My Saving Grace

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my Critique Partners.   They've been my saving grace this past month.  When I hit plot wall, they throw me a rope.  When I can't find the right word, they email me twelve different options and a link to the thesaurus.  When I hate my characters, they send me an excerpt from one of my chapters reminding me why I started developing them in the first place.  Without them, I'd suck.  Plain and simple!

So thank you for always reminding me that every day doesn't have to be a good writing day, but I must write everyday.

Little Goals

This year I decided to forgo Resolutions.  The big picture, you-are-always-doomed-to fail-connotation of them never sat well with me.  Instead, I have adopted a daily list of sorts -- tiny, manageable goals for me to accomplish each day.  Each morning, before the kids and hubby get out of bed, I make a list of the things I need to do today.  Those in red are essential; those in black are 'if I have time' items.  My kids know where the list is, and they are allowed to add to it.  In fact, they are forced to.  My new rule -- if it's is not on the list than don't complain to me if it doesn't get done.

The system is working . . . somewhat. There are days when only half that list gets done; there are days when the entire thing is completed by noon.  But nonetheless it gives me focus, a set plan to attack each day and for that alone I deem it a success.

Today's list:
     ~shovel the driveway
     ~read 100 pages for my amazing new CP
     ~Start Chili in crock-pot by 11am
     ~Write 2500 words of new WIP and tweak pitch for agent review.
     ~beds, laundry, and usual crap (and yes I did write usual crap)

Two of those items are already done and it appears as those my kids have graciously forgotten to add anything to my list (bonus for me!)  So I am off to tackle the world, or at least the tiny corner  I fester in. Have a great and productive day!

Ohh . . .  and my kids don't ever, EVER get to write their list items in red because let's face it, there is a  huge difference between take me to the mall to buy a new iTunes card and wash the blood from my broken nose out of my basketball uniform.

Lesson Learned!

Today I was in my daughter’s first grade class.  I help out once a week for a few hours usually doing math enrichment.  Today I was tasked with pre-testing for the next Reading Unit.  It sounds more complicated than it really is.  Take a list of forty new words and have each kid read them, kind of like a formulating a baseline for the next three weeks of lessons.

The words ranged from simple sight words like car or school to more phonetically complicated ones like enough and disappear.   Each kid’s eyes lit up when they got one right – a complicated one that they had to sound out.  And that got me thinking, in a jealous sort of way, how lucky they were.  The feeling of learning something new, something as simple as figuring out that the letters f-r-i-e-n-d actually spell out a word is amazing.

I want that feeling back, that awe that comes with learning something completely and simplistically new.

Now don’t get me wrong, I learn something new every day. For example, just this morning I learned that if you put the left over gas from the lawnmower into your car it won’t start.  And this past weekend I learned mustard DOES, in fact, have an expiration date.  But that isn't the kind of learning I am striving for.  I want that doe-eyed, how-cool-am-I-for-knowing-that feeling that those 21 first graders had today!

Perhaps I should invest in a paper dictionary and start reading it like a novel!  So tell me, what the last thing you learned?

A Thank You, an Apology, and a New Perspective

I have been silent lately; my twitter, blog, even my Facebook accounts virtually non-existent.  Save a few tweets I have responded to, I haven’t so much as said two words to anybody outside my immediate world.  It’s not because I’m unmotivated or have suddenly run out of things to say; rather because life dealt me a difficult set of cards to play with this past month.  A hand, I will add, that I beat – taking a High Card and turning it into a Royal Flush kind of beat them!   See last month, December 16^th at 11:46 am to be exact, my very athletic, young, doesn’t drink/ doesn’t smoke, run-ten-miles-a-day husband had a heart attack.  The kind most people don’t live through.  For three hours I was faced with the very real possibility of having to start over. Alone.  Then he woke up, asked his Cardiac Surgeon what the hell had happened, then bugged him for the next four weeks about when he could start running again.

So here is where the thank you’s come in.  Life tends to get monotonous after a while.  You end up doing the same thing day after day not giving a second thought those around you.  You become careless with people, not because you mean or selfish, but just because your interactions become routine.   Until something happens and you send out a random text, something along the lines of I need you to walk my dog to your best friend, the friend who can read between the lines and knows that those seven, seemingly innocuous words have nothing to do with your dog.  Her reply… not a I will send Liam over to walk him, but rather a where are you and what’s wrong.   It’s the PTO who you have dedicated four years of your spare time to, the one that you constantly complaining about that sends two weeks’ worth of food.  All homemade.  It’s the brother from Chicago you only see once a year who shows up unannounced 8 hours later to watch your kids.  It’s the friend you share car-pool duties with who, without prompting, asked your kids what was one their Christmas list then finished your shopping for you.  And it’s coming home that first night at midnight, thinking the house would be painfully empty, to find your book club sitting there, wine open and your Christmas tree up and fully decorated, cheese and chocolate spread out on your table.  So Cyndie, Margaret, Katie, Carolyn, Ann Marie, Meg, Julie, Bill, and Marie . . . Thank you.

With my mind pre-occupied, I have slacked off on my reading.  For that I am truly sorry.  There are three insanely talented writers for whom I was given the privilege of critiquing for.  I am making my way through those manuscripts now.  They are amazing, as I expected, and I can’t thank you enough for your patience.  I promise, you will all have them back by this Friday.  Promise!  To those of you who offered to beta my new YA Contemporary, I will be in touch soon.   I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the offer!

My perspective on how I treat those around me isn’t the only thing that has changed; my writing has as well.  I have been at this publishing game for a couple of years, have seen my shares of crazy highs and equally depressing lows.  But I’ve never given up, never once thought all for not.  That hasn’t changed.  If anything watching my life swirl back into focus has re-invigorated my desire to write, cemented my need to take all these crazy ideas, emotions, and complexities of life and get them down on paper.  Without another world, another set of character’s lives to escape into each night, I think I would have truly lost it. 

So thank you to all those who kept me sane this past month and here is to a new year full or good friends and great reads!