Anna DeStefano's Blog

I’ve been thinking a lot about the gifts that experience gives us –when we look back from the other side of hard work and FINALLY understand what it’s all been about. Why doesn’t time just man up every now and then, and whisper what we’re about to learn into our ear, so we can relax while it’s happening? I’m guessing because then we wouldn’t “learn nothin’” while life does it’s spinning out of control thing.

Relaxing amidst chaos is one of my “revising” goals for this year.  As you might guess, chilling can be hard for me. When something’s important enough, and the war is difficult enough that I can only see the day-to-day battles rather than the finish line, things can get a little sticky.

Finding the solution to every problem was a given when I was in school. Easing off on the overracting was simpler then.  And all I had to do was study and work hard and trust that I’d get to the core of every challenge. As long as I didn’t get so frustrated that I self-destructed, as long as I was patient, I’d eventually graduate to a new world where I could finally start my life. Wouldn’t it be nice if the battles we fought beyond school were that straight forward?

Well, exactly who said they weren’t? (more…)

If you’re following me on Facebook and Twitter, you’ll see a good bit of food come and go in my updates and tweets. I’m married to an Italian. And while we’re busy as all get out, sitting down to family dinner as many nights a week as possible is our goal. It’s important. It matters. And not just because in traditional Italian households, food is love. But because cooking is a relaxing, creative outlet for us, and so is watching our son fall in love with lots of different foods and a variety of recipes that don’t include chicken nuggets, hot dogs and mac & cheese (staples until just a few years ago). We’re watching him grow into the adult he’s going to be, and I wouldn’t miss that for the world.

Saturdays matter around here, too… (more…)

Okay, so I disappeared–with purpose–again.

 Dorchester’s pushing for a Nov. release for Secret Legacy, even though I had to take two months off from writing for health reasons and extended my draft deadline. Which meant that my editor needed an early version of the first act or so of the story to begin working with (they’re saying something about a special promotion for the release, which sounds really exciting, but I have no details so, no sure what that means). Which meant, I had to stop forward momentum crafting the second half of the story to go back and revise the beginning. And revise. And revise… And since my blog for the  moment is “Revising a Year,” let me just say again that revision in life and in story is about searching for meaning.

I’ve learned a lot from writing and living over the last few years, but never more than I have the last month or so. Challenge and adversity and unending kindness and generosity, encapsulated and showered on you when you least expect it and need it most, will do that to you. So, I wake up the morning after our second snow storm in less than a month (very unusual for north Georgia) feeling March like it is January.

The new beginning I’ve been expecting is finally here, maybe because I’m back to a place where I can see forward (and backwards) and not just survive through this minute and the next. It’s almost spring, and I don’t really remember much of the coldest part of the winter. It was too difficult a time. Too much of a survive or fade away time. And I’m finally well enough for that not to be enough… (more…)