Cathy C. Hall Writes

I’m always excited when synchronicity comes along in my life. So you can imagine how I laughed out loud when I received a Darakwon book in the mail this week, authored by my friend, Suzanne.

Um…hold on a tic. You’re going to need the backstory. So here’s what happened: I just finished the first draft of my latest Darakwon book. But when I received my editor’s notes, she requested a different format (more of a report than story format). Which would require a major revision.

Now, I don’t get too worked up about revisions; it’s part of the writing process. But I sometimes am challenged by my friends at Darakwon, mostly because we communicate a little differently. I did not want to end up doing three or four revisions until we were, quite literally, on the same page with this book. So I asked the editor to send me a sample chapter of the report format and she immediately agreed to send me an entire book.

Perfect! And here’s the book she sent to help me with my revision:

suzanne-book

Can you see the author’s name on the bottom? Take my word for it, it’s my friend, Suzanne. But if you want to know how synchronicity comes into this story, you’ll need to zip over and read “Writing Connections: You Never Know” over at The Muffin.

And then you can laugh out loud, too. (And P.S. Thanks, Suzanne! Again.)

pexels-photo-189349 All I can say is “Whew.”

Well, that’s not all I can say or we wouldn’t have much of a blog post here, would we? So I’ll expound a bit on that “Whew.”

Remember a week or so ago when Hurricane Matthew blew through the southeastern seaboard? That was just about the same time I was scheduled to attend an SCBWI conference in Alabama. And not just attend–I was in the program as a presenter. So I pretty much had to show up and present something.

Meanwhile, half of my extended family was fleeing the coast, leaving both Savannah and Tybee Island. Yep, we have a house on Tybee Island–I have a house on Tybee Island–and there wasn’t a lot that we could do except pray for the safety of the people in the hurricane’s path and hope the homes were still standing after the winds and water blew through.

Meanwhile, it kind of felt like a hurricane was whirling around my insides, thinking about that conference session I had to deliver. Not so much the talking part; honestly, I can talk all day about writing (um…that might be a problem when you’re on a very tight schedule) but more that I wanted the people who’d signed up for my session to feel like it was worth their time and money.

So my home made it through Hurricane Matthew with very little damage, and all my family members fared as well. Whew! And I made it through the conference session, too.

Though if I’m being honest, the session was a wee bit more nerve-wracking. Read for yourself over at the Muffin, “Observations From a First-time Presenter (Or What I’ll Do Better Next Time)” and you’ll see what I mean.

Whew.