“You Can Fix It Later”

This is one of the phrases that rings in my head all the time these days. Just get writing. All first drafts are crap, so just get it down in words. You can fix it later.

Now that it feels like I finally can manage my time to make writing the top priority, I’m working at putting all the learning I’ve done along the way to practical use. My mind is buzzing with thoughts about the things I need to write.

My women’s novel about family secrets – Cypress Street – is nearly finished. I’m still working on revisions, but it feels like I have a complete book. It also feels like I have the tools needed to push it through the finish line. Most of those tools were learned in the amazing writers’ workshops at Wildacres, in the North Carolina mountains. I will be forever grateful for the guidance received there from the incredibly talented instructors as well as the many creative writers I met there during the past two years.

River Stories, my middle grade novel, has had significant changes since it first came into being back in 2020. I’m feeling very good about this final version. I’ve started submitting to potential agents. I’m glad I quit submtting a few years ago when I wanted to spend my time writing a women’s novel about family secrets set in a town that sounds a lot like my new home in Wilmington, North Carolina. That became Cypress Street, and coming back to River Stories after a long break gave me time to hone my writing skills for a new look at it. I remain in awe of the fellow writers in my Lima writing group, Las Tertulias, who told me I could write, and that I needed to write this book. We can’t meet in the hidden patio of our coffee shop in Magdalena del Mar in Lima, Peru, anymore, but after all these years, we continue to meet every Friday afternoon on Zoom – from our homes in various places around the world.

Now that I’ve simplified my life, I’ve also started another book. I’m not sure what it will be named yet, but it’s about the characters in River Stories, but we find them thirty years later. I haven’t written enough of it to talk about yet, but it feels great knowing that I’m working on at least three projects.