I hate my hair.  It's baby fine and breaks before it gets past chin length.  So!  I decided upon a hairy adventure.  I bought a shoulder length human hair full lace wig.  Now that I had it, what to do with it.  I wanted low lights, took it to a beautician I knew and trusted.  She charged me $185 to put a few streaks in the wig.  After I recovered from that shock, my new hair and I set off to be united.

The process sounds daunting.  First they put tape below your hairline, then add some glue to the tape.  Next, the wig is applied.  The wigs generally are custom made to fit the head.  I was amazed at the results.  You cannot tell that it is a wig, and it can be pulled up and worn in a high ponytail.  I am very proud of my new tresses.  No pix except in my cell phone.  And it is very convenient.  Just brush and go.  Every two weeks, it is removed, cleaned and reapplied.

We'll see how long I love it or if it ends up on Ebay as a friend of mine predicted.

This has nothing to do with hair, but I wanted to post Bianca's shiny brand new banner.

Excerpt from On Wings of Desire:

The stench of Hell burned Salseph’s nostrils.  Lost Souls¸ how he hated to return home.  For all his trials on Earth, he preferred the human realm to this insufferable place.  In the mortal plane, he could, with considerable effort and pain, divest himself of his wings, and feel as if he belonged—at least for a time.

Evolerzzal, a slimy glob of green flesh, grabbed Seph’s shoulder as he passed into the gloom of the Demon Realm.  “Well, if it isn’t Salseph the Beautiful.  What are you doing here amongst us humble creatures?”  A clawed hand beckoned Charzzel, a demon of the Second Order.  “Look who’s come home.”

Seph shrugged free, arched his wings.  The dim, smoky light refracted on his feathers, and the movement immediately drew the attention of every demon in sight.  His jaw tightened, a muscle twitching.  He yearned to drive his fist into the grotesque face and take to the air, but it wasn’t Evolz’s fault the demons hated Seph.  Paimon had insured that Salseph was an oddity, a freak.  His appearance and the majestic wings set him apart from the others of his kind.  Hell, there were no others of his kind.  In all of Perdition, he was the only demon who looked like an angel.  His face was handsome, his body lean and muscled—the body of a man, not a monstrosity—his blond hair thick and silky.

“I smell angel,” a low-ranking atrocity shouted, his high-pitched voice rasping on Seph’s nerves.

The demons stank of brimstone and ash.  Salseph’s Creator had only missed one detail in replicating a celestial being.  Like an angel, Seph possessed an individual, mysterious scent, the airy fragrance part of his allure.  Unlike an angel, Salseph had no sigil.   A sigil, the angel’s name in Malachim script, was branded in his palm at his creation.  Paimon did not have the ability to bequeath a sigil to his demon son.  The fallen angel had, however, created Seph with an irresistible sexual magnetism.

A disgustingly ugly brute bared his fangs.  A laugh rumbled from the creature’s slavering maw.  He stumbled into Seph, crushing one of the long white feathers trailing the ash-gray ground.  “Hello, Salseph.”  Two taloned fingers drifted down the feathered arch.  “Wish I had pretty wings.”

Seph flinched from the malicious caress, folding his wings in a tighter arch.  The creature chuckled, and anger ground Salseph’s good intentions to dust.   When he landed, he’d planned to hurry to his cave, avoiding another senseless confrontation with his brethren.  The fiends detested him as much as he abhorred them.  It was an effort of will to resist a scathing retort.

“I think he’s hideous,” a demon in the shadows called.  “Angels are our enemies.  Every time I look at Paimon’s favorite, I want to draw sword.”

Jealousy and envy gleamed in Evolz’s yellow eyes.  The demon reeked of the Pit.  Sulfur wasn’t an enticing perfume.  “Now, who would want to spit our lovely Salseph on a sword?”

“Let me pass.” Seph would have shouldered by Evolz, but touching the creature repulsed him.

“Coming home from another assignment?” Evolz smirked.

Seph refused to give the other demon the satisfaction of a reply.  He was returning from another demeaning mission with his stomach in a knot and his heart bleeding for a poor human woman whose only sin was falling in love with him.

“Did you eat her baby or pump a little half-demon into her womb?”  Evolz leered, his glob of a head tilted to the side, his hairy ears wagging.

“I don’t consume human flesh.  Now, step aside.”

“Or you’ll do what?  Report me to Paimon?”

Seph flared his wings, striking the demon and sweeping Evolerzzal into a stumbling retreat.  “Sorry, Evolz.”  He drove his wings down hard, rising straight into the sultry, close air.  Voice dripping sarcasm, he said, “I forget how powerful I really am.”

He hovered above the gross blob, his condescending smile goading Evolz to react.  The demon glared at him but said nothing, a quick comeback beyond his limited mental capacity.  Why were they all so fiendish?   One of the monsters tried to capture his ankle.  Laughing, he flew higher and, still chuckling, soared toward home.  The place I hide.  He’d never thought of the dim stone cavern as home.  His heart stuttered over a painful beat.  He had no home and belonged nowhere.

 

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Words of Wisdom from Nancy Knight, Editor

Well, here we are again. Staring at the computer. Today’s the day you promised yourself you’d send that manuscript off. So what have you been doing? What should you have been doing? Before you send that ms. off, you should take a look one more time in your word processing program for potential problems, very carefully re-read your first few pages, re-read your synopsis and then look for stupid stuff.

Today’s word-processing programs are very sophisticated. Microsoft Word, for instance, will underline mis-spelled words in red, underline possible grammatical errors in green and underline homonyms in case you picked the wrong one. The programs do these things for a reason . . . to help you. Paying attention to these marked errors may just be the saving grace for your manuscript. If I get a ms. with “they’re” in place of there or their, along with a passel of other mistakes, I’m not likely to trust your writing at all. If you make a lot of grammatical errors, are you careful about your research? How can I know? If I get a clean ms. and one with too many grammatical errors, which one do you think I should take? Let’s see . . . I’ll take the one with fewer errors. Sounds simple, right? For the most part, it is. Many times I get a story with really great potential (Read: Nancy loves, loves, loves this ms.) but the number of spelling and grammatical errors is just daunting. So when your word processor tells you there’s an error—do something about it.

You should always re-read the first five pages very carefully before you send your ms. to an editor or agent. Those five pages (maybe less) might be all the editor reads before rejecting your submission. Why? Time is limited. I talked to another editor last summer who works for a traditional NY publisher. They receive between 800 and 1000 unsolicited ms. a month. Once a month, they closet themselves in a room with all those subs and go through them. Yes, that’s right. They go through all of them. This editor said they start opening envelopes (or e-mails) and read a few lines. If the story doesn’t catch their interest within a few lines, it’s an automatic rejection. Sometimes the editor might realize that the ms. isn’t her cup of tea and—if it’s good enough—pass it along to someone who might like that particular sub-genre. Note: the key words in that last sentence were “if it’s good enough.” That means, no spelling or grammatical errors, a reasonably interesting opening, proper format, etc. Your book should start when the primary character’s life changes irrevocably. Don’t give me ten or fifteen pages of stuff leading up to that moment. Get to the point. Grab my interest immediately. Oh, my editor friend also said that if the ms. was her type of book and it caught her interest, she’d put it in a separate pile to read more of later. Sounds brutal, I know. But the harsh truth is that an editor’s time for reading unsolicited subs is extremely limited. Don’t limit your chances by sending less than your best.

The third item to check off your list is the synopsis. Read it slowly, as if you’ve never seen it before. Make sure you’ve included all the pertinent information. Is your structure clear and concise? Have you told the editor/agent what the primary conflict is? Have you given enough information to make him or her love your protagonist? If you’ve recently revised your synopsis, try to read for missing information that needs to be there.  Look for holes in the plot. Is the story told in a simple narrative style? Have you told the complete story—including the ending. I can’t tell you how many subs I get wherein the synopsis doesn’t reveal the ending. No editor is going to buy a pig in a poke. You must tell the story and the ending.

Finally, read it again for stupid stuff. You can interpret stupid stuff in a couple of ways. It could mean that you have tried, in your synopsis, to be cutesy. That doesn’t always work. It can be annoying. Very annoying. It you include those kinds of elements, get an outside, unbiased opinion to see if they work. Unbiased doesn’t mean your mama or your spouse or your best friend. I once received a ms. that had a diagonal red sash that began in the lower left corner of the ms. and continued to the top right corner. The sash said, “Copyright by _______.” That’s a really childish thing to do. What editor in his or her right mind is going to steal a manuscript? Generally speaking, those people don’t need to worry about having their ms. stolen. In my experience, it’s the worst writers who are the most concerned about someone stealing their books. Finally, there are writers who bury a phrase within the ms. just to see if the editor actually read the ms. Or, in the case of a hard-copy submission, maybe the writer will turn a page backwards to see if the editor read that far. Skip that crazy stuff. It just makes you seem juvenile.

My last piece of advice to you is this: Submit, submit, submit. After you’ve submitted to three or four publishers and all have rejected the ms., re-read their comments (if any) and decide if you need to re-write before sending your precious out again.

By the way, you can always submit to me. (novelkid@aol.com) I’ll look at any of the romance genres, suspense, thrillers, YA, inspirational, horror and mystery. I’m not really interested in non-fiction, so don’t send any non-fiction. But I am totally passionate about a really great YA . . . well, okay  . . . great fiction. I’m waiting to read yours!

Nancy Knight is a multi-published author. She has been part of Belle Books and is now executive editor for Gilded Dragonfly Books.  Nancy edited their first anthology Carousel Déjà vu.

Look for her visit as an author! We will reveal secrets. 

www.gildeddragonflybooks.wordpress.com

www.gildeddragonflybooks.com

*This piece is reposted from my wordpress blog. I hope you enjoy your garden tour and a Happy Mother's Day to all.

The lighting this morning was exquisite and Elise took some pics of the garden. Now it’s pouring rain again and thundering, but for a time, it was heavenly. So join me for a tour of my lovely May Garden. I think May is the most exquisite time of year. Balm for the soul.~

“I hope some day to meet God, because I want to thank Him for the flowers.” ~Robert Brault, www.robertbrault.com

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower inspring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. ~Terri Guillemets

(***A shorter form of iris)

No two gardens are the same.  No two days are the same in one garden.  ~Hugh Johnson

***Wood hyacinths given to me by my late Great Uncle Houston, like fairy bells.

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.  ~Walt Whitman

From an aunt, long ago:  “Death has come for me many times but finds me always in my lovely garden and leaves me there, I think, as an excuse to return.”  ~Robert Brault

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.  ~Thomas Fuller,Gnomologia, 1732

My garden is my favorite teacher.  ~Betsy Cañas Garmon,www.wildthymecreative.com

Shall we compare our hearts to a garden —
with beautiful blooms, straggling weeds,
swooping birds and sunshine, rain —
and most importantly, seeds.
~Terri Guillemets

(Late season multi-colored Tulips)

I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself.  And I find sufficient purpose for my day.  ~Robert Brault

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God’s heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
~Dorothy Frances Gurney, “Garden Thoughts”

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Where man sees but withered leaves,
God sees sweet flowers growing.
~Albert Laighton

(Late season tulips that are just gorgeous)

That God once loved a garden we learn in Holy writ.
And seeing gardens in the Spring I well can credit it.
~Winifred Mary Letts

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Sensitive Plant“

Every spring is the only spring – a perpetual astonishment.  ~Ellis Peters
Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men.  ~Chinese Proverb
(***Tulips with our old red barn in the background)

The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun’s kiss glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze.
~Julian Grenfell

I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring.  Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth?  ~Edward Giobbi

Spring has returned.  The Earth is like a child that knows poems.  ~Rainer Maria Rilke

(Heirloom orange-red poppies that have bloomed every May here forever)

The sun has come out… and the air is vivid with spring light. ~Byron Caldwell Smith, letter to Kate Stephens

Images from my May garden by daughter Elise