The prize at the bottom of the bottle

After doubling our house’s kid population from two to four, and having my husband’s mom and sister here all week, and indulging in our new hobby of cocktail-making every night with them, you would think I’d have plenty of writing material from the past few days.  The fact is, though, that the week went by in a blur of whiskey and gin and brownie crumbs.  I can make a mean Tom Collins now, and can be counted on for a steady supply of kid yogurt, lemons, limes, and simple syrup in the fridge.  But in my saturated state, I succeeded in only two early morning writing days – Monday and Tuesday.  I set the alarm for 6 AM on Wednesday, slapped the snooze button several times before finally climbing out of bed at 7, and didn’t even bother to set it Thursday or Friday.  I didn’t touch the keyboard except to check our bank account.

Despite my sorry showing this week, I do have good news to share.  This morning, after hugging and kissing and crying goodbye to my husband’s family, bundling our kids onto the bus, and starting the first of seven loads of post-guest laundry, I sat down at the computer to check email and found this:

Dear Andrea,

Your piece, “Riding in Boats Through Salt Marshes” has been selected by Jim Minick and Tiffany Trent for inclusion in the spring New River Valley Voices juried reading. Congratulations!

We look forward to hearing your work at the reading on Sunday, April 21, 3 PM at the Blacksburg Public Library. Each reader will have ten minutes in which to share his/her piece, including any introductory comments.

Not a bad way to end a week of not-writing.  I want to thank Lesley, my local writing friend and a previous winner in the NRV Valley Voices writing competition, for critiquing “Riding in Boats” and helping me get it ready for submission.  Her ideas helped make it a much stronger piece.  Thank you Les!

Now, with our new life of kid sports, including an out-of-town soccer tournament the weekend of the reading, all I have to do is figure out how to get back to Blacksburg in time to read.  I will keep you posted with details as the reading nears – I hope to see some of my local friends and twitter pals there.

New River Valley Voices is an all-volunteer effort with a twofold mission: to provide NRV writers with a quality forum within which to share their work, and to grow and nurture NRV audiences for the literary arts.