Write like you meme it

From memegirls: Copy the questions into your blog and answer them. Then tag five other writers to do the same!

1. Do you outline? Not exactly. I usually just start writing, and eventually find myself needing to write a general outline of sorts to get me to the end, but it's usually more like a summary or synopsis of the major story points. And I don't always do even that. Sometimes I don't do it until I finish a draft, when it's time to start on revisions and I need to fix the plot. But I tend to start off writing off the top of my head.

2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order? Almost always straight through. Sometimes I jot notes or partial scenes for future parts of the book before I really get to that point, but I prefer to write most of it in order.

3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer? Computer, but I sometimes write notes for the story in longhand, or switch to writing in longhand to shake up my perspective and get through a block, or write in longhand when I'm not near a computer! I really enjoy writing in longhand, but it's usually just not fast enough.

4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third? I prefer first, but I usually try each story both ways just to make sure I'm picking what works best for the story. First person may come easier because of my theatre background, or maybe just because I'm used to talking and thinking my own thoughts in first person!

5. Do you listen to music while you write? If so, do you create a playlist, listen randomly, or pick a single song that fits the book? It seems unusual these days, but I don't listen to music while I write! If I'm really into the writing, there could be a rock band playing in my living room and I'd hardly notice, but I don't go out of my way to listen to music while writing. I've tried a couple of times and it usually distracts me too much when I'm getting started.

6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters? My characters normally show up in my head with names already! When I have to brainstorm about one, it's hard, but I usually just try out lots of possibilities until something seems right. I've always loved reading books and web sites about names and naming, so I have a lot of names in my head as it is.

7. When you're writing, do you ever imagine your book as a television show or movie? Sometimes I do that on purpose when I'm stuck in the story. I try to picture it as a movie or TV show, and imagine what I'd like to see happen next--or how I'd start the story or approach it in general. The medium really changes the way it's presented, and that sometimes kickstarts new ideas for approaching the text. I'm probably inclined to do this because I have a degree in Radio/TV/Film. I never imagine it will get made into a TV show or movie, though...the stuff I write doesn't usually lend itself to that. But that's one reason I like the exercise of imagining it that way, because it forces me to think more of action and visuals instead of getting stuck in the character's head too much (unless I start imagining it as something like Scrubs, where there's a ton of voiceover narration!).

8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn't want him/her to do? I expect so. My characters definitely surprise me all the time! One time, I wanted to change the narrator of my story, but the character I was switching to just wouldn't tell it the way I liked it, so I had to take away her microphone and give the story back to the original MC.... Odd how that happens.

9. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it? Sometimes I don't even know what it's about! (I tend to start with just a character in a situation.) But if I do know what it's about, I usually have at least a vague idea how I want it to end. But then, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I'd get to the ending more often if I wasn't trying to find my way to an ending that might not fit the story anymore...hmm.

10. Where do you write? On my laptop, on my lap, wherever that happens to be! Generally, on the couch, on a chair, on my bed, or occasionally in the car (either parked or as a passenger, not the driver!), or at Barnes & Noble (in longhand) or at the library. I've worked at a desk or table a few times, but don't have an office. I wish I did! I thinks it helps me to focus if I have a dedicated space for writing. Once I'm going, I can keep going, but it's easier to get started in a good writing environment.

11. What do you do when you get writer's block? Brainstorm. Try writing in longhand. Journal about the story or characters. Try to imagine it playing out on a screen. Sleep on it. Take a walk or drive. Give up for a while and work on something else! Any or all of the above, and probably a lot of other things, too. And of course, just write through it, and throw out all the crap that comes out the first few tries, and keep anything good that comes along when I finally stumble into something that works. (And don't tell me writer's block doesn't exist, because it's one of my pet peeves when people say that. Maybe it shouldn't exist, or doesn't exist for you, but it exists for me. But I won't do the Emma Thompson in Stranger Than Fiction thing and refuse to try writing anything until I'm sure what's going to work...and definitely won't get an assistant sent to me by a publisher to help me break my block! Though in that movie, it did work out best that she didn't write anything until she did....)

12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)? Any and all! I don't normally have a wordcount-per-day or page-per-day goal, but I've tended to write between 500 and 2,000 words in a day (when writing novels, not picture books!). But I've probably had 10-word days (not to mention all the 0-word days), and I've had at least one 10,000-word-day during NaNoWriMo, as well as some 7,000-word days. I write manuscripts of all different lengths, though, from poems and very short picture book texts to my longest manuscript, a YA novel of about 60,000 words.

13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project? I don't know how to count revisions. I'm always tweaking, so except for the first time through, I never know when one draft is "finished" and the next draft begins. Suffice it to say, more than one!

14. Have you ever changed a character's name midway through a draft? Yes. In one case, I realized I had three characters with one-syllable names with a long "a" sound, so Paige ended up becoming Gena.

15. Do you let anyone read your book while you're working on it, or do you wait until you've completed a draft before letting someone else see it? I prefer not to share it before it's done, but because I've occasionally needed something to submit for conference critiques or critique groups, I have shared chapters of unfinished manuscripts. (It's also much easier to get someone to read a chapter than a whole book!)

16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft? Rest! And probably jump up and down and shout it to the world. Sadly, this doesn't happen often enough for me to really know what I "normally" do.

17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once? I've done both. I normally have one "main" project, but if things aren't going well, I sometimes have a bad habit of skipping around, unable to settle on one thing for long, and if things are going well, I often find that writing begets writing, and I have so many ideas I start writing more stuff! The month I did NaNoWriMo and completed a YA novel manuscript, I was so inspired I also wrote 16,000 moe words on two other projects! (But only after meeting my NaNo word count quota.) I guess it helps that when I was a technical writer, I often had to work on 7 or 8 manuals at a time.

18. Do your books grow or shrink in revision? Both. I tend to write long so they have to get tighter, but I've also had to add scenes or even chapters. My longest manuscript got a little longer, but my short stories usually shrink.

19. Do you have any writing or critique partners? I've been in critique groups in the past, but I'm not now. I have asked individual writers to read stuff for me on occasion, though. Actually, two local writer friends recently asked if I wanted to form an informal critique group with them & I said yes but nothing has happened with it yet & I'm not sure if it will. I have also paid for critiques in the past.

20. Do you prefer drafting or revising? Drafting!

I tag anyone who wants to answer.

Getting going again

I finally read a book for the first time in more than a month! Last night I read the moving midgrade verse novel Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown. And I agree with one of the reviewers at Amazon that it takes a lot of courage to write a negative mother character without softening it or watering down the hurt at the end.

It occurred to me that, since much of my writing focuses more on exploring feelings than on action plots, maybe I should consider writing one of my novel projects in free verse. It wouldn't work with most of my projects, but there's one story I haven't landed on the right voice for yet, and I'd already planned to intersperse poems and lyrics throughout it, but now I'm thinking maybe it should be mainly verse. But there are so many characters, and so much exposition is needed, I'm not quite sure how it would work. It might be one of those novels that's made up of multiple things like poems, article clippings, diary entries, quotes, dialogue...I'm not sure yet, but it's something to explore.

In other news, I've decided to stop being a couch potato. You'd be hard pressed to find someone less athletic than me, and it's been that way since I was a kid. But being a kid, I still did things like riding my bike, roller skating, and taking tap dance classes. As an adult, those things fell by the wayside, and I've been quite sedentary. I've only gone to a gym once (YMCA), several years ago, and after one try on the treadmill I never went back. But after a physically taxing pregnancy and recovery, I decided that if I got my health & range of motion back, I wanted to enjoy it and not take it for granted. Also...I was taking a women's magazine survey and they asked for article ideas. I started thinking they should write about someone who went from being a complete couch potato to being moderately active, and they could call it 50 Days to Fitness or something like that. But then I thought that if anyone were to write that, it should be me, but first I would have to do it! So with that idea as a starting point, I just started walking, not with any major goal except to stop being a couch potato, and to invest at least 50 days into it before letting myself call it off. I wanted to log my daily activity in some way, and being an Internet addict, it seemed like the easiest way to keep track of it would be with a blog. So I started a blog for my "No Potato Project" at nopotato.blogspot.com. It's mainly just for me, but if other people know it's there and could theoretically check up on me, I figure that will give me more impetus not to quit! The cool thing is, I think I've walked about 11 miles in the past week that I never would have walked otherwise, and that is huge for me.

An abundance of books (and baby laughs)

My parents finally got to meet my baby, now that he's already 12 weeks old! They visited for part of Thursday & part of Friday. Blake did not disappoint, as he was a giggly bundle of joy most of the time they were here.

Meanwhile, I've only read a couple of books since he was born, so my reading list has been stacking up. I kept seeing people go on about John Green's An Abundance of Katherines, but when I found out it had footnotes, I had to go check it out... For some reason, I've loved every fiction book I have read with footnotes in it, as different as they have been from one another (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson, and The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart--maybe the sequel to it, also). It's partly because the footnotes are usually clever and enjoyable on their own terms, but probably mostly because I'm a pretty parenthetical thinker myself. I have no problem with tangents...I have more trouble staying linear. So I suspect that on some level, I'm on a similar wavelength with authors who think to use footnotes in fiction, so their writing resonates with me in general.

But that's just one of many books I have piled up to read. I also have lots of books by authors I know: Hugging the Rock by Susan Taylor Brown, Tattoo by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement Moore. I also can't wait to read Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson and Reality Leak by Joni Sensel, as well as some other books I've heard of recently. I just can't figure out when I'm going to read them all!

Never mind

Things are not looking up after all.

Things are looking up...

Yeah, our car needs a new engine...but at least we got our tax refund this past week, just in time! I also found a large surprise win on my porch from a Quick and Simple magazine contest--a Black & Decker power scrubber and a Black & Decker garden cultivator. And yeah, my poor baby had to get immunizations this week, which made him cry much of the day, but in the doctor's office, we found the Parents magazine my son Kyle and I are mentioned in--we're on page 142 of the April 2007 issue--and the dr told us to take it home. It was Kyle's turn for Show & Tell in his kindergarten class this week, so he took a copy of the article, along with the pictures referred to in it, of him covered in peanut butter as a toddler. Also, my husband had an interview on Friday. He has another interview elsewhere this coming Friday, but we're really hoping the one from this past Friday works out. It would be great in about 20 ways.

Meanwhile, oddly, it sleeted at our house in central Texas in April yesterday! We made a mini ice bunny, and also made our poor baby wear an outfit with bunny ears and a tail:

  
Sometime in the night, a certain bunny found its way to our house and left goodies for the kids. Today, we went to church, had a nice lunch out at Brick Oven Pizza (not crowded on Easter!), and had a few Easter egg hunts in the no-longer-frozen yard.

Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates it, from me and my Happy Easter Baby!

Foolin'

Bored this April Fool's Day? Check out this long list of April Fool's pranks being perpetrated by various web sites today: http://aprilfools.urgo.org/2007.html

My favorites so far are Gmail Paper (see also Learn More About Gmail Paper) and the whole front page of startrek.com.

Here on the home front, my 6 & 8-year-old sons are notoriously sound sleepers who have been carried to their beds asleep on many occasions without waking up, so we tried to trick them by switching them into each other's beds in the middle of the night, so they'd both wake up in the wrong rooms. Unfortunately, this time they both woke up when being moved. My husband continued moving them anyway, hoping they were mostly asleep and would forget the sleepy conversation, but they didn't. Oh well, we tried! We may still come up with another prank today.

Meanwhile, in less funny news, our car pulled a prank on us a day early. The same car that just stranded us on the highway last week, necessitating a tow truck, a rental car, and a new radiator, gave out again on the highway last night, only 4 days after we got it out of the repair shop. This time, it decided to die completely on a highway overpass after dark. Cars were zooming by at 70 mph very close to the driver's side, and on the passenger side, we were within inches of a concrete wall--on the other side of the wall was a drop-off onto a major intersection a story below. I have almost never been so frightened, especially with 3 small kids in the car, including a screaming baby! I was sure we'd get hit from behind, there was no easy way to get out of the car, and nowhere to walk to nearby. Our roadside assistance service eventually sent a police car, and the policeman helpfully pushed our car down the exit ramp in front of us and into an empty driveway nearby, then a friend came and took us all home in his van. A tow truck apparently showed up and took our car to yet another repair shop after we left. We had to miss Palm Sunday church today, but the friend who picked us up last night offered us his family's Toyota 4Runner until our car is back from the shop (isn't that nice?!), and they'll be bringing it by today, hopefully in time for us to make it to the city Easter egg hunt at 2:00!

Blog haiku

Haiku2 for ambd
imagine it as a rope to hoist himself out of the theater
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Created by Grahame

Blogs I have known

I've been tagged by Liz Scanlon to list 5 blogs I read regularly that are not related to children's literature. I've been putting this off, because...well, most of the blogs I read are related to children's literature. And the ones that aren't are mostly personal blogs of people I've known in real life, not necessarily intended for mass audiences. So I've been wracking my brain to think of a few to list.

One of the funnest I've come across lately is SenseList, a blog of interesting lists created by an old friend of mine. He also runs the Interesting Thing of the Day blog, although it's not quite daily at the moment. (But I noted that SenseList actually did have a post related to children's writing--in this case, writing by children--recently.)

I've also been known to check out some blog communities such as British Comedy and Dr Pepper Freak, and meme sites like The Friday Five (or metablog The Daily Meme).

And, more locally, I sometimes check out Austinist.com.

Seems like this meme's been around a while, so I'll just tag anyone who still wants to play.

Thwarted

I am so sad right now. We didn't get to see my parents after all, or introduce Blake to my family. Our car broke down halfway there. It's now at a repair shop far from home, while we are home, thanks to a nice tow truck owner who drove all 5 of us home in his large pick-up truck...but we're home with no car. (We're trying to rent one, which has proved very difficult on a Sunday, but looks like it will be possible with help.)

I feel almost a biological need to show off my new baby, and I'm soooo sad his grandparents can't meet him! My mother has already said we live too far for her to come very soon, and she also doesn't want us to visit her because she's not up to having us over. The baby was also supposed to meet my great-uncle, step-grandmother, uncle, and some teenage cousins. What a lousy day. (Though at least Blake has been sleeping peacefully in his carseat almost all day...5 hours so far, except for one 15-minute feeding while we were stranded!)

Parents

I've heard from people online that I am quoted in the new (April 2007) issue of Parents magazine, though I subscribe and still haven't gotten mine or seen it yet! Someone in one of my writing groups had asked if she could include my story in an article about toddlers making messes, so the quote should refer to the time my middle son got into the peanut buttter at 15 months old (pictures here).

My current adorable baby is 2 months old today and my parents should finally get to meet him tomorrow, when we go to a family gathering halfway between our homes to celebrate my great-uncle's 92nd (or 93rd?) birthday. My mom has been too ill to do anything since my baby was born, so this will be her first big trip out. She still doesn't feel up to a long visit, but can at least meet her new grandson!

Thoughts for a Thursday

I've gotten caught up in all the talk on various blogs and boards about "hooks" in writing & pitching novels, but the fact is, I don't need to worry about selling a novel right now. I need to worry about writing a novel right now. And rewriting one. And none of the talk about hooks is really going to change what I'm writing. These are the stories I have to tell right now. Obviously I want to make them as compelling as possible, but I'm unlikely to change the basic storylines. (And very unlikely to add, say, mutant reptilian zombies from outer space to punch them up a bit.) So, I just need to stop worrying and start writing!

I'm grateful to Megan McCafferty for writing in the 2007 Children's Writers and Illustrators Market that it's okay to write what you're passionate about instead of what seems marketable but that you have no interest in. Even if the book you want to write is yet another teen angst book. (Here's hoping publishers agree.)

And, on the topic of selling books, I think I may submit a picture book manuscript. It's been a long time since I've submitted anything, and PBs are particularly hard because most agents don't represent them, yet most publishers don't accept unagented manuscripts. But I realized I have two manuscripts sitting around that seem done to me, and I might as well get at least one of them out there. They aren't stories with a main character and a real plot, which seems to be what editors want from PBs these days, and one is pretty quiet. That's why I've been slow to submit them, but I still like the manuscripts, so might as well try. I also have a PB manuscript that I love, but it's nowhere near done (requires a complete overhaul) and I don't think I have the brainpower for that one right now!

Also, I'm so happy to have a new digital camera and even happier to have something like this to use it on:

It's easy being green...

Last night, my enterprising 8-year-old designed a new, improved leprechaun trap for 2007, since the 2006 version hadn't worked. He made an elaborate diagram, and then he and his 6-year-old brother worked together to make the trap.


A trail of fake gold coins would lure the leprechaun up the Lego stairs to the top of an overturned moving box, where more gold coins waited. But in front of the coins on top of the box was a trap door, covered by tissue paper, so the leprechaun would fall in when he tried to walk across. My son was concerned that the leprechaun could hack his way out if he happened to have an ax, so he wanted to fortify the sides with wood, but settled for heavy books.

The result--a message from the leprechaun, spelled out in fake coins: HA HA.

It appeared that the leprechaun had used a computer mouse he found around our house as a rope to hoist himself out of the box & get away. But he left behind treasures anyway, some gold-wrapped chocolate coins and some Spree candy in green bags. Also a leprechaun-themed rubber ducky with a note: "Hee Hee. You can't catch a real leprechaun, and you can't have my real gold! Better luck next year!"

The kids were a bit astounded that the leprechaun left them chocolate coins in bags with the "Coins of the World" label on them. "It has a tag on it!" they said about one of the bags. "He got that at a candy store!" They wondered how a leprechaun could shop at a store. "Wouldn't they notice he was a leprechaun?" they asked. My 6-year-old then figured out how he could have gotten the candy, which makes perfect sense for the high-tech leprechaun who used a mouse cord as a rope. "Maybe he bought it on eBay," he said.

For breakfast today, it was Lucky Charms, of course, and later we had our annual green dinner (lunch in this case). Our special guest was the cutest leprechaun in the world! Oh, wait, that's just my baby. ;-)

And after lunch, the 6-year-old lost his first tooth...that was lucky! We expect to go to the park pretty soon to look for four-leaf clovers--one year we found quite a few! HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO YOU ALL!

Small world after all

A couple of days ago, I happened to read a blog post from Jennifer Barnes (again), writing from England, about a new YA novel coming out that day, Prom Dates from Hell by Rosemary Clement-Moore. The author's name struck me as sounding familiar somehow. I realized I'd known a Rosemary Clement when I was growing up. Turns out, it's her! We did children's theatre together years ago. She was actually in the Musical Theatre class I had just mentioned in my blog the previous day! I realized if she hadn't kept the Clement in her name, I could have read her book and never even realized the author was someone I knew. Anyway, I plan to get the book as soon as I can, and I'm still amazed that I found out from someone in England that someone I knew growing up in Texas is now a YA author.

More plot thoughts

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that some writer friends and I were having trouble with our largely emotion-based, rather than action-based, plots. This week, Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein wrote a great blog post dealing with this very thing. Her responses in the comments give even more insights. (Boiling it down...try to include both kinds of plot.)

Last night, I caught the end of the movie Ghost World, which I'd seen before, on TV. The existence of that movie proves to me that you don't have to have much of a plot...and particularly not an action-based one...but then, you probably won't rack up huge sales figures, either. These days, it seems to be all about the plot, or the hook, so I think I'd better try some plottier stuff before I go too quiet or artsy! Anyway, Ghost World is an interesting movie for me, as the main character, Enid, is very much like Lydia, the main character in my YA Chasing Monday, while the subject matter--facing life after high school when you don't have a plan--is pretty much the theme of my YA Can't Beet It, though Ghost World is much darker and, I'm afraid, more stylish than either of my novels. Can't Beet It is a humor novel with a basically happy ending. Chasing Monday is a more typical high school story, and at least aiming for happiness at the end.

Ghost World, I realized, has sort of the same ending as the movie The Graduate, despite having little in common with it other than an originally aimless main character who just graduated. The Graduate, which we had to dissect endlessly in a college film class, was driven by the actions of the character Ben, who was literally going after (even speedily, racing his car down the freeway) what he'd decided he wanted. Enid is never sure what she wants and doesn't do much at all. In Ghost World, unlike The Graduate, what really happens at the end is open to different interpretations, yet the endings are very similar on a surface level. Interesting.

Britcoms & multiple writers

I was amused this weekend to see Jennifer Barnes' blog post about being in England, pining for her American TV shows, while I'm here in the States, where I've never watched any of the shows she mentioned, and instead have been watching British shows all week! We watched some Extras (okay, so it's half-American, sort of), and Series VII of Red Dwarf (again), and we just rented Season One of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, which we also saw years ago. But my favorite this week has been Spaced, a rather brilliant (though often crude) sitcom from the folks behind the movie Shaun of the Dead. It apparently hasn't been released on Region 1 DVDs for some reason (I guess the video store made their own copy with a multi-region DVD player or something)...very annoying as I'd love to see the DVD extras, which this version didn't have. Anyway, it's clever and sometimes surreal, which makes it right up my alley, and one of the lead characters is a frustrated writer, though she doesn't get around to much writing.

At one point in the show, the writer character, Daisy, is working in a nightmarish job at a nacho restaurant with a power-crazed boss. She finally tells the boss off, saying she doesn't belong there, cleaning the kitchen. She's a creative person, not a mopper...she's a writer. The evil boss proceeds to tell her that all the hapless employees are writers. She motions to several of them, in turn. One writes haikus, one writes scripts, and one particularly skittish employee had a short story published once, a few years back. But there they all are in this horrible nacho sweatshop. I found it hilarious, scary, and sad, all at once! Now, I have a YA manuscript about a humiliating fast food job, and I've also written a story about a taco restaurant (in the desert...), but I hope there's more hope for my writing than those fictional writers had! I did work as a technical writer where it seemed like more than half my co-workers were also frustrated creative writers (creative writers in waiting?), but at least we were writing, and our bosses weren't insane. ;-) Um, but I am about to have some nacho chips & queso. Hmm.

My husband noticed that the British shows we've watched tend to have 2-person writing teams, often writers who have collaborated on a number of projects. We also saw an interview with John Cleese in which he said that Monty Python had two 2-person writing teams with different tastes in sketches. Off the top of our heads, we couldn't think of many similar writing teams in the U.S. Which got me to wondering...have any of you out there collaborated with other writers? I think it would take just the right person and I'm still not sure I could do it. Maybe for skits, but seems like it would be harder to collaborate on something long. Once in a Musical Theatre class, my class wrote a short show together, which worked out pretty well, but that's about my only experience with it. I tried to write skits with some friends in college, but most of our writing sessions degenerated into just hanging out (which basically led to my first date with my husband!), and when my writer friends from high school tried to improvise our way into a writing collaboration, it just changed our writing club into an improv club. I have long thought it might be interesting to co-write something with my husband, but I'm not sure what it would be. I assumed it would be non-fiction, probably not a children's book--more like humor or a collection of interesting facts--though we've talked about working together on my chapter book series idea. But I imagine him contributing mostly ideas, and research, and funny lines here and there, with me doing most of the actual writing. I'm sure we'd drive each other crazy, but I usually drive him crazy asking for feedback on my writing, anyway!

Plot and hooks

A writer friend called me this week to say she'd come across a copy of my YA manuscript, which she'd misplaced after I gave it to her for critique a couple of years ago, and had just spent about an hour reading and thinking about it (!). I had included some of the comments I'd gotten about it from other critiquers, and she said the comments I was getting were very similar to comments she and another friend of ours have gotten from editors and agents. And they all boil down to the fact that we can write, but we're not great in the plot department. We get bogged down in feelings instead of showing action, and not enough really happens.

So, she and the other friend dissected some well-plotted books and came up with a basic plot outline, almost a formula--pretty much the basic stuff, such as a problem, obstacles, etc. They plan to apply this outline to their books, to see if they can make their plots flow better, and she invited me to try it, too. I can see how it would fit a simple story, with one main problem and a linear narrative, but I'm not sure how it would fit complex YA stuff, with multiple storylines and problems, or sub-plots, and also not sure how it would accommodate flashbacks or other such deviations. But it probably would fit my midgrade stuff, and definitely the chapter books I want to write, so I ought to give it a serious go, as I really am plot-challenged! Though sometimes, when I outline a story and know exactly where it's going, it's harder for me to actually write it, because the voice isn't necessarily there and it sounds like a forced trip from point A to point B, and/or it feels like I've already written it when I know what's going to happen at each step.

I'm not hot on the whole plot-driven thing, in any case. I do think my novels should have plots, and I know that is their main problem, but the "hook" critiques I saw at an agent's blog yesterday just depressed me. I rarely write stuff with clear "hooks," and that's not really what I read for, either. It's not just what the story is about that draws me in, but the characters, the language, the way the story is told, etc. It's whether it's a world I want to spend time in, or a character I want to spend time with. The concept may get me to open the book, but it's what I see on the page that determines whether I'm going to read the book. I also wince at the idea that every book needs a wildly different plot hook than every other book before it--people don't even know what to do with stories that are too different. Half the movies in Hollywood have predictable plots we've all seen a hundred times, but they keep getting made and people keep buying tickets. If someone likes one kind of story, they usually want more that are like it. That's why series books are popular, or romance novels, or whatever. Not that I want to write stuff that's been done to death--I doubt I'm running that risk with my novel about beets, anyway--but I don't think every novel needs a stunningly new conflict, or extremely high stakes. Maybe it just needs an interesting take on a time-honored concept.

So, I'm grumpy about the hook idea. I'm hoping to sell my books based on the writing, not the concepts, because a concept is worthless to me without good writing to back it up. 20 writers can start with the same interesting concept and come out with 20 exceedingly different novels, and I'm sure not all would end up compelling! But some writers could take a quiet, everyday concept and come up with a brilliant novel about it. On the other hand...I'm probably just protesting too much because plot isn't my strong suit!

Answers to my Friend Test

Answers to my friend test from Wednesday's post:

 

1. My drink of choice is Dr Pepper. I drink a lot of it. (Though years ago, I drank Coke almost exclusively. I then stopped drinking Coke at all for a long time, and now I can stand it again, but I'm really a Pepper!)

 

2. I have 1 sibling, a brother 8 years younger.

 

3. I would never want to be on American Idol (can't sing), Survivor (too hard & you have to wear skimpy clothes!), or Trading Spaces (I have no decorating instincts, & the show usually does horrible things to people's houses). But I've always kind of wanted to do sketch comedy, so out of the choices I listed, I'd pick MAD TV--but nearly any comedy show would do. (What I'd really love to be on is the old Carol Burnett show!)

 

4. I have fiction manuscripts about bubble gum, beets, and slushies, but not popcorn. I have also written about tacos. (But popcorn is my favorite snack, & my first job was at a movie theater popcorn stand.)

 

5. I have had 2 rabbits, a duck (for about a week, as a child), and a guinea pig, but I have never had a cat.

 

6. As a child, I was the only girl I knew who didn't aim to be a veterinarian. I did say I wanted to be a garbage collector, though! (I also wanted to be a writer and actress, but garbage collector was right up there.) It's my 16-year-old cousin who wants to be a meteorologist.

 

7. I never took a class in knitting. I tried to sign up for one once, but it was full, so I'm still handicraft-challenged. I took cartooning and ice skating classes as a kid, and actually took Mayan hieroglyphics as an elective in college, which turned out to be a bad choice. I figured none of the students would know anything about it coming in, but I was probably the only non-anthropology major in there, and everyone else knew and cared much more about the subject than I did, so I had trouble keeping up!

 

8. I have a college degree in Radio-TV-Film. Why, I'm not sure. ;-)

 

9. I have won musical electronic drumsticks--basically a toy--from a Coke promotion, and a glowing martini glass, as well as a martini shaker, from an online contest a few years back. I won 32 lbs. of Tootsie Rolls (144 jumbo-sized ones) from a prize drawing on the University of Texas campus during a Texas Independence Day festival (22 years ago today, I believe), and had to lug the whole big, awkward box of them across campus to my dorm, which I barely managed. I'd been trying to win an old vinyl record, but oops, I got the grand prize! I did make lots of new "friends" in my dorm after that, but the friendships dried up when the girls started blaming my candy for making them gain weight! I have never won a $50.00 red velvet cake, by the way, but I've been entering to win one from womansday.com!

 

10. My husband's name is Mark.

Musings

Nobody had any comments about the bad hair photos of myself I linked to in my "harrowing hair tales" post yesterday?! Methinks no one must have read the post!

A couple of nights ago, I read back over the 7,000+ words of my unfinished National Novel Writing Month manuscript from last fall, hoping it would turn out to be good, and I'd feel spurred on to get back to it. No such luck! If anything, I found it depressing that there were a few, mostly buried gems of ideas or characters lost in a story I don't think is good enough to finish. Also, I had set the story in Sarasota, Florida, where we lived last year. It was the first story I ever tried to write that was set in a real, identifiable place, and for that alone I found it noteworthy--I wanted to write it as a tribute to somewhere I might soon forget. Unfortunately, it seems I have already forgotten Sarasota! I started the manuscript just 1 month after moving away. Now, 4 months after that, even the landmarks I wrote about in the story had largely slipped my mind, and I realized I could never finish it with the same realistic descriptions now, from here, as out of touch as I am with that area already. Very strange. How quickly we forget!

On a brighter note, I also looked back over some sample intro paragraphs I'd written for a chapter book series I'd like to write. And I liked them! What the novel manuscript lacked most of all was voice, and the chapter book idea seems to have it. What it doesn't have is plots, or even definite characters...I still haven't decided if the characters are humans or animals! So I don't feel ready to start it right now. But I do think it's worth batting around, while my kids are still at chapter book age so I'm familiar with the genre. I'm thinking I should probably finish one of my YA novels first, though, if only because I'd prefer to make a name for myself in midgrade or YA first, since they are my first loves. But if I figure out a plot for one of the chapter books (I have titles in mind, oddly, but not specific plots), I may start writing it and see what happens. 

I'm also not sure which YA I'd want to work on--one I have a full draft for, which needs massive revisions I've been putting off, or one I only have partially written, which has given me fits for years. All of the characters deserve to have their stories told, so I'm not sure who should win! And then I begin to doubt that any of their stories is really interesting enough to tell. I've been reading the novel "hooks" some other writers are posting in their blogs, and I know my novels don't really have hooks. When one of them had a first chapter critique at a conference some years ago, the editor critiquing it said it was fine as far as it went, but it needed "more." More what, I asked? She couldn't say. Just "more." I'm still mulling over that! For ages I thought she meant deeper themes, or more going on in the plot, and I even tried to add in some edgier stuff that another editor then told me didn't fit. But now I'm thinking maybe it just needs to be more vivid, more sensory, more tangible--areas I often struggle with--so it pulls the reader more deeply into the world of the story. Hmm. Part of me wants to work on that, and the other part of me thinks I should write the chapter books because they have simple storylines by necessity, and won't require so much of that elusive "more"! (Not that I think they'd be "easy" to write--just that they might be an easier fit for my natural writing style.)

Now go laugh at my hair pics!

All the cool kids are doing it...

Create your own Friend Test here

Harrowing hair tales

Look what I got in the mail from the lovely Laura Bowers recently:

It's a handy (pun intended) emery board advertising her forthcoming YA novel, Beauty Shop for Rent. (I even used it to file my nails within moments after opening the envelope, since I really needed to do so at the time, though I only used the plain side!) Very nifty.

Laura is also having a contest right now to win a galley copy of her book. See her blog for details. Two of the ways to enter are to share a bad salon experience, or a photo of a bad hairstyle you've had. You can get another entry by posting a link to her contest on your blog. I'm going for broke by doing ALL of these things. I've suffered enough from bad hair to deserve a few entries! ;-)

I've had many bad salon experiences over the years, but one stands out as the worst because it was bad in several shudder-worthy ways. I was in 9th grade, which was still in junior high instead of high school in my town. My hair was flat and limp and wouldn't hold a curl--or more importantly in 1980, couldn't be shaped into properly feathered bangs. Obviously, something had to be done. My grandmother decided to help me out by getting me my first perm--a body wave just to help my hair hold curls. For some reason, even though she usually didn't mind paying for quality and this was a very vulnerable age in my life, she took me to get the perm at a small, hole-in-the-wall sort of beauty college. Here the horrors begain. First, my student hairdresser, Lawanda, was smoking while doing my hair, dropping ashes on me as she worked! Second, she didn't cover my clothes well, and spilled some sort of perm fluid on my favorite t-shirt, leaving a big white stain where the color was apparently bleached out of my shirt. But worst of all...she left the perm solution on too long, and burned a section of hair off the top of my scalp. I'm not sure how big the burned spot was now--maybe the size of a nickel or quarter--but it might as well have been the size of a silver dollar when I was in 9th grade!

As the hair grew in, it stuck straight up, which was very obvious. My solution to this was to keep cutting that section of hair back to crewcut length every time it grew to a quarter or half an inch. I did that for months of the school year. Finally, I decided I had to let it grow out sometime, and so I did. It probably grew to an inch high standing straight up, before it finally started laying flat like the rest of my hair. Meanwhile, throughout that time, a couple of guys at school called me "Mohawk"! At the end of the year, when one of them signed my yearbook, he drew a picture of a man with a Mohawk, and I was so mortified I actually colored the rest of the man's hair in later, so no one would see that in there & figure out what he was referring to. (And I just found my yearbook and scanned it in here!) I never thought much about it after that, and if you'd asked me, I would have said it wasn't that traumatizing...at least, the guys who made fun of me were teasing me in a friendly way, rather than a malicious one. However, when preparing to write this up, I realized that in my YA novel draft, written more than 20 years later, one of the traumatic & formative experiences in the protagonist's past was dyeing her hair bright red in junior high and getting harassed and made fun of about it the rest of the year, with kids calling her Raggedy Ann and Painthead. I guess my "Mohawk" problem stuck with me longer than I thought! (But strangely, I continued getting perms for years after that, and even went to a beauty school for some later haircuts--and not all those experiences were trauma-free, either--but I never again got a perm at a beauty school, and only braved an upscale one for the haircuts!)

I don't have a photo of my mini-Mohawk look, but I still have quite a few bad hair pictures from my past. So, with a bit of humiliation, I present to you a small sampling of Alison's bad hair history. As I said in a humor piece I wrote once: "Bad hair--for some, it's just a phase. For me, it's a way of life!" (This was brought back home at Cynthia Leitich Smith's launch party for her book Tantalize this week, when my bangs were so horribly in my face I had to resort to pulling them back with a headband that made me feel 11 years old all night!) I guess I really need the help of Laura Bowers' protagonist!

A tantalizing weekend

Friday night I had the good fortune to attend a book launch party for Cynthia Leitich Smith's new YA novel, Tantalize. The soiree was hosted by Cynthia and her husband Greg Leitich Smith (who can sing in Italian, by the way) at their amazing 1920s house in the heart of Austin. It was altogether delicious, given the atmosphere, the food, and the company. Cynthia definitely knows how to throw a party. There was a lavish spread of food, there were door prizes related to her book and other local authors' books, and there were even wine servers outfitted in t-shirts from the book's fictional restaurant, Sanguini's. The house had a darkly festive atmosphere, inside and out (I'll have to remember their amusing tactic of blocking off off-limits rooms with crime scene tape!), the weather was perfect for going onto the porch, the house was filled with artsy and literary folks, such as fellow bloggers Jo Whittemore and Liz Garton Scanlon (and many, many books!), and the view could not have been more Austiny--ideal considering that Tantalize is set in Austin. Best of all, every guest received a free hardback copy of Tantalize! I had assumed the book might be for sale at the party. Then when I heard they were free, I expected a paperback advanced reading copy, at best. But we all got gorgeous, autographed hardcover books. It was my first night away from my baby (and my first time to have wine in almost a year!), and all in all was a lovely evening out. The baby...and my husband...even survived without me!

Saturday was the first lazy day we'd had in a while, with absolutely no commitments, so I took the opportunity to lie around reading Tantalize. I read the whole thing that day, despite its being more than 300 pages. I must admit I have never read a vampire or werewolf book before, so I don't know how it compares to others in the genre, but I enjoyed it and cared for the characters, and it certainly kept me reading. I found it suspenseful from beginning to end. And, as a regular YA reader, I loved the way the typical YA elements of the plot blended with the fantasy elements. Of course, living in the Austin area I also loved the Austin-centric nature of the plot (I laughed out loud about the "Bat Anti-Defamation League"), though living north of town, the South Congress area featured in the book is almost as foreign to me as San Antonio. Guess I'll have to go down there soon and see what's what! Cynthia is a talented writer and I'd recommend this book to anyone with an interest in YA or urban fantasy literature. I could definitely imagine it as a movie, also. Though I am wondering now if I should have really drunk the red wine at Cynthia's house! (I did leave the party with fangs, but only the fake ones I'd brought...I hope!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Heart Day, everyone! For some reason, Valentine's Day always puts a smile on my face, even though it was rarely a romantic day for me when I was single, and even when I don't have plans for it, like today! I guess I have good memories of childhood Valentine treats, classroom parties & card exchanges, etc. It's a hassle to help my kids find valentine cards and address them all, but I still enjoy it somehow. Plus, I just like holidays. (And, I like the candy & flowers my husband gave me this morning!) But my husband actually had lunch with a friend today and we don't want to take 3 kids out to a nice dinner, so we don't have any big plans for the day. But we ordered delivery from Jason's Deli tonight, which is kind of romantic since we met there.

In other news...

• A week after my baby was born, I was diagnosed with late-onset pre-eclampsia, one symptom of which is very high blood pressure, and readmitted to the hospital for 2 nights. My blood pressure finally stabilized with some medication, but went back up into a nerve-wracking range a few days after I came home from the hospital. The dr told me to stay on the meds another 2 weeks & see how it goes. So far, so good--it seems to have stabilized again. I started being a little more active, after trying to rest a lot at first, and I think it really makes me feel better. (Not that I'm particularly active, but I've at least gone out to the store & stuff instead of just staying in resting.)
  
• My baby is 3 weeks old today! It goes so fast. At his 2-week checkup last week, all seemed well. He was finally back up to his birth weight (minus 1 oz.), & had grown an inch longer.
  
• Nothing in the world is sweeter than my baby. (Though lots of things are less messy! So far neither one of us can get through the day without at least 1 change of clothes, and usually 3 or 4 in his case!)
  
• My 6 & 8-year-olds had trouble getting into the original Star Wars movies enough to stay awake through one. Then, enter the Lego Star Wars 2 video game. Now, they are obsessed. They have watched the whole original trilogy now, plus the first movie of the new trilogy (and don't you think that nearly any episode of Star Trek is better than that movie?!). So, I decided to download & play for them Weird Al Yankovic's "Yoda" song. This may have been a mistake. It gets old to hear kids yelling "Yo, yo, yo, yo, Yoda!" all the time.
  
• My husband's dad & stepmother visited us last week from Colorado. It was a nice, laid-back visit.
  
• My mother has been sick for a few weeks so my parents haven't been able to meet my baby yet. I hope they can visit while he still looks mostly like a newborn! (Of course, my brother hasn't even met my 6-year-old yet, so who knows?!)

My baby is here!

My third son, Blake, arrived on Wednesday, January 24th, after only 2 crazy hours of labor! My water broke at 7:20 am and we left for the hospital shortly before 8:00. Between rush hour traffic and rain, it took over an hour to get there. I checked into the hospital at 9:01 am, and Blake was born at 9:36! Click here to meet him! Last night was his first night home, and while I ended up sitting up holding him pretty much all night... (he consented to maybe 10 minutes in his bassinet), we are all doing well and really enjoying our newest and tiniest family member!

3 weeks into the new year

A couple of months ago, I paid $5 to enter a WritersWeekly.com contest to write a short story in 24 hours this month. They would send out a topic and word count when the contest began, and entrants would have to send in a story that fit the topic and word count within 24 hours of the original e-mail. Then I forgot about the contest. Until today, when I got the second e-mail from them. That is, the one announcing that the contest was over & no more entries would be accepted. I had never seen the first e-mail yesterday with the topic or word count! After a bit of digging, I found it in my deleted mail folder. :-( I get soooooo much spam, I'm obviously going through my mail too quickly. I guess I deleted it because I didn't recognize the sender (the editor's name), but I don't know why I didn't see the clear subject line. And I was sooooooo bored yesterday. As bored as I've been in months or a year. I complained about it several times. Meanwhile, I was supposed to be busily writing a story! (And the topic was vaguely about cooking, which would have been more timely for me than usual since I've been watching Top Chef lately.) Argh. That's at least the second message I've missed lately, so I've got to get less delete-happy. Sigh.

Meanwhile...this is shaping up to be my longest pregnancy yet. I'm 12 days from the baby's due date. My first son was born 12 days from his due date, at 3:20 pm CST. I have just passed that time in this pregnancy. And my second son was 11 days old by this point. While I'm happy to have this baby a week or more past his brother's birthday, the waiting is still getting frustrating. I'm as huge and uncomfortable as I've ever been in my life, and because I keep thinking it could be any minute, I feel compelled to take everything I might need at the hospital with me every time I leave the house! We have bags for me, the older kids (who will stay with some of our friends while I'm giving birth), and the baby in the trunk of our car, but there are last-minute items I still need at home, so I've been dragging things back & forth to the car all the time. Ugh. Both of the other kids came before I expected them, so I'm not used to waiting & wondering, and I also didn't have all these annoying pre-labor symptoms with them. I've been having contractions on & off for more than 2 weeks now! So I'm getting antsy. It's weird to find myself wishing for painful labor to start. Though I still don't have a name for the baby, and the house really isn't ready, either, so I shouldn't be in a hurry. I was at least very glad not to go into labor when we were iced in a few days back!

So the ice is gone, & we have sun again today for the first time in more than a week. It's lovely! We were really going stir crazy being stuck at home for several days, especially with the kids being out of school for 3 days this past week (one for MLK Jr. Day, two for icy weather). Friday night, we went to see Night at the Museum. It was okay, but I don't think the kids were crazy about it. And the happiest news in days is...Girl Scout cookies are here!! We got 3 boxes so far: Thin Mints, my favorite Caramel deLites (known as Samoas in some other states), and the new Lemonades. I was a little wary of the Lemonades, since I loved the lemon creme sandwich cookies they had in years past, and these didn't look as good (big round shortbread cookies with lemon icing), but the lemon icing tastes the same as in the sandwich cookies, and they're really pretty good. My 8-year-old likes them better, because "the lemon is closer to your tongue." But the boxes have fewer, large cookies instead of many small ones, and I'd really prefer more cookies to larger ones! (I'm trying to eat half a cookie at a time...we'll see how long that lasts!)

The end of the year as we know it

All over the Internet, I'm seeing people doing recaps of 2006 and resolutions for 2007. I wasn't sure I was up to doing a recap of 2006, which has been a very odd year for me, but on one group people listed their top 10 most memorable events of 2006--whether good or bad--and I felt I was at least up to that.

So, in chronological order, 10 of the highlights & lowlights of my 2006:

1. Moved from Texas to Florida
2. My husband and I renewed our wedding vows in a citywide ceremony on the beach
3. Got pregnant!
4. Our van got totaled
5. My husband lost his job
6. Our youngest son started kindergarten
7. My husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary
8. My grandfather died
9. Moved from Florida back to Texas only 8 months after moving there!
10. We had our first Christmas at home (not traveling)

I wasn't planning to make any sort of new year's resolutions, seeing that I'm about to have a new baby, which will throw everything off. I feel like 2007 is a big mystery, what with a baby I haven't met yet and (I hope) a job my husband hasn't gotten yet...so I don't feel like I can plan anything. However, I just read Anastasia Suen's blog post about deciding on a "theme" for the year instead of a resolution, and I'm thinking "passion" would be a good one. Well, either passion or love, I'm not sure yet. Passion would be more all-encompassing, and I try to make it one of my theme words anyway, but maybe with the baby coming I should focus more on family.... I guess I have some time to think about it, but I like the idea of thinking of a theme instead of specific goals, especially for this coming year.

In other news, I'm finally 35 weeks pregnant as of today (yay!). That means my due date is in 5 weeks, but at the moment I'm just hoping not to have to add "had our baby early" to my list of 2006 events! I've had SO MANY "false" contractions the past couple of days. And as mentioned, we stayed home for Christmas for the first time this year, and had a lovely celebration, but my parents also visited us for a late celebration a couple of days ago, which was nice. And today, we went to see the new movie of Charlotte's Web, which we all enjoyed. It seemed faithful to the book, and pleasantly old-fashioned compared to the usual smarmy kids' movies these days that are loaded with pop culture references that will be outdated in a year.

Also, our friend Jeff is getting married tomorrow. We can't attend because I don't want to travel at this point in my pregnancy, but Happy Wedding & Marriage, Jeff!

Holiday wishes

Is that really Santa with elves Ryan (8) & Kyle (5),
or someone else getting ready to make a special delivery?



Happy Holidays from me & my little elves!



(P.S. Baby due Feb. 2!)

Highlights of the week

I met Louis Sachar yesterday! You know, the Newbery winner for Holes, and author of twenty-something other children's books including the very funny Wayside School books that my 8-year-old just happened to be re-reading this month anyway. Mr. Sachar spoke at an Austin SCBWI meeting yesterday, at a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Austin. Then I got to speak to him very briefly when I stood in line to have him sign my copy of Holes, a new copy of Sideways Stories from Wayside School for all of my boys (which we already had...but this copy does have new art), and a Marvin Redpost book for my 8-yr-old. 

Not that I could really think of anything to say. During the question & answer time, I asked a question that I think seemed stupid in that setting, but which I had really wondered about before--that is, whether he'd had really mean teachers growing up. I only asked it because he had just related a story about a real-life mean teacher (not his) who had inspired part of one of his other books. To my surprise, he said he could only remember one mean teacher, and didn't seem to think his books had many. But the third Wayside School book, which we'd just finished two nights earlier, has several really mean teachers and other school authorities, his book Someday, Angeline has a particularly mean teacher in a more realistic setting, and of course Holes is chock full of cruel authority figures. I think the third Wayside School book actually gets pretty dark, especially for a humor book. I also asked why he chose to write for kids, but he didn't get around to answering that part. I think I've read, though, that the first Wayside School book got started when he was actually working at a school. Anyway, he was a friendly, personable guy, and I was glad he agreed to speak at our meeting! He lives here in town, but rarely speaks in public, at least here. (He did mention a book tour he recently went on, though, where he met a young woman sword swallower who had a potato tattooed on her ankle like one of the kids in a Wayside School book, & appeared on a reality TV show about tattoos, getting another tattoo based on one of his books!)

In other news, I'm 32 weeks pregnant now. Meaning I'm due in just under 8 weeks, but again, expecting the baby anywhere from 4 weeks on. We're not at all ready, but...I do feel ready to stop being so huge & uncomfortable! I can't believe how active this little guy is, and how hard it is for me to do basic things anymore, like roll over in bed, tie my shoes, or lean over to something up! At any rate, I'm glad I've gotten this far with no complications! I'm on a group for moms expecting in February, and two of the members have already had their babies! One at 29 weeks, one at 30--the babies seem to be okay, but are both in the NICU, of course. I'm really glad I'm far enough along now that if the baby decides to show up early, he will likely do pretty well. But here's hoping he at least holds out until 2007!

And now for something completely self-indulgent...

Because I haven't posted in so long, and was kind of bored, I decided to compile one of those "100 Things About Me" lists I've seen on lots of blogs in the past.

Without further ado, 100 things about me.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from me & my little ninjas! This is the first Halloween in about 7 years that I haven't gone out with my kids while they're trick-or-treating. My husband is taking them out while I stay home & give out candy. Before trick-or-treating, we decided to go to a free carnival at the YMCA, because they were giving free hot dogs & sodas, & that took care of dinner! Of course, the kids also got plenty of candy from the games there, as well winning cupcakes in the cake walk & sliding down the inflatable slide a bunch of time, so they really didn't need to trick-or-treat, too...but then, trick-or-treating isn't about need! Anyway, being 6 months pregnant, I was pretty uncomfortable after walking around the carnival for nearly an hour, so I decided I'd better stay home.

I also knew it would be taxing to jump up & open the door every 3 minutes, so I've set myself up a station by the door with a chair, my laptop, a soda, my Tums & cough drops, & of course the Halloween candy. We'll see how well it works out. I got enough candy for 100 kids, since we've had that many kids come by before, but I keep giving them too many pieces each! I have to limit it to one if I want it to last that long...and/or if I want to have enough left over for myself, hee hee. (And before my own kids left, I found out they were giving trick-or-treaters 6 pieces each! Ack. Wishful thinking for themselves, I guess.) I'm wearing a bat barrette and big hoop earrings made out of glow sticks. Several kids have complimented the glow stick earrings--even some pre-teen boys! Next year, though, I'll have to go out with the kids so everyone can ooh & aah over my baby in some kind of silly costume. There's nothing cuter than a baby or toddler in costume. (But can you believe, we actually saw a toddler at the YMCA dressed up as Kinky Friedman?!) Actually, some of these bigger kids coming to the door are awfully cute, too!

Meanwhile...NaNoWriMo starts in less than 5 hours. And I still haven't decided what to write! Now that's a scary Halloween thought.


(I guess the baby's dressed up as me!)

Weekend recap

Friday was unremarkable. Saturday, kid #2 went to a costume birthday party during the day, and both kids went to a Kids' Night Out thing at night. My husband & I went to see The Prestige, a movie about rival magicians, which has a lot of tricks of its own. I liked it fine, but thought it was more "huh" than "wow!" It's the kind of movie you might be tempted to replay in your head to see if the plot twists made logical sense, except in this case I didn't care enough to think about it anymore. Also, it didn't really have anyone to root for. (Edited later to add that after reading the world's longest thread about this movie at imdb.com, I appreciate some of the themes, foreshadowing, etc., more than I did at the time. Though it still didn't make me walk out of the theater in awe.) We finished the evening with a dessert crepe from IHOP, which I've been wanting to try for a couple of years. It was also fine, and also more "huh" than "wow." My coughing spell alarmed the waitress, who warned me she'd had bronchitis recently and it sounded similar.

Sunday morning, I was still coughing and didn't feel so great, so I skipped church, but my husband and the boys went. While they were gone, I read The Boy Book by E. Lockhart. Like her other books, it was a light, fun read. Most reviews I've seen of it say it's better than the prequel, The Boyfriend List, but I liked the first one better. I might have liked this one better with a slightly different ending, but that's all I'll say, as I don't want to give any spoilers. Meanwhile, our only car died right as my husband and the boys got to church. So after church, they had to arrange for a tow truck for a car, and find a ride home with some friends. Later, my husband had to find someone to take him to a rental car company to rent something we could drive. He ended up with some kind of Kia SUV. It's not bad, but let me say that any vehicle made in the last year or two should have an audio input jack for iPods or similar players! And the mirrors on the visors should be lighted. Little things can make a big difference.

Sunday night, I decided at the last minute to attend the Austin NaNoWriMo kick-off meeting. I think it was worth my time, and there's more about that on my NaNoWriMo blog. Also, to my surprise, there was someone there who recognized me as the person who rode in the Wienermobile! She turned out to be on a children's writing group with me. (Hi, Diana!)

Inspired

I really enjoyed the Austin SCBWI conference yesterday! I talked to more people than I think I usually do (I tend to be really quiet...), probably because I was just so happy to be back in the writing world after 8 months of seeming exile! When I was in Florida, the only interaction I had with writers was online, and I really missed the atmosphere. I'd always appreciated the local SCBWI group, but I think I appreciated it even more yesterday.

Anyway, Bruce Coville is an excellent speaker. It was mentioned that he loves theatre, and it's obvious, as he's a real performer! He was a great choice for kicking off the conference. Likewise, Esther Hershenhorn was a great choice for ending it. Her talk was enthusiastic and helpful, as she shared a wealth of information and resources. Those two speakers left me feeling particularly inspired, and during the book signing portion that followed, I sat down & jotted 3 pages of notes and thoughts for my 2 potential NaNoWriMo novel ideas! Since then, the wheels in my mind have been spinning and I've thought of even more to add to each one. For more about this conference, see Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog report on it.

Afterwards, I started feeling a little deflated for being in SCBWI for so long without selling a book! I know I'm not the only one, but sometimes it feels like it. I know it's my fault--not for lack of talent but for lack of trying. I haven't racked up a huge slew of rejections; I've rarely felt I had something polished enough to submit. In his talk yesterday, illustrator Tony Sansevero shared a poster he sends to kids, which says at the bottom, "Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to." I've wanted to write since age 5, so I guess I've always felt destined to, but I've often let life and fear get in the way. And here I am pregnant again, knowing that babies tend to sideline me for about a year, so it's hard to commit to going for it whole hog now, but I have to at least commit to continuing, to working on it, to stopping putting it aside. I have at least had short pieces published, but that wasn't what I was dreaming of at age 10, staring at the children's novels in the bookstore and imagining my own books beside them. But I'm not out yet. And these conferences are really helpful for reminding me what I really want, and what I need to do, and how to go about it! So, thank God for SCBWI!

And speaking of God...last night my husband and I watched part of a Steven Wright comedy special on Comedy Central, in which he pointed out that the New Testament isn't so new anymore, & that maybe we should call it the "Newer Testament" or the "Most Recent Testament." So I completely cracked up in church this morning when the pastor asked us to turn to the "newer Testament" near the back of our Bibles! I'm sure he had seen the same show...very amusing.

Friday free-for-all

• I've started a NaNoWriMo blog for this year: http://dolphin23.blogspot.com/. Now here's hoping I can decide on a promising novel idea!
  
• I fear I may be getting sick. As if I could be any more tired! I have a scratchy throat & cough & am a little congested. Yuck! I hope it does not get worse. At least I got a flu shot yesterday.
  
• I watched Newbery-winning author Linda Sue Park on Jeopardy! today. Even though she didn't win, she did a great job, and looked and sounded amazingly poised the whole time. Yay, Linda Sue!
  
• I'm going to a writing conference tomorrow! Hooray. Seems like forever since I've gotten to do anything writerly, with other writers. And since I didn't submit anything for critique, I don't even have to feel stressed! (The critiques are always fantastic, but honestly I think I enjoy the conferences more when I'm not getting them....) The only downer is, I have to get up at 6:30. I'm normally a night owl, so I'm not sure I even have that time on my clock. ;-)
  
• I had my first OB appointment here in Texas yesterday, at 25 weeks along. I returned to the dr I went to when I had my son who's now 5. All went well, though they did say I'm anemic (hence some of the tiredness), and have to get some more bloodwork, and I also need to take the glucose tolerance test soon. Baby's (Cushie's?!) heartrate was 140. He still doesn't have a real name.

News of the day

I surprised myself... I braved going downtown by myself yesterday, driving through even more pouring rain and having to park on the street blocks away, to go the the screening of my friend's movie. I'm glad I did. It's a moving documentary about the Belgian resistance in WWII, and I'd recommend watching it when it shows up on PBS October 30th. I've known the director, Mat, since he was about 10, and I figured we artists should support each other. (After all, he and his wife showed up for my visit to the library in the Wienermobile a couple of years ago, and I'd hope someone I know would show up if I ever had a book signing!)

I'm also excited today because we've been hoping for a long time to get our 8-year-old science fanatic son into some kind of science, Lego, or robotics program, and today we did! The friends we visited in the country Saturday said they'd heard about something similar on an e-mail list they're on with other homeschoolers. Last night, the husband forwarded me the message, then I contacted the woman who wrote it, and she wrote back immediately to let me know about an after-school Lego robotics class that's starting in November five minutes from my house! It's limited to 10 kids, so we signed him up right away. Hooray!

Meanwhile...our 5-year-old has christened our new baby "Cushie." I'm not sure why he came up with that, but I think it's so cute, I'm afraid it's going to stick!

The weekend and writing

This weekend has been really nice so far. Friday night, we took the kids to a parents' night out thing they always enjoy, and went out to dinner and an entertainment place that has an arcade, pool tables, mini golf, bowling, you name it. We actually bowled a couple of games, which might have been inadvisable in my front-heavy pregnant state (I'm still a little sore...), but it was fun! Yesterday we spent a peaceful day visiting our friends out in the country for their daughter's 7th birthday party. Tonight, I'd really like to go to the local screening of a documentary made by an old friend of mine, but I don't have a babysitter and I don't think I'm up for going downtown for it all alone... However, it's going to be shown on PBS on October 30, so check it out!

As for writing, I'm beginning to plan for NaNoWriMo. I still have no plots to speak of, so that's a slight issue. I'm mainly debating between two ideas I've been batting about for a while. One of them intrigues me more, but the other seems to lend itself to more action...though still not much. I tend to write things that are too much about emotion instead of action, too much in characters' heads. One story, the one I'm not quite as excited about, is about the evolving relationship between two sisters, and the other is about the aftermath of a death. But in both cases, I'm not sure exactly what would be going on page by page. I know I'm guilty of using filler action as a backdrop for thoughts and relationships, but I want action that's actually relevant to the story. In the sister story, I'd at least have some pre-made situations involving school and family. In the death story, I would have some school, and of course a funeral, and there would be a band with some rehearsals and possibly concerts...but the action I can imagine doesn't seem like the page-turning kind that really moves a story forwards. I don't suppose it has to. I recently read Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci, and all the action in that is similar--classes, school club meetings, the protagonist working on a movie set, etc.--but it seems like books with more action (Harry Potter, for instance!) attact audiences better, not to mention editors! I just don't want to put everyone to sleep. So for now, I'm making notes for both books and as I get closer to November, I hope one seems better poised for me to plunge into it. I also need to revive my NaNo blog, because that helped keep me going last time. (I still have my 2002 one up, and would like to just add to that, but I've got to figure out how to stop all the archives from 2002 from showing up at the top of the screen...4 years later I've forgotten everything I learned about editing the template!)

Random update

• I'm back in my old house. It still feels weird that it feels so normal and so strange to be back all at the same time.
• We haven't even thought about unpacking, even though our stuff arrived 2 days ago. We also have no dining table & need to remedy that soon! For that matter, we haven't even bought groceries, & my husband's out getting toilet paper & a few essentials right now.
• We've had contractors in & out since we've been here. We were trying to get a lot done on the house before we got back, so I was a bit stunned to come in & find our toilet in the living room (!), and so much stuff unpainted & undone. A lot of it has been completed since we returned, but there's still more. (And we can't afford a bit of it...)
• We finally got the kids enrolled in school today. But they won't start school until Tuesday (Monday is a teacher workday).
• The kids and I were amused to find a small new shopping center near our house here, featuring a Baskin-Robbins next to a Firehouse Subs. We had never seen Firehouse Subs anywhere but Sarasota before, and there were Baskin-Robbins all over Sarasota, but I only knew of one in Austin, which was probably 15 miles from our house. So this seemed like a piece of Sarasota here in Texas! And in fact, one of the Baskin-Robbins in Sarasota was also next door to a Firehouse Subs.
• A few things have closed down here since we left, but luckily nothing I cared too much about: an Albertson's grocery store, and 2 local restaurants I didn't like anyway.
• I went to the library yesterday and renewed my library card, which I'd never gotten rid of. I was stunned when they were able to pull out my original paper library card application from 8 years ago in a matter of seconds! I checked out 4 books--The Class Trip from the Black Lagoon for my 2nd grader, and the following 3 kids' and YA books for me: Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci, The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M.T. Anderson (the sequel to Whales on Stilts, which I loved), and Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen.
• I read all of Boy Proof yesterday, and enjoyed it. The protgonist, Victoria a.k.a. Egg, reminds me of my YA protagonist Lydia in some ways, since both are actively anti-social, though Egg has some strong interests to motivate her (film and photography), and Lydia could probably use some!
• I am completely exhausted thinking about all the things we need to do here (get new driver's licenses, change addresses on all accounts & subscriptions, get our car fixed & inspected, get haircuts, unpack our whole house, buy everything we need for a baby, find a job for my husband, etc.!).
• I think this move is harder than the last one, at least for me, because last time my husband went 2+ months ahead of us so we already had a lot set up when we got there. This time, we're just scrambling. But I think, once everything calms down a bit, it will be nice to be back in Texas. It already is nice having all our favorite things & restaurants around us, but it will be nicer when we're more settled in!

Back in Texas

The boys & I arrived safely in Texas today! We flew back, with no problems or delays at all with either of our flights. Now we're visiting my parents for a few days while my husband drives from Florida to Texas. It feels weird to be back--actually, it mainly feels weird that it doesn't feel weird. And it was soooo good to get one of my favorite burritos in the world again. But after only a few, interrupted hours of sleep on an air mattress last night, I am extremely tired! Anyway, hi from Texas.

15 years ago today...

...I got married. It's amazing that it's passed so quickly! Here we are on our wedding day:

After the wedding, we went to the Bahamas, where my husband wrote our initials in the sand:


For our anniversary today, I gave him a print of a beach scene personalized with our initials in a heart in the sand. I hoped it would remind us of our whole 15 years together so far, from the initials in the sand back then, to our 8 months living on the Florida coast this year. While the kids were in school, we had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant here, then went to the Ringling Museum, a Sarasota must-see we hadn't seen yet, featuring an amazing mansion on the sea, some circus collections, and a fine art museum, among other things. It was very hot and I didn't feel too good, but all in all it was a pleasant day. I don't know if we'll do anything special for dinner or not! It wasn't the trip back to the Bahamas I'd always envisioned for our 10th (when we turned out to have a 7-month-old) or 15th anniversary, but considering that I'm pregnant and we're in the middle of a move, I think it was better than might be expected!

So...Happy Anniversary, Honey, and here's to the next 15 crazy years!

It's a...

BOY!

Which means boy #3 for me. I never imagined myself as the mom of 3 boys, but I guess that's who I am! This one looked healthy, measuring 2 days ahead (weight around 12 oz.), and was very active. My other boys are so active and high-maintenance, I was hoping for a calm one this time, but the tech said, "Maybe one of your other children will get calmer." Umm...and maybe cows will jump over the moon! This one is breech right now, but she said he has plenty of time to turn in 20 weeks.

So now we are stuck for a name! We've had a girl's name (Kara) picked out for 8+ years, but don't have a third boy's name for sure. Anyone want to help with our boy's name? Here is what to keep in mind:

* His brothers' names are Ryan and Kyle
* His middle name will definitely be Nelson
* Our last name is Dellenbaugh

Here are the top contenders in alphabetical order: Alex, Blake, Grant, Logan, Luke, Scott, Trent. Feel free to comment or suggest other similar names!

And the week moves on...

We made it through a guy from the moving company walking through our house to see how much junk stuff we have to move, and then a separate visit from an appraiser our landlord sent over to appraise the house. Now it's just a matter of, oh, sorting and weeding everything we own and being all ready to move in about 2 weeks! (Not to mention getting work done on our house in Texas and my husband looking for a job.) Eek. The movers still have all the records from our last move since it was only 7 months ago, and mentioned that we'd moved 58 boxes of books. And that was with over 200 regular books and 40 kids' board books we left behind in Austin to give away! And when we moved to our Austin home 8 years ago, we had given away another 18 feet of books, mostly from my husband's grad school days. Wow, we've had a lot of books. Fortunately, we only unpacked about 1/3 of the books here, but I'm afraid we have bought some more here!

And now... it's about 24 hours until my big ultrasound!! I'm praying that (1) the baby is healthy, and (2) the baby cooperates enough for us to tell its gender! So far, we have 2 boys, and I've been a little nervous about the possibility of 3. However, my husband reminded me one day that he is the 3rd boy in his family (4th kid). Then I realized that I've actually gone out with at least four 3rd boys, and one 4th boy! I've gone out with a couple of guys who only had one sibling, older or younger, but I don't think I've gone out with anyone who had a younger brother at all. Only the youngest brothers, and most often in families of 3 or more. Isn't that strange? So, I can't say it's a bad thing for people to have 3 boys! And of course, it may actually be a girl. We hope to see tomorrow!

A super-spectacular day

Back in 1980, when I was 12 or 13, I bought a copy of MAD Magazine that came with this really cool plastic "flexi-disc" record featuring a novelty song called "It's a Super-Spectacular Day." It had multiple tracks in parallel grooves, so it played differently depending on where the needle of your turntable started playing the disc. The first bit of the song was the same every time, with a cutesy happy intro about the great day ahead, but you never knew which one of 8 different endings it would play, each describing a different way the day would disintegrate into something horrific. The lyrics are here, and sound files of all 8 versions are downloadable here (I was happily amazed to find these online recently).

Anyway, that's about how I feel right now, without the cheerful part at the beginning. 

So, do wake me up when September ends. Preferably in Texas. And then tell me whether my baby is a boy or a girl.

Moving stinks

Moving really, really stinks. I wish my 8-year-old would hurry and invent that transporter he's always wanting to invent so we could just transport ourselves and all our stuff to Texas without having to do all this moving business. Ecch. We're trying to get out by the end of the month, so my husband said today that our theme song should be Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends." But I can't wish for that, because then I'd miss my big ultrasound next week!

We signed our kids up for a 4-hour kids' night out thing at a craft place so we'd have time to work on the house uninterrupted tonight. So my husband just took them there...and it was last night. D'oh! All my fault, and I have no idea why I got confused about it. 

Oh, and GO, TEXAS LONGHORNS!

Writing & reading

Since leaving Austin, I've really missed the SCBWI group there. Here, the only thing I could find for children's writers was one critique group that met at a time when I couldn't go. There, I was used to large monthly meetings, many critique groups to choose from, and a couple of conferences or retreats per year. Here, the only conferences are in other parts of the state. In general, I've felt pretty cut off from the writing world since I've been here, apart from the Internet, though much of that is my own fault for not settling in more quickly or sitting down to write! But anyway...I'm going back, with a new appreciation of everything offered for writers in Austin. And since I'm having a baby soon, which will probably put me out of commission for a while (at least in terms of attending events), I decided that, income or no income, I'm going to the Austin SCBWI conference in October. It's just a one-day thing, but I expect it to be a breath of fresh air for my writing! I sent off my registration form last week.

Speaking of writing, I've read some this week. On the way back from Orlando on Tuesday, I started reading a novel called The Boy I Loved Before by Jenny Colgan. It's a British, chick-lit type thing, not something I'd normally read, but it has kind of a YA element, as the protagonist is a 32-year-old woman who wishes she were 16 again, and then magically is. (A bit like 13 Going On 30 in reverse.) But instead of going back in time to when she was 16, as she expected, she becomes 16 in the present day. It's a bit odd, since her parents also become younger, but no one else changes, and her old self no longer exists for most people, but several people she was close to still remember her the way she was.

At any rate, I read a few chapters of that, and then when we got home, I found in the mail an old YA book I'd ordered from an Amazon reseller--The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations, by Ellen Conford. It's from 1976 and I remembered reading and liking it as a teen in the early 80s. I sat down and read it through immediately! I still enjoyed it quite a bit. It turned out to be episodic, with each chapter based on one idea or theme from the school handbook, rather than having one plotline running all the way through. But for a 30-year-old novel, I was surprised how modern it still seemed. I'd think any YA reader today could relate to most of it (and to my surprise, there was even foul language--mainly the "s" word!).

After I finished that, I went back to the first book and read until I finished that one, too! So, two books in one evening. The Colgan book was a fun read, and I was surprised that there were actually several points of overlap between the 1976 YA book I had just read and the 2004 adult novel. There were a few similar characters and situations, and just general riffing on the mindsets of idealistic young people.

The Colgan book ended up similar to Back to the Future, in that the protagonist, once restored to her regular age, finds she has changed the timeline in such a way that her whole new history is different (an accountant at the beginning, she discovers at the end that she's now a teacher), and of course everyone around her has a newly happy ending. I have some trouble with this. Yes, it's happy that she now has a life she likes better than her old one, and seems to be ending up with the guy she really wanted, blah blah blah, but wouldn't it be a little freakish not to know your own history, and for everyone else in your family and circle of friends to have a different memory of your life and theirs than you did? I'm not sure I could accept that so complacently!

A last hurrah in Florida

When we moved to Florida, we promised the kids a lot of things. Of course we would go to Disney World, Universal Studios, the Nick Hotel, and a whole lot more. All in good time. And now our time here is up, and we hadn't done those things. This week, the kids were off Monday for Labor Day and Tuesday for a teacher workday. Wednesday, there was supposed to be a space shuttle launch. We realized it was probably our last chance ever to see a space shutte launch, and since the kids' school here has already had 9 more schooldays this year than the school they're about to change to in Texas, we decided we'd let them miss school Wednesday to see it. Without income, we couldn't swing Disney or Universal. And probably shouldn't have done anything, but figured we'd have one last hurrah, and took them to the Nick Hotel in Orlando for 2 nights before the planned launch. Since they are 5 and 8 and Nick cartoon addicts, they had a blast. We stayed at the hotel the whole time, except for a short excursion one afternoon to the big Lego store at the Downtown Disney shopping area. The pools were really cool, they saw a lot of people dressed up like Nick characters (they know they are costumes, but are still drawn to hug them...), and we went to a show where my husband got picked to go on stage, get dressed up like a big baby, and have water balloons thrown at (or rather, to) him. It was a hit.

The weather looked like it would cooperate for the shuttle launch, for once (our first day at the hotel, the kids had to swim in the pouring rain!), but of course, the morning of the scheduled launch, it was called off for technical problems. Sigh. So for the second time, we had driven across the state to see a launch that didn't happen. Instead, on our way home, we decided to stop in Tampa and visit the Museum of Science & Industry. They let us in free with our local science museum membership pass--a good thing, since their ticket prices would have cost us more than we paid for this pass!

And now...we're home, where we have to get ready to move. Considering that we moved here just over 7 months ago, and half our stuff is still in boxes in the garage, you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to get ready. But it is. Is it ever! And I've been putting it off like crazy. I wish I were an organized person. Maybe after this move I will be? Ha.

I have more to say, on the topics of reading & writing, but I'll save those for another post.