Everything Imperfect All the Time

Yes, it was thrilling for my story to be chosen by my new writer’s group in Florida for their first anthology. But not perfectly thrilling. So far I have been told several times by people I trust that the story is triggering. One of my Michigan critique group members quit the group and couldn’t finish my story it triggered her so bad. Also found out that according to Sisters in Crime national, it will need a content warning if I don’t change those triggering bits. That’s not such a bad idea, really. I want to entertain people, make them happy, with my writing. I had actually pulled the story from Jane 3 because it wasn’t cozy. And it was another teenage girl trying to take over Jane’s trilogy. I pulled it and thought maybe I’ll use it in future. Which I did. I spoke to my editor for anthology and she agrees it should be edited if I don’t want a content warning. Example of how it would read:

Some content, such as kidnapping and rape, may be triggering. Read at your own peril.

Ok, second sentence I made up. Anyway that is Imperfect thing #1. Also I can’t get the indent off now.

Imperfect thing #2

My website is out of control and the people I rely on the work on it were not able to help. One of them is seriously ill and the other just could not figure this site the fuck out. I have a lot of content. This is true. 20 years worth of blogs and hundreds of photos and all kinds of banners and book covers and whatnot. I was just going to migrate to something easier but it cost $600 because I have so much content. And the media person at my publisher showed me how to do some cool things on Instagram with my content. My husband said “Just stay at WordPress and hire someone there to help you.” Which is a good idea but then I saw some of my plug-ins would disappear until I switched to jetpack. So I did, because the comments say it’s so much easier. Well, I beg to differ. It’s a teeny tiny bit easier but I still am not happy with the appearance of my website and I need help. Know anybody?

imperfect thing #3

My Mac, which I was trying to keep chugging until I finished editing Jane 2, crapped out before revisions even started. My editor is understanding but it is embarrassing when I do something she asked me to do, something simple if a little bit time consuming, and then I send the manuscript to her and she says “I don’t see any changes after page 100” and asks nicely again for those changes. I look for and find them and am able to insert them into master document but it is so unprofessional to not know how to use your tools. People warned me not to switch from Mac to Windows. But I love WORD in Windows. Not so much WORD for MAC. Except WORD now is like, a whole new universe from when I first used it.

and another imperfect thing

Life. Life is imperfect. I have not seen my grandkids (and of course my kids. and their wives.) in over a year, but we are going to see them all finally this summer on a long trip. I moved into an older house (2006) formerly owned by a master gardener who had lovely plants and blooms everywhere. Which I have mostly killed or if I didn’t the hurricane did. We did not lose any palm trees (or our lives) so that’s good. I worked in the yard for twenty minutes today and my legs were shaking from exhaustion. It used to take four or five hours before that happened. Hmph. On the plus side, I have a book out this summer on top of the anthology story and as every writer knows, that makes up for everything else.

Cindy x