About the New Blog

Welcome to my newly relaunched blog. This blog will about two things: A (yet unpublished) book and a baby.

Blogs are great places to watch things grow, because each entry is a written snapshot. Which is great for things like novels, because let’s face it, if I photographed my manuscript day after day, it would look rather boring. But it’s also great for babies when you’re a new mom who isn’t quite ready to plaster her child’s face all over the internet.

So, let’s take a peek at the starting points.

The Book:
One glorious spring day, I held in my hands the coveted personal feedback rejection letter. The one from my one of my dream agents with detailed comments on exactly where s(he) – we’ll keep things gender-neutral – felt the novel had gone off-course. Sometime afterwards, I received another full rejection letter, also from a dream agent, detailing the same. The concerns about the novel were nearly identical, and when I paused to consider, completely accurate.

Both agents asked to see my future work. One expressed a willingness to look at the same manuscript again, if appropriate changes had been made. So I did the only logical thing. I halted future queries until this manuscript was back in fighting shape.

Enter the baby.

The Baby:
Also in the same glorious spring, I attended my cousin’s wedding. I’d suspected (okay, hoped and prayed) throughout the day that something was up. Among several other stereotypical pregnancy symptoms, I had called my husband from work the week before bawling my eyes out for no conceivable reason. I can get emotional at times, especially on sleep deprivation, but as my other half put it, “You’re usually not that bad.”

At the time of this writing, the countdown on our little miracle's arrival rested at about six weeks. We had something to bring him home in (except that it still needed to be installed in the car), and a place to put him when he arrived (except that it had a mattress and no sheets). Everything else, including my novel, got pushed around by exhaustion, nausea, and seasonal germs enjoying blissful freedom from any and all cold medications.

A quick glance over the old posts on this blog will reveal that the baby has, in fact, arrived, and shall be known henceforth on this blog as JT.

My goal is to chronicle the adventures of both these endeavors as they inevitably mash together. Maybe new parents will read this and think, “Yes, I’m not the only one!” Maybe seasoned parents will get a kick out of my naiveté. Maybe writers everywhere will just laugh at me butchering the English language in my sleep-deprived state of new motherhood.

Whatever your reason for wandering across this blog, I thank you for your visit and hope you enjoy your stay.