Nov 29, 2022
Tibouchina: a September bloomer now blooms in November
On the day after Thanksgiving I typed “The End” on the first draft of a novel I’ve been working on over fifteen years; the oldest file is dated in April, 2007. Back then the working title was The Yearbook. It was the story of a middle-aged woman who tries to imagine her mother’s early life, while her mother, who died young, indignantly corrects her from some version of purgatory. That misbegotten idea aborted early. Next it was going to be the story of the middle-aged woman’s life. But she resembled me, and I didn’t like her. Finally, after several years, I dropped the middle-aged woman, and wrote the story of her parents, who married in 1946 when her mother was 20 and her father 29. The title became “A Long Marriage,” and it now follows their lives, and that of their children, until 1981.
image: reddit.com
As I neared the end of the book I was exhilarated, and reported to friends and family, “Only four chapters to go.” Then on Thanksgiving, with only one scene left to write, I found myself unaccountably sad. At first I thought it was post-turkey blues, seasoned with memories of my late siblings. But that didn’t seem to fit my feelings. I was missing not my siblings, but my characters. I had spent fifteen years with them. Two were dead, and the rest really nothing but words on the page.
The next morning I worked a couple of hours, and typed those magical words, “The End.” I wandered around the house and yard, dazed and proud.
Tibouchina: a September bloomer now blooms in November
The glow lasted two more days. I went through the document, moving all the notes and research to separate files, formatting the remaining text, which was over 675 pages, 1.5 spaced, 235,000 words. I splurged and took it to Renaissance Printing for copying. I put it in an old 3-ring notebook from the days when I taught family law. A bookmark on the spine says “I keep my eyes on the moon, and my feet muddy.” I flipped through the pages, awed by it, awed by myself. All those words!
I know how much work lies ahead. (My fourth novel went through 17 drafts; at 75 I don’t think I have time for that many.) I need to get it down to about 100,000 words; nobody will publish 675 pages by an unknown writer. First I’ll figure out the arcs of the two main characters, and of the marriage.* I’ll analyze each chapter to see what it shows, asking myself what I need more or less of. If it’s too painful to ‘kill my darlings,’** I can turn them into short stories posted on my blog, whetting my vast audience’s desire for the book. (Like my vast audience, this intention is mere fantasy.)
But late last night, quailing at the huge job ahead, I remembered that the chances of my novel being accepted by a publisher are minuscule. My first three novels are set in this century and concern current issues (environmental degradation, child welfare, homelessness). I’ve only managed to get one of them published. This one is a family saga, but it begins right after World War II and goes to 1981. The family is touched by Vietnam, the women’s movement, and racial issues. The story lacks the romance of distant times or places, and I suspect that people under sixty won’t find those years very interesting, or more to the point, that agents and editors don’t believe they will.
image: incrediblepaintings.blogspot.com
image: woodrice.com
Even as I wrote this my doubts began to dissolve. I guess I needed to get it off my chest. I certainly can’t give up now after all these years, so I’ll plunge back in. Based on past experience, it will take me a few years to have a draft worth sharing. If the audience for A Long Marriage is people my age, I guess I’d better get to work.
image: bostoncalendar.com
*I think you’re supposed to do this in an outline before you begin, but my outline consisted of a sentence or two for each of the five chunks of the book. I use the see-what’s-around-the-next-bend approach to writing, and only plan a few chapters ahead, as the ideas flow. **Stephen King famously said it, but apparently Faulkner said it first.
Oct 13, 2022
(except where noted, the photos are mine)
TOLEDO
From September 19 to October 6 my husband Joe and I traveled in Spain, an early celebration of our 23rd anniversary. We began in Toledo. The taxi from the train station drove us up and around and around cobblestone streets barely able to accommodate one car, to deposit us at our hotel in the old city.
The next morning we climbed three flights of stairs to the rooftop breakfast terrace, passing the native koalas on the way. Breakfast was pastries, toast, lots of fresh fruit, serrano ham and cheese, excellent strong coffee.
For three days we walked and walked – in the medieval streets and across the Rio Tajo. Here are pictures from the river walk.
Toledo is a miracle of physics – all the walking is uphill. It was a tough workout, but good preparation for the rest of Spain. It is a welcoming town, unless you’re an asshole.
“Smile, God loves you”
“If you’re a racist, xenophobe, homophobe, or rude, don’t come in.”
AVILA
Avila is famed for its medieval wall, which has not succumbed to time but still encircles the old city. We walked on it during the day, and walked around it at night, when it’s illuminated.
(image by Joe)
The streets are steep, but not as narrow as in Toledo.
We were there on a weekend, and the people-watching was as good as any of the official sights – large families including infants and great-grandparents strolled the streets, sat in cafes, ate long Sunday dinners in courtyard restaurants. And everybody (except me) had a dog.
I went outside the old city and downhill to the Real Monasterio de Santo Tomas. It was lovely, but its beauty is stained by its history. It was the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition.
On the way I noticed a shoe repair shop. Joe had his broken hiking boot repaired there and met a friendly cobbler. The poster was a bonus.
It offers the suffering feet relief from bad smells and excessive sweat
We took a side-trip to Salamanca where we visited the Catedral Vieja. The extravagant interior of the Toledo Cathedral, built for the glory of God (or archbishops) had sickened me, but I hadn’t given up on cathedrals yet. I liked these ungilded (and beheaded) images.
BURGOS
By now I avoided entering cathedrals, but the exteriors continued to fascinate me. Here are figures on a fountain outside the Burgos Cathedral. (In case you can’t tell, this two-tailed mermaid symbolized lust. I don’t know what the guys riding the beasts symbolize, but I love their faces.)
These scribes above a Cathedral door looked mighty female to me, and I took it as a blessing for my writing:
We left Burgos heading to El Castillo, where we had a cave tour at noon, but first Joe had a surprise for me. We drove to El Colegio do San Pedro de Cervatos, a 12th century church in a tiny village. Most of the ornament was high up under the roof. The surprise? A sheela-na -gig. Joe knows how I love these, and how they are connected to my late sister Luli. It was not on a cornerstone as in Ireland, but it sure was a sheela! I was overwhelmed; I would have given anything (except Joe) to have Luli there.
(for more about Sheela-na-gigs, see https://elizabethmccullochauthor.com/the-real-celtic-woman/
EL CASTILLO
El Castillo has the oldest cave paintings in the world; one is over 40,000 years old. We were the only people on the tour, with a very enthusiastic guide. No photos allowed, so I’ve borrowed some. FYI: “A 2013 study of finger length ratios in Upper Paleolithic hand stencils found in France and Spain determined that the majority were of female hands, overturning the previous widely held belief that this art form was primarily a male activity.” (Wikipedia)
(images from pinterest.com)
After El Castillo we headed to Ribadesella on the Bay of Biscay, where there was another cave, as well as great seafood meals in cider bars. (I ate cockles and limpets.) We had our fanciest hotel there, with a sit-able balcony looking over the Bay – not good enough for Joe, who went swimming for about half an hour in the icy water.
The long walk through the Cave of Tito Bustillo, with precarious footing and another great guide, was full of wonderful drawings.
(image from pinterest.com)
After the cave, we headed for a hike in a recreation area in Pesanca; Joe negotiated one-lane rural mountain roads while I enjoyed the scenery. We only got lost a couple of times.
After a drizzly uphill walk by a creek, on our way back to Ribadesella we went to Bufones de Pria, where giant waves crash up and over high cliffs, and misty geysers rise up among the rocks where you’re walking.
(image pinterest.es)
Weather changed our plans for a canoe run and a hike around a mountain lake, so we spent a night in Oviedo to break the long drive to Santiago de Compostela. In Oviedo I met Mafalda, an old Argentine friend of my family.
The next day’s drive was full of surprises and astounding sights and more remote one-lane roads. There was a bakery in a tiny town lauded for the best pastry in Spain, and the Cathedral Beach, where the ocean has carved out huge arches from the cliffs. No pictures of these, alas. But my favorite stop was El Castro de Coana, a pre-Roman fortified village, which dates back to the 4th century BCE.
Cabo Ortegal is the north west-est tip of Spain, where the Cantabrian Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. Looking across into the beginning of sunset I thought I could see Canada, but checking latitudes at home I discovered it would have been closer to Portland, Maine.
(image pinterest.es)
We arrived in Santiago fairly late and very tired. The next day we did laundry while Joe toured yet another cathedral and I sat in a café people-watching. (24/7 togetherness is a bit much, even on an anniversary trip.)
I wandered alone in Alameda Park overlooking the town and the university. I encountered many friendly old people on their morning constitutionals, including a Santiago native who had worked for Iberia Airlines in Miami and a couple who took my picture with a statue of Isaac Diaz Pardo – a prominent ceramicist and promoter of Galician culture. There is a church in the park, Igrexa de Santa Susana. I admired these angels, above the front door of an elementary school named for Susana.
MADRID
As we drove into Madrid I had an attack of urban phobia – nasty traffic, zillions of people, huge buildings. But I adjusted, and soon enjoyed the energy (and the food, and Joe). I spent one morning wandering and ended at the gardens by the Royal Palace. I was writing in my sadly-neglected travel diary when I heard a band. It was the monthly parade in front of the palace. A large crowd waited (and waited) and a young woman escorting her grandmother urged me into her prime viewing spot.
This may have been more than you care to know but I had to do something with all those photos! One more thing: Joe was responsible for our itinerary and ALL the driving. It was a wonderful trip, and a hell of an anniversary gift.
May 6, 2022
When Roe v Wade was decided in 1973 I was a law student with a 3-year-old son. I heard about the decision on the radio. I arrived in class a little early, and found a few men already there, talking sports. No women – there were only ten of us in the class of 1975. I told them about the monumental, lives-changing decision. They resumed talking sports.
We were both very young
In 1989 Governor Bob Martinez of Florida called a special session of the legislature to pass a bill based on the Missouri law which the US Supreme Court had just upheld in the Webster case, permitting abortion regulation in the second trimester of pregnancy, beyond what Roe would allow. I was part of Voices for Choice, a group hastily formed by Representative Elaine Gordon to defeat the Governor’s bill. I spoke to any group that was interested, explaining Roe, Webster, and the impact on women and families of abortion restrictions.
Elaine Gordon image at floridamemory.com
I was driving to Tallahassee for a meeting of the group when I pieced together recent changes in my body, suddenly realized I was pregnant, and remembered the morning weeks before when I had found my diaphragm in the shower – I had failed to put it in. Walking to the parking lot after the meeting, still in shock, I told Elaine, a warm, motherly woman and a fierce feminist, who gave me a sympathetic hug. After nineteen years of raising my son alone, I wasn’t willing to start over again, and I had an abortion.
I have not been politically active for a while – some door to door work, a couple of demonstrations. https://elizabethmccullochauthor.com/pro-abortion/ On May 4, 2022 I was driving on the interstate again as I listened to interviews about the leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Almost fifty years after Roe it seems that we are about to go back to where we started. My granddaughter called me from college in Georgia, horrified by the Georgia law that is waiting in the wings for Roe to disappear: no abortion after six weeks pregnancy, no exception for rape or incest. I briefly explained the situation and asked her again to please, please, PLEASE register to vote. She promised it’s the first thing she’ll do when she gets home.
The forces that have apparently succeeded in ending Roe have their sights set more broadly on other issues; we are going to be fighting all over again. The fight for women’s rights and other justice issues has continued without me; preoccupied with children, loss, aging, and writing, I haven’t done much in recent years. Yesterday I was completely disheartened, but despair is self-indulgent, and depressing as hell. I’ll probably leave demonstrations to others with more energy than I; but networks are organizing to help women get access to abortion, and others are working furiously for the mid-term elections. I will work with the latter and contribute money to the former. It’s time once again to light a candle and curse the darkness.
image by tuca bianca at pexels.com
Feb 23, 2022
I think any writer, or anyone who must pull ideas from the depths of her (his? their? faer? zis? xyr?)* own brain, struggles, sometimes unsuccessfully, to stay on task.
My work in progress, A Long Marriage, has been going splendidly. The end of the first draft is in sight. I have a crude outline of the next few chapters of section four, and a single sentence about what will happen in the fifth and final section. I work almost every morning. On the first day of a new chapter I figure out the point of view and what will happen. I’m satisfied, knowing that the next day I will begin to write. It is in the writing phase that I struggle against distractions.
Today, as I began writing a new and distressing chapter (somebody dies), I know what to expect. The first sentence is the hardest: where to start? how to start? I close my eyes, push on the door into the void, promptly fall asleep. Wake up, make more coffee, empty the dishwasher while I wait for it to brew. Return to my chair. Where will the chapter begin? The married couple will sit at the dinner table making plans. I think about tonight’s dinner, find the new pasta recipe, look in the refrigerator for capers. Return to my chair. All of this is throat clearing, though if you attended a lecture which began with half an hour of throat-clearing you would surely leave.
Inspiration on hold
image by cottonbro at pexels
I write a first sentence. If I’m lucky, a second will follow and it will all begin to flow. I’ll end with as few as 500 words or as many as 1000, which I will read the next day, revising just a bit to get the engine started again. In a week or two I’ll have arrived at a (sometimes) satisfying conclusion to the chapter, and then I’ll be on to the next.
Surely I’ll find 500 words in here
I’ve been writing this blog for a dozen years, and writing fiction considerably longer. My greatest asset is my confidence that I will find what I’m looking for in the void, that distractions are part of the process, that fiddling around will eventually result in a melody that pleases me. I no longer feel desperate or anxious, I don’t castigate myself as I stumble around. And when my reluctant mind finds a new distraction, I’m amused.
The internet is of course the great distracter. Years ago I discovered the Freedom app. http://freedomto.com. I’m not sure I have the strength of character to write, or even have a fulfilling life, without it. With this app I block Facebook for twenty-two hours a day, the New York Times and my favorite games until mid-afternoon. Each morning when I start work, I block the entire internet for at least two hours. If I run into something I’d like to research, I type “RESEARCH” and leave it for later.
But when the mind is not ready to write it will find the path to avoidance, and this morning it found the path in Freedom. I went there to see how much longer I had (clock-watching is another excellent distraction) and noticed “Focus Sounds” on the left of the screen. They are supposed to help one concentrate on work. I opened that menu and to my delight saw I could listen to sounds from Coffee Shops in eleven cities around the world as well as three Office sounds with odd names (Virtucon?), five Nature sounds, six Music sounds, and five sounds from Brain.fm.**
Now, you know I had to listen to every one of them. I can report that New York coffee shops are noisier than Los Angeles coffee shops, and people in London coffee shops sound like Americans. People in offices rustle paper and cough.
I never write in coffee shops
image: lisa fotio at pexels
As for Nature, Sonoma is full of lovely birdsong, Moraine Park in Colorado has a single annoying bird, and at Beach Haven you can’t hear the surf because of a tinkling bell; I don’t believe it’s a buoy.
It was clear I wasn’t ready to go deep into this difficult chapter. I closed the document and began writing this blog post.
*Finding the list of nonbinary pronouns briefly pulled me out of the zone.
**I looked this up later. This app is supposed to help you focus or relax. The intro video says it is based in neuroscience; they’ve done large-scale experiments to see what works best. The soothing (or smug) male voice instructed me to focus on my work, and try the music for fifteen minutes in order to get “in the zone.” I think the zone is next door to Hell; after fifteen seconds I wanted to fling my laptop across the room.
image: brain.fm image: iconcom at pexels
Jan 4, 2022
I love meeting with book clubs to discuss my first novel, Dreaming the Marsh. What author of slight renown wouldn’t love to talk with a group of people who (mostly) have read her book, people who want to discuss it and learn about the author?
Middle-aged women gathered on a porch at night posing for camera
I also love performing at nursing homes and retirement communities with my singing partner John. It was at one of these retirement communities in a nearby town that I met Phillip Johnson, the Coordinator of Entertainment and Social Activities at Halcyon Gardens.* When John told him about my novel, he eagerly asked whether I might be willing to come talk with their book club. I told him that he could check out a book club kit with ten copies of my book from the library. With a little back and forth, we set the date.
Phillip called a week before the meeting and after a few rounds of phone tag we connected. He hemmed and hawed a bit, then admitted that some of the book club members were uncomfortable with my book and didn’t want to talk with me about it. I rapidly reviewed the book in my mind. Was it the theme that opposed environmental destruction? Was it the mysterious magical elements?
bleak landscape of scattered logs with one downed tree looming in foreground. image by picography at pexels.com
A prophet: my drawing of tall Black woman in red and orange caftan and headwrap over loose black pants
No. It was the sex. To Phillip’s relief, I laughed. I was astonished. I silently reviewed the few bits of sex in this environmental fable. I think no one would call the passages explicit or pornographic, but you can be the judge:
Randall, driving a business acquaintance back to her hotel from a dinner gathering, realizes she assumes they will have sex. “He wasn’t one for cruising bars or coming on to a woman at a party just because she was unattached. But as long as his equipment was in good working order there was no reason to pass up an invitation.” He was uncomfortable at her take-charge, businesslike approach to seduction, and “felt himself shrinking” as she sat in an armchair and watched him remove his clothes. “He was sure propinquity would do the trick; it did, and quickly. Her skin was warm and soft, and she smelled delicious. She pulled down her gown so he could reach her breasts…She was in rather a hurry, and he was a little disconcerted by her instructions on position and pace, but together they got the job done.”
woman (torso only) slips red lace gown off shoulder
Tyler falls in love with Carol. “He’d never understood other people’s obsession with sex until he began sleeping with Carol…The first time was a couple of weeks after their picnic. He plunged into her flesh, soft and warm, almost steamy, and it seemed infinite. She moved and turned under his hands. Every place she touched became in that moment the right place.” In one scene they go for a hike in the woods, and after skinny-dipping in a muddy creek, make love on the forest floor. This is the full description of the sex act: “Her skin was still cool, but inside she was warm.”
Cross Creek, Hawthorne Florida. Lush trees reflected in creek
Recalling his only previous intimate relationship he remembers that “he found Wanda’s body a pleasure and a comfort, but from the beginning their love-making was as simple and plain as bread.”
For her part, Carol recalls the excellent sex she used to have with Randall. “She could still feel every inch of him, his surprising bulk when she stretched her arms around him, crisp curly hair between her fingers, the soft skin of his side, his big tight balls banging against her.”
Jade and Jasmine are twin sisters who plan to build a condominium development in the environmentally sensitive Marsh. When they were young they dropped out of college and traveled around together for a couple of years, ending up at a communal marijuana farm. “Within a week the twins felt completely at home, part of the family. Together and separately they’d slept with every member of the commune, not excluding Lillian, the woman with the baby, whose milk dappled her nipples like dew as they caressed her breasts.”
2 white men sleeping in crumpled sheets with white woman under window opened to view of tree and clouds. Image by cottonbro at pexels.com
That’s all. Six vivid but hardly explicit sex scenes in 247 pages. Halcyon has an excellent reputation, and I told Phillip that I had thought I might eventually move there, but now I wasn’t sure I would fit in and find friends. He hastened to reassure me that it was only a few members of the book group who had objected. Of course. There are over 900 residents at Halcyon; surely they come in many stripes.
image by vlada karpovich at pexels.com. bald white man blue sweater and snowy haired white woman gray sweater, hugging nose to nose
I began writing fiction over thirty years ago, and I have come to understand what I love about it. I love making stuff up. I love messing around with language, making sentences that sing. Maybe most of all, I love my characters, the creeps as well as the nice guys. By the time I have finished a novel, I understand everything about them, and to know all is to forgive all. I don’t write about sadists or other types who horrify me; I can’t spend years exploring the humanity of brutes. But I do make up people who are very different from me in their fears and insecurities, obsessions and joys.
I keep thinking about the small group of women who were offended by the sex in my book, and I start creating a character. How did she feel reading it? What memories did it stir? I want to know more about her, and I expect she will show up one of these days as a minor character in the novel I’m currently working on.
Explicit descriptions of sexual acts sound mechanistic, cliched, or simply ludicrous. But sex is such a fundamental part of being human. I can’t imagine creating a world full of people in which it doesn’t play a part.
*name and identifying information changed to protect the innocent and my new-found friend “Phillip.”
Sep 12, 2021
I have just submitted my novel, The Year of the Child, the story of a teenage mother looking for a home, to four independent traditional publishers.* In the book the search takes a year. In the story of my writing life the search has so far taken seventeen years, filled with hope rising, hope dashed, and a few thoughts of ‘Give up already,’ as well as activism, love, children and other catastrophes.
I looked for an agent for a year and a half, and miraculously found a fairly prominent one who compared me to Barbara Kingsolver and said my book would probably sell quickly. My notes of our initial conversation are filled with happy exclamation points.
😄 !!! 😄
The agent submitted to seven big corporate houses – publishers you’ve heard of – with no success. After mulling it over, she suggested that if I turned it into a YA (young adult) book – a market which in 2006 was rapidly growing – we could probably place it quickly. I mulled in my turn and sent her this:
I have thought hard about your suggestion, trying it on for size and imagining the story recast. But I’ve decided it’s not what I want to do.
As we discussed, the book is about mothers. Removing the perspective of Marybeth and Vinnie gives us a different book. I love Leanne, but she is as self-centered and naive as any fifteen-year-old. I don’t want to send her into the world alone. What I value is the combination of her viewpoint with the adults’ perspectives, as well as the interplay of the stories of mothering an infant, an adolescent, and an adult child.
I’d like to go on trying to get all three women (and their various sidekicks) in print. Although I have less time than younger writers, I suspect I have more patience. I am almost through the second draft of Seeing the Edge. As soon as I am done, I am going to read The Year of the Child aloud, and will let you know what I find.
I really want to be published. But I also hope to write better and better books, and end up with a bunch I’m proud of. I like books that I can get my teeth into, that move me and make me think, increase my understanding and puzzlement. That’s what I want to write.
Though you think I understand teenagers, I’m not sure I have any more in me. Leanne was a gift. I had an image of a girl leaving a baby by a big green dumpster. And then a few days later I heard her saying the first two sentences of the book. I would give a lot to have other characters create themselves the way she did; I rarely experience writer’s magic
Scrabble tiles spell “magic please” with background of star stickers
Photo by Olya Kobruseva from Pexels
A couple of years went by with no success, and after fueling my determination with a quart of ice cream I called the agent and said I would try my luck with small independent publishers. These publishers usually pay small or no advances and the chances of bestsellerdom are even smaller than with the big houses, so there is little financial reward for an agent. We agreed to go our separate ways.
I met Joan Leggett of Twisted Road Publications at a panel where she and Pat Spears discussed the creation of Pat’s book, Dream Chaser. She had also published my friend Sandra Lambert’s first book, The River’s Memory. (You can find my reviews with the search icon at the top of the page)
Book cover Dream Chaser: little girl holds man’s hand
book cover The River’s Memory: painting of light-dappled narrow river filled with plants
I submitted Dreaming the Marsh to Twisted Road; Joan rejected it with a valuable two-page critique. I submitted The Year of the Child and with her guidance revised it three times, but she finally decided it wasn’t for her. Meanwhile I had revised Marsh, and she published that, then after several revisions agreed to publish Seeing the Edge.
I love working with Joan; I can’t say enough about her clear eye and sound instincts for my work. I have learned so much. But I didn’t want to give up on Child, and after reducing it from 127,000 to 99,000 words, I began my submissions elsewhere.
Woman in pink jacket, axe on shoulder, gazes up at snowy trees: no hatchet job, one word at a time
Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels
It’s hard to write about the long slog toward getting published without sounding whiny. In my early years, I’m sure I whined, but I’ve long since accepted that this is how it is. I get huge happiness from my writing life: joy and pride when I’m writing well, satisfaction when I complete tangential tasks.
Seeking publication is tangential but essential. With four submissions out I’m filled with hope, Emily Dickinson’s ‘thing with feathers.’ I know perfectly well that the odds of success are miniscule and the feathers are likely to fall one by one as the rejections arrive. Meanwhile I enjoy this happy time. I indulge in wild fantasies, both serious and silly.
- Suppose two of them offer to publish it? I have already made a plan for how I will choose, and a list of the questions I’ll ask my suitors.
- What if a major independent publisher says yes, and I get more attention than I have so far? That would also promote my two other books, and the movies would come calling. Meryl Streep and Brad Pitt are perfect for the retired teacher and the homeless guy with a past in Seeing the Edge (forthcoming Fall 2022 from Twisted Road.) I don’t really know the next generation of stars, so someone else will have to cast the movies of Dreaming the Marsh and The Year of the Child.
- Would one of my nicest muumuus be appropriate for the Pulitzer ceremony?
Black dress with white human figures resembling cave paintings
I have a list of about thirty publishers who are surely yearning to publish me. Each time I receive a rejection I’ll send out another submission; I want to keep that bird flying.
Woodstork: large white bird with black wingtips flies over marsh, only its reflection and ripples distinguish water from gray-blue sky.
Photo by Sandra Gail Lambert
* Independent – a publisher not affiliated with a large corporation or conglomerate
Traditional – publisher bears such costs as editing, cover design, production and distribution – author invests blood, sweat and tears, but no money
