Mark Hayes Peacock – blogs

Last night I read “Hansel and Gertie” at the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts in Amery, Wisconsin. Readings by writers draw small crowds and last night was no exception to that, but I was pleased that the reading drew laughs in all the right places and even in some surprising places, with loud guffaws at what I thought might be funny, too. Now, on to reading at the Museum/Library in Luck on August 2nd. I’m not sure what I’ll read there but I’ll know after I size up the audience. I’m told there may be some interest in publishing with that group and I’ll be happy to share my experience and decisions.

My decision to self-publish was prompted by a distasteful experience with the Wisconsin Editor of the St.Paul Pioneer Press. Pat McFadden was the seventh editor at the SPPP I’ve worked with over the decades and I have real problems with his ethics and with the way he deals with writers–at least with this writer. Life is too short to work with assholes. At my age I’m especially aware of that. So the decision was easy: skip the editor completely. Fortunately, because of many years of writing for money and being in print and learning from the small adjustments editors have made to my work from time to time, I’m pretty good at editing myself. Putting my stories on Amazon Kindle also allowed me to get them out there to get reactions, as well as being able to retrieve them to make adjustments and corrections when they were needed. In the process, I could make some money as people bought and read the Kindle books. I can do the same with the print books and did so when the first dozen or so were printed with some awkward and embarrassing physical problems like dots in odd places and sentences that broke apart on the page. Most of those came from trying to adjust from 8 1/2×11 inch pages that were OK for Kindle to the 6″x9″ format for a print book. We learn by doing. I gave those odd copies to relatives and close friends, who have “a rarity”. Two of my kids bought the odd books, too.

 

Next week marks the end of weeks of guest preaching at the Upper St.Croix Parish churches of the Central, Atlas, Wolf Creek and St.Croix Falls United Methodist Churches. Pastor KookHoo and I have alternated weeks. I expect to be scheduled soon for Taylors Falls in August and September, usually once a month.

Today I read “Little Red Hoodie” to the Osceola Seniors and I have to say it was fun to hear people laughing in all the right places and even in some places I wasn’t sure would ever get even a chuckle. Sharp bunch of people, those! (Full disclosure: Marina and I are members of the Osceola Seniors.) This group snagged a large grant to help bring about Osceola’s new Village Library, Village offices, Discovery Center and a place for senior citizens. I sold some books, too, which warms the cockles of my checkbook and in a month when both our Village utilities AND the property taxes are due, that helps. Now, on to reading “Hansel and Gertie” this Saturday night at the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts in Amery. I read that story to the writing group earlier this week and for that story, too, laughter and chuckles in the right places were gratifying to hear.

So Mary Yambrick fought the good fight, ran the race and finished the course. She was a person who lived out well what she said she believed. I’ve known Bill and Mary for almost 30 years and have served as the main writer for their weekly church page newspaper ads for 28 of those years. Mary was a giver to young people and to her many friends and to her family. Cancer was a fierce foe but she took it on with about as many approaches as there are and with great faith in the ultimate outcome. Mary Yambrick: a first class human being. I’m glad I knew her and I keep Bill, Alex, Paul and Whitney in my prayers.

I took services today in Wolf Creek and St.Croix Falls United Methodist Churches. I pastored those two congregations for 11 years and retired from them in 2008. Wolf Creek is scrappy and has several new people, so attendance is about the same, if perhaps slightly smaller, than when I was there. St.Croix Falls is painful. Two weeks ago there were about a dozen people in attendance and about the same this morning. When I was there, the place was full, with a side room about half-full on most Sundays. The pianist, who is quite good,  is a refugee from the now-defunct Church of the Nazarene. There was another woman I’d not known before.

Small can be beautiful. I’ve seen small become large; Birchwood almost doubled in size during the 9 years I served there. What happened was that the congregation decided they really did have something to offer, so when they invited someone to church, it was not “please come help us so we won’t die” but “we have something good here; come, taste and see!” People can “smell” the difference. In Birchwood, people who’d lived in town all their lives and had never set foot in that church except perhaps for a funeral started coming to church. In summer, the place was full because cabin people were around; I loved it when my counseling elder and his family showed up one Sunday and couldn’t find anywhere to sit because the place was jammed. That was fun and it made me look good; but it really wasn’t me: the people had let the Lord work and when you do that, things happen.

Yesterday, I attended a graduation party for the daughter of a couple whose wedding I did 20 years ago on the St.Croix River. Jon and Jen have two daughters, both sharp and gracious. They play tennis well and went to State for Mahtomedi. Maggie, the elder, was #3 in her graduating class and will go to Bethel. Grace, the younger sister, also is at the top of her class. I believe the two played as a doubles team in tennis and both expect to play college tennis. Great-grandma is Lucille Henry, of the Exeland United Methodist Church I pastored. She’s 98 years old and teaches Sunday School every week. Lucille cared for a sickly husband for 40-some years and owned the town’s cafe. She also took in her granddaughters when their home life became abusive. Lucille is a remarkable person, erect and alert and fun to be around. She is one of those people who is a good example of the payoff from decades of trying to live out a Christian life.

Just received a very positive response from a reader, who just happens to belong to a book reading club, which means she’s used to reading books with an eye to criticism and discussion. I’m glad to receive that kind of feedback.

On Thursday in Luck, WI I had the opportunity to read “I’ll Cook For You” to the Wisconsin Retired Educators Association Northwest Wisconsin chapter. I had a delightful time and a strong positive response to the story. I sold several books–thanks buyers! Teachers are used to grading the work of students and retirement doesn’t change that, so to have a strongly positive reaction from this group tells me that story (at least) is very good. One never knows how good a story really is until it’s out there to be evaluated. With my 40 years plus of article writing, an editor always gave a “thumbs up” to what I submitted and sometimes–but not often– we negotiated changes. I want reader/listener feedback on my stories because I self-edit my fiction and what I think works might not work for everyone else.

 

Thank you, WREA members for a fun time and a thank-you to the women of Bone Lake Lutheran Church who provided all of us a delicious lunch!

The second batch of print books arrived on friday and some have been sold already. I spent some time tidying up things that needed fixing in the first run of the books and after tinkering with the cover to make the back more read-able, I had just one line to fix in the front page endorsements. That has been done, so I should see the results of that with the next batch of books I get.

 

I do have some issues with this website in that I can Google myself and a bunch of things come up, including this site with the ability of anyone to enter it and change or write whatever they wish. That’s odd and thus far I can’t find a way to prevent that. Webroot has not been helpful.

Well, I spent last Wednesday night correcting and adjusting stuff that needed tweaking–this, after I received my copies of “The First”. Adjusting 8 1/2×11 that was OK for Kindle and online to 6×9 format for print book saw some odd things like sentences that were not connected, missed quotation marks and italics and a few odd dots here and there. That means the people who bought the first batch of my books have a rarity, for whatever that’s worth. Meanwhile, sales of both the Kindle books and the print book (“The First”) have been clicking along. even though I have not unleashed any media publicity about having those stories in print.

 

It’s raining today, so I just might be able to get to continuing work on the next story, “In The Eye Of The Beholder”. We shall see.

Today I was able to hold in my hand for the first time a copy of my print book. The next task is to go through it carefully and note things to adjust and correct for the next printings. I’m talking about things like closed quotes that got missed, a dot that’s out of place, words that should have been in italics and so forth. This is the equivalent of the author’s proof and I’m grateful that I can do that electronically from my cozy office.

 

I’m at an age where I don’t demonstrate excitement as obviously as when I was younger, but I must say that holding my book makes me excited. What a nice milestone!

 

Again, the book is available through Amazon.com. It’s called “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories” and people tell me they can pull it up on Amazon either by the title or by my writing name, Mark Hayes Peacock.

My paperback book, “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories”, is published and is available now through Amazon.com. First reports are that simply entering the title brings up the book quite quickly. Yay!