Sounds Like Home
What reminds you of home?
Hello!
I’ve got a lot of thoughts, but not a lot of time to commit them to paper (as it were). It’s been a crazy, insane, busy, stressful week, but also exhilarating and exciting.
That Town Newsletter thing I started - well, it’s really taken off. It’s super fun to write, and I’m learning a lot. Also, I’m up to almost 250 subscriptions last I checked, and while that’s nowhere near my goal of 2500 by Election Day (4/9), I know people are reading it that aren’t subscribed. And reading and caring about local issues is the entire point. So I’m thrilled. And also busy and exhausted. 😅
Book Stuff
Well, this is kinda fun. I got a stack of books from Barnes & Noble (just a print for personal use, don’t go looking in bookstores yet, you eager beaver). I’m sending them out to friends in the community so they can read it. Hopefully some of them will also write some reviews when the book comes out on Amazon so the rest of the world can know how great the book is (if I do say so myself 🤣).
Here is some feedback:
I think it’s really an important piece of literature. -J.G.
Characters were really diverse…I liked the futuristic details…The descriptions of scenes were really beautiful…It’s so good. I hope it gets published soon. -E.J.
I’m more jazzed about this than the mounting list of rejections I’ve received from agents (one of which - no joke - came through as I was writing this note). The encouraging news is that there are still many agents who haven’t responded, and the one who requested the full manuscript let me know (after a gentle nudge) that she hasn’t gotten the chance to read mine yet. Which, after six weeks, is nerve-wracking, but also encouraging. She can’t reject it if she hasn’t read it, right?
So, still with the waiting game. Which is fine. I do plan to try a new beginning at some point soon, but with the insanity of the last two weeks I barely had time to sit down and write this, much less get into a fictional world and write a good story. Hopefully there will be some encouraging news soon.
What’s Entertaining and Enlightening Me?
Okay, this is going to take a minute. I’ve been thinking about home a lot lately. What it means, where it is, what we owe it.
I come from a small town in Northwest Missouri. I don’t know how you’d categorize it, but I’ll call it semi-rural. There is a lot of history there - There’s a world-famous hotel and spa where many presidents stayed over the years, and there are springs that people would come from miles around to visit for their healing properties.
But I moved to that town when I was 10, and I never connected as strongly with that town as I had with the city where I’d lived in before. Most of my elementary school years were spent in my old city. My grandparents lived there. When I grew up and started driving, I got a job there and had many friends there. The new town was smaller and more closed off. Lots of residents lived there all their lives.
Maybe moving there after knowing somewhere bigger made it easier for me to eventually leave. I don’t know. But I do know I’ve been gone for far longer than I ever lived there, and I’m okay with it.
I still have some friends there, and I recently crossed paths with another author who has ties to the area and is writing a story based around one of our historical buildings. I’ve got an academic interest in the area. But as far as ties, I just really don’t have any - especially since my parents sold their house several years ago.
I mentioned last week that Ted Lasso, Andy Grammer, and Ozark had me entertained. But the truth is, they’ve also got me enlightened. They’ve got me thinking about these different aspects of home - Ted, because he’s from my neck of the woods and is just a really great and positive dude; Andy, because his song, Back Home, makes me think, “but what if we want the city to change us?”; and Ozark because much of my family is from that area and I can identify with both the city- and country-dwellers.
I’m going to probably center my next few newsletters on that concept of home and how this and other media have helped me organize my thinking about it.
Alright, time’s up. See you next week. In the meantime, send me a shout.
