Christy English

 Last week I had the unusual experience of reading the comments an editor made while passing on my novel.  The Queen’s Pawn is being looked at by editors in nine houses in New York. Three of these houses have passed so far, which is to be expected. I have been at this awhile, so I am never surprised by rejection. I am, however surprised by compliments.

Last week’s pass was particularly surprising. The editor, a well respected woman at a house I have always hoped to work with, was so pleased with my style that she would read the same novel again with an eye toward buying it, if I were to make major changes.

Once more, I disappeared from my own website for the better part of a year. I am a terrible blogger, but when I am not  online, which is most of the time, I am working to become a better writer. While most of my fiction is historical in nature, concerning the Plantagenets of England and France in the late part of the twelfth century, I also write some modern fiction. The following story is one that has never been published, but that I am fond of, in spite of its many faults. It is called Tiger’s Eye. It’s a story I wrote years ago, before moving away from Wilmington and finding greater joy in New York.

If anyone has glanced at my blog since February, they might have asked the question: Where did Christy go? The answer: I’ve been writing. The novel I was concerned about in February, the novel whose revision eluded me for months, finally came clear. Princess of France, now renamed Queen’s Pawn, has been revised both to my satisfaction and my agent’s, and is now out among the editors in New York. When will it be bought? Only the gods know. But I thank the Muse who feeds my soul. One way or another, I will get my novels into the wider world.

       I almost did not write this post today. The conference ended only Sunday, and today is Tuesday. I thought to myself, “I need more time to take in all that I learned. I need time to think.” Well, I’ve decided to ignore all that. I have too much work to do on my novel revision to wait any longer. Whatever my thoughts are, they’re going online. Because I was completely inspired by this year’s San Francisco’s Writers’ Conference.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t usually read poetry. Well, e.e.cummings and Shakespeare, but that’s about it. Most modern poetry usually takes me back to those painful nights in college when I would go and sit in our campus coffee house and listen to my  boyfriend and others read their work aloud in an environment where no one could get up and leave and where no one could throw things when the poetry was bad, which was often.

Right Lane Ends is not that kind of poetry.