It's Spring! Taborri Walker column time!

04/10/2021

From the Pen of Taborri Walker

Hello again in the month of April 2021! Did anyone have an April Fools joke happen? Did you do a joke on someone else! Hopefully they were all fun and happy jokes with lots of laughter. Having lived alone for a number of years now, no jokes have happened here. The last joke I remember was my son rubber-banding the sink faucet to open and aiming straight ahead. I didn’t see the bands, so when I turned on the water, I got it full in the chest. Of course, I had to get revenge, which I did by creating a water balloon and getting him with that. Turned into a nice, wild water-fun romp that soaked everything around us in the kitchen and living room, which we all cleaned up together. I often miss those days.

We had an April snow and wind storm that is giving us ice-slick roads again and temps with the windchill factor below zero. In Fairbanks they got super-intense aurora borealis lights and real temps of twenty-five below zero. No one is happy with that, of course. It’s supposed to be Spring, damn it all, so Spring already! We want snow melting uber fast, birds returning – seagulls, specifically – a few bulbs peeking out from still brown grass that should start greening up. I for one despise the cold and ‘snow’ is a word with bad connotations given to words like ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt.’ I think it’s in the same category! But since I used explicatives myself very often, to me, ‘snow’ is far worse than what I speak and write. I won’t move to a state that might be warmer all year round because there, there are horrid lil buggies and spiders that I can’t deal with. Not because spiders are ugly and alien, but because when I was a kid, I got bit over a dozen times by a poisonous spider that got in my shirt. The treatments at the hospital were as bad or worse than the bites, and ever since then I can’t tolerate even the tiniest of them. That’s why I stay in a state known for the cold.

I have good news today… my cover for the book The Eternal Question is done! I passed the covers and back cover summary by my Cover Editor, Nancy Buck, who approved the covers but said the summary was too wordy. With Fiverr – where I get my covers made – if you don’t accept the covers in three days, they mark it as done and deliver, so I’d have to pay for a revision. My cover artist, Deeker123 (her name for the site,) has been good on doing revisions for free on other orders but I don’t want to take advantage of her, so I had to work under a crunch to slim down the summary. I did it, and Nancy said it was much better. She’s really good to peg me for excessive wordiness, making me focus and push myself to write extra-short pieces, something I have a lot of trouble doing. In the next couple days, I’ll have this novel published on Amazon!

I’m also re-editing the Earth Maid novels – I think I said this last month – and I’m almost done with the editing. I’m trying to write the paragraph summaries for each book, to put at the end. I’m still struggling there, but I’m keeping at it.

I’ve also gotten more ideas for short stories. One notable tale is one taken from real life. There was an article on one of the sites I get news on was about a woman with a PhD in psychology, whose six-year-old daughter was very rude to her mother. Instead of acting like typical adults, to scold and/or punish, she was able to tell her daughter that her feelings were hurt, and helped her child to think about why she’d been rude. End result was that they both learned something about themselves, and the end was better than it would have been if punishment had happened. I was inspired to take that story and rewrite it for Earth Maid, so I contacted the woman and made my request. To my happiness, she approved, with me giving her full credit in the Afterword section. I’m starting to put what’s fact on the end of every story, so the tale of how this part of the story came about will be fully noted. The woman wants to read the story, so when I figure out the main part – choosing another idea - and writing that out, I’ll send it to her as well as putting out a special one time only offer for others to give me their email addresses, and I’ll send the story to those people, the first ten to message me, as well. But I’ll expect a written review from them! Those will get put at the end of the story until I can formally publish the stories, tacking them onto the ends of the full-length novel for ebooks, and putting the short stories in separate books for regular publishing of paperback style. Each story will be specified as to which novel they belong with, so readers can read then in the right order.

I figure – if I can keep at it – that by next month I can resume writing on the full novels. I’m typing down ideas that come for the full books, and will keep pushing myself to write some every day. I’m trying for more time spent doing actual writing, but there will be some interruptions. I’m in line for more surgeries, which will disrupt the writing process, and at least one of the surgeries will mean a couple days in the hospital. I will take my laptop along so I can work when I’m awake and feeling better. Not sure when that will happen, hopefully before the month is over.

Also, I’ll work more on my Wix website, Books & Hooks. I have more products made for selling, I’m handing out homemade business cards with both the writing and crochet purchase business on them. I guess I need to open a store in one of the sites that caters to people selling handmade items to help get my products seen. I also have to put them – and this column – on the site as well. To those reading this who don’t know, I will crochet an item – hat, scarf, cowl, lap blanket, slippers, sleeveless mitts and mittens and more for you, for yourself or for a gift for someone you love. We’ll hook up on either FB messenger or perhaps Zoom, if I can figure that out, to set up colors and styles. I’ll make it and mail it to you. I require half down, for I’m not going to waste time and yarn costs if you suddenly decide you don’t want it. I’ve had a few orders so far, and really would like more.

So, there we have it, the end of yet another column that’s a week late getting out, but at least I got to it! I hope your Spring time is better than mine is so far, and those who are in Anchorage AK with me, we’ll get there! So will my books and crochet product!

Sending white lights, healing, love, strength and lots and lots and LOTS of hugs!

~ Taborri Walker