Years. It had been years since the creaking risers had last been used. Years since the drawer, locked against tempation, against remembered pain, had last rolled over well-oiled tracks.
My hands shook. I could barely remember what I'd locked away, except, my soul. That, I knew wallowed in here and had been all these years.
To anyone looking over my shoulder, they would not understand the fear, the panic, the sense that if I continued, I would be tempting more than the hands of Fate. All they'd see, would be stacks and stacks of worn, tattered, and moldy old notebooks filled with my own brand of chicken scratch.
They wouldn't see the few type-printed pages heavily red-penned and worse.
The drawer came to a stop. fully opened now. No file folders, no precise adherence to secretarial perfection. I'd been in no place to be methodical back then, when I shoved every fragment of my broken spirit into the gaping receptacle within this drawer.
Where to begin? Why begin? If I didn't ignore the quivering thunder inside my heart that was racing down my arms and into both my hands, how would I ever know what I'd put away?
Taking a deep, controlling breath, I reached, and felt my soul weep. A short story, a short story that I'd been so proud of, but they'd said it was crap; they the editor and agent I'd worked so hard to appease, but never could.
Lowering myself to he floor, I began reading and my tears crested and fell. How could they think this was crap? The story was all I remembered, and with the clarity of time, good!
Angry now; angry with myself for buying into the soul destroying negativity of two men bent on their own agenda, and what I knew, right here, in my hand was not crap...but I'd given up. I forced my muse to slither into my lower regions and lay dormant, ruthlessly locking her away as tightly as I'd locked away these stories...my stories away. No more! Even if I never find any professional to acknowledge the worth of my storytelling, no more was I keeping my muse bound up. The time to write, and write, and write some more had returned.
Would I seek a way to share with the world? Wouldn't it be the best vindication and more if my own voice, now, a decade later, finally overcomes the evaluation of those two men?
Yes, the time has come and no matter what, I would never lock my muse away again.
And so it was, my muse, via my incredible author daughter, was led to my new home at Muse It Up Publishing and Muse It Hot Publishing, and the much wiser eye, heart, soul, and intelligence of Lea Schizas.
My muse is at Muse. Could anything be better?
No, but my bounty continues because my incredible author daughter is also at Muse.
Think that's it? NO WAY.
Muse It Publishing is a family. All of my brother and sister authors are supportive and caring. The staff want you to learn. No "rejections" and then out the door. Rejections come with recommendations on how to improve your submission. If you learn from the recommendation and are seriously willing to work, you are encouraged to submit again and earn that coveted contract. Two of my manuscripts received such attention.
Have you any idea the value in being shown how to grow as a writer and to be the best you can be?
My miracles keep growing...and here's a small listing of what those miracles are:
Book One: My first contract: Santa is a Lady; Angie Brightwell is coerced by her best friend and store owner Beck Cavington, to step in four days before Christmas, to fill the suit of the man, Santa, who was taken off the day before in cuffs for being a pervert. Angie is petite and has the voice of a child despite her early-thirties chronology. Her "Ho-ho-ho's" are going to come out sounding like "He-he-he's" But she agrees...Beck knows what buttons to push, and so it comes to pass, Santa is a Lady. Release date from Muse It Up
Book Two: My second contract: The Pendulum Swings; She wakes up with no memory in some futuristic facility. She recognizes nothing in the room, not even the lines on her own hand. In walks a handsome, but very angry man who seems to hate her. He calls her by a name. The name makes her skin crawl, or perhaps it is the loathing in his eyes and the enmity in his voice that makes her skin crawl. Who is she and why does this man hate her, and where was she? She is caught beneath the swinging Pendulum, but when will she learn the truth? Release date March 2011 from the Muse It Hot side of Muse.
Book Three: My third contract is: Twilight Comes, a dark story. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. What looks like perfection on the outside, has its dark secrets and pervading decay. Decay eventually stinks too much for it not to be discovered and all the rot to make its way out to be scrutinized by one and all. Release Date May 2011
Book Four: My fourth contract: In From The Cold; Mari is 50 and quite happy living on her mountain alone. Her ninety plus year old neighbor died making Mari his beneficiary, but with one stipulation...she must sell his cabin and then she'll inherit the sale price. Determined not to have any man not old enough to be waving at the Grim Reaper, Mari orders her Real Estate Agent not to sell to any man under the age of 65. Called away for her son's wedding, Mari temporarily signs power of attorney to her agent. She comes back to a man, a young man, couldn't be a day over 35, the sign-sealed and delivered owner of the cabin right across their mountain road from her. After a spring and summer of having to drool over him parading out there in skimpy shorts, Speedos indecently lacking material, with winter a heartbeat away and him still out there chopping wood without his shirt, she decides to get him out of her system by jumping his bone and getting the deed truly over with. Release Date June 2011 from the Muse It Hot side of Muse
Book Five: My fifth contract: This Time Forever, centers around a couple who have not met anywhere but online, yet. The story starts with both of them heading towards the Hilton and that first meeting. They haven't met, so how come all day long they are both having some really erotic day-backs of a life in Ancient Pompeii that seems far too real for comfort? Release date August 2011
Book Six: My sixth contract: Beyond Yesterday is another dark story. A successful young woman sees the Reba MacEntire video for the song FANCY and is drawn to return to her own horror and the hovel that was her childhood home. There she confronts the memories of her past, and the unknown secrets that shaped that past. Release Date September 2011
Book Seven: My seventh contract is the sequel to my first contract; The Christmas War. Beck from book one is now going to get her Christmas Miracle, but before she can receive it she must first deal with her manipulative mother who has her own mandate, to get her daughter married to anyone she herself can control between now, December 21st and Beck's 35th birthday on December 30th. Her mother is not about to fail in her quest no matter what Beck wants. Release Date December 1, 2011
So my road to Muse has been more than just a tiny bit successful. And I'm just getting started. My Muse is out of her seclusion and she's got a lot to say.
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