Play. Write. Create.

We went to the kids' playwriting workshop today, under the big top. I decided to stick around and watch, considering my interests in writing & acting. There were only 14 kids there, and I think most were circus kids (that is, kids of the circus performers--I definitely saw a couple I recognized as the circus clowns bringing their young son in!). A group from a local theatre presented a playwriting workshop. First they performed 3 short plays (more like skits) written by winners of their young playwrights festival, then they led the kids in coming up with two more skits that they acted out on the spot as the instructions were given. Last, they led the kids through coming up with one more skit which they actually wrote down, explaining how to write down & format dialogue, stage directions, etc. My kids got antsy by the last part, but enjoyed the first part, and my first grader got to play the role of the baby dolphin in one skit--one of only 4 kids to be an "actor." (He was also curious how to write down stage directions, & is considering entering the playwriting contest.)

Sitting there on the bleachers, in the tent, watching the actors perform and just soaking up the whole creative environment, was invigorating & frustrating at the same time. I realized that I spent much of my life, especially my young life, in creative environments--a nurturing private school that valued imagination, occasional dance classes, several theatre groups, TV production classes, and finally SCBWI (conferences & retreats in particular)--and I need that. Even my last workplace was a more creative environment than others I'd worked in. I thrive on that sort of thing, and I miss it a lot right now. It's been years since I've felt like a creative environment was part of my day-to-day life. I really need to figure out how to turn my home into a creative environment, and I need to find some other creative environment to be, play, grow, & create in, preferably with other people. As introverted as I am, I love hanging out with other creative people when I get a chance. And even though I'm so cerebral I sometimes find my body unnecessary or even bothersome, I would ideally like to find an environment that is creative physically as well as mentally. I liked acting partly because it involved all of me, not just some of me. (You think maybe I should join the circus? Ha ha ha ha ha. I'm so out of shape that at the science museum yesterday, I found out my hand strength is less than HALF of what it should be for a woman my age! Ack!)

For other creative types out there, how do you find creativity in your lives, other than just sitting alone writing? How do you create an environment where your imagination can thrive? Where in your 3-D, offline life do you find other like-minded people...or do you?

My little writers

I'm pumped right now because the circus kids' club I signed my kids up for has already invited my kids to a free playwriting workshop this coming week! Which will give me an hour or more of babysitting, while getting my kids involved with two of my all-time favorite things, theatre & writing. I'm not sure what playwriting has to do with the circus, except that there's a former ringmaster associated with a theatre here that has a big playwriting program. So they're running a workshop for the kids. I am so glad we got involved with this club! They will also get to learn some magic & juggling later this year, which will be wonderful for my older son, to help replace in some small way the magic camp he had to leave behind in Austin.

But I'd better watch out so they both don't end up surpassing me in writing! My 7-year-old was actually published at the age of 3, with a story called "I Want to Buy Groceries" in the Austin SCBWI newsletter. And today, for the fables unit at his school, he's taking in a spiral-bound fable he wrote & illustrated at his old school. That's one of several stories he's already written & illustrated. And he doesn't even want to be a writer, he wants to be a scientist & inventor. He'll probably be one of those people who can do everything, like invent a transporter (his goal in life) while also writing a few sci-fi movies on the side. My 5-year-old, on the other hand, is in arts preschool now & seems like he might be a born performer. But he's already written a story or two himself, not to be outdone by his brother, so he may well end up writing, too, or at least doing a lot of improvisation! I am itching to get back into theatre myself, but all the theatres here seem to be professional rather than amateur, and I'm certainly not ready for prime-time. Maybe I'll take a class next time I can find one...or maybe find a church with a drama group.

I also have an idea for a children's play, and I'm thinking that might be the best thing for me to work on right now. I can't wrap my head around my novels right now, but a silly play could be a fun change of pace, and who knows, my kids might even be able to give me some pointers after their playwriting class!

Renewal

On Valentine's Day, 14 years & 5 months after our wedding, we renewed our vows on the beach, along with about 230 other couples:



It was actually COLD here yesterday for Florida (30s & frosty in the early morning!), but I only had a short-sleeved dress to wear, & it warmed up enough I could wear it for a few minutes there without a jacket (about 50 degrees). Our kids were awful, awful, awful during the ceremony, & made it impossible for me to even say all the vows because I was busy trying to wrangle them, so I would advise anyone to find a babysitter for the kids before doing something like this! But it was still nice, & I think it was a good way to kick off our "new lives" here in a new state.

Boyfriends, Truth, & Progress

I finished reading E. Lockhart's YA novel The Boyfriend List today. It immediately won me over with its fun use of footnotes. Being a rather parenthetical thinker myself, I tend to love footnotes in fiction. Two of my favorite recent books, Susanna Clarke's adult novel Jonathan Strange & Dr. Norrell, and M.T. Anderson's midgrade novel Whales on Stilts, have almost nothing in common, except that both make generous use of footnotes. I especially loved the way multiple footnotes tracked Ruby's thought process in The Boyfriend List. I thought Ruby's parents bordered on being caricatures, but that probably is how she would see & describe them, & I loved how different they were than the parents in most novels (for those who haven't read it, her mom is an angry performance artist, her dad constantly talks in touchy-feely psychological mumbo jumbo, and they live on a houseboat). As for the rest of the book, there were a few places where I began to think E. Lockhart had been spying on my teen years.... It especially amazed me when Ruby thought the same wacky thing I would have thought, with the same goofy reasoning, when I didn't realize anyone else thought about things that way!

This brings me to the best writing advice I've picked up recently. When we were driving through Louisiana, I went into two decent-sized convenience stores looking for a magazine to read, & couldn't find any, but I did find a free regional paper so I picked that up. I read an article about Cajun musician D.L. Menard, who had once met his hero, Hank Williams (Sr.). Hank Williams told him that everyone does things every day that they never stop to think about, and if you write about those things, your audience will love it. I realized it was true for books as well as for songs. Books (and movies, and plays, and comedy acts...) capture our attention when they ring true, and especially when they tell us something about ourselves that's been true all along but we've never noticed! I love it when I read something new or unusual that I've never thought about before, but I'm also blown away when I recognize myself on the page, and realize I am not alone in some thought, feeling, or experience. So, I aim to work harder than ever to make sure I put truth into my writing--true moments, and especially particular, small incidents and thoughts and feelings that may cause a reader to think, "Yes! That's just how it is!" Which may mean putting more of myself into my writing, which is scary, but I realized last night that if I don't take a chance on sharing what's real, my writing may not resonate with anyone.

The second piece of advice Menard got from Hank Williams was not to worry about naysayers, especially those further along than you who point out how far you have to go, because tomorrow you may be better than them. Menard realized he wasn't getting better, & set out to correct that. It's a daunting question to ask oneself: Am I better today than I was yesterday? I need to ask myself, and keep asking myself, that question in regard to my writing (I flinched big time the first time I asked myself that), as well as in other areas of my life--relational, spiritual, even organizational! Eek. That's about all I can handle for today.

Groundhog Day!

I've always loved Groundhog Day--in fact, I once threw a "Great & Groovy Groundhog Day Eve Party," and I have a stuffed toy groundhog somewhere. This year, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, which is supposed to mean 6 more weeks of winter, but here in Florida I'm not too worried. It's 68 degrees F right now & supposed to get to 78 this afternoon. It's also supposed to be 78 in the Texas town we just moved from, though the morning low there was much lower (40s instead of 60s).

My kids started their Florida schools yesterday. I was hyperventilating a bit about the change, but both kids did great. I'm still a little stressed because their schools are 8 miles apart & start at the same time, & this 1st grade class has more homework than the one we left, but it's working out all right so far. My 5-year-old is acting absolutely crazy here, including running away in public constantly, so I am on edge trying to deal with him, but I'm hoping this phase will pass as we get more settled in...if he survives that long!

I can't begin to think about writing with a house full of boxes, & I have nowhere to put all this stuff in a smaller house with less storage. There's not even room for a lot of the furniture. Thankfully, my laptop seems to be intact except for the monitor, so I'm using it now with our desktop computer monitor, but the desktop PC has yet to be unpacked, & my spacebar is sticking so it's very slow to type! The only writing-related thing I've done is to contact the Florida chapter of SCBWI to get on their mailing lists. I also checked out the public library yesterday, & was pleased to see all the author events on their schedule, not to mention a very nice children's book section.

The lack of Dr Pepper is getting to me. Of course stores carry it, but they don't carry the decaf version I can get in Austin, and most restaurants don't have it. I live on it, so I'm flummoxed. And the Taco Bell here doesn't have tostadas, & I've seen both Slurpees and Icees here in Pepsi flavor but not Coke flavor, so I'm seeking out small comforts where I can find them. I plan to seek Sarasota-style comfort soon in the form of pies from the much-ballyhooed Amish restaurants!

Sweet Home Sarasota

We're here! We made it to Florida in the late afternoon yesterday. Nearly our whole 3-day drive was rainy. It was even pouring as we drove through St. Petersburg, which was named the sunniest city in America. The whole Sunshine State thing wasn't resonating with me... But amazingly, just as we drove over the Sunshine Skyway bridge heading from St. Petersburg to the Sarasota area, we drove into the sunshine and it has stayed with us since. Our moving truck won't arrive until at least tomorrow, so we have a very small subset of our stuff. Unfortunately, we brought my laptop computer ourselves, and it was a casualty of the move! Right now I'm using my husband's laptop from work. My laptop monitor was destroyed, but I am very much hoping the data is salvageable. My writing was backed up, but our digital photos from the last few months only existed on that hard drive, and I'd also lose several years worth of e-mail, etc., not to mention that I can't currently remember any of my passwords for checking my e-mail from another computer! Whoops. Anyway, except for that, so far so good. We need to try to get a hasty physical for my younger son today so he can start preschool here (he just had one in November but they want it from a Florida dr!), & we want to take my older son by his new elementary school. We also need to get the younger one's glasses fixed, as a screw fell out for the billionth time and they're being held together by a safety pin--which the dr may not take as a sign we're taking good care of him! ;-)

Last night in Texas

It's our last night in Texas! Which ought to seem momentous after I've spent my whole life here, but the move has been so long in coming (3+ months since we found out about it) that I'm just ready to get it over with. The movers finished packing & loading today, & left with our stuff by 4:30 pm. My husband ended up giving some of our large unwanted stuff (sleeper sofa, loveseat, broken dryer, and dining table) to one of the movers, so our oversized giveaway items are gone. The kids and I spent the day at the house of Kyle's best friend, which was pleasant. In the evening, we had a last Texas dinner at Pok-E-Jo's barbecue, bought a portable DVD player for the long drive (I had really resisted ever getting a DVD player for the car, but 20 hours with 2 small kids in a confined space...sheesh!), and bought sleeping bags for my husband and me so we'd have somewhere to sleep tonight! We wanted some anyway. We're having kind of a family slumber party tonight in Kyle's room. We still have to get rid of the last food in the fridge, pack our van better, & get a few more small items out of the house, but we hope to hit the road in the morning. Even with all of the stuff out of it, I still don't like our house, so except for the fact that this is the house I brought both my babies home to, I won't be too sad to say good-bye to it!

Boxing Day

My house is full of boxes. However, it's not all packed up yet...apparently, we have so much junk that one day wasn't enough. I suspect it must be at least 2/3 done. I think all that's left is one child's room, several kitchen cabinets, the audio/visual stuff, the laundry room, and the garage (er...there's a lot in there, though it's at least been started!). My van is also overflowing with stuff we wanted to take ourselves, so I have to get that organized before we embark on our 20-hour drive! Unfortunately, we still have a lot to get rid of, & I don't know how/when we're going to do that. Normally we'd do it tonight, but our friends are having a send-off for us tonight! Anyway, the kids have both been withdrawn from their schools here, & we will probably leave town Saturday morning, or Saturday afternoon at the latest. So weird!

Ready or not...

...here they don't come! We were so not ready for the movers, we managed to put it off another day. So now they're coming tomorrow instead! Which is mostly a relief, though I'm a tad disappointed this won't all be over today. I just hope we'll be able to get the rest done today considering how exhausted we are now. I got NO sleep last night, and my husband got maybe 2 hours. He is sleeping again now, but I'm terrible at napping. But I know I'll need renewed energy to be ready for tomorrow. Too bad a construction crew is currently using an excavator to dig a huge hole in the street right outside of my house, about 30 feet from my bedroom window (I have no idea why)...so it's awfully loud for trying to rest. They've also completely blocked off my driveway and a large area around it, so I hope a moving truck can ever get near!

Can someone freeze time?

It is almost 3 am. The movers are coming in 5 or 6 hours. To say we are not quite ready is like saying an ice cube is not quite as big as an iceberg. Gulp!

A novel approach to my novels

An idea stolen from another writer friend...

10 ways you can tell you're reading a novel by me:

1. It has bizarre touches such as beet restaurants, gum-crazed towns, or cat romance novels.


2. The characters think too much and don't do enough (I'm working on that...).


3. Characters may have odd names and/or talk about their names or nicknames.


4. It's a bit wordy.


5. The characters eat constantly, often fast food or something weird.


6. No one seems to say anything harsher than "crap."


7. Beets are mentioned somewhere in the novel (seriously, I mention beets in all of them!).


8. It's not that heavy on setting.


9. It's a little angsty, even if it's humor, and a little humorous, even if it's angsty.


10. You know it's going to be laughed off the shelves the next big thing!

Only in my dreams

After several bad dreams that woke me up last night, I went back to sleep and dreamed I already had a book published & hadn't realized it! In the dream, I hadn't really counted it because it was written under assignment from an editor, instead of being my original idea. Yet it was an attractive hardback novel with my name on the cover (actually it looked a lot like Cynthia Lord's book Rules...), so I decided I might as well count it as my own book!

In reality, I'm frustrated because my move has put all my writing projects on hold since October, when we found out we were moving. I thought that once we got there, I could finally throw myself back into writing, but we're moving in such a disorganized fashion that it now looks like I'll be trying to sort out all the junk from my move for months! Even worse, we're just moving into a rental home that we don't see as a long-term solution, so we'll probably have to do it all again within the year. I'm still determined to carve out time for writing in the new place even if I'm surrounded by boxes and chaos at the time, but it may be hard to clear my mind for it.

In other dream news, a few nights ago my son Kyle (the one who just turned 5) crashed in my bed at 5 am after a bad dream of his own (bizarrely, he has recurrent bad dreams about Richard Scarry's Busytown!). Around 7 am, I was up getting ready in semi-darkness while he was still asleep on the bed. No one was around him or touching him, and his brother Ryan was still asleep in his own bed, but Kyle suddenly said, loudly, "Ryan MADE me push him!" He was fast asleep at the time. I'd say that was a very telling dream!

My husband and I would like to call for a moratorium on joking statements that "men won't ask for directions" and "women love shoes (or shopping)," especially when said as if it's a new and particularly humorous insight, and most especially when said by comedians and/or pastors. In cases where the moratorium is violated, please refrain from chuckling & nudging your partner as if you'd never heard it before, as that will only encourage further violations. Thank you.

My "baby" turned 5 this weekend...hard to believe! The camoflauge, warpaint, or whatever it is on his face is left over from a dinosaur hunt:


Okay, theoretically babies can't read, tie shoes, drive bumper cars, or do one-handed cartwheels, all of which he can, but if my husband can still be the "baby" of his family, this little guy can be ours!

Even though we're moving out of state any day, I bought a special State of the Arts Texas license plate when I renewed my plate a few months ago. I love it! With the new screen-printing and font, it looks even better than the one in that picture. I'm so glad I got it, even at the last minute. I'll hate to remove it for one of the Florida ones, none of which I'm thrilled with (not even their arts one...), though I expect it'll go on my office wall. If you live in Texas, buy one of these plates and support the arts! (There are also several literacy ones available.)

Things I will be glad to leave when we move: ROAD CONSTRUCTION, ROAD CONSTRUCTION, & MORE ROAD CONSTRUCTION! Saturday I had a nightmare morning with 2 major roads I needed to turn across completely closed off. I was diverted miles out of my way in each case, & started thinking even 2 weeks is too long to live with this! I'll also be glad to leave my horrible, inconsistent "broadband" Internet connnection that knocks me offline constantly and seems to get slower speeds than my old dial-up! Supposedly our new Florida connection is much better (though the cable TV doesn't have a big menu of movies to rent at any time like ours does here...huh?!).

Here's a fun time waster for writers: Enter the title of your novel, & the Lulu Titlescorer will predict its chances of becoming a bestseller. My YA novel Chasing Monday scored a whopping 79.6%, while my midgrade Purple Panic came out at 41.4%. The 3 picture book titles I tried came out much lower, but the formula is based on bestselling novels for adults, so I don't think it would be particularly accurate with books for young children. (After all, I doubt a novel called If You Give a Mouse a Cookie would have topped the bestseller list like the picture book did!) It also doesn't seem to account well for plays on words, & they readily acknowledge that it may be way off with some titles, but they claim it was accurate for nearly 70% of titles tested. Take it with a hearty helping of salt!

I heard about a new book called This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America, which features 34 women's diaries from a single day, June 29, 2004. I checked my blog & found an entry for that day. I guess it was a pretty productive day, because the midgrade story I mentioned revising is now slated for publication in an anthology from Blooming Tree Press, and the YA story I was entering in a contest received an honorable mention in the contest, & I later got notice it's being considered for a different Blooming Tree Press anthology. To complete my "diary" of the day, here are excerpts from the e-mails I sent that day.

Now stop me before I blog again! A few months ago I was averaging one post a week, if that, and so far this year I've made 9 posts in 10 days. I actually drafted another yesterday & decided not to post it after all. I guess blogging helps me avoid what I really need to be doing! But I hate to keep shoving my previous brilliant posts out of the way before people even get to read them. ;-)

My husband's on a plane back to Florida right now--bah humbug. And I have so much to do before our move, I can't stand to think about it. Anyway, we had a pretty Austiny night last night. We had dinner at the original Kerbey Lane Cafe, then went to the university area to see the UT tower all lit up for the national football championship, as shown in my post from January 5. The campus area was swarming with people, hundreds of them, most wearing burnt orange and most taking pictures of the tower. We didn't get out of the car (nowhere to park!), but had our windows down & it seemed like a fun, friendly atmosphere, so I'm glad we took the kids to see it before they forget they were ever Texans! We capped off the evening with ice cream from Amy's Ice Cream, complete with pictures from the photo booth:

Cool, cool, cool. My in-laws gave me a $20 Borders gift card for Christmas, and it's good at Borders.com, which also happens to be Amazon. So I was able to order the latest 2 items on my Amazon wish list for just over $5, including shipping: Beating Heart: A Ghost Story, by A.M. Jenkins (whom I heard speak last year--she mentioned the forthcoming book and it caught my interest); & the Here Come the ABCs CD/DVD from They Might Be Giants. Seems odd to order a hardcover book in Texas just before I move, but I figured the book (and CD) would be good to have on the 20-hour drive! I hope it arrives before the move.... I also just pre-ordered a bunch of the great new picture book art stamps.

Today I went to my last meeting of the Austin chapter of SCBWI. Our regional advisor, Julie Lake, spoke on revision, a topic I always need to learn more about (and need to do more of!). I got a little sad drving there down Loop 360, a gorgeous route through the hills, with a steel arch bridge over Lake Austin and a beautiful view. I realized, for the second time this week, that I'm really going to miss driving through the hills when I move to flat Florida! I'll also miss this SCBWI group. I've been involved with the group since 1997, when the founder of the chapter was still the regional advisor--there have been 4 more since her, and I've been around the whole time. Florida only has one SCBWI chapter for the whole state, and it won't be doing anything near me. I'll probably travel for some Florida conferences, but I hope I can also come back for occasional Austin conferences, because Austin throws some of the best ones!

I finally saw the Narnia movie last night. I really enjoyed it. I can't think of anything I would have changed about it, although the book isn't fresh in my mind, so there could be something. I've really only read the book once, back when I was 11 years old, but I fantasized about going to Narnia for years after that, and last year my husband and I read it aloud to our older son at bedtime. However, we took turns reading on alternate nights, so I only read every other chapter and didn't get a sense of the whole book! I need to read the whole set again. The kids also liked the movie, though I had worried it might be too scary for them. Kyle, who is 4 (turning 5 in a week!), even said he liked the battle scene best, though Ryan, 7, kept his head to the side and his eyes averted for most of that scene. Oh, and speaking of Narnia and our local SCBWI chapter, the founder of the chapter has a Narnia room in her house! It's kind of like a closet, but the only entrance is through a wardrobe, and it has murals of Narnia painted on the walls...one of the coolest rooms ever!

On the subject of rooms, the moving company walked through our house yesterday to get an idea how much stuff we have (still way too much!). We hope to move in just over 2 weeks, though the guy said it might take 2 days to pack & 1 day to load the moving van! I hope not, because that doesn't work with my intended timeframe for the kids starting school in Florida, and I still hope to purge more stuff before the move date, but at least it's starting to seem real that we may actually move.

Happy Epiphany! (Also known as Three Kings Day.) It's the 12th Day of Christmas, and I'm expecting loads of birds and other strange gifts from my true love...no, wait, anyone who loved me would know better than to give me all that! Actually, it's the day we need to finally take down our Christmas tree.

And now for something completely different (insert strange sounds & animation here).

If you're old like me--that is, if you didn't have the Internet in high school or college--have you thought about how your life would have been different if you did? I'm not thinking so much about the easy access to information (which is hard to remember how I lived without!), but more about the Internet as a social medium. I have to think about this stuff a lot in writing for young adults, because there's been a profound shift in the way teens communicate from the way they did when I was one, and I can't afford to ignore that when I'm writing. I think my own life might have ended up very, very different, and probably not for the best. I'm pretty sure that if everyone I knew had e-mail and instant messaging when I was a teenager (not to mention if I was meeting people online back then), I would not be where I am today. Of course, today I'd love to be anywhere else, since this move thing is driving me crazy, but in general, I'm glad I ended up where I am in life!

I'm sure high school would have been unbelievably different, but for me, college might have been even more different. I went to college three hours from home, which in my case meant a lot of snail mail letters. I probably got more than 200 letters during my first two years of college, not to mention running up shocking phone bills in those days without cell phones or flat rate long distance! But if I'd had an easy, free way to communicate with my friends back home...would we have said more, because it was easier? Would we have said less, because it seemed too immediate? Would our perception of the distance have seemed different, knowing how easy it would be for a long-distance friend to respond? Would I have kept further away from the people around me at school, or gotten to know them even better because we could send instant messages so easily? (Or read & comment on each other's blogs, or whatever!)

I think people will say things in letters that they'd be less likely to say in e-mail, but they will also say things in e-mail, and especially in instant messaging or chat rooms, that they'd probably think better of if they had to sit down & write it in a letter. And while my online relationships as an adult have been fantastic, making it so much easier to connect with people, I imagine that as a teen, with relationships being so fraught with angst as it is, it could be both suffocating & frustrating to know that everyone you knew was only a few clicks away anytime...or could be if they wanted to...and that people might even be watching to see when you were on and offline. I don't think I would have lacked for correspondence--I'm sure I would have a lot more than 200 e-mails from friends in that same time period, most of them lost to old operating systems, old file formats, & hard drive crashes by now (I've lost tons of e-mails when old computers died, including many I'd love to have back about my kids as babies, etc., though I do have a bunch of e-mail messages printed out from my first few years working in Austin...say, 1993 to 1995, when e-mail was new to me and quite exciting!). On the other hand, I think they would have had a different impact, and taken me down different paths, and as a result I doubt I'd be exactly where I am today. Though now, I've been active online for 12 years (using text-based browsers & newsreaders until there was an alternative), so my Internet connection seems almost as essential as food and shelter! But I do think the medium can greatly affect the message, and I'm kind of glad in retrospect that I didn't have the Internet back then. (But then...if I'd had the Internet and NaNoWriMo and all the online writing groups and opportunities that are out there these days, maybe I would have had a book published years ago!)

I've been sorting through what I hope are the last of our old unsorted clothes (including some remaining baby clothes, costumes, bedding, etc.). I can't believe how many clothes we had! This is after giving away 8 or 9 garbage bags' worth already! I've also had a tendency to keep things for sentimental reasons, which I'm trying to get over. I'm still having trouble parting with a few remaining shirts from the 80's. It's not like I wear them anymore, but a couple of them just seem too dear to part with. (And I might always get invited to another 80's party--though the time I went to one before, I ended up buying my outfit at Goodwill anyway!) I suppose I shouldn't listen to 80's music while I'm sorting the old clothes, huh?!

Meanwhile, we went to one of those coin sorting machines with all the change we found around the house, including a few jars of coins we'd been adding to for years, and even after they took their cut, we ended up with over $127! I knew it was a lot of change, but I was still stunned. That's 4 or 5 times the amount I would have guessed.

Hook 'em Horns!!! National Champions! (in football and baseball, in fact)

Back to school for the kids! Supposedly we are also moving in 3 weeks, but our move preparation is not going as well as hoped...argh. In sorting our stuff for moving, I've come across a whole bunch of old datebooks & journals. Not surprisingly, there aren't many that I kept for a whole year, but also not surprisingly, most of them DO have a lot of entries in January. Just for kicks, I compiled a list of what I was doing on this day in the history of my life, on the 10 different years I've found info for so far. If you are bored enough, you can view the list.

Happy 2006!! We spent a lovely New Year's Eve with a group of old friends from my husband's grad school days, two of whom we hadn't seen in ages, and finally got to meet one of them's wife, 3+ years after the wedding! The evening featured a tasty roast beef dinner, wine, cheese, good conversation, a view of more stars than most of us had seen in years (our friends live on 20 acres), and a thought-provoking read-aloud session like we used to have. Meanwhile, the kids were completely entertained playing with our hosts' children, who are some of their favorite friends in the world. For our kids, we rang in the new year early--for ourselves, we threw serpentine at midnight. We stayed at our friends' home overnight and woke to a New Year's Day breakfast served on their screened-in porch on a beautiful, warm morning. After sharing a time of singing (with our friend Jeff's always-fabulous classical guitar playing) and a makeshift Sunday worship service while the kids enjoyed the freedom of exploring the property, we left our kids there for the rest of the day & night while we came home to do more preparation for our move. All in all, a great way to ring in what I hope will be a wonderful new year! 2005 had its good points, but unfortunately, for us they were few & far between. We are eager for a fresh start, and I so hope that this new year and our move to Florida will provide exactly that.

Random thoughts: Today was the day we originally planned to move. I can't imagine! At the moment I'm worried we won't make our revised move date, either.... I watched part of Planes, Trains, & Automobiles on TV tonight. I love that movie. I remember seeing it in York, England, and being surprised that the British audience sometimes laughed at different parts than we Americans did (sorry, I'm really too southern to call myself a "Yank"). Until I did an impulsive search on iTunes, I had no idea there were so many songs, other than Elvis Costello's, with Alison in the title. Many or most of them seem to have negative elements or even explicit lyrics, but there are a couple I can go for..."Alison's the Bomb" has a nice ring to it, for instance. ;-) Orange doesn't go well next to purple. Better at least make it the official University of Texas burnt orange (web color #CC5500) to be true to my alma mater. UT is playing USC for the national championship in the Rose Bowl next week. Hook 'Em Horns! Speaking of alma maters, I once sang that I'd be true to Arlington High all of my days and owe my fortune to it, but to my relief, the AHS staff hasn't been knocking down my door looking for a piece of my relatively mediocre fortune so far. Wow, it's hard to have thoughts stay random...those last two sure were linked. My dad used to challenge me to quickly say five or six words in a row without any logical connections between them, and it drove me nuts I couldn't manage to do it! Of course, part of that is because our brains can find connections between nearly anything. So let me go back to the topic of songs. This time of year, I often find myself listening to "A Long December" by Counting Crows. It usually seems applicable, and yes, I hope this (next) year will be better than the last! Also, if you haven't heard Sufjan Stevens' song "Casimir Pulaski Day," you can download a legal MP3 of it FREE. I think I must have been one of the last people to hear about Sufjan Stevens, but the first time I actually listened to the words of this song, it blew me away (also made me cry!). Don't miss it. What's that? Make the colors stop? OK, sorry. In case you couldn't tell, I'm in a strange mood!

News of the day:

• Our rabbit Pablo is 9 years old today. Happy Birthday, Pablo! (Or should that be Hoppy Birthday?! Groan!)


• We had a very nice Christmas. My favorite gifts were an iPod dock/charger, and a Texas-themed charm bracelet to remember Texas by (as if I'd forget). My favorite moments were sharing good food, singing, laughs, & conversation with my family, including my parents and grandparents.


• Although my YA story didn't place in the recent SmartWriters.com short story competition, I got notice that it's being considered for publication in the anthology of winning stories, so that's cool!


• I wish you all a joyful remainder of 2005 and a Happy New Year!

5 days until Christmas! Better yet, 2 days until my husband comes back to Texas for 2 weeks! Of course, they'll probably be the most grueling 2 weeks we've had in years, trying to get our stuff ready to move, but at least there's Christmas to kick it all off with, which I'm really looking forward to.

The past week has been crazy, with 3 kid birthday parties, 3 class Christmas parties, and 1 preschool Christmas program. Since then, my kids spent a couple of fun nights with friends outside of Austin, and have spent a day at winter break gymnastics camp. They are having a blast, at least. And I'm basically done with my Christmas shopping and got nearly all the presents wrapped this week, except for a couple that are going in bags (too kid-tempting to put under the tree now!), so I can face the holidays in a fairly relaxed manner. I'll just try not to think about the fact that Christmas may be the last time I see my parents for a year... :-/

It's bad enough for my husband to be 1,200 miles away, but it's worse when I'm sick. I have a bad cold & a raging headache, & I've almost completely lost my voice...not the easiest way to take care of 2 very active kids. I can't even call my husband to commiserate because I can't talk well enough! Oh well, at least it's Saturday, with nowhere we have to be. We did go to Walgreen's earlier, but that's about all I've been up for.

In January I made two resolutions: to get rid of 1,000 things, and to finish my novel Purple Panic. I'm afraid I made very little headway on the novel. It's been a crazy year. At least I made some progress on it, but let's hope for better in 2006. As for the other resolution, between charity, trash, and passing things on to friends, I'm sure I've now gotten rid of well over 1,000 things. Too bad it has barely made a dent! I hope to double that number before I move. Which I now think will be in late January...at least I hope it won't be later than that!

Quote of the day from my younger son: "I'm a pretty cool 4-year-old, aren't I?"

Customer Service Cheers & Jeers: My husband works in user experience design, which means he helps make web sites intuitive and user-friendly, and he's always had a customer service focus, even when he was working at the library reference desk. So I'm especially attuned to good or bad customer service when I see it, and to good or bad consumer web sites. Giving someone a good feeling about your company can be worth a lot more than advertising, and I see no excuse for poor customer service. Two companies have made impressions on me this past week...one positive and one not!:

Cheers to Paragon Gifts! When we didn't receive our order from them, a week past the time their online order status checker told us we should have received it, we e-mailed them about the problem, and they immediately sent a replacement order for no extra charge! Wow! Guess I'll be ordering from them again! (Edited later to add: Got it!)

Jeers to VistaPrint.com! After I placed my order, they offered me other products I could add to my order with no additional shipping. I selected one to get a better look at it, and to see if I could get it personalized with my name instead of my husband's, which was shown on the sample. Based on all my experience with that site as well as other sites like it, I assumed that if I clicked on it, I could edit the personalization, and if not I could at least decline to purchase it. But as soon as I clicked it, it said that it had already been added to my current order & already been charged to my account, & they allow NO changes to any orders that have been placed! I find that outrageous! My husband wouldn't want the product shown, so I decided to ask them to change the personalization anyway. They had an online customer service form, which I filled out at length & sent. I then got an automated e-mail reply from them, saying they only offer customer service by telephone!! Yet they had an online customer service form, and it's an online-only business! I decided to suck it up & call despite my phone phobia, only to find out they don't offer customer service at all on weekends. Funny, they somehow managed to send me an advertising e-mail on a weekend. This is not a company I want to do business with again.

Uh...sorry to be so commercial in this one. In other news I am going crazy trying to get ready for a move and Christmas at the same time. The move may get pushed back.

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! My husband came back from Florida & we had a nice holiday with my family in Dallas. My extended family wasn't thrilled about the outcome of the Cowboys game, but at least they liked the football-shaped cake I made for the occasion...and the Texas Longhorns game yesterday rocked!

Now we're home with too many things to do, but I'm killing time online (call it denial). I saw a blog meme asking you to alphabetize the songs in your current music rotation & share the first song beginning with each letter, without repeating artists. I've got an iPod so I just went by the songs that are on my iPod right now--it was kind of an interesting exercise. Here are mine:

A Campfire Song - 10,000 Maniacs
Baby, I Can't Please You - Sam Phillips
Cader Idris - Bruce Cockburn
Daddy Untwisted - Over the Rhine
Easter - Raspberry Jam
Face the Change - INXS
Gardening at Night - REM
Hall of a Hundred Doors - Trout Fishing in America
I'd Run Away - The Jayhawks
Jamboree - Guadalcanal Diary
Keeping Awake - The Innocence Mission
La La Land - All Star United
Make the Music Go Bang - X
Name - PFR
O Sole Mio - Men Without Hats
Pain of the Next - The Throes
Quadrophenia - The Who
Rabid Child - They Might Be Giants
Sad Face - The Choir
Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go - Soft Cell
Unable - Harrod and Funck
Van Diemen's Land - U2
Wait - Wang Chung
X&Y - Coldplay
Yellow is a Happy Color - Charlie Peacock
Zerox - Adam & the Ants

I noticed that the iPod puts all songs beginning with "The" under the letter T, and alphabetizes punctuation before letters (putting "I'd" before "I Am," for instance). If I correct for those things, and also correct for songs that begin with the word "A," the songs for A, F, I, L, Q, & S all change:

About Love - The Choir
(The) Face of Beauty - The Violet Burning
I Am The Sea - The Who
(The) Lady Don't Mind - Talking Heads
Quiche Lorraine - The B-52's
Sal - The Connells

It's not that I have nothing to blog about lately...I actually have so much I can't narrow it down. And no time to do it.

Some of the things on my mind lately: faith, death, relationships, and modern retellings of classic children's stories.

What should be on my mind: getting my house ready to move out of!

What I have to do now instead of blogging: take my younger son to the Thanksgiving lunch at my older son's school.

Stupidest (and scariest) thing that happened to me today: Getting my coat zipper stuck in the slot where my seatbelt buckle goes, so that I couldn't get unbuckled or get out of the car. It took about 10 minutes of concerted effort to get it out, while my 4-year-old looked on. Now the seatbelt thingy has a chip out of it, and several parts of the zipper broke off of my coat. It's always something!

As of today, my husband is in our new rental house in Florida. He starts his new job tomorrow. This is starting to seem rather real! Except of course that I'm still in Texas, with a house not at all ready to move out of, and with two very loud, active children currently making me wonder how anyone can handle being a single parent! We plan to join my husband in Florida around the end of the year (with him coming back a few times in between, I hope!).

With the upcoming move, I have approximately 83,422 things to do, so obviously I'm not doing any writing. But I did submit something this week.

I also just took a little test about my sense of humor: It says I am the Wit (57% dark, 15% spontaneous, 36% vulgar):

your humor style:
CLEAN | COMPLEX | DARK
You like things edgy, subtle, and smart. I guess that means you're probably an intellectual, but don't take that to mean pretentious. You realize 'dumb' can be witty--after all isn't that the Simpsons' philosophy?--but rudeness for its own sake, 'gross-out' humor and most other things found in a fraternity leave you totally flat.

I guess you just have a more cerebral approach than most. You have the perfect mindset for a joke writer or staff writer.

Your sense of humor takes the most thought to appreciate, but it's also the best, in my opinion.

You probably loved the Office. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check it out here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/theoffice/.

PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Jon Stewart - Woody Allen - Ricky Gervais

Link: The 3 Variable Funny Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test
I'm surprised I came out dark (and especially that I scored higher on darkness than 69% of women my age!). I do appreciate dark humor, but I also write some of the lightest humor around. Some of my stories are so light it has been a real liability, considering it's for YA & adult audiences! But the description is pretty much on target.

Yesterday, I read an article in Real Simple magazine about a woman's list of 100 things to do in her lifetime (though her list really only had 67 items). I was surprised to realize I'd never made a list like that, being a list aficionado myself--as a teen I was fond of the Go-Go's song "Girl of 100 Lists." Later in the day, doing a web search about something completely different, I just happened to come across the 43 Things site, where people share 43 things they want to do in their lives and track their progress. Okay, okay, I thought, maybe I'll make a list....

I tried my hand at one and only got to 14 items before I put it aside, and most of those had to do with writing or travel. I'm sure there are many more, but it occurred to me that 20 years ago, I probably could have come up with 100 in a matter of minutes. Back then, I felt I had plenty of time to accomplish anything & everything, & probably would have written down anything that crossed my mind. Now, I feel the crunch of time, & was trying to write things that I really cared about doing, instead of just things I'd kind of like to do. Plus, some of the things I would have written once (skydive, learn to juggle, swim with dolphins) just don't seem important anymore. They'd still be fun, but I won't regret it if I die without doing them. And a few I hoped to do in the near future (like having a big bouncy castle party for my 40th birthday in a couple of years) are looking less likely as I plan to leave this state. But I do want to embrace life, and really live instead of always just planning to live, so I think the list is probably a good idea!

Oh, and speaking of lists and aging...my "baby" brother turned 30 this week, and one of the things I got him was the Book of Ages 30, which is quite a fun read. At the same time, I picked up The Big 40! for myself, to figure out what I need to accomplish in the next couple of years! (But so he wouldn't feel too old, I also got my brother a Darth Tater. I adore the fact that someone came up with such a ridiculously punny product & actually managed to get it made. And of course I have one, too!)

I am moving to Florida. So let's just hope it doesn't all blow away in Hurricane Wilma this week.

Greetings from sunny Florida! We're here for my husband's job interview, which is taking place even as I'm typing this. I don't think I have enough information to comment on the job or Florida yet, so instead I'll comment on the writing conference I attended over the weekend.

Saturday I went to Austin SCBWI's fall conference. I heard talks by two editors and an agent, and got a helpful critique on a YA manuscript. The manuscript I submitted has been critiqued many times (in different incarnations--this was a brand new rewrite but still retained much from the old versions), but this editor made points no one had ever made about it before, and they were definitely points worth pondering! In addition, I was gratified that he made it sound like my original vision for the manuscript could work. I had changed some things to suit what I thought was more acceptable or marketable, and some of those changes were the very things he questioned. I've tried to tell myself for years not to sell myself short, and I felt like I got some validation for following my own vision. Meanwhile, he gave me food for thought about some other aspects of the manuscript I hadn't thought about before!

The rest of the conference also had some great moments. I loved the encouraging talk by the agent, really enjoyed the lunch from Chango's, got helpful information at the round tables, was excited to win a door prize of theatre tickets, and particularly loved getting to meet a few online friends I'd never met in person before--Jessica, Kay, & Pam! (Hi to Kay's friend Susan, too!)

I finally read Dunk today, after checking it out weeks ago. I really enjoyed it...I'm glad I didn't accidentally return it without reading it, like I thought I had! Although the plot is unique, it's thematically similar enough to a couple of my YA manuscripts that it was a really helpful read for me.

My mind has been on a million things. I took some winding paths through Wikipedia yesterday & today, reading all kinds of things that gave me food for thought and possible fodder for my writing. With a continued possibility of moving & my immediate future up in the air, I haven't felt able to concentrate on any one writing project, but I've brainstormed (or should I say "thought-showered"?!) about tons of them. Lately it's mostly been about the novel idea I would probably pursue for NaNoWriMo if I'm not too overwhelmed to participate this year, the one I was going to call This is the End. Now I'm thinking a better title might be Closure, but I already have another project with a very similar title, so I haven't gotten any...um, closure on the topic.

I got the latest issue of ByLine & was a little bummed to find an article about what writers can learn from actors. Bummed because I had just been planning to write an article on that topic myself! Mine would be different enough that I may do it anyway, but ByLine was where I thought I'd try selling it. Meanwhile, I also got the latest Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market (CWIM) & a book called Story Structure Architect, kind of a compendium of plot types, character archetypes, etc., that I hope might help me with my plotting difficulties. So far, I find it rather daunting--though very attractively designed! (I love the rounded corners of the book and the skewed o's in the headline font...I can't say as much in favor of the CWIM's design, but at least its content is useful as always! They could publish the CWIM on a paper towel and I'd probably still buy it.)

Lucky me, I got to see the ever-talented Lisa Wheeler at my son's school today! I first met Lisa online 8 or 9 years ago (!), and took her fantastic picture book workshop here in Austin this past March. She lives in Michigan, so I was surprised but delighted to find out she'd was doing an author visit at my son's school, of all places. She mentioned that it's already snowed in parts of Michigan this fall (!!), so I'm sure she wasn't thrilled to come experience the record-setting streak of triple-digit temperatures we've been having here (it was officially 107 yesterday, though my van's outside temperature gauge registered up to 112 at one point...)., but I'm glad she braved the heat, as it was a treat to hear her speak.

I'd never seen an author's school presentation before, so I was very curious. I went to the presentation my son attended, for 1st graders, then stayed on to hear her presentation for 3rd & 4th graders, which was completely different. She did a great job, with lots of fun props & stories, & I found out I'd have to get a lot braver than I am now if I ever wanted to do school visits myself someday! I have no problem acting a part on a stage in front of people, but having to command the attention of 100+ first graders and their teachers while speaking as myself seems really scary! I bought a copy of her fun book, Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum, had her inscribe it to my kids, & snuck it into my son's backpack while he was at lunch. He was excited to find it there. He read it to himself on the way home, & I read it to my four-year-old when we all got home. I highly recommend it as a read-aloud book. I was also amused that Lisa got the idea for Sailor Moo while eating at Wendy's, since I've had an article published myself about how many of my ideas have come while eating fast food! (Hmm...think I should go to Wendy's tonight?)

Thank goodness Hurricane Rita didn't cause the kind of destruction that was feared! I hope everyone who stayed in the affected regions is okay. We stayed up until almost 4 am watching the live coverage, but were relieved to get up and find nothing worse reported than what we had already seen.

As if I didn't already have too many writing ideas, today my husband & I came up with a concept for a humorous chapter book series, possibly mysteries but maybe just funny stories. We don't have actual plots, but came up with several titles and ideas. We cracked ourselves up, anyway.... I've just been experimenting with the possible voice for the books, trying to figure out whether first person or third might work better, and much more importantly, whether the main characters should be animals or people! It's certainly easier to write about people than animals, but the animal idea lends itself to more zaniness. Then if they're animals, we'd have to decide if they live in human-type homes, animal-type habitats, or what. It's crazy to even entertain this idea when I've got so many other projects, so it'll probably go on the back burner, but it seems like something that would be really fun to write. We read so many chapter books and chapter book mysteries to our kids that I'm at least much more familiar with the genre than I was a year or two ago. We're also considering collaborating on them, which is a weird idea in itself!

I also wrote more notes today for my possible children's play idea. That one poses some problems, too--should it be written for child actors or adult actors? I suspect it could make a difference in the size of the cast. I'm leaning towards a large cast, though that might make it hard to market.

So I didn't win an SCBWI work-in-progress grant. Again. I always think these things won't bother me because I don't expect to win anyway, but they usually bother me anyway. I feel like a poser right now, for being at this so long with so little to show for it.

I can't believe another hurricane is coming. We may get storms from it even here, 4 hours north of the coast. Rita, Rita, go away! Dry up now, don't hit the bay!

The biggest news at our house this week was my older son, who turned 7 last month, finally lost his first tooth! It wasn't even loose until a few hours before it fell out. His 4-year-old brother drew him this picture to commemorate the occasion:


For bedtime reading that night, we read two books about loose teeth or the Tooth Fairy (who did find our house that night), and I shamelessly shared a poem I'd written about losing teeth. (Still seeking a market for that one....)

Second biggest news was that my younger son started his 4's preschool class on Monday. It's a new school for him, but he seems to really like it so far--on Thursday, he asked how many days until he could go back.

Third biggest news was that Wednesday was my husband's & my 14th wedding anniversary. We had other obligations in the evening, but while the kids were both in school, we celebrated with a morning date at a 24-hour bowling alley (fun!), followed by a nice lunch at Hill Country Pasta House.

At the library this week, I checked out about 15 books for the kids, plus 2 for me: Dunk by David Lubar, and Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta. I've read a bunch of the books for the kids, but we'll see if I can get to the ones for me!

I'm so impressed with Austin! We went to the Care for the Coast donation drive at the grocery store Friday, & they already had huge trucks and containers FULL of donated water, food, & diapers, with people driving up to bring more all the time, & that was only one of multiple donation sites. Meanwhile, several thousand hurricane evacuees have come here (including a new boy from Louisiana in my son's first grade class today), and an apartment complex opened some units to house evacuated families rent-free for a while. They were soliciting donations of basic living supplies, furniture, cookware, etc., for that complex and possibly some others. We took over some donations on Saturday, & planned to take another van load on Sunday, but they reported they were FULL for the time being, with nowhere to store any more donations! We figured we'd donate another load to the city's official donation drop-off location this week, but today the newspaper reports that the whole 400,000 sq. ft. warehouse is also full! So they're only taking cash for now (Austin residents--check the Austin Freecycle forum for updates on where to make non-cash donations). My local SCBWI group is also collecting book donations for evacuees this Saturday, my son's school is collecting necessities, there's a benefit concert planned with Willie Nelson headlining, and there's a city job fair for evacuees here this week. I'm sure it's not just Austin...I've heard such stories all over the net, and seen people on all my online groups just looking for ways to help. With all the negativity and blame being passed around, it's heartening to see this kind of response! (And props to celebrities like Macy Gray & Sean Penn for actually volunteering in person, instead of just criticizing relief efforts from a comfortable distance.)

For most of the past week I was too horrified by the hurricane to even think about writing, or to read anything but news and message board posts. For Labor Day, I decided to take an escapist break and finally read David Lubar's novel Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie. I really, really enjoyed it! I'm glad I took a chance on buying it instead of waiting to check it out at the library. When Cynthia Leitich Smith blogged about this book, she mentioned she'd never been a high school freshman. Same here--my high school started with 10th grade, and I don't recall a class caste system as such, so I didn't really relate to the freshman experience aspect. Yet on another level, just being human and having lived through high school, I related to so much of it! And special kudos to David Lubar for mentioning Dorothy Parker's excellent, snarky story "The Waltz," one of my favorite short stories ever. I once did a reading of it at a speech tournament. David Lubar also has some hilarious humor on his web site, including a Young Adult Novel Kit I just saw yesterday that made me laugh so loudly that my 7-year-old asked why I was laughing and I couldn't explain.... I also love his guide to literary fiction (a must if you've ever tried to write it, as I have!) and his aptitude test for potential book reviewers for "Carcass Reviews." (He's also got a daughter named Alison, so that's got to count for something!)

Anyway, the book was a welcome diversion, as well as thought-provoking and even somewhat educational. But as I got to the end, it brought me right back to reality with a passing reference to New Orleans on the penultimate page (penultimate being one of the narrator's favorite words). Who could have imagined that the mention of a concert in New Orleans would sound jarring enough to send a shudder down my spine, mere weeks after the book's release? So strange. I hope it doesn't sound jarring this time next year. I only went to New Orleans once, for the World's Fair in 1984. My souvenir of New Orleans was a pair of ceramic comedy & tragedy masks I bought in the French Quarter. It seems almost eerie now, thinking of that tragedy mask as a symbol of New Orleans. But comedy and tragedy are interwoven, and in the city where, as Rick Bragg wrote so eloquently this week, death has long been faced with music and humor as the saints go marching in, I hope the smiling comedy mask comes out triumphant, as the people of the region rebound and have the last laugh.

I read on someone else's blog that this is Blog for Relief Day for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. So, I'll join in the urging for everyone to help however they can. Here are direct links to the hurricane relief donation pages for the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross. Of couse there are many other wonderful groups you can donate through...I chose those two because they already have so much help organized, mobilized, and underway in the affected areas. Note that both sites are very slow today, which I hope is an encouraging sign that they are being bombarded by donors!

Here in Austin, a Care for the Coast relief drive is going on this Friday, September 2, from 6 am to 6:30 pm at the following H-E-B locations: Hancock Center (41st at Red River), Highway 620 at Anderson Mill, Highway 71 at Bee Caves Road, 500 Canyon Ridge Drive, and also at the Capital Area Food Bank at 8301 S. Congress. They are asking for donations of these five items: peanut butter, canned meat & tuna, granola/cereal bars, water bottles (consumer size), and diapers. The Capital Area Food Bank will also collect monetary donations at those locations. And here's a long list of other donation drives and ways to help in the Austin area. Please turn out to donate for those in need!

Meanwhile, I'm feeling nearly physically ill seeing and contemplating all the devastation, and I'm not at all encouraged about the prospect of moving my own family to the (Florida) Gulf Coast!

I survived my son's pirate party--barely!--and even managed to make this cake for him (I cropped out the busy background):


I wrote some little poems for treasure hunt clues, & to my surprise the kids clamored to read the clues aloud. I think that was the best part of the party. (The treasure they found was a piñata.)

My son has also survived 7 days of first grade, & seems to be thriving. Even the early mornings haven't been a problem yet! I am very happy with our public school, and with his class and teacher. Meanwhile, my husband interviewed in Florida & apparently did pretty well. He'll probably go back for a second interview, in which case I'd probably go with him to check out the area. But I'm not in a hurry for any decisions to be made! He brought me a flamingo figurine to commemorate my picture book manuscript about flamingos, which I need to submit somewhere soon.

Tomorrow I'm really busy, but as soon as I get a chance I plan to read Sleeping Freshman Never Lie, by David Lubar.

Well, I felt horrible when I got out of bed this morning, but I didn't seem to have a fever. Now, however, I do, and I feel even worse. Yuck! But it's not all bad...chilling in bed all afternoon gave me time to read the whole novel I bought earlier today! (If you're interested, the "pretty girl capital of the world" is none other than here in Austin. Cool!) And in a complete non-sequitur, I won a charcoal grill & smoker by sticking my e-mail address in a drop box at Whole Foods this week! I must have been the only person in Texas who has had a backyard for years but has never owned a grill, so I really wanted one. And I won it only 2 days after entering. Hooray!

I just got back from the monthly Austin SCBWI meeting, where I heard author Brian Yansky speak about what characters want, and how their yearnings drive the story. I was late, unfortunately, because I can never remember where the turn-off for the bookstore is...but what I heard of his talk was helpful (it already gave me ideas for strengthening one of my manuscripts), and I bought a copy of his YA novel, My Road Trip to the Pretty Girl Capital of the World, which I've been wanting to read for a long time. I also got to meet Varian Johnson in person, which was nice after meeting him through our blogs!

Lately I’ve been busy planning a pirate party for my son’s birthday next week, and getting him ready to start first grade on his birthday. He’s changing to public school from a small private kindergarten, so it’s going to be a big change. (It also starts at, gasp, 7:45 am! I don’t think I’ve even seen 7:45 am in months!) My younger son doesn’t start preschool for a month after his brother’s school starts, and that may drive us all crazy! He hates when his brother has somewhere to go & he doesn’t.

Of course, the whole preschool thing may be moot because my husband is interviewing for a job in Florida soon! I'm trying not to think about it, especially since an interview doesn't necessarily mean a job. But I've lived in Texas all my life (except for 6 months as a baby), and planned to live in Texas for the rest of it, so it took us a while to decide to go ahead with the interview. Today, though, I was thinking a big change might be just what I need. But I'd also have to sign up for a frequent flyer program for frequent visits to Texas!

I got the new issue of Once Upon A Time with my article "In With The Old" in it. Fittingly, it arrived right around my birthday! (But my mom served my cake on Strawberry Shortcake plates, so I must not be too old...right?! Never mind that I was already too old for Strawberry Shortcake when she was first introduced!)

A week & a half ago, I had to submit a manuscript for critique at the October Austin SCBWI conference. I was stymied. I first thought of submitting a picture book, but doubted it was the best fit for the critiquer. Then I printed out first chapters from 3 different novel projects, to see which one I wanted to submit. I had several versions of the first chapter of Can't Beet It and had never been happy with any of them, so I stayed up pretty much all night rewriting it. While I liked the new version better, I still felt it wasn't quite right. The next day, I was leaning towards Purple Panic, but asked my husband to look at all three first chapters and tell me which one caught his eye most. He voted rather strongly for Can't Beet It--he really liked the rewrite--so that's what I ended up submitting, to my surprise.

A few days later, I dreamed that the regional advisor of our SCBWI chapter showed up at my door, telling me she'd sent all the other critique manuscripts but had lost mine. I told her it was no big deal, and that the critiquer couldn't have read them all yet, so I'd just Fed Ex mine right away. She looked unhappy with that, and I suddenly noticed she actually had my manuscript with her. I realized she hadn't sent mine because she thought it was so bad that it reflected poorly on our whole chapter, and she would rather the critiquer not see it! I told her it had once been recognized in a contest (true) and that I had 4 other manuscripts I could send if she didn't like that one...but in the end I was going to Fed Ex it and pay to send it myself, and was sad she was so disappointed in my manuscript and in me as a writer. In real life, I got word that she sent all the manuscripts, including mine, but this dream sure brought out my writerly fears!

The day I took my manuscript to her in reality, I told my kids I was going to deliver a manuscript to someone from my writing group, and we had this lovely conversation:

6-year-old son: "Is it going to be published?"

Me: "I don't know. An editor is going to read it and tell me what he thinks, and maybe if it could be published."

4-year-old son: "I think it will, because you're a good writer."

Big praise from a little person! I didn't know my 4-year-old even realized what "published" meant or that it had to do with being a good writer, nor that he had an opinion about my writing, but he definitely knew how to warm his mother's heart!

I've been tagged by Varian Johnson...I feel honored! I had no idea what tagging even meant until I did a search. Looks like I'm supposed to answer the same questions as he did in his blog entry, then tag 5 more people...kind of like a chain letter without any dire warnings about what will happen if I don't do it! I'm game:

20 years ago – I was 2 days away from turning 18...so now you know how ancient I am! I was working at a movie theater popcorn stand, I had recently totaled my first car, and I had already finished one crazy year of college at UT-Austin and was about to go back for another. It was a completely bizarre summer, as anyone I knew that year can probably attest to.

10 years ago – I'd been married for nearly 4 years & had lived in Austin (again) for 2. I'd had my first publication 8 months earlier. I was working as a tech writer at National Instruments while my husband worked on a master's degree in history. We made some good friends through a grad student reading group that year. Also made my first web page, and I still haven't updated my 10-year-old HTML skills!

5 years ago – I was staying home with my first son, then nearly 2 years old, and pregnant with son #2. I started the novel Can't Beet It I'm still working on! (It goes on & off the back burner regularly.)

1 year ago – Mom of two young boys, still writing...about the same as now!

Yesterday – Missed church, ack. Ate at The Black-eyed Pea for the first time in at least a year, yum. (Son #1: "This is the best turkey I've ever eaten." Son #2: "I can't imagine anything better than this!" Wow.) Shopped for gifts for the two kids' birthday parties in a row we're going to next week.

Tomorrow – We're going to my hometown of Arlington to celebrate my birthday on Wednesday.

5 snacks I enjoy – Popcorn, Twix bars, ice cream, powdered mini donuts, Munchos potato chips

5 bands I know the lyrics to most of their songs – MOST of their songs? I'm not sure if any fall into that category! There are plenty of albums I know most of the lyrics on, though. See my way old (circa 1998 or 1999, that is) music web page for a few clues to my tastes.

5 things I would do with 100,000,000 dollars – Tithe, pay off debts, buy & furnish a house (I currently want one with a game room and soda fountain!), travel, support causes I care about.

5 locations I’d like to run away to – New Mexico, Wales, Greece, Canada, California

5 bad habits – drinking soda constantly, staying up too late, hitting the snooze alarm too many times, skipping breakfast, misplacing things

5 things I like to do – write, act, enter contests, go to amusement parks, hang out on the Internet

5 TV shows I like – 5? I don't watch that much TV...though I do watch Survivor most seasons.

5 famous people I’d like to meet – Madeleine L'Engle (my dad has met her but I haven't!), Kevin Henkes, Louis Sachar, Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and/or Wes Anderson (they were both at UT while I was getting my film degree, but they went on to get nominated for Academy Awards in screenwriting while I...um, didn't). And let me sneak in Lance Armstrong since he's a hometown hero!

5 biggest joys at the moment – Laughs & hugs from my family, the funny & smart things my kids say, my iPod (pathetic but true), getting some things in order around the house, making breakthroughs in my writing

5 favorite toys – My long-lost Fisher-Price castle, my Humpty Dumpty pillow doll (my kids have them, too!), my long-lost Fisher-Price Main Street, Legos, & the rubbery spiny echidna toy I bought myself at Toy Joy! I'm also keen on my kids' Fisher-Price Fun Park with a loopy roller coaster we like to run Hot Wheels, & somewhere I have a great blue mouse puppet that sticks out its tongue and squeaks.

5 people to tag – Most people I considered tagging have already been tagged with this! I'll tag Pam Calvert, wry_tang in Australia, and taking an idea from Linda Joy Singleton's 7/30 entry...if you're reading this, tag, you're it!

I got a note from Austin writer Chris Barton, who had noticed I hadn't updated my blog for a while. I appreciated that anyone had noticed my blog in the first place! I haven't done much online at all lately, and I don't know why, except perhaps that I've been spending way too much of my computer time playing Mah Jongg...I got my best score ever tonight, so maybe I can stop now and blog instead! Here's what else has been up:

Writing: I got a notice that my article, "In With the Old," is in the new issue of Once Upon a Time, due to arrive in subscribers' mailboxes any day. I also have to return my contract and some minor revisions for my pieces in the upcoming Summer Shorts anthology from Blooming Tree Press. And most pressing, I need to submit a manuscript for critique at an upcoming conference. I got a highly coveted critique spot, and now I'm panicking about what to send. Many of my manuscripts have already been critiqued since I last revised them, so I don't think I need more critiques on them yet. But my other manuscripts seem wrong for the critiquing editor. I'm having nightmarish visions of the editor hating my manuscript so much that it permanently damages my reputation as a writer and gets me blacklisted...or at least disliking it enough to sigh at me with disdain and wish bitterly that conference critiques weren't part of the job.

Reading: Today I started The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon...it's due back to the library tomorrow so I need to hurry through it! I also read a bunch of books to the kids. The two most fun were The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller and Alphabeasts by Wallace Edwards. They both have art that demands to be studied.

Listening: I keep wanting to hear They Might Be Giants' first (self-titled) album, especially "Everything Right is Wrong Again" and "Don't Let's Start." After 19 years, this album still amuses me greatly every time I hear it.

Watching: In between the stacks of chapter book mysteries my almost-7-year-old son is plowing through this summer, we've been reading some of Jon Scieszka's Time Warp Trio books, so he is happy there's a new Time Warp Trio TV show. (And while Sam bears a resemblance to Harry Potter, he looked the same in the books, which predate Harry!) He's also thrilled there are finally new episodes of Cyberchase this week. As for me, I watched the 1939 movie of Wuthering Heights the other night, with Laurence Olivier. I'd seen it before, and read the book, but I was struck by what an odd story it is. I kind of wanted to tell Heathcliff, "Just get over it, man. Move on!" I'm also weird enough to like Stella on Comedy Central. And I watched Mike Myers on Inside the Actors' Studio last night. I was impressed that he wrote the Wayne's World script in 3 weeks. I wrote a novel in 3 weeks myself, but Wayne's World was a hugely successful movie and my novel manuscript is still floundering nearly 3 years later...and speaking of 3, it's 3:30 am, so I need to get to bed!

My Can't Beet It manuscript has been bugging me for years, since I can't seem to get the right voice, or tone, or something. Some people have suggested I make the protagonist younger, but the plot requires him to be older, & I haven't come up with a way to change the plot & still care about it. I've considered changing the protagonist from the guy, Dan, to the girl, Whitney--either putting her in his role, or keeping them in the same roles & telling the story from her POV, but neither change works at all. Today I had this chain of thoughts:

1. Hey, maybe I could keep Dan as the main character, but let Whitney narrate the story! I don't know if that could work for YA, but seems like it worked in The Great Gatsby & Moby Dick...of course, Dan doesn't die in the story, but could be interesting...


2. I'd still have to let him talk some. Maybe she could interview him, or he could butt in to tell his side. Might be worth trying as an exercise, anyway.


3. Maybe I should just write the story as a screenplay. I've started it as a screenplay before & I still think it might work. Too bad it would languish forever & never get made.


4. I have a film degree...wouldn't it be cool if I could make a film of it myself? Write and direct or produce it or something?


5. No way could I line up all the actors & locations & all that stuff. I'd need permission from a mall to use their food court! Too bad it wouldn't work at all as a stage play, because with stage plays you can use almost anything as the set.


6. Maybe I should just write stage plays instead. I still have theatre connections. What could I write about?

So now I have three pages of notes for a possible children's play with a fractured fairy tale theme! I think it would be really fun, so I just may write it. Now if only discipline came as easily as ideas.

I tried the lyric-writing exercise, & actually came up with something! I started with a story I didn't think I knew enough about yet, & had no idea what a song for it could be like. The next thing I knew, I had lyrics to a song. The first verse goes, "Jill, Jill, who's the pretty one now? Jill, Jill, who's the smart one now? Who's getting the accolades? Just look at the mess you've made." I envisioned it being sung by a pop punk girl band, but the tune in my head was vaguely reminiscent of a song I finally recognized as the 70s song "Rock On" by David Essex (you know, "still looking for that blue jean, baby queen, prettiest girl I ever seen," etc.), but faster. Odd, but I was glad I managed to do it! I haven't attempted lyrics for my other stories yet, but I did compile a list of all of my novel ideas and ongoing projects, along with a summary for each, and then did the same for my picture book and short story ideas. It's the first time I've ever written up some of that information and definitely the first time I've had it in one place and easily accessible, so I felt really good about it.

I did not feel so good about not placing in the SmartWriters.com W.I.N. contest. I didn't expect to place so I didn't expect to be upset about it. And indeed I was not upset about my YA entry not being a finalist. In that case, though, I knew my approximately 1,000-word sample didn't fully represent the actual 2,500-word opening chapter, & I know the manuscript does need more work, & I've already had outside validation that the novel has promise. It was the picture book category that got to me, I think because the picture book runners-up and honorable mentions were all described as needing more work. If my submissions didn't even place, how much work must they need? Sigh. My guess is that most of my picture books are just too quiet or too ordinary to stand out, so rewriting probably won't be enough to save them.

I half-thought I just throw in the towel, thinking how bad my chances will be in the slush piles of the world. But today, I knew I really must be a writer. My husband and I were arguing and I felt quite horrible about the whole situation, but even in the midst of it I found myself wondering how I could use it in a story! And then made a note to use a related fight in my next YA novel! Crazy, huh? I also finally came up with a working title, This is the End, for the next YA, and a probable name, Jessie, for the main character. I'm still working on the names of the other major characters--or rather, which character should have which name! But of course, this is not the project I mean to be working on right now, so these are just notes!

Weird idea of the day: I was listening to an album (The Connells - Fun & Games), & started thinking about how albums are usually made up of a number of songs that each tell a different story (concept albums notwithstanding). I thought, I have so many stories to tell, I almost wish I could just make an album of them instead of having to write so many different books! As it is, I tend to be drawn more to character studies, moments of insight, & snapshots or glimpses of people's lives than in typical plots with a lot of action--action is possibly my weakest point as a writer (and, one might argue, as a person)! So then I thought, why not? The yet-unnamed protagonist of my next & yet-unnamed YA project is a lyricist, so it might be good practice, as a writing exercise, to write poems or lyrics to capture the essence of each of the stories I want to write. Besides, I have some extra time to kill while waiting for the winners of the 2005 SmartWriters.com W.I.N. contest to be announced! (Just don't follow up to see if I actually DO this exercise! Like I said, action is not my strong suit!)

I read an article today that questioned the purpose of children's novels on depressing subjects & made the common suggestion that such books are more popular with teachers or librarians than with kids. I realized that even though I adore humor and nearly always choose comedy movies over other types, some of the children's books that meant the most to me as a child, the ones that stayed with me over the years, were the ones on depressing or difficult subjects. There was Constance C. Greene's Beat the Turtle Drum, about a girl whose younger sister dies in an accident the same week she finally gets a horse for a week; Zibby Oneal's The Language of Goldfish, about a girl facing a mental breakdown as she enters her teens; my favorite novel from age 13 on, Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light, which deals with death, grief, and depression in a hopeful way; and Britt Singer's edgy YA The Petting Zoo, about a young woman trying to stop her boyfriend from killing himself. I still own all four of those today, even though I have very few other books from my childhood. Something about them resonated with me, not in a weird voyeuristic way, but in trying to make sense of the world. That makes me feel better about my own forays into darker material, although of course I love my fun stuff, too!

This article also suggested that kids need to know they don't have to solve their problems alone, unlike book characters who find themselves isolated with a great deal of trouble. While I think that's a valid point, & editors do insist that protagonists solve their own problems rather than being rescued by some deus ex machina solution, the characters in many children's books solve their problems with the help of others, whether it's a team of kid detectives working together, or a depressed character reaching out for help in the end instead of retreating further into herself or himself. Vicky in A Ring of Endless Light is helped by relationships with both people and dolphins! I think one way a character may solve his or her own problem is by choosing to request or accept help. My characters tend to get advice and insight from people around them, whether they solicit it or not (and I do worry editors will balk at this, if it happens too much!), but what each character must do alone, and what we all must do alone, is come to a point of decision. In my film classes, we were taught that the narrative arc of a traditional story is driven by the decisions the characters make. Others can advise us or give us a hand, but only we can decide which advice or path to take, and the choices we make can determine whether or not we live happily ever after! Sure, I think it's important for kids to know, for instance, that they don't have to suffer in silence when picked on by bullies, but many kids do deal with a lot alone, and I don't think literature would do them favors by ignoring problems, or assuming that everyone has the same resources. I also think that those of us who have hope, and believe that we do not have to suffer alone, need to try even harder to get our hopeful messages out there for those kids who are struggling with existential worries and drawn to books that deal with tough issues.

All that said, I agree it's often preposterous how many tragedies kids in books (and animal kids in Disney movies!) are sometimes confronted with, and how many ways writers and filmmakers concoct to get kids into situations where they're on their own. The Lemony Snicket books poke ironic fun at all that, and Louis Sachar also swipes at the depressing book phenomenon in one of his hilarious Wayside School books. I'd also recommend that folks sick of depressing stories read Gordan Korman's funny midgrade novel No More Dead Dogs! The protagonist of that one is sick of them, too.

Song in head: "Fixing a Hole" by The Beatles

Mood: Optimistic

Drinks I've won today: 1-liter Dr Pepper from Dr Pepper bottle cap, 2-liter Pepsi Lime from Call Upon Yoda contest online

I've been drinking a ton of Slurpees lately, for two reasons: (1) I love Slurpees, & (2) to get "free" iTunes downloads. Of course the code-laden Slurpees cost 40 cents more than just buying a download, but downloads alone aren't nearly as slushy and refreshing. I think I love Slurpees especially much for the nostalgia factor, because I grew up a block from a 7-11 and used to walk there all the time.

The iTunes are giving me a nostalgia fix, too. I recently came across a whole bunch of my old 45 rpm singles, some of which are embarrassing now. I realized my friends and I used to buy singles the way we used to buy...well, t-shirt transfers, if anyone else is old enough to remember flipping through all the transfer displays at the mall t-shirt stores! It wasn't that we found something we were crazy about and had to buy it; we would pick out something just to buy something, just because we were at the store. Hence my ownership of singles by artists such as Eddie Money and Donnie Iris! I've thought about music in terms of whole albums for years since then, but with the iTunes, I'm back to singles again and having a blast picking them out. Old songs, new songs, one-hit wonder songs, etc. I'm also trying to get most of my old music transferred to the right format for my iPod, so I'm listening to albums I've neglected for years...A Flock of Seagulls, anyone?!

More quotes about seizing the day, which seems to be my theme o' the week:

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." --Mark Twain

"Let not our longing slay the appetite of our living." --Jim Elliot

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." --The Shawshank Redemption

So it's the longest day of the year. Which ideally, would be a perfect day to seize, if I could figure out how to seize the day. If I can't Carpe Diem, I may have to just Carpe Dig'Em--seize the frog!



(And yes, I spent at least 15 minutes of the day I was supposed to be seizing making that little picture...but it's something I've joked about doing probably since Dead Poets Society came out in 1989 and made everyone say "Carpe Diem" all the time.)

Weirdness abounds. As does car trouble. I wrote a humor essay in...oh, 1992 or so, about our seemingly endless bouts of car trouble, but they amazingly did end. (Psst, want to publish it?? It got honorable mention in a contest, but I've never found a market for it.) So I hope we're not starting another story like that! We're having our car towed today from a store parking lot, for failure of the alternator belt we just got fixed. I assume it wasn't fixed right the first time around, considering that the brand new belt is now ripped, curled, & generally mangled!

I finally had a chance to read Storky last night. Subtitled: How I Lost My Nickname and Won the Girl. At first I was happy with the ending. Then, pathetically, I found myself thinking, "So...why does a 9th grader need to get the girl, anyway?" I was jealous! OK, I got the guy between 9th & 10th grades, but it only lasted a week, and then he stood me up on my birthday. After that...let's just say it was a long time until I got the guy again. You see why I write YA fiction? I guess I haven't quite gotten over my teen years! But I liked them. Meanwhile, this whole grown-up thing is seeming like a raw deal to me. I'm feeling the need to change things. Not to stop writing, but to write more. To live more fully. To take the words I've been quoting to myself for years and make them mean something in my life. Like these words in Tennyson's poem Ulysses: "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life." And these: "Come, my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world." (Easier said than done!)

Yesterday: 16 years since I met my husband. We met at a Jason's Deli, eating with mutual friends, so now we go to Jason's Deli every June 11th. Their broccoli cheese soup is very good.

Today: Church (good sermon on Narnia, C.S. Lewis, & not being alone with our pain), lunch at McDonald's (what, no broccoli?), saw The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D (poorly reviewed, but perfect for my 6-year-old).

Tomorrow: Too soon to know.

Been thinking about: Closure. It only recently occurred to me that we aren't guaranteed closure about anything. For some reason I'd always kind of assumed I'd eventually get closure about various incidents, relationships, etc., or that confusing things that have happened would start to make sense at some point...and suddenly realized that may never happen, and in most cases probably won't. Shouldn't be a revolutionary thought, but somehow it was. I may explore that a bit in my next YA novel. That is, if I ever get even the least bit of closure on my other novels-in-progress!

It's Summer Reading Club time at the library again, which means our house is even more filled with books than usual. We went to the library last night & came home with 22 children's books, 21 of which were mainly for my kids, and 1 of which is for me: M.T. Anderson's Whales on Stilts! It's truly hilarious--I think I'll have to buy it. Considering my love of wacky surrealism for kids, I'm surprised I don't write more of it. My beet and bubble gum novels lean that way, but always stop short of actual surrealism, and seem to get less wacky as they go. I wonder if I'm playing it too safe, or dull. Hmm.

What a freaky weird week it's been. After my husband filled out the paperwork for a new job on Tuesday, the job was eliminated on Thursday! It ended before it began, sending us from celebration and preparation to stunned disbelief. Saturday we went to my hometown for a night just to get away--and get some babysitting from my parents. (Got to see Star Wars Episode III, anyway.) Tonight we got home, where I found another rejection letter in the mailbox. Whee. Tomorrow our older son starts Magic Camp--maybe by the end of the week, he'll be able to wave a wand and make everything better! Well, at least I got my favorite foods this weekend.