Manic Monday

I survived Midsummer's 2009.

They should make t-shirts with that as a slogan since every major holiday can be hazardous to your health up here in The Land of the Midnight Sun. Midsummer is a big production of bonfires, barbecues and get-togethers of all kinds. The Sun stayed up all night and so did we.

But the body count, after such a fun weekend...puxa vida! Manslaughter/drowning/driving under the influence shouldn't be eligible for national sport, but watching the news this Monday morning made me wonder why so many set out to prove that having fun without booze is just faking it. Some heavy drinking going on in this part of the world, and when I say heavy I do mean a going for the gold attempt to get wasted.

There are two sets of nations within these Nordic countries, and two sets of peoples: the introvert winter version and the extrovert summer one. This is of course a gross generalization you should pay no mind to while on the other hand there's truth in it. How could the extremities in weather, length of day, the very quality of light here not affect a person? I insist they do, and not only because I feel it in me but because I see it all around me, in the faces and demeanor of strangers and loved ones alike. I'm a child of the tropics so maybe I shouldn't even be commenting on this, and this isn't what I meant to talk about.

In other news: Thunderbirds are go. There were two things in my inbox signaling it's time to get back to work (and the drawing board...) on the ongoing epic drama of getting my story published. First item: a message with a beautiful picture of a beautiful man attached ['Honey, he's mostly...naked,' my perceptive hot man from the cold commented. Oh yeah.], cover art, with my name on it. It gave my heart quite a workout. (Seeing one of the men or my name, you guess which.)

The second message was the heart stopper, or that's what it felt like until I got into it and over myself. Content edits, en masse. Okay, so I don't have a comparison, but my first impression was that the list was long, my second thought oh mi god they hate it, my third why do they want it since they hate it, my fourth that my editor had done a thorough job while I had somehow failed.

This is of course a gross exaggeration with not enough truth to mention in it. I looked at hunk supreme, the one on the cover that is, who urged me to read on and asked would he be standing there and would my editor have done such a thorough job of it if I had in fact failed, the publisher didn't want it and actually hated it.

And what did my editor say that wasn't merited. Things I should know better and do differently if I wrote the story now. Wait. I've been given the chance to do just that, with someone to usher me, with enough distance and detachment I can take the story apart in cold blood then breathe new life into it. As long as I don't pay attention to the Ghost of Midsummer Past, the one who started talking while I first read the content notes, the one who wrote the story some twelve months ago. I should hope I've learned something, a lot, enough, during the past year I can now get down to redeeming the characters and the story without that ghost hovering about.

Picture a chunk of clay. Picture a beautiful vase. Take clay, remove what is not the beautiful vase. Let dry. Add whatever enhances the beauty of vase in question. That is my next challenge on the way to ensuring you'll get to see that beautiful man and that cover, the one with my name on it. Honoring the time put into making that cover, editing the manuscript, reading my submission, writing the story and every person and lesson in between.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an exorcism to perform, and some pottery to attend to.