This was a hard day on which to find things to be thankful for...so it seemed even more important that I do it!
1) I am thankful for getting to sleep in.
2) Having gone to the dentist today, I am thankful for anesthesia!
3) I am thankful we got a check today from my husband's recent contract work.
4) I am thankful my parents are celebrating 42 years of marriage today.
5) I am thankful for our short trip to Galveston this past weekend.
6) I am thankful for baby grins, baby laughs, and silly baby dances.
7) I am misguidedly thankful for cheese wontons.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Funky 15
The ever-talented and prolific Cynthia Leitich Smith tagged me, along with several other Austin writers, to list "15 weird, random things, facts, habits, or goals" about myself.
Since it's hard to think of 15 things I haven't already blogged about, I've decided to use Cynthia's own list for inspiration. So here is my list of "15 weird, random things, facts, habits, or goals about me, all inspired by Cynthia's 15 things."
1) Although I never read superhero comics growing up, as Cynthia did, I did read comics--mainly Archie but also things like Mickey Mouse, Casper, Little Lulu, and other kiddie characters. I even drew my own comic once about a girl who loved reading Little Lulu. Part of this was inspired by readng my mother's old comics from the 1940s and 50s (which she recently found!). I also read MAD Magazine, which wasn't a common choice among other little girls I knew. I'm not sure if it helped form my offbeat sense of humor, or if I read it because I already had an offbeat sense of humor!
2) I wrote my own little comics, like a recurring one called Robin Lee, and once served as the cartoonist for my elementary school paper. I also wrote my own magazines, made greeting cards from a company I named The Creation Box, and oddly, I often created fake homework assignments as done by characters I invented, then switched to teacher mode to correct it as their teachers would. I'd also draw things like, "Jenny as drawn by Sara," and then "Jenny as she really looks," and then a few years later I'd go back and redo them when I thought my drawing skills had improved! (And I did take a cartooning class once as a kid, but I still don't have good drawing skills!)
3) Now that Cynthia mentioned subscribing to 100 comics a month, I don't have to feel too weird for subscribing to so many magazines! I have subscribed to as many as 25 magazines at a time. I love them. I have no idea how many I'm subscribed to now since it's hard to keep up with the subscriptions, but I know I've let a lot lapse... I'm sure we get at least 12 or 14 now, but there are more I mean to renew. I used to excuse the expense by saying, "This is my entertainment budget; we don't have cable TV." But now we've had cable for years so, oops!
4) I saw The Empire Strikes Back 5 times in the theater when it came out, which I think still stands as the most I've ever seen any one movie in the theater (yeah, pathetic next to Cynthia's 350 for Star Wars!). As I've mentioned before, I spent my 14th birthday seeing it alone after my "boyfriend" of one week (one week ending that day!) stood me up for a Six Flags date. I also had a large collection of The Empire Strikes Back trading cards, but I came across some recently and apparently, the only ones I kept are the ones with Han Solo on them! {Blush} I used to listen to Han & Leia's theme over & over & over on my record player.... (Also, while I don't do a Kermit the Frog impression like Cynthia, my 7-year-old does an amusing Yoda. Here he is last summer at age 6, saying "Read you will" and "A Jedi master we need.")
5) When I was a child, I wrote letters to Judy Blume and Madeleine L'Engle to let them know how much I loved their books. Unfortunately, I never mailed the letter to Madeleine L'Engle and now it's too late. (Though I did get to meet another childhood favorite author, Paula Danziger, while she was still alive.) But Judy Blume wrote back. I felt guilty because my friend and I both wrote to her at the same time, and she sent my friend a brochure with her autograph on it, but she wrote several sentences on my brochure! I have no idea where it is now. I am very, very glad, however, that I never mailed the really embarrassing letter I found that I once wrote to Mork and Mindy....
6) My first car was a navy blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, which I totaled on the way home from work late at night, only 7 weeks after getting it. I had already finished my freshman year of college at this point, but had to wait until I finished my sophomore year before getting another car! (By the way, I just realized I was wearing a shirt decorated with Mickey Mouse comic panels in the photo below of me with my first car.)
7) The job I was on the way home from when I totaled the car was at a movie theater. Like Cynthia, I served a lot of popcorn in my job, but I worked only at the concession stand, not at the ticket booth or as an usher. The concession stand was a different company than the theater! (And paid 15 cents more per hour, ha.) Some other odd things about the job: I never popped any popcorn (it was only popped once a week!), we weren't really supposed to chat with the theater employees (as if), we didn't have cash registers and had to do all the math in our heads (yes, it caused problems), we only had three kinds of drinks (I would dream all night about endlessly telling customers, "No, we don't have __X__, we only have Coke, Sprite, and Diet Coke"), and we didn't get to see free movies! Even theater employees didn't get free movies, unless they were Employee of the Week, though I did see lots of 15-minute portions of movies on my breaks. I also won a black and white TV from that job, and I still love popcorn.
8) I still have my polyester uniform from the movie theater job. I have no idea why, except that, "I thought I might need it for a costume someday." Even weirder... the shirt that was part of my uniform during my second summer in that job is hanging up in my laundry room right now. My husband came across it recently, apparently thought it was a shirt I currently wear, and washed it and hung it up! (Yes, my husband does laundry!! More than I do, in fact.)
9) Seeing the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which Cynthia mentioned, was the wild way I partied down with my friends on the night of my high school graduation. ;-) Hey, it might have even been a midnight showing! (On a semi-related note, I find it pretty weird in retrospect that I went off to college 200 miles from home, at a university of 50,000 students, less than a month after turning 17. As a parent, it would freak me out to let my kid do that!)
10) My dad spent a semester of grad school in Paris when I was 11 years old, and my whole family went. We lived in an apartment in the Latin Quarter, also close to the Luxembourg Gardens as Cynthia's summer dorm was. I didn't have to go to school while we were there, but it was a really cool place to live for a while (we thought we'd be there a year, but ran out of money), and I spent a lovely Christmas Day playing soccer with my then-3-year-old brother at Luxembourg Gardens. I still miss the Kinder Surprise Eggs I regularly bought when we lived there... you can't buy them in the US because it's apparently illegal to sell food (it's chocolate) with toys inside here, as though someone would really eat a plastic capsule. Sigh. I haven't returned to Paris since, though I did visit Lyon in 1993.
11) Unlike Cynthia, I have had very few jobs. My only paid jobs have been: movie concession stand worker, office temp, and technical writer. I was an office temp in Austin, then an office temp in Dallas/Fort Worth, then a technical writer in Dallas/Fort Worth, then a technical writer in Austin. I also spent 6 weeks as an unpaid video production intern (doing very little myself), and have earned a very small bit of money from freelance writing in recent years. I currently write a monthly column for a garden retailing magazine, and my editor there is the same person who referred me to the office temp agency I worked for in Austin, 19 years ago!
12) My wedding cake was fine, but nothing to blog about. ;-) I had to go way out of my way to find a traditional cake topper with a bride & groom statue I liked, and then I actually painted the bride's hair so it wasn't lighter than the groom's! The groom's cake, a chocolate cake with a basket-weave design and chocolate-dipped strawberries on top, was a much bigger hit than the wedding cake. I took a cake decorating class a few years ago, and the best cake I've decorated was probably a castle cake for my oldest son's 6th birthday, but now that shows like Ace of Cakes are raising the bar for everyone (and I know someone who practically outdoes them...), I've pretty much given up decorating my own cakes!
13) Speaking of cakes, I spent my 21st birthday in England with some friends who were there for an University of Texas summer program at Oxford. (I was just visiting.) My friends went to a bakery and bought me a cake. They asked if the bakery could write my name on it, and the perplexed bakery worker responded, "That'll take a week!" Obviously, British bakeries do things differently than US ones. The cake had a hard white icing--not exactly fondant but more like the outside of a Ding Dong, if it was white--and there was a small toy bear on top clutching some toy balloons, and a ribbon wrapped around the outside of the cake (not getting messy, since the icing was hard). One strange thing about turning 21 in England was that I could already legally drink there as soon as I arrived 3 days earlier, so that part was anti-climactic!
14) My main fears are cockroaches (esp. palmetto bugs, eeeeeek) and snakes, and I'm also quite wary of dogs I'm not familiar with. For some reason, I've never been that scared of heights and have even wanted to skydive. But Cynthia is absolutely right to be frightened of children under 3! (Though technically, she should amend that to "children 3 and under." My older kids had "terrible threes," not "terrible twos"! And do not worry about dropping my 1-year-old; you have more to fear from him than he has to fear from you!)
15) The only very famous person I've met outside of the field of children's writing is Sting. My husband won tickets to his 2004 concert, which included a quick meet and greet with Sting. I've mentioned this before, but this time I'm sharing the photo.
Since it's hard to think of 15 things I haven't already blogged about, I've decided to use Cynthia's own list for inspiration. So here is my list of "15 weird, random things, facts, habits, or goals about me, all inspired by Cynthia's 15 things."
1) Although I never read superhero comics growing up, as Cynthia did, I did read comics--mainly Archie but also things like Mickey Mouse, Casper, Little Lulu, and other kiddie characters. I even drew my own comic once about a girl who loved reading Little Lulu. Part of this was inspired by readng my mother's old comics from the 1940s and 50s (which she recently found!). I also read MAD Magazine, which wasn't a common choice among other little girls I knew. I'm not sure if it helped form my offbeat sense of humor, or if I read it because I already had an offbeat sense of humor!
2) I wrote my own little comics, like a recurring one called Robin Lee, and once served as the cartoonist for my elementary school paper. I also wrote my own magazines, made greeting cards from a company I named The Creation Box, and oddly, I often created fake homework assignments as done by characters I invented, then switched to teacher mode to correct it as their teachers would. I'd also draw things like, "Jenny as drawn by Sara," and then "Jenny as she really looks," and then a few years later I'd go back and redo them when I thought my drawing skills had improved! (And I did take a cartooning class once as a kid, but I still don't have good drawing skills!)
3) Now that Cynthia mentioned subscribing to 100 comics a month, I don't have to feel too weird for subscribing to so many magazines! I have subscribed to as many as 25 magazines at a time. I love them. I have no idea how many I'm subscribed to now since it's hard to keep up with the subscriptions, but I know I've let a lot lapse... I'm sure we get at least 12 or 14 now, but there are more I mean to renew. I used to excuse the expense by saying, "This is my entertainment budget; we don't have cable TV." But now we've had cable for years so, oops!
4) I saw The Empire Strikes Back 5 times in the theater when it came out, which I think still stands as the most I've ever seen any one movie in the theater (yeah, pathetic next to Cynthia's 350 for Star Wars!). As I've mentioned before, I spent my 14th birthday seeing it alone after my "boyfriend" of one week (one week ending that day!) stood me up for a Six Flags date. I also had a large collection of The Empire Strikes Back trading cards, but I came across some recently and apparently, the only ones I kept are the ones with Han Solo on them! {Blush} I used to listen to Han & Leia's theme over & over & over on my record player.... (Also, while I don't do a Kermit the Frog impression like Cynthia, my 7-year-old does an amusing Yoda. Here he is last summer at age 6, saying "Read you will" and "A Jedi master we need.")
5) When I was a child, I wrote letters to Judy Blume and Madeleine L'Engle to let them know how much I loved their books. Unfortunately, I never mailed the letter to Madeleine L'Engle and now it's too late. (Though I did get to meet another childhood favorite author, Paula Danziger, while she was still alive.) But Judy Blume wrote back. I felt guilty because my friend and I both wrote to her at the same time, and she sent my friend a brochure with her autograph on it, but she wrote several sentences on my brochure! I have no idea where it is now. I am very, very glad, however, that I never mailed the really embarrassing letter I found that I once wrote to Mork and Mindy....
6) My first car was a navy blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, which I totaled on the way home from work late at night, only 7 weeks after getting it. I had already finished my freshman year of college at this point, but had to wait until I finished my sophomore year before getting another car! (By the way, I just realized I was wearing a shirt decorated with Mickey Mouse comic panels in the photo below of me with my first car.)
7) The job I was on the way home from when I totaled the car was at a movie theater. Like Cynthia, I served a lot of popcorn in my job, but I worked only at the concession stand, not at the ticket booth or as an usher. The concession stand was a different company than the theater! (And paid 15 cents more per hour, ha.) Some other odd things about the job: I never popped any popcorn (it was only popped once a week!), we weren't really supposed to chat with the theater employees (as if), we didn't have cash registers and had to do all the math in our heads (yes, it caused problems), we only had three kinds of drinks (I would dream all night about endlessly telling customers, "No, we don't have __X__, we only have Coke, Sprite, and Diet Coke"), and we didn't get to see free movies! Even theater employees didn't get free movies, unless they were Employee of the Week, though I did see lots of 15-minute portions of movies on my breaks. I also won a black and white TV from that job, and I still love popcorn.
8) I still have my polyester uniform from the movie theater job. I have no idea why, except that, "I thought I might need it for a costume someday." Even weirder... the shirt that was part of my uniform during my second summer in that job is hanging up in my laundry room right now. My husband came across it recently, apparently thought it was a shirt I currently wear, and washed it and hung it up! (Yes, my husband does laundry!! More than I do, in fact.)
9) Seeing the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, which Cynthia mentioned, was the wild way I partied down with my friends on the night of my high school graduation. ;-) Hey, it might have even been a midnight showing! (On a semi-related note, I find it pretty weird in retrospect that I went off to college 200 miles from home, at a university of 50,000 students, less than a month after turning 17. As a parent, it would freak me out to let my kid do that!)
10) My dad spent a semester of grad school in Paris when I was 11 years old, and my whole family went. We lived in an apartment in the Latin Quarter, also close to the Luxembourg Gardens as Cynthia's summer dorm was. I didn't have to go to school while we were there, but it was a really cool place to live for a while (we thought we'd be there a year, but ran out of money), and I spent a lovely Christmas Day playing soccer with my then-3-year-old brother at Luxembourg Gardens. I still miss the Kinder Surprise Eggs I regularly bought when we lived there... you can't buy them in the US because it's apparently illegal to sell food (it's chocolate) with toys inside here, as though someone would really eat a plastic capsule. Sigh. I haven't returned to Paris since, though I did visit Lyon in 1993.
11) Unlike Cynthia, I have had very few jobs. My only paid jobs have been: movie concession stand worker, office temp, and technical writer. I was an office temp in Austin, then an office temp in Dallas/Fort Worth, then a technical writer in Dallas/Fort Worth, then a technical writer in Austin. I also spent 6 weeks as an unpaid video production intern (doing very little myself), and have earned a very small bit of money from freelance writing in recent years. I currently write a monthly column for a garden retailing magazine, and my editor there is the same person who referred me to the office temp agency I worked for in Austin, 19 years ago!
12) My wedding cake was fine, but nothing to blog about. ;-) I had to go way out of my way to find a traditional cake topper with a bride & groom statue I liked, and then I actually painted the bride's hair so it wasn't lighter than the groom's! The groom's cake, a chocolate cake with a basket-weave design and chocolate-dipped strawberries on top, was a much bigger hit than the wedding cake. I took a cake decorating class a few years ago, and the best cake I've decorated was probably a castle cake for my oldest son's 6th birthday, but now that shows like Ace of Cakes are raising the bar for everyone (and I know someone who practically outdoes them...), I've pretty much given up decorating my own cakes!
13) Speaking of cakes, I spent my 21st birthday in England with some friends who were there for an University of Texas summer program at Oxford. (I was just visiting.) My friends went to a bakery and bought me a cake. They asked if the bakery could write my name on it, and the perplexed bakery worker responded, "That'll take a week!" Obviously, British bakeries do things differently than US ones. The cake had a hard white icing--not exactly fondant but more like the outside of a Ding Dong, if it was white--and there was a small toy bear on top clutching some toy balloons, and a ribbon wrapped around the outside of the cake (not getting messy, since the icing was hard). One strange thing about turning 21 in England was that I could already legally drink there as soon as I arrived 3 days earlier, so that part was anti-climactic!
14) My main fears are cockroaches (esp. palmetto bugs, eeeeeek) and snakes, and I'm also quite wary of dogs I'm not familiar with. For some reason, I've never been that scared of heights and have even wanted to skydive. But Cynthia is absolutely right to be frightened of children under 3! (Though technically, she should amend that to "children 3 and under." My older kids had "terrible threes," not "terrible twos"! And do not worry about dropping my 1-year-old; you have more to fear from him than he has to fear from you!)
15) The only very famous person I've met outside of the field of children's writing is Sting. My husband won tickets to his 2004 concert, which included a quick meet and greet with Sting. I've mentioned this before, but this time I'm sharing the photo.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
3 Things for Groundhog Day
1) One thing I resolved for 2008 was to finish one of my outstanding writing projects. In the back of my mind, I thought that following the resolution would also mean not starting anything new until I had done so. Or at least, not starting any new book-length projects. So I'm kind of annoyed to have this idea bombarding me lately for a light time travel novel.
I've decided that, although I don't plan to actively work on the idea anytime soon, I do want to start reading books and watching movies on the themes of time travel, or suddenly finding oneself a different age, or even body swaps (mine wouldn't be a body swap story, but they have similar surprising transformations)--including books I've read before and movies I've seen before--to see how they handle the changes. I know that in some of them, like 13 Going on 30, they never seem to explain the mechanism much, and I'd like it to be something like that if I can get away with it! It'd be more like magic than science. One confusing aspect is I wanted two people to go back in time, but one of them to regress in age and the other not to regress, so it seems like I would almost need two mechanisms... Anyway, so that's my homework for the year, while I'm writing other things. If you have a good one to suggest, let me know. Some I was thinking of were Debra Garfinkle's Stuck in the 70s, Freaky Friday, Big, Sue Corbett's 12 Again, etc.
Come to think of it, the topical movie for today, Groundhog Day, is a little like that, too, and that one never does explain how Bill Murray repeats the same day over and over. He just does. I love that movie anyway.
2) My own groundhogs--one from Build-A-Bear Workshop (Morris), and one who was technically due on Groundhog Day last year, though he made his appearance 9 days too early!
3) What do I want to write? I think I need to finish my midgrade novel. I'm at least 2/3 into it already. But I've also been thinking I need to seriously work on one of my picture book ideas. The more picture books I see, the more I'm convinced my favorite one would sell if I could only do it justice. The problem is, it needs much more of a plot arc than it currently has, and I've been stuck about that for years! But I need to brainstorm about that when I have spare minutes, and work on the novel when I have larger chunks of time.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
My wacky son
Technically, I have 3 wacky sons, but the middle one, who turns 7 next week, says some particularly wacky and amusing things. He's been joking with us since before he could really speak, and is quick to pick up on catch phrases, funny voices and accents, or quirky ways of putting things. He'll playfully say stuff like, "Totally rad, Dude!" or "In your dreams, Baby!" and was talking that way even at 3 or 4 years old, and even though he doesn't hear it from us. About half the time, he'll say something hilarious, and then I'll find out he was riffing on something else he'd heard somewhere, but they say that originality is the art of concealing your sources, and he does have a comedian's gift for combining things in a new way to come up with interesting takes on things. (Even in art, he's great at imitation, but can also bring together things he's seen in different places to make something new out of them.)
Yesterday, out of the blue on the way to art class, he said, "I'm writing a book, and I'm dedicating it to..." (dramatic pause) "the robot I've always loved!" A moment later he added: "The book is called How to Dedicate a Book to a Robot." (He's not writing a book, and he hasn't always loved a robot. But he does crack me up!)
Yesterday, out of the blue on the way to art class, he said, "I'm writing a book, and I'm dedicating it to..." (dramatic pause) "the robot I've always loved!" A moment later he added: "The book is called How to Dedicate a Book to a Robot." (He's not writing a book, and he hasn't always loved a robot. But he does crack me up!)
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
2008!
Happy 2008 to all! For some reason, I feel joyful, buoyant, and magnanimous at the moment, so I thought I'd post before it passed!
We rang in the new year more quietly than normal, just hanging out with the kids, watching the countdowns on TV. The baby was asleep on my husband. The other kids stayed up until just after midnight, and of course we had our customary New Year's hats and serpentine, and the kids blew horns outside at midnight. It was sleepy, but nice.
And I'm making resolutions this year! In 2005, I made only two (to get rid of 1,000 things, which I more than did, and to finish my midgrade novel, which I still haven't!). In 2006, I'm not sure I made even one. In 2007, I decided to go for a theme instead, but never quite chose between "passion" and "family"! With a baby born in January, I figured it would be a year of hunkering down with the family, not doing much writing, and I was right, but I also didn't manage to focus on my family in quite the way I intended. So, this year, I'm back to good old-fashioned resolutions, and I have lots of them!
We rang in the new year more quietly than normal, just hanging out with the kids, watching the countdowns on TV. The baby was asleep on my husband. The other kids stayed up until just after midnight, and of course we had our customary New Year's hats and serpentine, and the kids blew horns outside at midnight. It was sleepy, but nice.
And I'm making resolutions this year! In 2005, I made only two (to get rid of 1,000 things, which I more than did, and to finish my midgrade novel, which I still haven't!). In 2006, I'm not sure I made even one. In 2007, I decided to go for a theme instead, but never quite chose between "passion" and "family"! With a baby born in January, I figured it would be a year of hunkering down with the family, not doing much writing, and I was right, but I also didn't manage to focus on my family in quite the way I intended. So, this year, I'm back to good old-fashioned resolutions, and I have lots of them!
They're not completely set in stone yet, but a few are:
- to finish a writing project that's been stranded for a while
- to find places for things in my house that don't have good places
- to be more active (very easy to achieve, as inactive as I've been lately!)
Those goals have some related goals that are more specific...like making space and time to write regularly, and maintaining a certain weight, etc., and I'm writing those down, too.
And then I also have a theme for the year, which is to be more purposeful and deliberate--more methodical about getting things done, and calmer, not rushing around in a panic. My motto for the year, to help me with that is: Breathe. Just saying, or even thinking, the word "breathe" in a calm manner, immediately calms me down and helps me focus and relax. So this is the year of focusing, relaxing, and breathing. And enjoying! My secondary motto for the year is: Savor. I want to savor the year, and the moments in that year and the people in my life and the little daily joys. I have NO idea what this year will hold, not even in theory, but I'm ready to embrace it.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
So long to 2007
I've already shared my 2007 Christmas letter summing up the year with most people who would be interested. So for this blog, just a short and non-comprehensive list of a few interesting bits and changes from my 2007: 
Favorite discoveries: Spaced; cooking reality shows (Top Chef, The Next Food Network Star, The Next Iron Chef, etc.); Flip Happy Crepes; Scrabulous (online Scrabble)
Favorite new person met: My baby
Scariest experiences: Pre-eclampsia; turning 40; being stranded on a busy highway overpass at night in a small car with 3 kids; interviewing people by phone for the articles I was writing
Saddest experience: Losing our pet bunny after 10 years
Most unexpected experiences: Natural childbirth; writing a magazine column; eating mushrooms on purpose; connecting with so many old friends online
Weirdest experiences: Very quick childbirth; my husband having to travel with almost no notice; seeing my brother acting in a movie
Biggest blessings: My adorable, sweet baby; the generosity of others
Most impressive accomplishment (to my kids): Beating everyone else in the family in Big Brain Academy on the Wii
Things I missed most this year: Sleep; free time; silence
Out with the old: Good-bye to my defunct laptop computer, computer mice, car engine, radiator, alternator, and water-damaged kitchen floor (the last of which was removed yesterday and is being replaced Monday!)
Most ridiculous joys: My hilarious dancing baby; winning the Mountain Dew mini-fridge I entered 90+ times for, months after I thought they'd stopped sending out prizes
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Voice void
In college, when I took the one acting class UT allowed non-drama majors to take, I had to play Blanche in a duet from A Streetcar Named Desire. I kept practicing and it kept not working for me. For some reason, though, even though it's very southern and Blanche is very southern, having never seen the show before, it didn't occur to me to give her a southern accent. Finally, shortly before we were due to perform it for the teacher, it dawned on me to try a southern accent, and everything fell into place with a satisfying click. The teacher raved about our performance and gave us an A, so I knew I'd found what I needed.
Normally, my writing projects start with a voice, and that's what drives them. I mean literally, they often start with a character talking in my head, telling me what's going on in his or her life, and I just take dictation. I don't necessarily know where the ideas come from, they just appear.
My current NaNoWriMo novel, on the other hand, started with an idea, years ago, in the back of my mind. I let it gestate some, adding characters and ideas and a few plot developments along the way, but 16,000 words in, it still just seems like a random collection of words with a few fairly solid sections sprinkled in. I still don't think it has the right voice. I do think it has the right protagonist, but I haven't quite found her voice yet, the way I hadn't with Blanche. I am more convinced all the time, though, that this book cries out for unusual formatting--e-mails, lists, poems, lyrics, etc.--maybe to the exclusion of regular prose. Maybe the right format, when I find it, will prove to be the right voice. I'm not sure, I'm just wondering if, at this point, what I really need is more words like the ones I've already written, or if I need to pull a NaNo no-no and start tweaking structure first.
In any case, what I have now is nothing like what I want to have when I am done. And yet I see just enough promise there, under the surface, that I feel an intense need to find the true voice and tell the story.
Normally, my writing projects start with a voice, and that's what drives them. I mean literally, they often start with a character talking in my head, telling me what's going on in his or her life, and I just take dictation. I don't necessarily know where the ideas come from, they just appear.
My current NaNoWriMo novel, on the other hand, started with an idea, years ago, in the back of my mind. I let it gestate some, adding characters and ideas and a few plot developments along the way, but 16,000 words in, it still just seems like a random collection of words with a few fairly solid sections sprinkled in. I still don't think it has the right voice. I do think it has the right protagonist, but I haven't quite found her voice yet, the way I hadn't with Blanche. I am more convinced all the time, though, that this book cries out for unusual formatting--e-mails, lists, poems, lyrics, etc.--maybe to the exclusion of regular prose. Maybe the right format, when I find it, will prove to be the right voice. I'm not sure, I'm just wondering if, at this point, what I really need is more words like the ones I've already written, or if I need to pull a NaNo no-no and start tweaking structure first.
In any case, what I have now is nothing like what I want to have when I am done. And yet I see just enough promise there, under the surface, that I feel an intense need to find the true voice and tell the story.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Can't...resist...baby costumes!
Little scarecrow
In his brother's old giraffe costume
R2D2, to go with his brothers' Obi-Wan and Darth Vader costumes
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Baby steps
No, I don't mean I'm taking baby steps in relation to my writing, I mean real, honest-to-goodness baby steps. My baby took 4 steps in a row earlier, and then 5 steps in a row. I didn't see it, but my husband and 6-year-old reported it. I have seen him take one step before, or more like a half-step, but this was his first sequence of steps. (Not that he'd repeat it for me.) His 9-month checkup is tomorrow (he's 9 months 11 days), and his dr had guessed he'd probably be walking by then, so he probably wanted to oblige her!
(As for my writing, I'm 7318 words into my NaNo novel, but it's a hodgepodge of occasionally incompatible scenes!)
Thursday, November 01, 2007
NaNoWriMo 2007
So I'm doing NaNoWriMo again, for better or for worse, and have just under half of my needed word count for today, even though I haven't written in hours. I expect to have no problem making my quota today. (Though my computer is officially DEAD, and I'm having to claim the family computer, which I normally never touch...and which I can't easily use while holding my baby, eek. I'm writing the novel in a Google document so I can work on it from any computer with Internet access, which will probably include some library computers, etc.).
I updated last year's abandoned NaNo blog here: NaNo Madness 2007. To quote from my latest entry in that blog:
I updated last year's abandoned NaNo blog here: NaNo Madness 2007. To quote from my latest entry in that blog:
I've never been as open to writing a crappy first draft as I am right now, and it's kind of exciting. I look forward to just playing with words. E.B. White once said, "I dive into a story the way I dive into the sea, prepared to splash about and make merry," and that's how I'm diving into NaNo this year. (Of course, he also said, "Writing is hard work and bad for the health," but I'm going to go with the first quote for now!)
Thursday, October 25, 2007
3 unrelated things on my mind
I have got to get my article finished and turned in ASAP, because I have 3 books waiting for me to read them: Beige by Cecil Castellucci, Schooled by Gordon Korman, and my fresh-off-the-press copy of the book with all the buzz these days, Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why. I need to read the last one in the next few days to figure out whether it has, in fact, rendered my own suicide-related novel redundant, before I consider whether to actually write said novel for NaNoWriMo this year (highly unlikely, anyway--I started off last year planning to write that one and changed my mind and changed projects, and then scrapped the whole endeavor). I really doubt there would be many similarities at all between Jay Asher's book and the one I have in mind, other than the main character feeling partially to blame for the suicide, but I have a feeling his will far surpass what I was thinking of, in any case! (Oh, and I'm not just reading it for my own selfish reasons... I would have wanted to read it anyway.)
In other news, I got my first writing check of the year today--hooray!--for an article about artificial Christmas trees, of all things. (Obviously an assigned article, not something I would have thought of.) I theoretically have another check coming from a sale to another publication, but I'm not sure when to expect that one.
And my baby turned 9 months old today (already?!), and took his first accidental steps yesterday... I'm not sure he's taken any purposeful ones yet, though. He can dance while not holding onto anything, though! Real steps should be any day now. He has always been in a hurry. We thought he said "Dada" meaningfully today (that is, "Dada" meaning "Daddy," not "Dada" meaning a cultural movement embracing meaninglessness...), but later he seemed to say it referring to me as well as to his father, so we're not sure. Maybe he thinks it means "parent" or "strange large person who keeps trying to stop me from eating anything fun like paper, cameras, or cell phones."
In other news, I got my first writing check of the year today--hooray!--for an article about artificial Christmas trees, of all things. (Obviously an assigned article, not something I would have thought of.) I theoretically have another check coming from a sale to another publication, but I'm not sure when to expect that one.
And my baby turned 9 months old today (already?!), and took his first accidental steps yesterday... I'm not sure he's taken any purposeful ones yet, though. He can dance while not holding onto anything, though! Real steps should be any day now. He has always been in a hurry. We thought he said "Dada" meaningfully today (that is, "Dada" meaning "Daddy," not "Dada" meaning a cultural movement embracing meaninglessness...), but later he seemed to say it referring to me as well as to his father, so we're not sure. Maybe he thinks it means "parent" or "strange large person who keeps trying to stop me from eating anything fun like paper, cameras, or cell phones."
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Paragraph contest
Have you seen this?
THE LARGELY INDISPENSABLE FIRST PARAGRAPH CHALLENGE
It amazes me how many first paragraphs there already are that, despite not being poorly written, don't interest me in reading any further... But it probably does hurt to see them all there in a row. They all start sounding the same to me after a while, like they're trying too hard (or not hard enough!), in a way that they might now if I saw them in isolation.
I doubt I'll dare to enter, but it's fun to read.
THE LARGELY INDISPENSABLE FIRST PARAGRAPH CHALLENGE
It amazes me how many first paragraphs there already are that, despite not being poorly written, don't interest me in reading any further... But it probably does hurt to see them all there in a row. They all start sounding the same to me after a while, like they're trying too hard (or not hard enough!), in a way that they might now if I saw them in isolation.
I doubt I'll dare to enter, but it's fun to read.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Crepe Happy
Recently on the show Throwdown with Bobby Flay, we saw a segment in which chef Bobby Flay was bested at crepe-making by Flip Happy Crepes here in Austin, a funky, trailer-based restaurant that apparently happens to make some of the best crepes in the country. My husband had a meeting downtown yesterday, so I went along with the baby so we could could check out the crepes when he was done. I had read an online review saying the savory crepes were so big, the reviewer and her companion shared one and still didn't have room for dessert. I knew I wanted a dessert crepe, so we decided to split our main course. Bad choice! They weren't really that big, and my husband's choice of crepe (shredded pork with cheddar) was just not what I would have picked (it was good, but tasted more like a burrito to me--I wanted something more French). For dessert, I had the vanilla cream crepe with strawberries and berry sauce... Oh. My. Goodness. That is my idea of a dessert. I love chocolate cake, but 4 times out of 5, I'd pick a fruit tart over anything else for dessert, and this was like a fruit tart with better pastry. I was in heaven. The only problem? After I finished it, I was still hungry. Very hungry. I wanted more crepes! I wished very much I'd tried the roasted chicken crepe or the ham crepe, but they take a long time to prepare and we didn't have time to wait for another.
So...my husband has to go downtown again today, and we're thinking of going back for more crepes!
P.S. Updated 5 hours later to say: we went back. I got roasted chicken with goat cheese, caramelized onions, and mushrooms in garlic sauce. This is extremely remarkable because it is the first time I have eaten a mushroom willingly and one of few times I have eaten onions willingly. I normally say "no mushrooms" and "no onions" on my food, or pick them out. But I wanted the whole experience, and man, it was good. Though it was still a lot like a fancy burrito--I actually picked it up and ate it as one, which you couldn't do with the crepe I had at La Madeleine a few months ago. But since burritos are probably my favorite food, that's not a bad thing! I also had another berry crepe. This time it had blueberries mixed in, and I'm not a huge fan of blueberries, but it was still very good.
So...my husband has to go downtown again today, and we're thinking of going back for more crepes!
P.S. Updated 5 hours later to say: we went back. I got roasted chicken with goat cheese, caramelized onions, and mushrooms in garlic sauce. This is extremely remarkable because it is the first time I have eaten a mushroom willingly and one of few times I have eaten onions willingly. I normally say "no mushrooms" and "no onions" on my food, or pick them out. But I wanted the whole experience, and man, it was good. Though it was still a lot like a fancy burrito--I actually picked it up and ate it as one, which you couldn't do with the crepe I had at La Madeleine a few months ago. But since burritos are probably my favorite food, that's not a bad thing! I also had another berry crepe. This time it had blueberries mixed in, and I'm not a huge fan of blueberries, but it was still very good.
Reading
I haven't been writing, given that the world's most active baby is nearly always with and/or on me, but I've been reading some.
First, I've been reading the short stories in 21 Proms, partly as a quick way to get exposed to the writing of some YA authors I haven't read before, as well as to read new things by writers I already knew. I've been skipping around (randomly, not purposefully) and haven't finished it yet, but so far, my favorites have been the ones by Sarah Mlynowski (written in second person!), E. Lockhart, and John Green. A few others I found very intriguing, including some, like those by Adrienne Maria Vretand and Will Leitch, which read more like adult literary short stories to me than typical YA fiction (especially Leitch's, as it's told from the father's perspective).
Second, I finally read Lauren Barnholdt's book Reality Chick, which I bought ages ago but just came across when organizing my bookshelves. The subject matter isn't weighty (which is fine with me) and the language was a bit in-your-face for me at times, but it kept me reading, and I Iiked the ending.
Third, yesterday I read E. Lockhart's latest novel, Dramarama, about a summer theatre camp. I don't think I liked it as much as some of her other books, especially The Boyfriend List (I missed the footnotes!), but it seemed like a must-read book since I did theatre thoughout junior high and high school. Even though on the outside, I'm very different from the main character Sadye (she's tall and brash; I'm short and quiet), I identified with her singing problems and her feelings of not quite having what it took--while still loving every minute. When her acting teacher lectured her at humiliating length about never being late to rehearsal or otherwise acting unprofessional, I actually read the whole page and a half aloud to my husband, saying, "See, this is what I learned in drama!" because I've mentioned to him a thousand times how, if nothing else, theatre drilled into me to honor my commitments, and it's a lesson a lot of people in this world apparently didn't get growing up. The (initial) ending of the book almost crushed me for a moment, and surprised me. It was more real than I expected! And I so related. The epilogue-type chapter after that, all in dialogue like a few previous sections (a nice touch in a book about plays), didn't seem necessary to me as an adult reader, but I think I would have really wanted that part in there if I was still 16.
I went to the Borders Express store in the mall tonight. Even that tiny bookstore has a large YA section now. I was looking at all the books, and suddenly realized that the kind of small paperback YA novels I always read when I was growing up, the kind I imagined my own name on someday, have been replaced almost entirely by large trade paperbacks. There are also so many hardcover YA books for sale these days, when they seemed rather rare in my own teen years. Basically, there are hardcovers, and then there are paperbacks in approximately the same page size as the hardcovers. The paperbacks are very high quaity these days, and I particularly love the ones with the smooth, non-glossy covers, but it still seems weird that it's just not what I ever pictured. I suddenly wasn't sure my books would fit there. I wondered if I should concentrate more on my midgrades, because the midgrade section looked more comfortably familiar somehow. Not that I'd really change my writing for that reason; it just struck me. Though I did note that if I had a book for sale there, I'd be shelved between the A-List books and Sarah Dessen, and that couldn't be bad for getting people's eyes on my books!
First, I've been reading the short stories in 21 Proms, partly as a quick way to get exposed to the writing of some YA authors I haven't read before, as well as to read new things by writers I already knew. I've been skipping around (randomly, not purposefully) and haven't finished it yet, but so far, my favorites have been the ones by Sarah Mlynowski (written in second person!), E. Lockhart, and John Green. A few others I found very intriguing, including some, like those by Adrienne Maria Vretand and Will Leitch, which read more like adult literary short stories to me than typical YA fiction (especially Leitch's, as it's told from the father's perspective).
Second, I finally read Lauren Barnholdt's book Reality Chick, which I bought ages ago but just came across when organizing my bookshelves. The subject matter isn't weighty (which is fine with me) and the language was a bit in-your-face for me at times, but it kept me reading, and I Iiked the ending.
Third, yesterday I read E. Lockhart's latest novel, Dramarama, about a summer theatre camp. I don't think I liked it as much as some of her other books, especially The Boyfriend List (I missed the footnotes!), but it seemed like a must-read book since I did theatre thoughout junior high and high school. Even though on the outside, I'm very different from the main character Sadye (she's tall and brash; I'm short and quiet), I identified with her singing problems and her feelings of not quite having what it took--while still loving every minute. When her acting teacher lectured her at humiliating length about never being late to rehearsal or otherwise acting unprofessional, I actually read the whole page and a half aloud to my husband, saying, "See, this is what I learned in drama!" because I've mentioned to him a thousand times how, if nothing else, theatre drilled into me to honor my commitments, and it's a lesson a lot of people in this world apparently didn't get growing up. The (initial) ending of the book almost crushed me for a moment, and surprised me. It was more real than I expected! And I so related. The epilogue-type chapter after that, all in dialogue like a few previous sections (a nice touch in a book about plays), didn't seem necessary to me as an adult reader, but I think I would have really wanted that part in there if I was still 16.
I went to the Borders Express store in the mall tonight. Even that tiny bookstore has a large YA section now. I was looking at all the books, and suddenly realized that the kind of small paperback YA novels I always read when I was growing up, the kind I imagined my own name on someday, have been replaced almost entirely by large trade paperbacks. There are also so many hardcover YA books for sale these days, when they seemed rather rare in my own teen years. Basically, there are hardcovers, and then there are paperbacks in approximately the same page size as the hardcovers. The paperbacks are very high quaity these days, and I particularly love the ones with the smooth, non-glossy covers, but it still seems weird that it's just not what I ever pictured. I suddenly wasn't sure my books would fit there. I wondered if I should concentrate more on my midgrades, because the midgrade section looked more comfortably familiar somehow. Not that I'd really change my writing for that reason; it just struck me. Though I did note that if I had a book for sale there, I'd be shelved between the A-List books and Sarah Dessen, and that couldn't be bad for getting people's eyes on my books!
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Art and "the arts"
Questions at the bottom for those who prefer to skip to the end...
My 6-year-old son appears to have a gift for visual art. He loves art, and seems to have good control over his drawing hand, and an ability to copy what he sees pretty well. When we lived in Sarasota, a city known for art, I wanted to sign him up for an art class that was advertised a lot and looked good, but they had a minimum age of 6, and he was 5. By the time he was 6, we had moved back to Texas.
His school here offers art for 1/3 of the year, and he loves that, but honestly, I could tell the school art classes were not going to challenge him to work to the best of his ability and help him learn the techniques he could really benefit from. So I found an outside art class for elementary students, and signed him up. However...when we went to the orientation I wasn't impressed with much that I saw there, and I wanted to try somewhere else first. We went to tour another local art school I'd heard about, and it looked great. There are "classes" in that several students come at once, but the instructon is completely individualized. The room is great and kind of cool-looking (not a tiny childcare classroom like at the other place, but a studio where real art is happening), the grounds have a great atmosphere with chickens, ducks, turkeys, and peacocks wandering around, and best of all, the art on display looked really good. I saw kids not much older than my son making art that looked like someone much older had done it. So we signed him up for a trial class and he loved it, asking how many days until he could come back the next week. I think he is going to get a lot out of it.
I kind of wonder if I should consider taking art myself. In Sarasota, I had plans to take the same art class I wanted to sign him up for. They had a class that taught you to draw a portrait based on a photograph in 5 classes, and I wanted to do that, but chickened out of ever actually going in on my own! (I also couldn't decide who to draw...silly me.) This one would surely be a longer process. I have never really taken an art class. I always assumed real artists had an innate drive to create art, and that if I wasn't driven to do art above all, then I must not be an artist. I was also always stymied by paintbrushes and color choices. However, I've always enjoyed doodling, did take a cartooning class as a child, and particularly enjoy writing in different handwritings and experimenting with different fonts. I think I have a moderate amount of control over my pen. I have wondered if maybe I should take calligraphy. I've avoided that in the past because it looked like too much of the same all the time (basically Zapf Chancery over & over), but of course some people do some really amazing things with calligraphy. I also signed up for a Layout and Design class once that I didn't complete because they expected the students to come into it with good drawing skills.
Meanwhile...my church has recently started helping sponsor an arts organization. The arts it covers are visual art, theatre, music, and dance. I always wonder why writing is not usually considered an art. So many of my concerns as a writer, especially a creative writer, are the same concerns other artists might have, but I notice that arts organizations often limit themsleves to visual and performing arts. I am trying to decide whether to get involved with this organization anyway. It would be a hardship with my baby and family and only one car. But this week, on a night when I can't figure out how I'd get there, they're having theatre games night. I love theatre games! In a way it seems crazy not to go, since I'd love an outlet like that. In another way, I'd be mortified to go, because I think many of the other participants are working actors in local theatre. I haven't done theatre in many years and am not really good at it. I just like it. It also interferes with my kids' activities that night, and probably with my baby's schedule. But I would have moved heaven & earth for such an opportunity last year, when I was in Florida without knowing anyone and feeling desperate for a creative environment.
I pretty much figured I couldn't go, and shouldn't since my main art is writing, but I just found a diary-type book from high school in which I wrote my future goals. 9th grade: "Things I Want to Do in the Future: Be an actress, write, be a wife and mother." 10th grade: "Things I Want to Do in the Future: Be an actress, wife, mother, writer." 11th grade: "What I Want to Be: Actress, writer, work on TV production...? museum worker?" 12th grade: "What I Want to Be: Actress, writer, something involved with Radio/TV/Film." Now, there were a few other things in there--I also wrote that I wanted to go to UT (which I did), live in Santa Fe (no), skydive (no), and ride in a hot air balloon (no), but note that actress came before writer every year back then. I am a wife, a mother, and theoretically a writer, but acting went bye-bye long ago. I don't know if there's any point in pursuing it now just because I said that in the distant past, but there is still a definite draw there for me.
So the questions I have for my patient readers is:
(1) If I might have any talent at visual art, would I already know it by now? Aren't artists generally driven to create art throughout their lives? Is there any point in taking up visual art as an adult? I don't aim to develop strong enough skills to be an illustrator or anything, it would mainly be for fun, but I'm sort of curious whether I could do it.
(2) Why isn't creative writing usually counted as one of "the arts"? I know it sometimes is, as I have read poetry as part of a church "Arts Fest" before, and it is possible to get an MFA in Creative Writing. But it seems like it's only counted rarely. Is it because visual and performing arts are easier to recognize as art or easier to display? Or because there's a very blurry line between, say, expository writing and journalism, some of which is very artful and some of which is purely practical, and art? I think film also gets left out of "the arts" a lot, and it also has some very blurry lines around the edges, but then some people consider it art, also. In fact, my Radio/TV/Film degree from UT-Austin is a Bachelor of Science degree, but at UT-Arlington, Radio and TV were in Liberal Arts, while Film was in the Fine Arts department!
My 6-year-old son appears to have a gift for visual art. He loves art, and seems to have good control over his drawing hand, and an ability to copy what he sees pretty well. When we lived in Sarasota, a city known for art, I wanted to sign him up for an art class that was advertised a lot and looked good, but they had a minimum age of 6, and he was 5. By the time he was 6, we had moved back to Texas.
His school here offers art for 1/3 of the year, and he loves that, but honestly, I could tell the school art classes were not going to challenge him to work to the best of his ability and help him learn the techniques he could really benefit from. So I found an outside art class for elementary students, and signed him up. However...when we went to the orientation I wasn't impressed with much that I saw there, and I wanted to try somewhere else first. We went to tour another local art school I'd heard about, and it looked great. There are "classes" in that several students come at once, but the instructon is completely individualized. The room is great and kind of cool-looking (not a tiny childcare classroom like at the other place, but a studio where real art is happening), the grounds have a great atmosphere with chickens, ducks, turkeys, and peacocks wandering around, and best of all, the art on display looked really good. I saw kids not much older than my son making art that looked like someone much older had done it. So we signed him up for a trial class and he loved it, asking how many days until he could come back the next week. I think he is going to get a lot out of it.
I kind of wonder if I should consider taking art myself. In Sarasota, I had plans to take the same art class I wanted to sign him up for. They had a class that taught you to draw a portrait based on a photograph in 5 classes, and I wanted to do that, but chickened out of ever actually going in on my own! (I also couldn't decide who to draw...silly me.) This one would surely be a longer process. I have never really taken an art class. I always assumed real artists had an innate drive to create art, and that if I wasn't driven to do art above all, then I must not be an artist. I was also always stymied by paintbrushes and color choices. However, I've always enjoyed doodling, did take a cartooning class as a child, and particularly enjoy writing in different handwritings and experimenting with different fonts. I think I have a moderate amount of control over my pen. I have wondered if maybe I should take calligraphy. I've avoided that in the past because it looked like too much of the same all the time (basically Zapf Chancery over & over), but of course some people do some really amazing things with calligraphy. I also signed up for a Layout and Design class once that I didn't complete because they expected the students to come into it with good drawing skills.
Meanwhile...my church has recently started helping sponsor an arts organization. The arts it covers are visual art, theatre, music, and dance. I always wonder why writing is not usually considered an art. So many of my concerns as a writer, especially a creative writer, are the same concerns other artists might have, but I notice that arts organizations often limit themsleves to visual and performing arts. I am trying to decide whether to get involved with this organization anyway. It would be a hardship with my baby and family and only one car. But this week, on a night when I can't figure out how I'd get there, they're having theatre games night. I love theatre games! In a way it seems crazy not to go, since I'd love an outlet like that. In another way, I'd be mortified to go, because I think many of the other participants are working actors in local theatre. I haven't done theatre in many years and am not really good at it. I just like it. It also interferes with my kids' activities that night, and probably with my baby's schedule. But I would have moved heaven & earth for such an opportunity last year, when I was in Florida without knowing anyone and feeling desperate for a creative environment.
I pretty much figured I couldn't go, and shouldn't since my main art is writing, but I just found a diary-type book from high school in which I wrote my future goals. 9th grade: "Things I Want to Do in the Future: Be an actress, write, be a wife and mother." 10th grade: "Things I Want to Do in the Future: Be an actress, wife, mother, writer." 11th grade: "What I Want to Be: Actress, writer, work on TV production...? museum worker?" 12th grade: "What I Want to Be: Actress, writer, something involved with Radio/TV/Film." Now, there were a few other things in there--I also wrote that I wanted to go to UT (which I did), live in Santa Fe (no), skydive (no), and ride in a hot air balloon (no), but note that actress came before writer every year back then. I am a wife, a mother, and theoretically a writer, but acting went bye-bye long ago. I don't know if there's any point in pursuing it now just because I said that in the distant past, but there is still a definite draw there for me.
So the questions I have for my patient readers is:
(1) If I might have any talent at visual art, would I already know it by now? Aren't artists generally driven to create art throughout their lives? Is there any point in taking up visual art as an adult? I don't aim to develop strong enough skills to be an illustrator or anything, it would mainly be for fun, but I'm sort of curious whether I could do it.
(2) Why isn't creative writing usually counted as one of "the arts"? I know it sometimes is, as I have read poetry as part of a church "Arts Fest" before, and it is possible to get an MFA in Creative Writing. But it seems like it's only counted rarely. Is it because visual and performing arts are easier to recognize as art or easier to display? Or because there's a very blurry line between, say, expository writing and journalism, some of which is very artful and some of which is purely practical, and art? I think film also gets left out of "the arts" a lot, and it also has some very blurry lines around the edges, but then some people consider it art, also. In fact, my Radio/TV/Film degree from UT-Austin is a Bachelor of Science degree, but at UT-Arlington, Radio and TV were in Liberal Arts, while Film was in the Fine Arts department!
Friday, September 14, 2007
Sweet 16 again
So a couple of weeks after posting about my Sweet 16 birthday, I'm having a Sweet 16 again--only this time it's my 16th wedding anniversary! Can I have a big party with a band and a free car this time...? Actually, I settled for lunch at Old Spaghetti Warehouse with lots of sourdough bread (the real impetus for the restaurant choice) and a baby in tow. But it was still sweet. Happy Anniversary to my sweetie!
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Madeleine L'Engle
Like most of my other blogging friends, I feel compelled to blog about the loss of Madeleine L'Engle, who died this week in her late 80s. Though unlike most of my other blogging friends, I don't feel I have much eloquent to say.
My 9-year-old son happens to be reading A Wrinkle in Time this week, for the first time. It's strange to think how, when he started the book several days ago, the author was alive, but he'll end it after she's gone.
I read and liked A Wrinkle in Time as a child, and I suspect my budding scientist son will like it, too. But my favorite book of hers--actually the book I usually consider my favorite book ever--was and is A Ring of Endless Light. Which in fact deals with death, and grief. Also with dolphins. Dolphins have been my favorite animal ever since I read that book at age 13. For some reason, I never read the whole series of books about the Austins... I think I may have read one other, but it was almost like that one book was so perfect to me, I felt like reading another would somehow take away from it. Irrational, I'm sure, but I was 13 and in love with a book.
I wrote a long letter to Madeleine L'Engle when I was 13. It was maybe 2 or 3 pages, which I suspect blathered on about how much I liked the book and the dolphins and how much it meant to me. But I also remember it was about my wanting to be a writer. Specifically a young adult writer. I think I asked for advice about my own writing. Sadly, stupidly, I lost the letter before I sent it. By the time I gave it up for lost, I felt I could never recreate it. So I never wrote to her. Years later, my father, who worked in Christian publishing for a while, actually knew her in person slightly from some conferences they attended together. I wondered if I should send her another letter then, but felt again like I'd lost my chance, or like I could never remember what I wanted to say, or at least not with the passion of a 13-year-old with a book fresh in her mind. I considered writing about how she'd inspired me as a child, and about how I still wanted to write, and my curiosity on how to juggle faith and fiction. But I didn't. And so now, it's like the last bell sounding to let me know I waited too long. I'm sad, realizing she might have written back, and I might have had a letter from her now. (I do have one somewhere from Judy Blume.) Maybe it would have even helped me to get started sooner on this writing thing!
But for Madeleine L'Engle herself, I'm not feeling particularly sad, given her age and her well-lived life, and all she left the world while she was here. I know she's in a better place, enjoying that endless light. And for the rest of us, I'm happy for the things she left behind for us and future children to spur our thoughts, inspire us, and expand our minds.
My 9-year-old son happens to be reading A Wrinkle in Time this week, for the first time. It's strange to think how, when he started the book several days ago, the author was alive, but he'll end it after she's gone.
I read and liked A Wrinkle in Time as a child, and I suspect my budding scientist son will like it, too. But my favorite book of hers--actually the book I usually consider my favorite book ever--was and is A Ring of Endless Light. Which in fact deals with death, and grief. Also with dolphins. Dolphins have been my favorite animal ever since I read that book at age 13. For some reason, I never read the whole series of books about the Austins... I think I may have read one other, but it was almost like that one book was so perfect to me, I felt like reading another would somehow take away from it. Irrational, I'm sure, but I was 13 and in love with a book.
I wrote a long letter to Madeleine L'Engle when I was 13. It was maybe 2 or 3 pages, which I suspect blathered on about how much I liked the book and the dolphins and how much it meant to me. But I also remember it was about my wanting to be a writer. Specifically a young adult writer. I think I asked for advice about my own writing. Sadly, stupidly, I lost the letter before I sent it. By the time I gave it up for lost, I felt I could never recreate it. So I never wrote to her. Years later, my father, who worked in Christian publishing for a while, actually knew her in person slightly from some conferences they attended together. I wondered if I should send her another letter then, but felt again like I'd lost my chance, or like I could never remember what I wanted to say, or at least not with the passion of a 13-year-old with a book fresh in her mind. I considered writing about how she'd inspired me as a child, and about how I still wanted to write, and my curiosity on how to juggle faith and fiction. But I didn't. And so now, it's like the last bell sounding to let me know I waited too long. I'm sad, realizing she might have written back, and I might have had a letter from her now. (I do have one somewhere from Judy Blume.) Maybe it would have even helped me to get started sooner on this writing thing!
But for Madeleine L'Engle herself, I'm not feeling particularly sad, given her age and her well-lived life, and all she left the world while she was here. I know she's in a better place, enjoying that endless light. And for the rest of us, I'm happy for the things she left behind for us and future children to spur our thoughts, inspire us, and expand our minds.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
My Smurfy Sweet 16
I have only seen a few moments here and there of MTV's show My Super Sweet 16, but the ostentatious sixteenth birthday party phenomenon has been creeping into my view, anyway, because of things like incredibly fancy cakes I've seen made for Sweet 16 parties on Ace of Cakes and on some sort of cake decorating championship show in which 5 cake decorators had to face off to win the chance to make some girl's giant Sweet 16 cake, and because of Sweet 16 party decorations I've seen in party supply catalogs that looked more appropriate for a prom, class reunion, or awards show!
So my mind went back to my own "Sweet 16"... Yes, I did have a 16th birthday party, thrown by my mother for me and my friends. Let's see, it involved a cake, some decorations, and a couple of picnic tables in a hot park. The budget might have hit...oh, $50. Actually, probably a little less in 1980s dollars and more in today's. And while the girl on the cake bake-off show said that the purse-themed cake (I believe) was a little too young for her, I actually went with the avant-garde theme of...Smurfs. No, I didn't "really" like Smurfs, like a 4-year-old might. I think I was 11 before I ever heard of a Smurf, though my 8-years-younger brother was smitten with them as a preschooler, so I'd seen my share of them since. I was trying to be humorously ironic. Not sure if it worked, but I think we had fun. We didn't have terribly high expectations. I think my main expectation was cake!
Me with my Smurfette centerpiece--I somehow missed the whole ballgown & tiara type thing and showed up in jeans & a t-shirt:
Excuse the photo quality, I had to go with the grainy, dark 80s-era instamatic or Disc camera, rather than hiring a wedding photographer to do the honors.
What I did not skimp on was the cake. While elaborate fondant decor was unheard of in 1983 and I lacked a four or five-tier cake, this was a Red Oven red velvet cake, which I am certain to this day tasted better than nearly any cake seen on those television shows. (From my experience tasting wedding cakes at bridal shows before our wedding, the fancy places seem to emphasize looks a lot more than taste!)
Sadly, the cake that wasn't served up right away was ultimately destroyed, ending up all over at least one of the guests... I also seem to recall the remaining ice and water in the ice chest being dumped on people's heads. The guests seemed to have fun, anyway.
And check out the elaborate touches--paper tablecloths! Balloons & streamers! Smurf plates & cups! A birthday sign! (Or is that Pin the Tail on the Donkey? Knowing me, it might be. I actually played Pin the Tail on the Donkey at my 40th birthday party with my family this year!)
And while I didn't hire any popular rock bands to play at the party, we did have entertainment:
Who doesn't like piñatas, after all?
Oddly, I think I appreciated this Sweet 16 party more than the majority of those girls on TV seem to appreciate their $50K or $100K bashes. (I didn't throw a single tantrum over getting a Lexus at the wrong time, like the girl I saw a clip of on The Soup. I'm not sure, but I think my gifts were more like...stationery and cassette tapes.) Better yet, my 16th birthday was not the best party I was to have until my wedding. I actually upped the ante with two parties for my 17th birthday--another silly park party with a Hawaiian theme, and a night out with some other friends at a clubby-type restaurant. Not sure I did one for 18, but I had a big party for 20. No Smurfs in sight that time...but I'm sure it was not a bit more elegant!
So my mind went back to my own "Sweet 16"... Yes, I did have a 16th birthday party, thrown by my mother for me and my friends. Let's see, it involved a cake, some decorations, and a couple of picnic tables in a hot park. The budget might have hit...oh, $50. Actually, probably a little less in 1980s dollars and more in today's. And while the girl on the cake bake-off show said that the purse-themed cake (I believe) was a little too young for her, I actually went with the avant-garde theme of...Smurfs. No, I didn't "really" like Smurfs, like a 4-year-old might. I think I was 11 before I ever heard of a Smurf, though my 8-years-younger brother was smitten with them as a preschooler, so I'd seen my share of them since. I was trying to be humorously ironic. Not sure if it worked, but I think we had fun. We didn't have terribly high expectations. I think my main expectation was cake!
Me with my Smurfette centerpiece--I somehow missed the whole ballgown & tiara type thing and showed up in jeans & a t-shirt:
Excuse the photo quality, I had to go with the grainy, dark 80s-era instamatic or Disc camera, rather than hiring a wedding photographer to do the honors.
What I did not skimp on was the cake. While elaborate fondant decor was unheard of in 1983 and I lacked a four or five-tier cake, this was a Red Oven red velvet cake, which I am certain to this day tasted better than nearly any cake seen on those television shows. (From my experience tasting wedding cakes at bridal shows before our wedding, the fancy places seem to emphasize looks a lot more than taste!)
Sadly, the cake that wasn't served up right away was ultimately destroyed, ending up all over at least one of the guests... I also seem to recall the remaining ice and water in the ice chest being dumped on people's heads. The guests seemed to have fun, anyway.
And check out the elaborate touches--paper tablecloths! Balloons & streamers! Smurf plates & cups! A birthday sign! (Or is that Pin the Tail on the Donkey? Knowing me, it might be. I actually played Pin the Tail on the Donkey at my 40th birthday party with my family this year!)
And while I didn't hire any popular rock bands to play at the party, we did have entertainment:
Who doesn't like piñatas, after all?
Oddly, I think I appreciated this Sweet 16 party more than the majority of those girls on TV seem to appreciate their $50K or $100K bashes. (I didn't throw a single tantrum over getting a Lexus at the wrong time, like the girl I saw a clip of on The Soup. I'm not sure, but I think my gifts were more like...stationery and cassette tapes.) Better yet, my 16th birthday was not the best party I was to have until my wedding. I actually upped the ante with two parties for my 17th birthday--another silly park party with a Hawaiian theme, and a night out with some other friends at a clubby-type restaurant. Not sure I did one for 18, but I had a big party for 20. No Smurfs in sight that time...but I'm sure it was not a bit more elegant!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Like mother, like son
Tomorrow is the 1st day of school here, and my 3rd grade son was told to bring 2 favorite books to class on the first day, to be left at school for free reading time for a week or two. I assumed that since he mostly just wanted to read Star Wars books this summer, that's the sort of thing he'd want to take. Instead, he was insistent that the two books he wanted to take (no substitutes accepted, so we had to spend some time hunting them down) were Reality Leak by Joni Sensel and The City of Ember by Jeanne duPrau. Both of which he read this summer, and both of which I had bought for myself! Yes...! I assume the assignment is partly so the teacher can get an idea of the kids' reading levels and interests, and though I didn't tell him what to take, I am secretly happy he's taking two middle grade novels that I think show really good taste! ;-) (Actually, they're a result of the great company his mom keeps, since I bought both of those books because I was in online groups with the authors.)
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