Hi!
This is just a quick note to my loving (and loved!) fans and “followers” to say I am sorry that I have not posted anything in a long time.
I am working hard to finish my novel in order to finish my master of fine arts degree (already got one time extension!) and haven’t wanted to take time away from that important task to edit and post the first chapter (everything’s a priority!).
But I will do that soon, I promise, while I work on the (tentative) ending so I can submit it to university, so you can follow Daniel in his trials as a kid in Queens.
Thank you ever so much for bearing with me. I plan and promise to be more productive after passing this MFA deadline!
Take care of yourselves in the meantime. Stay healthy, which usually means don’t let ‘em get ya down!
Stay strong and sure of your Self who is your best friend and all you really have in the end.
Thanks for taking time from your busy day to read this!
val
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Author: Valerie Serrano
Valerie Serrano has a master of fine arts degree in creative writing and a bachelor of arts in psychology.
Valerie taught English and writing in New York for seven years (1996-2003), and has been teaching creative writing classes online through www.LetsWrite.com and in Santa Rosa, California, where she now resides, since 2012. Her small business is called Let's Write! from which she also offers editing, self-publishing help, and more (such as motivation to good but scared writers).
Val loves every minute of it, especially when students have the gumption to take their writing from first (very) rough draft to (self) published. Valerie has self-published her own novel called The Archangel of Hamilton Beach and a children’s picture book, Horses Talk Funny, both available on Amazon and via her blog.
Val loves to say: So, Let's Write!
View all posts by Valerie Serrano
Val, very happy to hear you like my posts. 🙂 Comments are lovely, but knowing you like my blog is great too. How wonderful to have a bird bath outside your window!
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Hi Kourtney,
I was commenting on your site for awhile but then found I couldn’t get in w/my password.
But I’m emailing you now because I came across your novel on Backspace’s newsletter. (I’m a member if it hasn’t expired). How exciting and how wonderful for you!! Congratulations!
I enjoyed your comments on NYC. I was born/raised there and when I saw your title, I said, “Is there a 6 train in Wisconsin?!” My main character in the novel I’m writing takes the 6 train to 110th St. to Harlem where he lives (my sister lived there once).
(My novel is in its last revisionsagainand the revision is turning into a much bigger re-write!). I had finished it, more of a novella, when I realized, amongst all the praise from friends/family that Id written it “with my clothes on in the shower,” as Heather Sellers puts it in her wonderful book *Chapter After Chapter.* I’d made it socially acceptable and approvable or something and the book lost the taboo with which it had started.
So, I had to make the decision between going back and giving my characters their due, or being done with it finally. Well, I’m still at it & I think it’s marinated by now and I’m ready to dig in and be boldly honest enough to shower naked :- ) I’ve taken a long break from it and now you’ve inspired me to get back on it! I also plan to self-publish.
I teach a creative writing class in Santa Rosa, CA, and always reinforce that it’s a lie that only mediocre writers self-publish because no publisher will accept their work! I don’t need to tell you the rest of what *that’s* all about, right?
Well, I just wanted to give you thumbs up and onward and upward!
Great tour, and nice that you shared so much of it for others like myself to learn from. I listened to your reading of the beginning of the book and its an intriguingto say the leasttopic and the stage is set right from the get-go for suspense and drama. Ill check out your book for sure.
Take care, & again, Congrats! :- )
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Kourtney, Thanks for your support! Yes, I haven’t mastered the art of prioritizing and want to do everything at once –and then I freeze up! (As I write this, I can see through the glass doors a large, beautiful blue jay bathing itself in the homemade birdbath I put out there on the deck. First things first. :- ) At some point I hope to figure it out. I enjoy your posts tho I’m afraid I don’t comment when I should. Keep on writing!
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Val, sounds like you have a very busy schedule! Smart prioritizing. Your novel and MFA comes first. 🙂
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