Blissful Updates

The mail carrier just brought me two awesome treats...my updated books!!! Scout and Ellie, The Birthday Party, and Red Nectar. Okay, so I had already revised the text of Scout and Ellie, but the cover layout was bothering me. I created a new improved cover on-line. Now, it is at the extreme end of bad donkey (aka known bad ass, but I am trying to keep this as G-rated as possible).

The new Red Nectar, with new cover and revised text is all about me being a better writer. Am I showing off? Am I bragging that I have superhero writing status? Powers that you should be peanut butter jelly jealous over?

You betcha.

Now here is something else that puts the smiles in my belly: watching people doing their bliss. This weekend, at the Arcata Plaza, was the Fourth of July community hang-out day. Food vendors, music, dancing, chubby cheeked toddlers chasing bubbles, and a rare sunshine day for our often misty, foggy county. Wow.

Any hoo, the belly dancers, Undercover band, and the circus type performers doing tricks on their hanging aerial silk, were all performing under the hypnosis type feature of zoning in on what they love to do. I hope you know what I am talking about. It's when people are so into what they are doing, time is elusive, the people around them are background noise, and their heart and soul are matching to what their body is doing. It's my favorite thing to watch in others.

So here is the thing about being a writer. No one wants to watch us doing our bliss. I mean, watching the beauty of the human body twirling above you doing magical feats, or dancing along with a band whose beat is forcing your body to dance along with the rhythm--who doesn't want to be in on that?

But a writer? No one has ever said to me, "hey, Heather, can I come over and gaze at you writing that blog of yours? How about as you revise Black Licorice? It's giving you such joy, it has to be something for me to see."

No, not once, not ever. No one wants to watch me play with words.

Well, I am not going to take it personally. Because if you are an actor in a Broadway play, I so want to be there to see you act. But as for my writer friends, no, not into watching you write. No matter how good your stuff is.

So I get it. Don't come over and watch me write. But do, please, read my books. If I see you reading them and laughing out loud (or crying, as the case may be), it will completely make up for not wanting to stare at my fingers at the keyboard.

How about that for a deal?

Heather Leigh,
proud show-off of two updated books