Tag: Writing

#LiverpoolFC · Football · Soccer · Writing

Liverpool FC vs My Book

E.M. GoldsmithLeave a comment

LiverpoolFCI have two weaknesses. Gummy bears and Liverpool FC. The worst the gummy bears do is expand my aging waist. I can live with that and I can keep writing. In fact, the sugary goodness of the little bears can push me through hard endeavors like a query or a synopsis. Oh how I despise writing a synopsis.

LiverpoolWomenLiverpool FC, however, can distract me to the point that my book languishes in the background. How I wish they had a proper women’s team when I was coming along. I would have left school to play for them. How I envy these young women.

For years and years and then some more years, for the greater part of my life, Liverpool has not performed so well. It is only recently that Liverpool has begun to show its fans hope. I do believe that this winning streak that Liverpool is on is why I will be querying a book in early 2019.  Although, short of my obsession, perhaps the book would have been ready last summer. Ah well. It is what it is.

LFCLogoIn years past, when they would lose, I would languish for days. It was so heartbreaking. Now, I get that way if they draw, but as long as they keep winning, my writing will flourish. The bit where my characters keep earning the names of various Liverpool players, well, that is not something I can control. Obsession being what it is. I love that football club. So if you know any Liverpool players or staff, tell them to keep winning. My writing career depends on it.

In fact, if Liverpool wins the Premiere League, I will tattoo their logo onto my back on the right- in a great place of honor next to my Tolkien tat.

dogs · Pets · Pugs · Writing

Pug Corner – Query Workshop

E.M. GoldsmithLeave a comment

img_1304Frankie thinks the writer might be broken. It’s probably because of that stupid cat in the story she keeps reading to Frankie. If the writer would simply kill the cat, everything would be back on track and Frankie could be lazy again. As it now stands, the writer has spent a week crying about something called a query.

Ok, Frankie understands. Point me to the query and the pug will beat it up so that the writer can relax again. This simply must stop. The writer thinks the query is as a bad as a cat and has employed a “workshop” to fix it.img_1306

The Liverpool game is over and the writer’s team won. The workshop is over, but the writer still cries and bleats. There are a lot more of these games with the ball and the humans kicking the ball around to watch.

Humans do not know how to play with a ball, not at all. And yet, the writer has abandoned the couch and is back at her desk. The workshop is over, the writer said. Frankie does not understand any of this.

img_1309The writer says there is not any more time left to be lazy. What is wrong with her? It is raining. It is cold. The writer is here with Frankie. She should get on the couch and get with the program. Not all this gnashing of teeth and rending of garments.

Frankie is pretty sure that the writer’s query was not so bad that the writer will be hated by everyone.  The writer says her hopes and dreams are riding on this query. That’s plain silly. She has a pug. And if the query is that bad, Frankie will make it better. Everyone loves a pug. And they will love the writer because she is Frankie’s human. And now Frankie is exhausted and requires a nap. Until next time.

 

 

Coffee · Writing

Cups of Coffee on the Edge

E.M. Goldsmith1 Comment

img_1162Today I sip coffee from the cup I got when my daughter and I visited The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, South Carolina right before she flew the coop and moved to New York.

The cup is teetering on the edge of oblivion just like my current book. I am doing line edits now, a last round of them, and it is going so sloooooowwww.  Reign rain rein – which one has to do with pulling a horse back? Ugh! Can imperial be used instead of draconian?

Coffee is not doing its job. I best not break the cup. It has sentimental value as much as anything does to me. Taking another sip. It’s after 5 PM. Shouldn’t I be changing over to tea? Ah well, so my esteemed colleagues at work will have to get on without heads tomorrow. Best press onward. There’s no going back now.

I wish I could go back to the Grove Park Inn. My daughter and I had a lovely time at the spa, but I have already recounted those adventures in this past blog post, Clothing Optional

Angels and Demons · Writing

Angels and Demons – Lucifer

E.M. GoldsmithLeave a comment

TheDevilMadeMeDoItMost find Lucifer’s story to be the most compelling in angel and demon lore. He rebelled against God (stupid) and for his trouble, he and a third of the angels were expelled from Heaven. Oops.

When I was about seven, my dad gave me a t-shirt that read “The Devil Made Me Do It”.  I thought it was a funny sort of thing because no one could make me do anything. Not even the devil. I misbehaved often because being good seemed intolerably boring when it involved sitting down and asking no questions. A time or two at school, when in trouble, I would tell Sister Mary Margaret, “It wasn’t me. It was the devil.” It went over like a ton of bricks.

LuciferFallI once read that an angel is pure love, even a fallen angel like Lucifer. The Light Bearer, once the most beautiful of all the angels or so the poets have us believe, was cast from Heaven and scattered into a billion pieces. Nothing can put him back together so here is a thing of great love utterly broken. Isn’t that what we all are? Broken creatures of great love?

I don’t think we would recognize the devil if we met him in the street. Like Simon in “Lord of the Flies”, I worry that maybe he is just us. And that’s a terrifying thought. Lucifer_GaimenAlthough, the idea that we are cosmic puppets whose strings are being pulled by divine and demonic beings we can’t see is even scarier.

I wish Neil Gaiman had the right of it. Angels and demons are charming English people and quite fun to have tea with. His version of Lucifer is far more palpable than the force that spilled its guts and corrupted all of creation.

I suspect Tolkien hit closer to the truth with his Sauron, a force of absolute power and oppression. Yes, that seems more likely than a nightclub owning playboy in LA.  And seems the devil is alive and well and wreaking havoc in this world we must share, dividing us, scattering us like leaves in winter.