Signs of Spring

Photo of a creek flowing through a wooded area.

We’ve been having some extra warm weather this week, and I’m happy to report that the snow has ALL melted. On Monday we took a walk through a somewhat soggy backyard and saw the creek flowing extra strong thanks to all the snow melt.

Look, I know it’s still early March and we probably haven’t seen the last of the cold weather, but this unseasonably warm stretch is a welcome relief from the unrelenting cold. On Monday I had to take my car to get inspected, and I was able to drive with the window open on the way home. I saw someone with a convertible had their top down. The spring that we thought would never arrive is starting to poke its head out of the covers, kind of like these daffodils starting to poke their green stalks out of the ground:

Green daffodil stems poking out of the ground.

I signed and submitted the contract for that short story I sold. I’ll keep you posted on the details, don’t worry. That bright spot feels like a daffodil getting ready to bloom.

Last week, I printed out all 337 pages of the first draft of a novel I’m working on. (Thank God for laser printers.) It’s the first step in editing and revising that mess of words so that it’s something that could eventually be publishable. Reading through my printed pages, it’s hard to believe that I already did a first pass at proofreading things on the computer screen. There are a LOT of typos, and I’ve only made it through the first 50 pages. Also, I apparently really had a hard time deciding on the name of the newspaper where the main character works. In light of this, I’m debating giving it an absurd mouthful of a name like the Star-Leader Express-Tribune Daily or something.

In our paperless world, it seems nuts to print out all those pages, but I have a much easier time editing and catching mistakes on printed out pages. The proof is in all the typos I’ve found after printing that I apparently missed when I read through on my computer screen. I still much prefer a physical book to an ebook, so I’m something of a luddite.

But printed out first drafts, signed contracts, sprouting daffodils and flowing creeks all feel like hope to me, and I am here for it.