The Writing Life (do I have one?)

First, my short story Picarón was accepted to appear in the second San Miguel anthology.  The first one was called Solamente en San Miguel, and nobody can tell me how many copies sold.  Nonetheless I a happy to be a part of the second.  Editors asked that I translate all words in Spanish, and that was all.  Publish date...to be announced. 

Next, an essay I wrote about my 15-year old daughter being psychic will be published on the Huffington Post some time soon.  It will appear in Rebecca Walker´s blog.  I, along with all other contributors to Rebecca´s anthology, One Big Happy Family, was invited to guest blog about anything having to do with our families.  My essay in the anthology is about being part of a bicultural family.  My essay on her blog talks about how Carla can see auras and feel dead people.  It´s called My Indigo Girl. 

Third, I got a rejection letter for my memoir today from some agent who obviously does too much crack.

Then, I met with my retired Simon and Schuster editor pal, Fred when he was here in February with his lovely and talented-writer wife, Kathy.  I worked up the nerve to ask him to read the entire manuscript and he read it in 24 hours and met me at Starbucks the next morning.  "I could see this being a movie," he said.  "It´s fine.  All you have to do is cut the first 65 pages."  

So I did.  I cut the section that talked about my early life with my basketball coach dad.  My precious words!  Slash.  It did make the memoir much better.  I dropped in a little bit of the info, mostly in the first chapter, and the memoir did not suffer at all the loss of my early life.

Finally, I uploaded my new version onto Authonomy, a Harper Collins site for unpublished books.  It´s been there for about two weeks, and it´s pretty exhausting to keep up.  You have to read and back other people´s books and hope they back yours.  There´s about 5000 books on the site, and the sorry thing takes over your life!  Yet, it´s mesmerizing to get coments and see your book rise through the ranks.  Right now I´m at about 1000 and hoping for three digits!!  It´s a sick addiction.  I think I need a help group. 

Life in San Miguel today

Today, driving to Celaya, I got the first glimpse of jacarandas, the purple-flowering trees that make half the population of San Miguel run for their Claritin. The jacarandas herald spring in San Miguel de Allende, and they are appearing 2 to 3 weeks late this year because of the intense cold we´ve had.  (Quit harrumphing, all you Canadians.)

The girls have a two week stretch of vacation ahead of them (or is it 3?  The school wasn´t clear.)  So this morning, in celebration of being relaxed, we went to Las Cazuelas in Escobedo for breakfast.  For 40 pesos at Las Cazuelos (less than 4 US dollars), you get to cruise the buffet table offering chiles rellenos, eggs in chile, mole, rice, frijoles, guacamole, bifstek, meatballs and homemade tortillas (see the muchachas making them in the photo) among various other offerings.  While we ate, a band played outside.

In our sala (living room) we have a ceramic all-star wrestler called Mystico.  He has a silver mask and a slot in his shoulder.  In this alcancia (bank) we are, as a family, throwing all of our extra change and bills to be able to go to the beach at the end of April when Carlos finishes college. We call him Mr. Money.

Alright already

I´ve been certain that google had taken away this blog´s ability to receive comments and then, lo, I got one.
So I´ll quit all my whining and get back to writing.  Very soon. Bye for now!