At the end of this month Susan attends a Mary Buckham workshop onboard the Carnival Paradise. She is also collaborating on a proposal for a non-fiction book.

Close Your Eyes, Make a Wish

So, I’m laying on an examining table in the plastic surgeon’s office, one eyelid cut open across the crease line – and the surgeon excuses himself “to get a new battery pack.” He drapes a cloth over my fully cut open eyelid and leaves the office. I am alone, mid-surgery, contemplating full flatout panic. It occurs to me that, if I so wished, I could jump from the table and turn into a crazy lady screaming down the street, one eyelid flapping in the breeze. Of course, once the local anaesthetic wore off the pain would kick in.

Cancel one panic attack. And then I hear the surgeon ask his assistant where the spare battery packs are because they’re not where they should be. Sweet mother of pearl.

Back up, back way up. A little context is in order:

Twelve years ago I had mononucleosis. A classic symptom of mono is swollen lymph glands and it turns out we have lymph glands in our eyelids. Who knew? My left eyelid puffed up like a little football. It settled back down soon enough but after that it was like a sweater that had stretched out. Over the years the eyelid began to sag a little.  This didn’t actually bother me. No, what bothered me was the c-section scar which I acquired eight years ago. The surgeon did a stupendously poor job. He died shortly thereafter. You can imagine the thought-loop on that one what with that whole notion of not speaking ill of the dead.

A year ago I consulted some surgeons about having the Very Bad Amazingly Awful C-Section Surgery corrected. One of them told me about how he could take the fat from my mid-section and inject it around my eyes.  Reallocate fat in order to look better? Plump up my deflated eyelid? Lose the gutters under my eyes? Well, hell yeah, why not? It was practically natural. Strike a blow for environmental responsibility! Less fat in the landfill!

So it was that along with the c-section repair I had fat grafted above and below my eyes. The c-section repair was a non-event compared to the Technicolor marvel that was my face. For weeks the colours unfolded: deep purples and blues became reds and pinks and eventually yellows and greens. I wore sunglasses everywhere. It took about a month for the puffy-lumpy-bumpiness around my eyes to fully settle down. But I had a tiger by the tail. The surgeon had informed me that a follow-up procedure would be necessary. There was no backing out.

This pretty much brings us to the mid-procedure moment in the surgeon’s office, silent scream and all. I can hear the surgical assistant shuffle boxes around, looking for a new battery pack. And then I heard her tell the doctor, “Oh, here they are. Someone must have moved them.”

She sounds relieved.

Relief?

Back of the line, sister.

* * * * * * * * 

Getting to the Bull’s-Eye

Years ago a friend of mine left his comfortable life as a popular morning radio announcer in Vancouver and drove to Los Angeles to become a successful screenwriter. Funny thing: he went on to live a comfortable life as a popular radio announcer in LA. As he puts it these days – with his usual dry wit – he married the successful screenwriter. (I will add here he is very successful; you would recognize his voice.)

Here’s how he once described the journey toward screenwriting success: a mad scramble over a dart-board that features higher and higher hurdles as one progresses toward the bull’s-eye.

I hold onto that image in my particular journey toward publication. My official bull’s-eye is the ecstatic moment when someone, somewhere, says Yes. Unofficially, however, I have learned to accept that a cosmic Yes comes in many guises. The Constant Gingerheart Reader will recognize  that the term “Positive rejection” is not an oxymoron.

Well, now I can top that.I entered an agent’s contest and I “won”! Well, to be quite specific, along with twenty percent of the people who sent her a one-paragraph pitch I won the right to send her the first three chapters of Kindergarten Mafia. Oo lala. Frabjous day. It’s a Yes. Okay, it’s not a publication Yes but it’s something to celebrate.

In addition, an editor responded with a Yes to my query letter – and he requested the full manuscript of Kindergarten Mafia.

And finally, I pitched a non-fiction book  to a published writer and she who also gave me a Yes. More on that project next month!