get to do in your short time. Every time I see a Facebook post about the Golden Girls a little part of me remembers that we won’t get that. It was supposed to be the 3 of us, and old age is never going to be the same with just Blanche and Dorothy. And, by the way, you would have loved Facebook, Lor! Anonymous stalking from the comfort of your own home, no gas money required!It amazes me sometimes how much it still hurts. I will think that it’s gotten easier, that the hole in my life is a little bit smaller. Then a few weeks ago, going through boxes, I found an almost-empty journal and I’m reminded all over again how wrong I am to think that. I hadn’t even remembered the journal until I opened the first page and saw my crazy handwriting and a Valentine’s Day note to you, hoping you would find things to fill the journal with, dated 1999. The rest of the pages remained blank. Two years later I brought that journal home after we’d all sat in your room trying to comprehend the fact that, as of that day, you were gone. That little spiral notebook, with the 1990’s black and white photo of a little boy presenting a rose to a little girl, had me in tears in seconds. That’s when I realized that it isn’t any easier at all. I’ve just gotten better at moving the hurt to the side on most days.The hardest part is that, in a way I can’t explain, I knew I was going to lose you. It happened after we’d spent a day together spending money neither of us really had. We were shopping for dress clothes, so there had to have been new jobs involved. I can’t place it correctly in our time line though. I know it was before your surgery, maybe before the seizure episode? Maybe you were just starting at the library? I know for sure I had Alexandre. It ended up being a hard day with tears.You were carrying the weight of your world on your shoulders and we talked about getting out, renting an apartment together. You were going to help me with Alexandre, and we were going to make it work on our own. We both knew we couldn’t really do it but it cheered us up a bit to dream. Through that day together I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t going to be able to do these girl’s days with you for very long. When I got home I told my mom we’d lose you before we were 30. I don’t know what made me say it but I hate that I was right. And I hate that I didn’t try to cram more of those days in than what we got.It wasn’t enough, but we did get to cram some good days in. I can’t drive past the collection of orange flags at the crosswalks downtown without thinking of the night you convinced people you were their crossing guard after our dinner at the Olive Garden. I stood on the sidewalk, stone-faced as I could, while you ushered people back and forth, gushing with over-the-top Lori Charm. I think you made three trips. And of course, our night at the bar, your first night at a bar, will be with me forever. We laughed so hard on the way home I thought I was going to pee after you screamed “I think I have a hicky!”. It would have made a perfect entry in that journal.I can’t dwell on all that we missed together, or all that you missed out on for your own. I would drown in it if I did. But on days like today I can be a little sad. Sad that you didn’t get to find The One, or meet My One. Sad that you didn’t get to be a mom. Sad that you didn’t get to find yourself in our 20’s, or share more stories of the crazy lady at the library. “Bring me a block of cheese!” And sad that you’re not here to go out with tonight to lament the end of our 30’s, maybe over a cotton candy martini and some cheese sticks. And for all of those reasons, tonight I will be sad.I love you Pingon, and I miss you every day.Your Little Mouse Friend -
Fear
Fear
It has hold of me
Overwhelms me
Rooting in my chest, deep
Defeat
It surrounds me
Crushes me
Keeping my crown out of reach
Alie Dumas-Heidt -
Do you remember…
My mom’s favorite color is yellow. I don’t know if she would still answer that question the same way, but for me, her favorite color will always be yellow. When I was in kindergarten or first grade we were told we needed to find out our mom’s favorite color for a gift we were making in class, without letting her know what it was for. I clearly remember hatching my plan. I ran out from my bedroom and asked my mom her favorite color. And then, to keep her from figuring out what I was up to, I ran back out and asked my dad for his favorite color. His is red. She was never going to figure me out now! For a long time my little yellow plaster hand print hung on the kitchen wall. Along with a braided potpourri ball we’d made as another gift. It too was yellow.
I’ve always thought I had a pretty good memory. I can remember making a house out of a giant box with my uncle Duane when I was a kid, and being impressed he was big enough to use a pocket knife. I found out much later from my grandmother that we built the house the day my little brother was born. Two weeks before I turned 3. I can clearly remember Duane cutting in a little window that day, but funny enough, I can’t tell you anything about my little brother being born. Actually, I can’t remember my little brother coming into my world at all. More accurately, I can’t remember my world without him. The way my brain has remembered things, my brother has always been there.
A few weeks ago my memory was tested by my friend Piper. For reasons I don’t remember, we were talking about the day of my wedding and the fact that I was late. She arrived first and called me to make sure we were still coming so she could do my hair but she didn’t remember that part. What she does remember is the day I came to her house for a practice run on my hair. A practice run that I don’t remember. AT. ALL. While Piper remembers vividly our practice run, doing the twists, practicing with the tiara, and something to do with a make up drawer – I don’t. Not exactly anyway. The more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe – just maybe – it did happen.
Focusing I what I couldn’t remember, I eventually remembered something happening at Piper’s house a week or two before my wedding. The thing is, no matter what, I don’t remember that thing having anything to do with my hair. What I do remember now is being at Piper’s house before my wedding because she was giving me the “something borrowed” part of my wedding tradition. I do distinctly remember sitting in her room while she pieced through her jewelry box, and deciding on a ring our friend Lori had given her before passing away. I even remember some other pieces of jewelry – a bracelet I think was from Sarinda? But no matter what, I don’t remember practicing my hair. I wouldn’t have been worried about what she was going to do with my hair, I trusted everything she came up with from the start, and maybe that’s why it isn’t what stayed with me.
I don’t understand what makes some things stick in your brain and other things to float out into the universe. Why is it that I can remember an insult thrown at me in the eighth grade(ever been called a goody-goody slut? I have.) and the response I came up with (Pick one, you can’t call me both.) but I can’t remember my wedding hair? Where did my brain stash that little bit? Why can’t I recall something that, knowing Piper and I, had to have gotten mushy at some point? I think that was probably one of those moments my brain should have held onto. Am I the only one? Is there anything you remember that you don’t know why, or things you’ve had to be reminded of that should have still been around?
