Tuesday to-do list

Another load of laundry done, this morning? Check.

Get kids off to school? Check. (In reverse order, unfortunately, so one was a few seconds late. Not a lot--but late enough to need a tardy slip. Back to the "regular" order, tomorrow!)

Vote? Check. The three-year-old even tried to help.

Get dog groomed? We'll be there in an hour.

Catch up on my Nano goal? Oh....right. 400 words in, this morning. Here's hoping we still get a nap in for J, during or after the dog grooming!!!

(If not, we'll hope for Plan B: where J takes a late nap, after I pick up the older two and drop oldest at gymnastics. He can nap while C does homework and then, maybe, I can get a few hundred more in...)

How's your Tuesday going?

Reminders

It is November 1st, my youngest son's birthday, All Saints' Day and the first day of Nanowrimo! If you have not signed up yet, there is still time! Go! Register! Write! (And then come back and finish reading my post.)

Speaking of reminders, I wanted to tell you how Souvenir turned out! I picked up the book at the writing conference, after meeting the author. The story Ms. Fowler has crafted is gripping.

I love it when, the day after I have finished a novel, I am still thinking about the characters. Meg is a little younger than I am but has a daughter a little older than mine. I kept turning the pages to see what Savannah, her 15-year-old daughter, would choose. I was afraid to see but more afraid not to! The books is about choices and consequences, for Meg, Savannah and Carson McKay.

(OK. So I also love it when a book I am reading can teach me about the book I am rewriting!) Which reminds me, it is time to get to work on the new one!

A dream is a wish your heart makes

Once upon a time, I wrote a book. I talked about it here, and I was going to show it to people at the writer's conference last week. I missed the official deadline to send in pages for a critique and used that as an excuse to mess with it a little more.

If my book were Cinderella, she'd be standing here, in rags. She was dressed and ready for the ball, looking all put-together and then her stepsisters ripped the entire thing apart. I did the damage of two evil-stepsisters, all by myself! Now I'm just hoping I can also take on the role of fairy godmother and craft a new, shiny dress, complete with glass slippers. I am praying that there will be a happy ending to this revision journey so I can stick with the Cinderella analogy. I can't think about poor Humpty Dumpty.

I am reading Souvenir, by Therese Fowler. I love it. My problem is, I know it. The Theme seems very familiar to my Cinderella. I can't decide if that is a good thing or not. It might have been Shakespeare, or my creative writing teacher in college, who said "There are no new stories." But these two are very similar when you look at the bones. I have not finished the book but I think I know how it ends. (Maybe it does not end like mine--stay tuned!) The details are different, of course. Hers is set in Florida, while mine is in Alaska. Hers takes place now (or a few years ago) while mine takes place a century ago. I have not come across a moose in her story but she includes sex, drugs and rock and roll. My Cinderella just has sex.

I hope the next post will involve my Cinderella, pages fluttering in the wind, heading towards the sunset in a carriage pulled by two horses. I really hate to involve all the king's horses and all the king's men.

Chompin' at the bit

I signed on to Nano again. With no clear idea of what I would be writing about. Again.
Then, I got a shower!
In the shower, I got an idea for a novel!
I wrote a note about the main idea, almost got to dinner and saw the whole thing. This one will work! (I love the current WIP but I've been having a "relationship" with it for 8 or 9 years. It's not it it, it's me.) The new idea is great! BUT. I can't cheat. I can't write the first word now, if I want to count it as my Nano novel. Right? Right. Right?

Whew!

No nap on Monday, no nap on Tuesday. It was starting to look like my youngest was ready to give up his naps! He will be three on Monday--the same day Nano begins. Which is why he cannot give up his naps, just yet! ;)

He argued about it today. (This is the child who has never given us any trouble about going to bed or taking naps). I know the end is near but I really need him to keep napping, for at least another month!

I had to wake him up, this morning to get him and his siblings to their dental appointments by 8am. After HIS first visit to the dentist (he has been dying to get behind that magic door!), I dropped his siblings off at their respective schools and took him to his Time Out program. He played with kids and had a snack while I went back to the elementary school for library time. When I picked him up, he had a few treats he'd been given for Halloween. He had a little sugar in the car and a little more with lunch. That was probably not the right menu for someone getting ready to go to bed!

He is finally asleep! I played fetch with the dog and now she is asleep. I have an hour until I have to leave to get the older kids. I can finish the dishes or fold clothes or take a shower or write or read. But I am daydreaming about taking a nap.

Hum dum dum ditty dum

Oh the wind is lashing lustily

And the trees are thrasing thrustily

And the leaves are rustling gustily

So it's rather safe to say

That it seems that it may turn out to be

It feels that it will undoubtedly

It looks like a rather blustery day, today

It sounds that it may turn out to be

Feels that it will undoubtedly

Looks like a rather blustery day today

~ Winnie The Pooh and the Blustery Day, Richard M. Sherman & Robert B. Sherman

Long days, Mondays. Longer yesterday--middle child had to be at school at 0-dark-thirty to ride the bus to the Red Ribbon Breakfast. Poor kid had a nosebleed on the way to school (yes, they wear uniforms--nice WHITE shirts). He received a new, red t-shirt at the breakfast to wear over his uniform and won a prize from a drawing: a giftcard for Playstation Network! So, he's good!

My daughter has gymnastics until 9pm on Mondays so everyone (but the little guy) seems to go to bed a little later on Mondays.

Tuesdays are the easy days. Tuesdays are the days I know I will have time to get the stroller and run with the dog while I get the little guy to the playground. So the three of us exercise, on Tuesdays. But it is WINDY. And WET. I can't open the windows so my house smells like a mix of new carpet (installed yesterday) and wet dog.

But I have time to sneak in a little writing, during Dora the Explorer episodes. Maybe I will even get around to sharing more details from the conference last weekend. (I promised details after I'd slept, which hasn't really happened yet, so maybe...) Or read a few more pages. I started Therese Fowler's Souvenir on the plane ride home. I hope to finish it soon. The first half rocks!

Enjoy your Tuesday!

The Conference

I have written three accounts of the South Carolina Writers' Workshop for you. All of them are FAR too long for any of you to want to read. I'm working on that. Here is the (very) condensed version. (Which, I think, is fair. I promised an account once I'd slept--and that has not happened, yet!)

In the meantime, I will just tell you that it was an amazing weekend! I wanted to walk on the beach and hear Joshilyn Jackson's keynote speech. I walked on the beach, took her course, talked to her, had her sign my book, and talked to her a little more!

Getting there, Thursday, was Hell and I was sure I had made a mistake. Friday was great! Saturday was amazing! (Did I mention yet that I had a conversation with Joshilyn Jackson??)Sunday was a blur!

Now I am tired, inspired, have new friends to email, a draft to revise and a better blog post to draft. At least there is still a week until Nano! ;)

Mission accomplished

I cannot say that I got much sleep or got much writing done. I learned a lot, met some new friends and, most importantly, got that new mug! ;)

(The old mug. I swear, it says "Haystack!")

More on the conference and the writing after I have actually slept!

I need a new coffee mug

My favorite coffee mug sprung a leak, years ago. It now holds pens, pencils and whatever-else-the-kids-put-in-it, next to the big computer in the basement.

"My" mug (when I'm not using a travel-mug) was the "Mama Bear" mug I received at a baby shower for my oldest child. It started leaking around the handle, last month.

So I'm down to my green, glass mug. It used to have gold letters saying:
"HAYSTACK
Program in the Arts & Sciences
Canon Beach, Oregon
School of Extended Studies"

No leaks, yet. It has held up fairly well. Except now, the gold letters read:
"HAYS AC
Pro am in the A s & Sci
Canon O gon"
(and the last row is simply a blur)

I am headed out-of-town this week to see what conferences are like in the 21st century. I wonder if they still sell things like coffee mugs.

These genes don't fade

It is that time of year again--people need new jeans. One child's were too short, another's are too tight. Some of them have holes and they're all a little faded.

I wish I could stretch, tear or fade a few of the other genes they've inherited.

After school, my son will go up to his room to change his clothes. Before he has his belt off, he realizes he needs to visit the restroom. (He usually leaves the belt in there, on the floor, to make sure that he has to step over it the next morning before telling me he can't find it.) Then, back to his room, he shuts and locks the door. About a half an hour later (after some Lego ship has been reassembled, another disassembled, "Tech Decks" relocated and "Mighty Beans" counted) he emerges from his room in play clothes. He comes downstairs for that after-school snack and settles in to complete his homework. "Settling in" requires sitting on the dog, running with the dog, falling to the ground and allowing the dog to sit on him for several minutes before yelping for help, running outside with the dog, running back inside and taking something away from his little brother and asking if he can have that snack, yet. Once he finally eats his snack and asks what else he can have, I forcibly move him to another room, lay out his homework, hand him a pencil and shut the door. He will break that pencil, come out for another one, s_l_o_w_l_y walk back to that room, shut the door, play the piano, get back into his chair and yell for help, because he doesn't understand what he is supposed to do.

By the time I get to that room (I have to pacify a toddler and dog before I can get in there) he is rolling his eyes. After I read the directions and either ask him questions or begin explaining one way to approach the homework, he will yell that he doesn't need me, tell me he isn't stupid and demand that I leave NOW.

By now, he has killed at least a good hour and his sister is completely done with her homework. She will skip by and say something like, "If you could EVER finish that, you could probably have time to come play a video game with me." He will then proceed to finish all of his homework in less than 10 minutes. (I should really have her skip by earlier in the afternoon!)

It is just frustrating to watch him waste so much time every day.

As for me, I have some "quiet time" this afternoon while the two-year-old and the dog are both napping and the other kids are at school. I have been obsessing over the first pages of my novel as I plan to show them to real, live people at a conference next week. I was so happy to have this time to revise them again. So. I have consumed not one but two bowls of soup, checked in on facebook and have--for the first time in years--changed the layout of this blog. Isn't it pretty?

After I rinse out a few dishes and fold a basket of laundry, I should be able to get to work. Unless I need to play with the dog.

Delirium has set in!

Reviewing for the upcoming religion quiz went well, tonight.

Me: "Tell me who persecuted the Jews but then converted, even became an apostle and a saint?"

My child: "I know his name starts with a 'P' and has four letters."

Me: "Okay, good. A little more?"

M c: "Is it Peru?"

Me: "Yes. Exactly. Saint Peru. He was from South America. Now can we try again?"

M c: "I don't know."

Me: "What is my mother's name?"

M c: "Paula?"

Me: "Yes. Now...if you needed a name with only 4 letters that sounds like Paula, you'd have..."

M c: "Aula?"

And we're done.

Deadlines and such

I am still around, just not updating the blog as I should. I am coming down to the wire on the Final Draft.

Ran into some issues at the end of the summer, so I did not get the pretty draft done in August, nor did I post any of it here, as I had intended. I wanted to have a cohesive draft done then, so I would have time to polish the whole thing in time for a conference in October.

I registered for the conference to give myself an absolute deadline. (Sad, at this age, that I still need a deadline to really put anything together). Sad or not, the conference is now 3 weeks away and my draft still looks like a bloody puzzle. It's chopped up, marked up, scratched out and out of order. But I have 3 weeks.

Forget historical fiction

I've got to learn how to write contemporary fiction. So I can use everyday life events. Like when the toddler gives the dog a Skittle.

Or when I can't find the time to run with the dog so the Universe does it--the wind is blowing a basketball around the backyard and she is LOVING the game!

Wait! I'd bet they had both basketballs and backyards 100 years ago. I'll try to work that in! ;)

Back to regularly scheduled programming

The last month was filled with just a little too much real-life drama for me to focus on the other dramas playing out in my head. So as far as deadlines go, I've had to move to Plan B.
The big kids are back in school, the little guy starts going back to a "Mom's Time Out" program next week and I am back to my version of "normal."

Trying to catch up on revising and added two new pages today. If I could just stop myself from accessing the internet, I'd be done with this thing!

Here's hoping your September is off to a good start!

You knew it was coming

Well, my few loyal readers, I have let you down again. But if you're still here, reading, you aren't surprised.

The WIP is not quite there. I have so much done but can't wrap it up with a neat little bow, just yet.
Life has been surreal here, lately which would be great for composing but not so much for focusing and editing.

I have allowed myself a very brief extension.

The kids go back to school next week so my worst case scenario involves me finishing it up soon thereafter. Life certainly does not get any calmer or easier with them in school but we'll be back in a more structured routine.

8-9-10

When I first gave myself 30 days to revise my novel, I thought a blanket 30 days was reasonable. After NaNo, I thought revising in 30 days would at least be do-able.

I didn't realize until after I'd "set the date" that 30 days would be August 9, or 8-9-10. I like the logical order of that date!

For the record however, I'm giving myself until midnight tomorrow. Every time I start to organize, I write more. I've come up with a few good parts, I think, but the original draft is still in a shambles. I write pieces here and there, planning to put them in order later. Now that later has arrived, I'm still not quite there. But I still have 24 hours and 13 minutes.

So.

My deadline is approaching, the weather is beautiful but there is a fresh coat of paint on my deck railing. So. I can't sit out on the deck with the laptop and watch my kids play in the sprinkler. (I did request the non-magnetic paint with no tractor beams whatsoever but kids and dogs gravitate to it, regardless). So. I suggest a day at the local waterpark! Yeah! I rock, right? How fun?!
I have been told that it will be "the most crowded place on Earth today, Mom." So. They don't want to go. On this beautiful, sunny but finally, not TOO muggy day...they want to go to the video game store. No. So my daughter suggests "school shopping." What? Yes, she wants to go school shopping. I took them for uniforms last week (she was worried they'd run out of the grey sweatshirts--in July--so we got those). Now she wants to go get folders, paper, pens--instead of swimming. Because she doesn't swim, anymore. She does backflips in the pool.
We have all day today, you see, because gymnastics is closed this week. So she wants to go flip somewhere else or shop. The boys do not.
So. They are playing in their rooms and I am moving things around on my blog. (Though it's tempting to go sit out on the deck, alone. They might destroy the house but I wouldn't hear them out there, until the new, covered deck came crashing down on my head. Which would also ruin the fresh paint.)

We all have work to do!

My deadline is fast approaching--and I haven't made it very far, yet!
We taught the dog to "drop the ball" yesterday and she was great at it! Today, she is looking at me like I am speaking Dutch.
My son wants to watch an episode of a tv show AGAIN so I paused it and told him we can resume the show as soon as he can tell me what six times seven is. He left, to go play in his room.
It seems we all have a bit of work to do!

Maybe I just need patio furniture!

After I stayed up far too late (intending to write but not getting very far), I got up this morning to try again. I've been given some unanticipated quiet time as I am the only one up besides the dog but she wants to PLAY! A big dog biscuit/chew in exchange for a few undisturbed minutes on the computer isn't really SO wrong, is it? ;)

Otherwise, I considered sitting out on our newly covered deck with the laptop while I watch her run around the backyard. Option 2 is certainly better for her but I can't find my tv tables and can't figure out how to balance my coffee cup and my laptop in just a lawn chair!

It is time to pick out a table and chairs for our new pretty deck!

Deadlines and assistance

OK, I would love to have assistants but since I can't justify or afford even one of those, I will settle for some assistance.

It seems I am eternally working on the WIP but never making much progress, unless I have a deadline. (Self-imposed deadlines do not seem to work too well!)

I have decided to attend a writing conference this year, vowing to bring a polished MS with me, just to give me a deadline so I will have to get it done.

At this point, it is far from polished. At this point, it is still a mess. I should set an earlier deadline to make it somewhat coherent, at least. To that end, I am giving myself 30 days (a self-imposed deadline) but I am posting the deadline here to make me stick to it.

Y'all will hold me to it, right?