Zane Grey? Really!

My poor husband. He must get this no-win feeling every time I sit him down and say, "let me read this to you."

He doesn't like or 'get' most of my writing. Especially poetry.

So I try to just make him beta read only a few of my stories. I try to save it for when I really need an opinion. I know family is not the best judge, they are biased, but sometimes I just need to bounce things around a bit. Talk through what is not working.

Last night, I needed someone to read a story I have started for this off-site contest. So I tied him to the chair and read it to him.

When I got finished, he said "Wow, that's really detailed, kind of like Zane Grey." Zane Grey? Really? I was writing like a published author. How exciting!

"Yeah, you know, when I read Zane Grey, it's too much. He stops to describe every flower of every field, and then, when he's describing the horse the guy is riding on, he details every conch in the saddle, every hair on the horse's head. I just want to know what color the horse is. Not it's whole life story."

Oh. Maybe not as much a compliment as I thought!

"So you're saying I need to lighten up the description?"

"Yeah, that story sounds like a really long poem."

Back to the drawing board!

Thank you honey for your patience. Oh...and by the way, I have this poem...

As some of you already know from my excited facebook post - Vox Poetica has accepted Spring, After the Drought. I'm very excited about this poem. It was part of the April initiative on writing.com. Some friends and I did a 30 day challenge, we did 30 poems in 30 days. I wrote "Spring After the Drought" about my husband, and it's one of my favorites. It's scheduled to appear the night of Sept. 19th. I've also included an audio file, my first recording of one of my poems. This is all so exciting! Thank you so much to Vox Poetica for giving "Spring" a chance.