Sure, now it works! And Jolly Fish and Cereal

Blogger has been giving me the spinning wheel of death in the "compose" box for a couple of weeks. Finally it allows me to blog! My need to spew into the blogosphere has been great, and now that it allows me, I've pretty much drawn a blank.

Meanwhile, I'm getting excited about Big in Japan! I finished all the edits over spring break. Believe me, doing edits while riding for 37 hours in a 13 year-old Suburban filled with five kids, eleven drying out Happy Meals, and a neverending litany of books on CD is a little tricky. I wonder if anything I sent back to my publisher is even coherent.

It seems they still like me, however. I get encouraging emails from them at least once a week. How nice is that? Jolly Fish Press! They're pretty awesome. I wish every writer could find as great a group of people to work with as I've been lucky/blessed enough to find.



A lot of my writing friends, both published and yet-to-be-published have been asking me about this publisher. Seriously? I have no complaints at all whatsoever. I've always known I'd prefer to be with a small press, where the team knows the writers, where it's a smaller pond. (Not that I'm some big fish, just another jolly one.) I really like being part of a family-like operation. There are other writers who would prefer to be all New York, and that's great! I can see the merit in that. I'm just more of a small town girl, and a small press fits my personality. If that's you, I say go for it. Query these guys. You've got nothing to lose, and a great group of friends and cheerleaders to gain.

So. Cold cereal. It's still my nemesis. That darned Vanilla Almond Awake. Did I mention I'm running 15 miles a week now? Every week. And do I lose any weight? Nope. Back in the day, John Belushi said, "I owe it all to little chocolate doughnuts." Me? I owe it all to the delicious array of cold cereals that span my hall pantry. I think I need a handful of it now to get me through until it's time to go pick up the kids.

[Geez. Blogger. It won't let me upload the pic of my cereal. Imagine it HERE.]

Continuous Food Shoveling! & Great Kid Brainstorming

Well, I'm starting to believe that the secret to being the mom of a teenage boy is, when he has friends over for a friendly game (the 9-hour kind that only teen boys appreciate), just keep shoveling food in their direction.

This is the second Saturday in a row when the boys have decorated the living room with game pieces, England attacking Germany, Japan attacking Russia, etc. So far I've placed bowl after bowl of treats before them. Bags of pretzels, Chex snack mix, Eegee's strawberry slush, bean and cheese burritos, a cheese ball and 2 kinds of crackers, a pitcher of strawberry Kool-Aid, half a dozen oranges, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, a pan of brownies. Probably some other stuff I forgot. A minute ago I ripped open a bag of tortilla chips and poured salsa from a jar into a bowl. They fell on it like starving hyenas.

Weird.

Well, considering I've eaten nearly an entire box of Great Value Vanilla Almond Awake dry cereal back here in my lair while they've been The Locusts of the Living Room, it's a sign that it's genetic for at least one child.

I'm new to this mom-of-a-teen thing.

However, I have to say how amazing my teen boy is. And his brother and sisters. We had a road trip to grandma's yesterday, and on the way home I was getting punchy. They started asking me about my latest novel, and they insisted on hearing the entire plot from start to finish. Bless them! They kept asking for more for the full two hour drive. It made me go through what I've written, made me remember what scenes are exciting, which ones aren't, and which characters start out seeming important but fade sadly (and probably need to be cut.)

THEN, they gave me suggestions about the best way to get the motorcycle off the bottom of the Havana Bay (in 1788). And they were good ideas! Plus, the second son had a hilarious idea for one of the other scenes. I think it will become iconic WHEN my current book becomes a bestseller and a summer blockbuster movie. (Dream big, always dream big.)

It's probably the neatest thing EVER to be a mom. I really feel lucky and blessed to have these hilarious and brilliant children in my life. They're the best.