"It Was A Long Dream"

Happy Book Birthday, Prophecy of Days II: The Serpent's Coil -- and double Happy Birthday to author Christy Raedeke!

Our lovely friend Julie gave a very fine (and impromptu) intro: "It takes a village to raise a writer," she said.

And here are the writing group babies, to prove it!


All best for your readers' delight and PoD II's success, Christy!

This Is How Much I Love My Writing Group

On Wednesday night, I brought the worst piece of writing to Starbucks.

While I sipped my salted caramel hot chocolate, Christy, Anjie, and Julie's pens went to work, crossing out circling and adding arrows and inserts.

It was an essay I've had in my head for four months, an application for a National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship.

The thing was, my creative juices just weren't flowing. At all. I ended up pretty much writing two opposite things and trying to mash them together.

Nope.

And then, there were the beginnings, all twelve of them:anecdotes, imagery, question, setting, thesis.

It. Was. A. Mess.

But after a few minutes, er, an hour, thanks to my WG, I had ideas!!! And since Wednesday, I've let them sit and stew and get all juicy and yummy.

Today is the day I will take Christy's suggestion to really plug the need for diversity in Southern Oregon. I'll add Julie's argument that our current composition topic, "Terrorism," only fuels the fear our students already have. And I'll answer Anjie's questions about how my past experience will enrich the program.

And that will make a way better four pages than I've got right now.

And I promise. Next week, I'll bring my A game to edit for them.

Go Get Yourself a Writing Group!

I will spare you a post on how I hurt myself terribly watching a "Stellaluna" puppet show yesterday at the Craterian Theater.

I will spare you from knowing how I added insult to injury by dumping curry powder all over my stiff, 40 year-old self this morning.

Instead, I will plug Christy, who has to set aside writing this week to attend the Gun & Knife Trade Show in Las Vegas.

Christy met me yesterday morning (pre-puppet show accident) in pouring rain at the bottom of Lithia Park. We walked ourselves to the top, mulling over the very last part of my Drain revision.

The thing is, I was rehashing all the edits Christy had given me (that I didn't take) a while back when we'd met for tacos. Like a good writing partner, she asked me first what I was thinking, and somehow held back uproarious laughter as I spit out everything about making the conclusion exactly the way she'd suggested.

We walked and talked, then after I hurt myself at the puppet show, I came back and re-wrote the last two pages of my story.

A good writing partner is hard to find. I know it. And I have four of them.

Thank you, Christy. Bring me back a bayonet!

The Solution

Yes, the Best Kids In The World have been absolutely terrible for going on three weeks now.

There's greed, fussing, fighting, eye-rolling, foot-stomping, under-breath-muttering, enormous mess.

So there's also been a lot of Dave and my sending the kids to their rooms, a lot of having them do jobs together, a lot of crying (from all of us).

This morning, I opened up a book Christy had given me a while ago: Mama Zen. I opened it up to a random page, and read: "Want your kids to be good? Then be good."

I almost cried (some more). It's so simple--being good--but I think I've forgotten that.

Today is a new page, though. A new opportunity. I will try. I will try to be good.

Super Loose Ends

My friends, I've been working hard, so hard, on a revision.

I've added, deleted, changed scenes.

There's more plot, more magic, more scary.

But I'm finding that every time I un-do or re-do something, I have to un-do or re-do a whole lot more. My writing partner, Christy says that when you untie one part, other parts unravel. That's just the way it is.

Has that happened to you?

This revision is so much stronger. I wish I'd thought of this stuff before. Before the excellent feedback.

Anyway, it's tomorrow. The last day of un-doing and re-doing, before the story goes out to some trusty readers.

I'm looking forward to giggling over the holes they find, then fixing it all up!

This One's For the Girls!

Here they are! Meet them and love them -- the amazing women in my life!

There's Mary, my auntie, my Godmother, my friend, with whom I chat and laugh and scrap. And Jeanne, my younger auntie, who I stayed with in San Francisco so many high school weekends, who gave me freedom and trust to run all around the city.

I wouldn't be the same without my sisters: Amy, smart and beautiful; Erika, ambitious and resourceful; Brigit, big-hearted.

Mo's been my bestie since kindergarten. I still remember her peeking out at me from behind her mom's legs on the first day of school. Mo and me, we've played socccer and survived Catholic school, and when we get together like we did last month at the American River to catch minnows and tadpoles with our babies, it's like no time has passed at all.

Andrea made it through St. Joseph's with us. She had the whole collection of Strawberry Shortcake dolls, and she didn't get mad when I took them swimming the summer of second grade and they lost all their smells.

Lisa W. had a knack for making papier mache. She zipped Kristen, our deep and wise gal pal, and me all over in her brown Toyota. And Lisa A. had an infectious giggle and superhuman algebra ability.

Wendi was Dave's friend first. They lived in the same neighborhood, and Wendi got her first speeding ticket with him in the passenger seat. Twenty years after long, lazy summers of lifeguarding, Wendi and I have kids 10 days apart, and we live 12 minutes from each other.

In college, Stephanie lived on the other side of my wall. We both ended up teaching middle school.

Karlee, from the college days, is a part of my every day. She is one of the kindest, hardest-working people I know.

Then there are the writers: Christy, Julie, and Anjie: insightful and bright, and right more often than not.

And Daney, who I haven't known a long, long time, but who I've known the very best: my daughter, who I'll have a rich, deep love with forever and ever.

And many, many more sharp and talented women: Maddy and Miah, my nieces; my cousin, Heidi; Genny; Aunt Nancy; Polly, Linda, and Leslie. Kim and Amy. Daney's bestie, Gracia, and Gracia's mom, Becky. Dominic and Rees' friends' mamas. Holly Root, agent extraordinaire! And all you super cyber-women.

I'm a lucky, lucky, lucky girl.

Writing Group Water Babies!

Okay, so we "forgot" to take a picture of ourselves last night at a very wet writing group. But we had a (beach) ball splashing and noodling around. There's was even a bit of writing talk, but mostly giggles and gossip and Jolly Rancher Popsicles.

Writing Group Goes to the River!

From A Place Of...

...Suffering.

That's where Drain began last winter.

My daughter Daney, almost ten years old, was stuck in a cluster of grand mal seizures. She was tired. She was sore. She missed a lot of school.

It was terrible, watching this kind, bright, lovely girl suffer.

I worried how she'd get through it. I worried how I'd get through it.

Of course, I had stopped going to writing group. I had stopped writing.

Until Christy (who knows I'll try anything she tells me) challenged me to come up with a few new pages. Which, somehow, I did: a story I thought had nothing to do with anything. A story that ended up having everything to do with something--of seeing suffering, without being able to stop it.

That first draft, it was rough. I was writing it on two hours of sleep, between ambulance rides and hospital visits and EEGs. I was was writing it with Daney tucked into bed beside me.

The voice came out hollow, realistic but cautious, sad, and slow.

Exactly the way I felt during those dark winter months.

Book Birthday!

Last night at the charming Bloomsbury Books, my writing partner, Christy Raedeke, debuted Prophecy of Days--Book One: The Daykeeper's Grimoire!

Here's the group:








And the very intellectual husbands:








And of course the offspring, brand-new Baby PoD included:

Home Improvement

So the other day, I offered my husband some tips on how to be a better dad (like taking the kids hiking on their day off instead of watching two movies in a row). Needless to say, this advice--or much other--was not well-received.

Without sounding sexist, I'm wondering if perhaps one gender is more open to "suggestions" than the other? Does one gender have more of a desire to evolve?

There's that, and this: I am critiqued, criticized, and even rejected daily. Writing group, query letters, submissions...my "art" is constantly being hammered.

In the beginning, of course, it hurt. I didn't know how to receive or even really give constructive feedback.

Two years later, though, I see how critical it is to making my writing stronger. With more developed characters, tighter plot, twists, fluid sentence structure. Especially that last one never would've happened without the influence of my talented writing partners.

I had to learn to put aside my ego, and try their suggestions. To think critically, which is to consider plural perspectives--the perspectives of Anjie, Christy, and Julie.

Last Wednesday night when we met at Starbucks, my new first chapters garnered lots of praise. There are hearts and stars and happy words all over my sample.

I have a long way to go, but I am growing.

I want to.

Now about that obstinate but completely adorable husband of mine...

At Maximum Capacity, With Room For Some Good News

It's the end of the term, of winter term. There's a stack of 30 analysis papers in my living room. And a pile of 10 billion Legoes on the floor.

Conferences are coming up. For my students. For my kids. Grades are due. Bills are due.

I didn't even realize yesterday (the FOURTH) was March, and forgot to pay the piano teacher.

I left my grading sheet (!) at school.

I left my phone at my friend Wendi's house. So I missed my first ever call FROM AN AGENT!

But!

Things are really really good right now.

My marriage is strong, and will be even better when Dave gets off shift today.

My kids are healthy.

There's enough fruit to throw in the blender for a smoothie.

"Brookyn's Finest" opens tonight, and I'm a sucker for a good bad-cop movie.

We get to go to "Grease." For free.

The daffodils are right outside my door, if I'm in doubt that spring will ever come.

It's my friend Leslie's birthday and she's having a Circus Party.

Christy sold book rights to Russia!

AAAAAnnnnnddddd....

An agent I enormously admire has completely renewed my faith in YA writing. I absolutely LOVED my conversation with her yesterday, and am hoping whole-heartedly.