Monday, July 07, 2014
http://www.kelleygrantbooks.com/
I have a writer's website and blog and will probably not be updating this one much anymore. Catch the progress of the HV contract and the second novel at: http://www.kelleygrantbooks.com
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
A Book Contract
A very strange and wonderful thing happened last month. I got an email from a publisher, HarperCollins to be precise, about The Sand Sifters. They were having an unagented novel submission for two weeks in October of 2012. I submitted The Sand Sifters and Seeing Shadows. I got a basic, none personalized rejection email in January of 2013 (no book names) and assumed it was either for both, or that one of the novels was lost in submission. We bought the Studio a couple months later and I gave up on writing and publishing for then.
Fast forward to May 9th. My wedding anniversary and date that I had my interview with HarperCollins - and my first book offer. They are giving me a Harper Voyager Impulse contract for The Sand Sifters and two sequels. I checked the offer with a couple agents who said it seemed typical and have accepted. The editor is hammering out the details and dates things need to be in by, edited by, and published by - then will send me the contract to sign. I am alternately over the moon and terrified I won't be able to meet the deadline and run Studio Om. This should be one of the most interesting, amazing, learning experience of my 43 years. Onward and upward!
Fast forward to May 9th. My wedding anniversary and date that I had my interview with HarperCollins - and my first book offer. They are giving me a Harper Voyager Impulse contract for The Sand Sifters and two sequels. I checked the offer with a couple agents who said it seemed typical and have accepted. The editor is hammering out the details and dates things need to be in by, edited by, and published by - then will send me the contract to sign. I am alternately over the moon and terrified I won't be able to meet the deadline and run Studio Om. This should be one of the most interesting, amazing, learning experience of my 43 years. Onward and upward!
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Step out of the cocoon.
I am not in a comfortable place right now. I never wanted to be a small business owner, yet here I am, and I seem to be doing fine at it but it doesn't feel like me. I'm not sure exactly what is me these days, and I wonder if I'm going through a mid-life crisis or perhaps a spiritual awakening. Or perhaps one precedes or goes hand in hand with the other? I'm a writer who isn't writing, yet more. I'm a introvert who is teaching, yet more. I'm a studio owner who doesn't feel like the Studio is quite hers yet.
But I do know I need to start writing again, as that feels like a hole in my soul that needs filled. Perhaps not fiction, not right now. Perhaps just trying to get back at the center of what is needed to make me feel whole in the midst of this chaos and uncertainty that it feels like surrounds me. I've been reading a lot of Pema Chodron and she says "A teacher once told me that if I wanted lasting happiness the only way to get it was to step out of my cocoon." Okay then, emergence commenced, waiting to see what creature I become when the last of the silk has been parted.
But I do know I need to start writing again, as that feels like a hole in my soul that needs filled. Perhaps not fiction, not right now. Perhaps just trying to get back at the center of what is needed to make me feel whole in the midst of this chaos and uncertainty that it feels like surrounds me. I've been reading a lot of Pema Chodron and she says "A teacher once told me that if I wanted lasting happiness the only way to get it was to step out of my cocoon." Okay then, emergence commenced, waiting to see what creature I become when the last of the silk has been parted.
Friday, March 08, 2013
Embrace the Journey
Life has taken a strange turn. Studio Om has become a second home to me and in a lesser sort to Brian. I'm there for workshops, for classes I take, and for two classes that I teach. It is a wonderful refuge. On Saturday we learned that it would be going away. The owner needed a break, and to move onto other things in her life. I cried. It felt wrong, as though the heart were being removed from the Pataskala alternative community. Brian had suggested before that we might want to manage the studio. I felt that there was no way I could do the financial aspect. Brian said he would be financial manager, if I could do the running of the studio, the teaching, the scheduling. I agreed, we approached the owner and have been scrambling the past 5 days to set everything up before Spring quarter starts in three weeks. I am elated and scared and tired and cranky and enthusiastic and depressed, all in turns. I am sad the Studio will turn from a refuge to a responsibility for me. I am thrilled we can keep it open for the people who depend on it. I am scared with all the yoga studios opening in the area we will end up losing money. I am starting to get a vision of what I would like the studio to be as my studio and that is elating. And I'm still coming out of SAD - so the depression makes things even scarier. I hope this will be a grand time for us. I hope it will bring us together. It feels in my very center of my being like this is what we were meant to do -even if we lose money, even if it doesn't grow. This is what is needed right here and now and the torch is being passed to us, personally.
Anyway - I am experimenting with things like changing websites and this is a stab at putting the Om calendar on the website. Spring Quarter - starts April 1st and the grand adventure begins!
Anyway - I am experimenting with things like changing websites and this is a stab at putting the Om calendar on the website. Spring Quarter - starts April 1st and the grand adventure begins!
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
Reflections on yoga
I went for a walk in the park down the road. I walked through a little wooded path and sat down on some roots overlooking the small stream. In a deep still pool of the stream there was reflected a glorious maple tree. If I looked up, the tree was blocked by another tree that hadn’t started to change yet. But in the creek was a reflection of oranges and reds of all shades. I became absorbed in the reflection, admiring that fall splendor, meditating on the startling nature of beauty. Then a leaf came down, right where I was looking and disturbed the water. And I suddenly realized I wasn’t looking at a tree. I was looking at water. I tried to look at the water itself – but it seemed impossible because all I could see were the leaves and little ripples in the reflection. I knew there were fish and rocks and even wet leaves under that surface, but all that showed was the tree above it.
That’s what yoga is to me. That leaf which drops from above and disturbs the reflection to let me know there is something deeper underneath. We all show on our surface reflections – reflections of the place we are in, the things expected of us, the people who brought us up, the space we work in, the times we are going through. But yoga lets us know there is more depth than that; that there is something going on that is not a reflection. There is life beneath that surface that is just as rich as the colors it reflects. Through breath, poses, meditation, gradually we reconnect with the life under the surface. Gradually we find the richness underneath we thought could only exist outside of ourselves, and we no longer need to reflect other’s glory, other’s expectations.
That’s what yoga is to me. That leaf which drops from above and disturbs the reflection to let me know there is something deeper underneath. We all show on our surface reflections – reflections of the place we are in, the things expected of us, the people who brought us up, the space we work in, the times we are going through. But yoga lets us know there is more depth than that; that there is something going on that is not a reflection. There is life beneath that surface that is just as rich as the colors it reflects. Through breath, poses, meditation, gradually we reconnect with the life under the surface. Gradually we find the richness underneath we thought could only exist outside of ourselves, and we no longer need to reflect other’s glory, other’s expectations.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
The Sand Sifters update
Well, I've sent the novel off to Tor and to a literary agent. It has been one of the most nerve-wracking processes. Much harder for me than writing the novel was. To sum up a 450 page novel in two paragraphs for the query letter and make an agent want it from only that? Crazy. There were so many submission rules, and ways it needed to be formatted and don't forget the SASE or they won't respond at all(I addressed the darn thing, but forgot to stamp it - luckily I realized before I sent it out and corrected my mistake). I sent it to the two places that wanted not just a query letter, but a synopsis and a few chapters. I feel I have a better chance that way. I know I don't have a fantastic chance either way - it takes an average of 8 years to get a first novel published, 20-50 submissions. But I can't help but feel hopeful after all the work I've put into it. I'm ready for rejection - and will research where I want to send it next and finish up my next novel (which is a stand-alone rather than part of a series).
I'm proud that with all my insecurities, I managed to find some courage inside to face those fears and decide "well, it sure ain't getting published sitting in a drawer. Might as well send it!" Huge step for me and my writing career.
I'm proud that with all my insecurities, I managed to find some courage inside to face those fears and decide "well, it sure ain't getting published sitting in a drawer. Might as well send it!" Huge step for me and my writing career.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Let's not bother.
"People with opinions just go around bothering one another" Buddha
I love that quote. It's one of my favorites. It goes to the heart of anger, of hating others, of fear. I am a person of strong opinions who is trying to move into being a person with strong beliefs. I'm not entirely certain of the difference between the two but as I move into belief I'm realizing it is about security with oneself, about confidence that transcends silly arguments, about compassion for others and about acceptance and nonattachment. It's the security of listening to other's opinions and saying "Ah," without being moved to anger because they are not my own. Of not needing or even wanting other's validation and being happy in my own skin. No anger, no envy, no insecurity. Isn't that a wonderful goal?
In that line of thought, I've realized blogging is nothing like me. I have no real interest in throwing opinions at people and I am a private enough person that I don't really believe my every day life is of interest to anyone but myself and a few choice individuals. I thought to blog my spiritual journey, but have found that as I move out of opinion and into belief it has become a private, personal journey. As someone moving through I have no perspective to give and what I am living is deeply private. Maybe someday I will be up farther on the mountain and will be able to look back below at the journey and piece it together for others. But, as I am now at the base - all I can do is look up at the snowy peaks and say "wow is there a long way to go. Better get started."
I am a writer, but a writer of fiction. Of novels. Long fiction, with many plots and characters and chapters which does not translate well to blog. I write for the love of plots, of characters and of manipulating the two. At the end of it, I hope there will be an audience that will love what I've done, but I didn't write it for applause, or validation, which is why I have such a hard time getting myself to send anything out to publishers, once all the writing fun is over. Sure it would really be nice to get some money out of all that work - but now I've got other characters and other plots banging on my brain waiting to get out. So I doubt I'll be blogging on this site much until I actually force myself to send something out and want to update people on where they can buy it and have to do the dreaded self-promotion stuff.
There's a story of a pupil who went to study with a Zen Master. He tried to meditate, but he hated the chores he had to do, the footsteps of the other pupils bothered him, the cars passing by bothered him, he didn't like the food. After a week of this his Master took him to task after a group meditation. "You struggle with everything," the Master told the student "How is it the food bothers you, the sounds bother you, the chores bother you, even your mind bothers you? Doesn't it seem odd? What I want to know is when you hear a car come by, does it really come in and bother you or are you going out to bother it? Who is bothering whom?" And that is the question I would leave you with - when words and deeds supposedly irritate and bother you, do they truly assault you or do you allow yourself to be assaulted by them because of your own insecurity? After all, people with opinions just go around bothering one another.
I love that quote. It's one of my favorites. It goes to the heart of anger, of hating others, of fear. I am a person of strong opinions who is trying to move into being a person with strong beliefs. I'm not entirely certain of the difference between the two but as I move into belief I'm realizing it is about security with oneself, about confidence that transcends silly arguments, about compassion for others and about acceptance and nonattachment. It's the security of listening to other's opinions and saying "Ah," without being moved to anger because they are not my own. Of not needing or even wanting other's validation and being happy in my own skin. No anger, no envy, no insecurity. Isn't that a wonderful goal?
In that line of thought, I've realized blogging is nothing like me. I have no real interest in throwing opinions at people and I am a private enough person that I don't really believe my every day life is of interest to anyone but myself and a few choice individuals. I thought to blog my spiritual journey, but have found that as I move out of opinion and into belief it has become a private, personal journey. As someone moving through I have no perspective to give and what I am living is deeply private. Maybe someday I will be up farther on the mountain and will be able to look back below at the journey and piece it together for others. But, as I am now at the base - all I can do is look up at the snowy peaks and say "wow is there a long way to go. Better get started."
I am a writer, but a writer of fiction. Of novels. Long fiction, with many plots and characters and chapters which does not translate well to blog. I write for the love of plots, of characters and of manipulating the two. At the end of it, I hope there will be an audience that will love what I've done, but I didn't write it for applause, or validation, which is why I have such a hard time getting myself to send anything out to publishers, once all the writing fun is over. Sure it would really be nice to get some money out of all that work - but now I've got other characters and other plots banging on my brain waiting to get out. So I doubt I'll be blogging on this site much until I actually force myself to send something out and want to update people on where they can buy it and have to do the dreaded self-promotion stuff.
There's a story of a pupil who went to study with a Zen Master. He tried to meditate, but he hated the chores he had to do, the footsteps of the other pupils bothered him, the cars passing by bothered him, he didn't like the food. After a week of this his Master took him to task after a group meditation. "You struggle with everything," the Master told the student "How is it the food bothers you, the sounds bother you, the chores bother you, even your mind bothers you? Doesn't it seem odd? What I want to know is when you hear a car come by, does it really come in and bother you or are you going out to bother it? Who is bothering whom?" And that is the question I would leave you with - when words and deeds supposedly irritate and bother you, do they truly assault you or do you allow yourself to be assaulted by them because of your own insecurity? After all, people with opinions just go around bothering one another.
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