pegkerr | May Day Parade and New Beginnings

Over the course of the last few months, I've felt as if a number of conversations and trains of thought have been coming together for me, and pushing me toward some badly needed movement in my life. On the face of it, the last several months have been very difficult. After my initial hope and excitement about the ice palace book, I had gotten stuck, and I was questioning whether I would ever write again. I was feeling overwhelmed with another commitment I had taken on, and there was other stuff on my mind that's really so private that I haven't talked about it in this journal at all. Then we were visited with the plagues of Egypt, and I was coping with the pain of shingles and the hassles of battling lice. Ecod!

But I had some key conversations with very good friends,

kijjohnson,

minnehaha B, Laurie Winter and

harryleblanc. Kij, especially, pushed me to really do some self-examination which was both very painful and badly needed. Then Minicon happened, with the miracle of the ice palace necklace, a gift of grace from my friends, and I discovered that even though it felt as if I had lost my own way, I didn't need to be ham-strung by my own doubts, because there were people out there who had faith in me.

I have pulled back from my commitment that was eating up my time. I have cut my hair, and yeah, it was because of the lice, but partly it was an experiment to see what it felt like to change something about myself that I had thought for years "had" to be that way. And as a result more than fifty people in the past month have told me I look terrific. You have to believe that feels pretty good.

I have made an arrangment to rent a dumpster for a week, and I have some friends who are going to be coming to help me clean out the house. I have started writing the book again.

Spring is a time of new beginnings. At yesterday's May Day Parade, the theme was "Leap into Wonderous Possibility." At one point in the parade, various costumed characters were rolling huge hoops down the street, each surrounded by fantastical, brightly-painted paper mache creatures and symbols. They were threshholds, I realized. One showed a rainbow, with blue ribbons dancing below it to represent rain. "Leap into the life-giving water," the sign above read, and the parade marchers encouraged children in the crowd to jump through the "rain" underneath the rainbow. Others followed: "Leap into Interdependence" read one, surrounded by two paper mache trees, with birds in their branches.

Then along came a brightly-colored sculptured door. On one side the sign read "Let go of fear" and the other read "Let go of anger."

I gently pulled Delia off my lap and stood up. "All right, then, this door is for me." I ran out into the street and faced the doorway, joy bubbling up. The marchers held the doorway still for me. Throwing my arms up into the air, I took a deep breath and shouted something, I don't remember what.

And I Leaped.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

lizardek.livejournal.com

Bravo!! :D

kayre

Oh, that's wonderful.. may the blessings continue today and in the days to come!

From: (Anonymous)

You are on a roll, Peg. First, your hair & now the house! I am v. excited for you & all the possibilities before you. Hope it leaves you feeling lighter than (h)air!

Much love,

heather

brithistorian.livejournal.com

Huzzah! It sounds like things are really turning around for you. That's wonderful! Having just turned my life around from a long period of being really down, I know how great it can feel. Go you!

folk.livejournal.com

That's the wonderful thing about Beltane. The sense of renewal, rediscovery and recharging makes it one of my favorite times of year.

lsanderson.livejournal.com

WooT!

fangexploring.livejournal.com

Wow, that's wonderful. *sits and marvels*

Go you!

Thank you for sharing with us glimpses of your journey.

sartorias.livejournal.com

Oh, what he said!

Hi, I was just skimming over your journal and reviews of your books, they sound interesting. Are you interested in Harry Potter? There are quite a few of single-mom fanfiction writer in the Harry Potter fandom who are very much interested in writing as well. I was thinking whether you would like to meet and talk with some of them. (I have a few on my friends list)

Ken

I really enjoy the Harry Potter books, but I confess I am not well versed in Rowlings' universe--I mean to read them all again when the next comes out.

I love hooking up with other writers, though!

There might be some communities for mature age writers, but I can't find it at the moment. There are a lot of people who may know this.

Among my friends list, there are

ebbil_libbie,

eliasheldon,

ari_o,

ali_granger,

angiej. All are mature age writers and wonderful people writing to get published. I think they would love to hear from an published writer like you, I hope.

madlorivoldmort,

epicyclical,

blackholly are actually writers by profession (at least partly) (the first 2 being probably the 2 most famous fanfiction writers in the HP fandom).

blackholly wrote "Tithe" and is co-writing "The Spiderwick Chronicles" sequels with

epicyclical, I think.

All of them have strong interest in YA lit. Almost everyone in Harry Potter fandom, which is huge. I hope this helps. :)

The first one should be

eibbil_libbie.

So sorry for the spamming, Peg.

Thank you for these suggestions--they all sound like great people. And I am certainly familiar with Holly Black's excellent work!

pegkerr.livejournal.com

Well, my goodness, what a nice surprise to have you pop up on my journal! I read Crown Duel a few months ago (

sdn sent it to me!) and I enjoyed it very much. Welcome to LiveJournal, and I certainly hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I've found it to be a creative spur, and a terrific way to meet people. I see we have a number of interests in common, and I look forward to getting to know you better.

Cheers,
Peg

Thanks Peg--and welcome to my corner of the universe. I have admired the heck out all of of you Minneapolis writers for a long time. and hoped it would be okay to slip onto the lists.

Finding all these wonderful writers here gives me such a boost--also incentive to slog through the dayjob demands so I can sneak ten minutes here and there to cruise the journals!

I just devoured the Minicon reports...and will devour the Wiscon reports. Some day I'd love to be able to go back east and listen in person, but until then, getting all these views makes me feel a lot less isolated.