Social consciousness

You just never know what your kids are gonna say!

The boys are watching Lilo and Stitch. (I only gave them the choice of that or Finding Nemo. The little one is tired, cranky...no way he was sitting through iCarly!)

Even the dog is cranky. It's cold and wet outside. We needed some tropical fish!

My son has a religion quiz, this week. So I prefaced my preference with, "We are Catholic and of course, Catholics believe that when you die, your soul doesn't come back again. But IF the Hindus end up being right, I hope I come back as a fish."

My son's response? "MOM! How can you say that?! You could be reborn in the GULF!"

(He still curses BP every time we pass one of their gas stations.)

I love this kid!

Whee!

It's all downhill from here, right? (Or as my 3-year-old would say, "abajo!")
(That kid watches a lot of Dora the Explorer!) ;)

The mid-point of the NaNoWriMo challenge was today, and I am far behind. Time to pick up the speed and race downhill! Who's with me?

50,000 words in 30 days just isn't enough pressure for me. I like to see if I can catch up, from way behind, near the end. *sigh*

How's your Monday looking?

The voices are getting louder

I mentioned characters and, perhaps, an actual person from the past speaking to me.

Yesterday, I was upstairs and heard my son calling me from the backyard. He was out there with the dog, so I came running down to see what was wrong. When I made it to the backyard, I found them running in the grass. Both were FINE. So I asked why he'd yelled.
He shrugged. "I didn't."
Oh.

Last night, I was in my bedroom when I heard my daughter call me. (I thought it was her. I am always getting in trouble for going to the wrong room when the other has actually called me.) But this time, they both frowned at me for coming into the wrong room. Neither of them called me. I was sure my youngest was asleep so I gave up.

At 4am, I nearly jumped out of bed when I heard a door slam. I looked at my husband--he'd heard it, too. We looked at each other, then heard the gate at the bottom of the stairs slam shut. We both got out of bed but after I second, I told my husband I was sure it was our older son. (He offered to sneak down and scare the snot out of him but wisely refrained.) When I did not hear any refrigerators opening or water running, I went to check. He was in bed. I checked my daughter's room, and she was in bed. Our youngest never gets out of bed in the middle of the night. Ever. (If he wakes--he cries, calls or just sits there but he does not even get out of his bed in the morning until someone comes to open his door).

But it had to be him. His door was still shut but that would explain the slammed door we'd heard. Sure enough, I went in and found his bed empty.

I went downstairs and found him standing in the dark living room. "I heard Daddy calling me so I came down here," he said, "but now I can't find him."

(I got him back upstairs and we assured him it was a dream. He wasn't completely convinced. He asked his Dad twice more why he'd called him.)

While I was putting him back in bed, I remembered the Bible story where the son woke his father three times, asking why he'd been called. The father finally realized it was God calling his son. My son was, apparently, only called once. And he is three. I don't think God has a message for a three-year-old that can't wait until morning.

Clearly then, there are only two possibilities:
I've invited spirits into the house that want to mess with us (now I know I'm not the only one hearing them) or, the dog has taken up ventriloquism.

Back from the dead

I started to have second thoughts about how "cool" my visit from my ghostly friend was. This weekend, we were hit by a nasty stomach bug. I started to think this might be the end and maybe she was coming to help me to the other side! ;)

My youngest had it Thursday and was fine by this weekend but the rest of the family was hit hard. We seem to be on the mend now so at least it was fairly short-lived but I am far, far behind on my word count!

I hope you all had a great weekend! Here's to a healthy, productive week!

Haunting dreams or delirium--I'll take it, either way!

I closed the new document this morning at about 12:15am. I finished writing about a woman who has not yet given birth but her daughter will be an important character, later in the book. As I slid into bed, I was thinking of who she will be when she grows up and I thought she might be the first African-American nun. She has someone else to deal with by then though, so I knew she would at least be familiar with some Native American traditions. I got up and wrote it down, quickly before falling back into bed.

After being woken repeatedly in the early morning, I was delirious enough to even think I was still in a dream. Someone snuggled up on the side of me (the side with no real, physical child attached to me) and tapped me on the shoulder. She whispered a little of her story.

Too tired to wake up (still), I hit Google as soon as I had coffee. The first black nun in Georgia was born in New Orleans, daughter of a slave and a native American.

As a writer, it is a little like magic when your characters become your imaginary friends and talk to you. If you are writing a historical novel and real people (or people who used to be real, live people) show up and do it, that's just COOL.

Frantic Friday

Yesterday was busy but not with much writing. So I'm far behind on the word count goal.

Fridays are normally "my" days. (My youngest goes to a "Mom's Time Out" on Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays, I volunteer at my older son's school during that time. Friday mornings are mine. But Thursday afternoon, the little guy got sick. So he's staying home, this morning. It is a Toy Story marathon morning here, with many interruptions to occupy the dog who is ready to PLAY. Somewhere in there, I've got a lot of work to do to make up for being very, very behind on my word count on the new novel.

At the moment, though the toddler is asking to make lemonade. And hiding in the pantry. I wonder if it's dark in there...
I bet somebody had a pantry 150 years ago. And a kid who liked to hide in it...

I wonder if I can count blog posts as part of my word count? ;)

Wednesday's whine

I saw it coming, last week but was really hoping I was wrong.

The three-year-old has been three years old for three days. Hasn't napped in two. He is growing up, ready to give up naptime--but I'm not! (Especially not during the month of November/Nano!)

Stay tuned for Thursday's post:
Tearing
Hair out
Until
Red, bald
Scalp
Distracts people from
All the
Yelling

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.