Slaying the NaNo Dragon? I think I need Cocoa Puffs

NaNoWriMo, i.e., National Novel Writing Month, i.e., November, ends today. I'm sad to see it go. November has been a great month. I turned 40, on which day I received not one but two vases of flowers. The lilies still smell wonderful.

Which reminds me. On our wedding day, I had lilies in my bouquet. The yellow powdery stuff from the flowers' pollen was getting everywhere, and while we were on our honeymoon, my new husband was putting in his contacts and the yellow powder got on his finger and turned his eye yellow. Very weird.

But I still love the lilies.

One of the scenes from my NaNo novel has Monet's pond of waterlilies in it. The protagonist and her tormentor/love interest nearly drown in that lily-filled pond. She's a champ and pulls him, a nonswimmer, out. It's good fun.

So, did I make it? Did I beat the challenge to write 50,000 words in a month on a brand new novel? Oh, yeah, baby! I made it. Last night, after a week-long dearth, I was able to crank out the final words and land at 50,250~. Bring on the Cocoa Puffs! It's time to celebrate!

No, the novel isn't complete. I think the thing that surprises me as a newly minted fantasy writer (contemporary fantasy. I'm not great at world building and probably never will be) is the sheer number of words it takes to write a fantasy, the descriptions have to be more ... profuse. Not that I've ever struggled with having too little to say. Ha.

Meanwhile, the house is a total WRECK. I had to do ELEVEN loads of laundry. Somehow there is an entire bag of polyester pillow filling strewn in bite-sized tufts all over the back porch. Like snow. Only messier, and I can't simply wait for it to melt so it will go away. The kitchen floor has been attacked by pineapple juice, one of the stickiest substances known to man, second in the Griffith household only to the honey which is liberally slathered all over the kitchen counter beside the vases of lovely lilies. My windowsill above the kitchen sink is tastefully decorated with empties--empty PET bottles from Old Orchard Apple Cherry juice (quite delicious, a must try) waiting to be refilled with fresh water for emergency storage, but who has time to fill a bottle with water and put it in the pantry? Not I, apparently. The NaNo Dragon has had me by the neck. Neckbreaking. I think my friend DeAnn was right. I think the broken neck is going to happen because of all ten thousand toys and books strewn all over the house waiting to trip us.

I think I'll have to put the final estimated 35K words to finish this book on hold and regain control of the chaos here. Meanwhile, I blow on my knuckles and rub them on my clavicle and say, ha! Beatcha this time, NaNo, at about the same rate you beat me. Let's call it a draw.

The Yard Sale Christmas with a Popcorn Observation

This morning my son and I hit the yard sales. That's after I took two of the girls yesterday and the other son. It's amazing weather here this time of year. Perfect for yard sales. I know, I should extend more sympathy to all you all who are toughing it out in the snow and cold. Apologies.

Anyhow, it's the tradition for the past couple of years that I take the kids to buy presents for each other at yard sales. It started in 2008 when everybody went through "austerity measures." Then, because it worked so well, we hung onto it.

There are quite a few things I love about it. One, I get to go to yard sales. I love to see other people's things and talk to new people and find a very fun bargain. Just today I found a classic children's book I'd been salivating over for a while. It was (drumroll, please)... TWENTY-FIVE CENTS. Yeah? Yeah.

Two, taking the kids gives me a chance to have one-on-one chats with them in the car while we drive around town. They're so funny and fun! Most of the time it's a five-on-one situation, so it's a good change. Yard sales are a good excuse. I say yard sale and they say, "Me, me, me!" How often are kids just dying to be the one on the errand?

Three, I like to see them be generous to each other, and yard sales make it possible. I used to take them to the store, and they'd want to get their siblings nice things, and I'd always cringe and apologize and say things they wanted to give were just too expensive. Well, they were. >shrug< At a yard sale, I almost never have to say no. (Early on we established a "no dirty stuffed animals rule" so the nays dissipated.) It's nice to have a time of year when I can take them shopping and say yes. Once my youngest got her brother a bean bag--something he has used almost every day since. They end up getting fancier things than they'd end up giving/receiving from the dollar store.

Four, and most of all, I noticed in 2008 that the duration of time a kid will enjoy a 50-cent toy is roughly the same he/she will enjoy a $50 toy. Why was I bothering spending much at all on Christmas when we could thoroughly enjoy something someone else was done with? It's my contribution to the universe of recycling.

Anyhow, the oldest son and I went out trolling for gifts around the valley before we went to work a charity booth. He had to work setting up the tables and chairs and hauling things for me so I let him go over and buy himself a treat at McDonald's. A few minutes later he reappeared with a huge bag of popcorn and a soda (the nectar of life, according to this child.) I loved his observation:

"Popcorn and a soda is a lot cheaper at McDonald's than it is at the movie theater."

Love that kid. Now, I think I'll go eat some of the rest of his bag of popcorn and see if I can get a few words on the page for my NaNo novel. I'm trying to break that 50K mark, but I'm only at 41K now. When I hit it, I'm going to read my novel--not the one I'm writing, the one that languishes on my nightstand calling to me with its tempting siren song. No, the 50K won't mean my story is done; but I'll take a break at that point and reward myself with a post-NaNo great read.

Here's a picture of turkey. The countdown could be measured in hours now.

NaNooo NaNooo (That's Orkian for I'm Breaking My Neck)

My friend DeAnn said she's not doing National Novel Writing Month because she finds the pace "too neck breaking." Well, she's right. It's also housework breaking, homework breaking, meal-preparation breaking, and probably a lot of other things. I am not sure it's truly worth it. It's fun, the creativity and the sense of accomplishment, but I hope I'm not losing sight of other things that could really use...sight.

Meanwhile, my go-to sustenance during this neck breaking is something I found at WalMart called "Strawberry Awake." It's cold cereal, kind of like Frosted Flakes but with slices of delicious freeze-dried strawberries in it. Oh, and the flakes are not corn. They're wheat and rice flakes, so the texture is unexpectedly crisp. LOVE it. It's a WalMart brand, and I don't know if there's a brand name comparable cereal, and I don't really care. This is doing the job for now. Until it runs out and I have to break away from my broken neck and go back to the store.


The 50,000 words in a month isn't a problem. I can probably type that just in Facebook replies alone. (I'm kind of a junkie lately. It's also contributing to the housework-breaking, I'm sure.) It's getting those 50K into a coherent form, with pacing and characterization and excitement and scenes. I keep having to jump away from the text flying from my fingertips and do research checks online. (I am doing something a little technical and I need to check my facts as I go.) This leads to Facebook checks. And slowed progress.

But I will sally forth! Right now my total, as of November 8 in the morning before typing a word in the document, is .... 16,707. So I guess I'm on my way. But I have to accelerate the pace of word insertion because of being on my way over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house toward the end of the month, during which there can be no progress due to the intense pie-making and pie-eating activities I'll be required to immerse in. And not grudgingly.

Can't wait for pie. So many, many good pies in my near future. It makes everything sweet.

Halloween Candy Trickle-Down-Theory (and the Countdown=1)

It's Halloween. What kind of candy blogger would I be if I didn't speak up today?

First off, I'm still trying to avoid sugar ingestion. It's not going very well. I had to make sugar cookies over the weekend (and frosting) for kids' school. While I only ended up eating one (broken) cookie, which was a WIN, I think I probably ate a full cup of dough. Not a win.

And that cherry-vanilla flavored frosting was sooooo tempting.

Sigh.

As for today, I didn't resist the Halloween candy in the ENORMOUS bowl. We live in one of "those" neighborhoods; you know: the kind with street lights, and without mean dogs on the loose or large spiny cactus on the "lawn." Therefore, we get hit pretty hard. In fact, one year, I swear I saw a BUS parked at the end of the road and people piling off it, coming through the houses wearing masks and holding pillowcases. Seriously, folks.

The bowl has to be ready for such contingencies. Therefore, I bought
EIGHT bags of mini-candy bars,
two bags of Sixlets,
two bags of Smarties,
two bags of Dubble Bubble,
the biggest bag of Dum-Dums I'd ever seen,
a bag of Sugar Babies,
a bag of Tootsie Pops,
possibly some other stuff I forgot.

I had a friend mention on Facebook that Halloween is a day where you end up trading candy you DO like for candy you DON'T. But I think I've already established there's no such thing as candy I don't like.

This morning I've been experimenting with the "trickle down" theory of sugar ingestion. In other words, I've chewed about fifteen pieces of Dubble Bubble. Since I spit out the gum as soon as it started to get tough, I told myself I wasn't really "eating" sugar. Yes, I realize this is a form of lying to myself. But, dang, it was good. I love that pink stuff.

Meanwhile, the gum is helping me concentrate on my writing organization. Only ONE day left until NaNo begins, and even though I can see I was probably delusional thinking I could really do it this year, with all the other responsibilities that are flinging themselves at me, I'm still going to at least give it the old college try. Go, Aggies! Anybody know how the Aggies are doing this year, by the way? I never pay attention. Didn't in college, either. Ha. Good thing I married a guy who cares more about raspberries than sports. He might (if I can cajole him into it) dress up like Clark Kent for trick-or-treating tonight. It's perfect. I'll be my usual--the witch.

Infinitesimal Rhinos and Sixlets the Candy

My 11-yo got braces this week, and I offered him carrot sticks for dinner.

This is an indication of the situational awareness level of his mother.

This is possibly due to the fact I've gone deep into my writing head again. I'm scratching together a whole bunch of outlining and characterization notes for NaNoWriMo.

What is NaNoWriMo? A minuscule rhino? No! It's National Novel Writing Month. November every year brings out the novelist in thousands of writers all over the world. According to Wikipedia, last year over 200,000 participated, but I bet those are the official numbers and many more participated but didn't do the official sign-up on the site.

The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. If you've ever wanted to write a novel and never made yourself buckle down and just do it, NaNoWriMo could be the motivation you've been looking for.

About five years ago I heard about NaNoWriMo from my friend Colleen. She was participating. I didn't ever go do the real sign-up. I didn't want to be accountable! But I was a closet NaNo and created a novel that month. It was quite grueling. Because it was November, Thanksgiving holidays got in the way, so it had to be packed into a certain number of days (no Sundays. I don't do writing for profit on Sundays.) I ended up cranking out about 2,500 words a day, some days more. It was also quite a rush. In the end, I set it aside and didn't do anything with it for about three months. I was kind of sick of it by then. But I broke it out again after the new year and finished it up, edited it for ten months, and then it became my third novel, Delicious Conversation. Last I heard, it's still in print.


So, now I'm done tinkering with my novel that took two years to write and edit, and I'm ready for something fresh. Something came to me Wednesday night and I think I'm going to NaNo it. (Makes me think of Mork From Ork, Nanoo Nanoo!) Organizers suggest getting as many notes together as possible prior to the November 1 start date. Then crank out the words in one big Blaaaaat!

Should be fun. I love a writing rush! Like a good dose of Excedrin. I bet my braces-mouthed son could use one himself.

No candy news today, except they served Sixlets at the bridal shower I attended today. Only yellow Sixlets. I wish I'd been in charge of sorting them. Then I could have eaten EVERY SINGLE Sixlet of any other color besides yellow. Yeah, baby. Those little spherical doses of heaven are grand.

Blueberry Cake and Failure (which precedes success)

My now-4yo daughter had a birthday this weekend and requested a blueberry cake. Part of me went "ew." There's family folklore around here about the Christmas morning that I labored to create homemade blueberry muffins using a dubious recipe and came up with mounds of bready, fruit-studded, gag-inducing sand that not only the kids hated but that our chickens would not eat.

So, the request of the blueberry cake caught me off guard.

Have you ever noticed that modern blueberries just aren't quite as good as the candy blueberries that come in little powdery purple clumps in Jiffy Muffin Mixes? I love those candy blueberries. My husband, whose mind gravitates toward all things agricultural and genetically altered, complains that modern blueberries have been so bred for size that the sweetness has gone out of them and their texture is (his words) "nasty."

I still like them fine in a McDonald's Fruit & Yogurt Parfait, as I've mentioned before.

Anyhow, it became a challenge, and at the advice of my baking-queen sister-in-law Julie, I bought two(more expensive because it contains a can of REAL wild blueberries) Betty Crocker blueberry muffin mixes and baked them in 9" rounds and then drizzled them with a lemon glaze made out of 1/2 cup lemon juice and 2/3 cup sugar and some water, cooked on the stove until the sugar dissolved. I used a chopstick to poke dozens of holes in the cake for the lemony sweetness to seep down through both layers.

Can I just say? I think I redeemed myself on the blueberry front.

This isn't my cake but it's the internet image that matches it best. I did two layers...Mmm. I love this cake plate.

Right now I'm getting details together to run a new round of queries on my novel. The topic is out there, I'm aware. It's not something most of us will have read a dozen times in the past. I'm hoping some brilliant agent will see it for the cash cow it is and snap it up.

And like the gaggy blueberry muffins that preceded the triumphant blueberry cake, here's believing the non-triumphant queries I've launched will be followed by a bidding war among publishers for some lucky agent out there!

Writing for Fun and Profit and Jalapeno Corn

It's only October and I'm already starting to formulate goals for the New Year.

This is probably due to the fact that I spent the morning Christmas shopping. Is this jumping the gun or getting a jump on the gun-to-your-head type season that is coming at me like an army with bayonets?

I'm not sure.

Anyhow, I'm thinking about what kind of things I can be doing next year for writing. I have love, love, loved my novel writing experiences. I think it's the most satifying writing I've ever done. However, novel writing is what I'd put in the trickle-down category of earning. It takes a while to earn anything from writing a novel, royalties only come in a lump sum every six months (at least that's how mine come), and it eventually trickles to a drip, which is fine unless you have something new written coming down the pipe and didn't take a couple of years off to be the mommy of the kids. 

That's fine. Most novelists don't quit their day jobs, and I never could (as a stay-at-home mom it would be a colossal mistake. Plus, I kinda like my job. My bosses are pretty hilarious. And good fodder for the novels.)

So, as for the new goals, I think I'm starting to want to try some new formats. I've been writing novels for about 15 years. Before that, I wrote essays and short stories--and a bunch of papers for college (not a format I'd like to revisit.) My good friend Donna Hatch told me recently she had written a couple of novellas she put up on Smashwords and made available for Kindle and Nook. She had a fun time writing them. That sounded fun to me, and like not as much pressure as a full-blown 85,000 word novel to calibrate. And if I get something cute done, nice and frothy, I might do what Donna did and make it available for sale as an e-book. Even if I only make a few bucks, that's a profit, right?

For the past several years I've been writing a book review column for our local newspaper. I love it. I get to inflict on the local populace my taste in books. Ha! Sometimes I go to a doctor's office or a city luncheon and people say, "I've heard your name. Where...?" I tell them I write the column, and that's usually how they knew me. I'm using up all 15 minutes of my fame this way. It's not a bad way, promoting other writers' books. Good times! I haven't written a column lately (too busy writing to read much I'd like to recommend), so I think in the new year my goal will be to step that up, funnel a few more columns their way.

Besides that, I got a new community-involvement-assignment to work on the county's state Centennial celebration and do the write-ups for that. It should be a good variety of challenges, from the news releases to a pamphlet here and there, to website content, to a history of a local landmark. That'll make me stretch.

A friend of mine, Valerie Steimle Bashein Foy, from ANWA (my writers group) keeps posting on our Facebook group whenever she gets a byline in a magazine, newspaper, or e-zine. She's raking in the clips! It's inspiring! I don't know how much she gets paid for each column, but even if it's just a few dollars here and there, it's cool that her writing is valuable enough that she is being paid for it. That makes her a professional writer. I love it. She's quite the inspiration.

I'm not going to quit working on my latest novel (it's going to be the cotton candy fun I love to spin), but I want to branch out and make myself stretch into new projects in the new year. If I can just get through the holidays!

I can't wait for the holidays. Seriously. When is food a bigger part of our lives than those diet-deadly and delicious six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day? Ah, I think I can taste the jalapeno corn already. Mmm!

Here's my recipe:

4 bags frozen white corn
1 8-oz cube cream cheese
1 cube butter
1/4 cup milk
3 jalapenos seeded and chopped
garlic salt
season salt

On stovetop in saucepan combine cheese, milk, butter, seasoning and peppers. Stir until creamy and bubbling. Pour over thawed corn. Cook on stovetop stirring occasionally until peppers are tender. Keep warm in crock pot until ready to serve. Makes enough for the whole Thanksgiving gang (but I have to double this because our gang is gigantic.)

Tasty Snails vs. Espresso Books (and genre crossing)

My friend Louise introduced me to a VERY DANGEROUS website. It is called Food Gawker, and it seems to troll the internet for cool blogs about food.

Here's a photo that was bubbling at the top of the pic gallery today.



I ask you. Does food get cuter than that? Bless her little macaron-making heart.

So I have been stuck there, clicking over and looking at recipes for chocolate cake (which I'm going to make and enter in the county fair this weekend, good luck to me!) and all kinds of other beautiful, deliciousness.

Meanwhile, I have also been reading a MS for a friend. She is writing out of her genre, and it's amazing how versatile some writers can be. I'm really happy to see the different sides of writers' personalities emerge. Yes, I think the voice for most writers is pretty constant--I can hear her romance side sneaking through in this great YA dystopian story--which I think is what makes readers for the most part not mind when writers cross genre lines. There are some writers I'd read whatever they wrote, no matter the genre (almost. I mean, I do have some limitations on what I won't read.)

I also got a load of something really innovative and interesting today. It's called the Espresso Book Machine. From the writerswrite blog:

"The Wall Street Journal's Jeffrey Trachtenberg discusses the expansion of On Demand Books' Espresso Book Machine, a desk-sized device that quickly prints out black-and-white paperbacks with color covers. Jeffrey says he printed his own book in four minutes."

Click on the link to see the machine.

Huh. How would that be? It might change things. And book publishing would no longer be for the snails. Yummy snails. Mmm!

Thank You for Being a Friend (and the jeans fit)

Spent the day feeling like a crummy writer and hopeless and worthless and all those "-less" adjectives. Thought about hanging up my laptop. Thought about switching hobbies to ... something else. Maybe housework or weed pulling. (Okay. That's a lie.)

THEN...

I was scrolling through my blog roll and came across Joyce DiPastena's September Blog hop and noticed she was giving away a copy of my book Delicious Conversation as a prize and she had scores of entries of ladies *wishing* to win that book. They said things in their entries like, "Who wouldn't want to read about romance and chocolate." Et cetera.

And someone called Judy was the winner. Congratulations, Judy! I hope you enjoy the story!

And suddenly the clouds parted and a ray of sunshine shone through.

There are the ups and downs of writing and getting published and being a creative person. (Not that I'd necessarily ever describe myself that way.) It's probably pretty universal to get bummed when in the querying process. Rejection--not that great for the old ego, right? Seriously, I feel really lucky and blessed to have friends who happen to support me just when I find myself getting down.

Now, to return the compliment, I'd be ungrateful if I didn't give a little plug for my friend Joyce's writing. She has a style all her own, in that she writes Medieval Romance. She's a scholar, and the research that goes into her books is exhaustive and you can just feel the love she has for the period and the characters pulsating off the pages she writes. She includes a bibliography at the end of each book of the sources she researched for the story, and the romance is sweet but still compelling. Love it.

Joyce, thank you. You brought me back from the bummers.

I think I'll go have a gummy Vitamin D berry to celebrate. (Since I'm STILL curbing the sugar, if you don't count the three pieces of cinnamon coffee cake I downed yesterday at the family get together. Family get togethers are my nemesis. But my skinny jeans fit. No, they don't get tapered at the ankle, I am talking the JEANS that fit when my weight is DOWN. So, yeah. Back to the gummies!) And if the writing success (or lack thereof) isn't something to smile about, the skinny jeans are.

Shame on Me (and fantastic smoothies)

So, I tried to post my last blog to Facebook, but it flagged me. It wouldn't allow me to post because my blog had been determined to be

"Abusive"

or

"Spammy."

Therefore, I would like to apologize right now to any readers of this blog if they have been harmed or spammied in any way.

Speaking of Spam, that's good stuff. There's a Hawaiian restaurant in town, Kainoa's, that serves it with rice and barbecue sauce and macaroni salad. They also make the best smoothie EVER. There are 4 or 5 choices of smoothies on the menu, but the one called Kickin' Kaleo is beyond delicious. And possibly sugar free. Okay, not, but I'm telling myself it's fruit.

Meanwhile, I'm querying my fool head off. It's a weird mix of exhilaration and demoralization. Pressing forward.

E-Publishing! (and a new Pretend Health Food)

It's an e-publishing-palooza here today.

First, I have one of my previously published novels nearly ready to throw onto Amazon for Kindle. Kind of exciting. If anyone out there has an urge to e-publish, but like me thinks oh-my-heck-I-can't-bear-to-go-through-the-ordeal-of-figuring-that-out, whine no more! There's an easy-to-follow method on AgentQuery.com at the top right of the page: "How to E-Publish."

Yee haw. Check it out.

Also, I have a friend, Anna del C. Dye, who has just made her latest book available as an e-book. Emerine's Nightmare is a children's story--for boys. Boys love fantasy. For years fairies have been girls' territory, but Anna has a fun twist on it, as she said, "to try to fill that void of books for boys in 4th through 7th grades." Emerine is being persecuted by dark fairies. They've killed his parents and now it's his turn.



I think it's great she's writing these books and making them available on e-book format. She's selling it for $3.99 on Amazon and Nook. It's also available as a standard e-book on her website.

As I've spent the week querying agents to go about publishing my stuff the traditional method, I can't help thinking what a great equalizer e-publishing is. It makes for quite the shortcut for us aspiring mainstream novelists. There is a siren song about it I can't help hearing to an extent.

In the meantime, I'm staying the traditional course. To soothe me in my bouts of psychotic email-checking, I've found a new so-called health food: Cherry Craisins.

Forget everything you know about cranberries. This little leathery sweet bite is what every WalMart Fruit Smile wishes it had been born as instead. The Cherry Craisin is a dried cranberry, sure, but it's soaked in cherry juice and turned into fabulous sweet and tangy deliciousness.

As Shawn Spencer says on Psych, "Are you a fan of delicious flavor?"

Of course I am, Shawn. And this cherry juice infused craisin is delicious flavor at its pretend healthiest. I think I'll go buy my third bag this week.

Genres and Queries and Yogurt, oh my!

I've got two projects ready to query for agents, and it has made me think about the importance of knowing what genre your book is.

There's a tendency among writers to want to write what we want to write, regardless of the readership. And that's great. It's totally fine.

However, if a writer does have the goal of getting published it's important to have the end-product in mind. For publishers, writing is a commodity, and it needs to be marketable. The very first thing a publisher needs to know to evaluate whether the book will work for them is the GENRE.

What is a genre? It's a type. It basically dictates who the audience of the book will be. Here are some examples of fiction genres, with my general assessment of the audience they target:

Picture Books (books with pictures, aimed at kids)
Chapter Books (longer books for young readers)
Middle Grade Fiction (that means for grade schoolers, the protagonist should be age 11)
Young Adult, a.k.a. YA (teen readers, the protagonists should be age 15-16, very little wiggle room there)
Literary Fiction (novels where the internal conflict of the main characters takes center stage)
Commercial Fiction (novels where external conflict for the main characters is most prevalent)
Mystery (self-explanatory)
Thrillers (like Baldacci)
Suspense (like Hitchcock)
Paranormal (ghosts, etc.)
Dystopian (where the world as we know it is broken, like Fahrenheit 451)
Fantasy (where the world-building is a main part of the story, often a quest or epic battle)
Science Fiction (where futuristic technology plays a major role)
Magical Realism (regular world with a dash of magic)
SteamPunk (not quite sure, but often set in the past with current technology involved; is it like Cowboys and Aliens?)
Historical (set in the past, usually educating the reader about the time period)
Romance (where the end isn't a surprise, but the joy is in the journey of girl getting boy)

There are others, and there are sub-genres of these classes as well; for instance, within Mystery, there is a sub-genre called "Cozy Mystery" where the blood isn't too gory, and you can imagine reading this curled up next to a fire with a cup of tea on a rainy day. There are also "Hard Boiled Detective" mysteries, like the Sam Spade stories of Dashiell Hammett. Or you've got "Procedurals" where the emphasis is on the medical evidence. Doesn't Patricia Cornwall write those? They're a little gritty for me and my cotton candy reading taste.

There are also gradations of Romance. Everything from "Sweet," to "Christian," to "Hot," to "NASCAR." The genres of Romance seem almost limitless. And it's a big market.

Okay, now. This morning I sent my first query to an agent. In my letter I noted the genre of my book. In order to even know which agent to query, I needed to know what genre she agented, and what her interests are. It really narrows things down. It's an important step in getting published.

Yeah, I can see how it feels constricting to some of us who would like to think of ourselves as "genre-bending" writers, but the problem with that is that when a reader picks up a book, he or she has a certain expectation and desire to be entertained in a certain way. For instance, some nights I stand in front of the Red Box thinking, "Do I want a comedy or an action movie?" There's an expectation, and it's part of the contract between the reader and the writer, as William Noble said. The deal is, the reader says, "Tell me a story," and the writer does.

Now, onto more important topics. Sometimes I stand in front of the Red Box and realize it's across the street from McDonalds and all I can think is how much I am craving a Fruit and Yogurt Parfait. I love that crunchy granola they put in the packet to keep it crispy and slide the spoon through the little plastic wrapper to keep them together and ready for me to combine and eat. Sometimes the chunks of strawberries are still frozen. I know, I know, some people are haters about The Golden Arches, but don't dis the Yogurt. That stuff is gooood.

Check out the Deliciousness

When is too much too much? (And a new project!)

When is enough enough?

Well, I think I might have hit that limit the other day when a 12 year old kid came up to me in WalMart, took one look at my shopping cart and said, "Whoa. Talk about unhealthy."

Chuh! If he only knew!

To give him credit, he did catch me on a particularly sugar-ified day. Here's a snapshot of some of the items in my cart:

3 boxes of sugar cereal
1 box ice cream sandwiches
1 quart vanilla ice cream
3 boxes of brownies
Reese's Pieces
Gummy Fruit Slices
2 pounds powdered sugar
1 big bag red licorice Nibs
1 package Oreos
1 package oatmeal cookies
1 big bag Smarties
1 box sugar cones
1 box regular ice cream cones
1 box waffle cones
1 box graham crackers
1 box M&Ms
1 package cream filled wafer cookies (the strawberry, chocolate, vanilla kind)
1 bag green apples (not candy)
1 bag green grapes (not candy)
I love the name of the source of this pic: Snack Overload. What else!?


Possibly some other things. I forgot the jelly beans, and WalMart didn't have any spearmint leaf gummy candies. I had to get them at Walgreen's later. And where are the licorice ropes these days?

Was that kid out of line? I keep going over it in my head. How should I have responded? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I wrote a children's book. Well, I rewrote one. I'd written it a few years ago and sent it to a publisher. I got a really nice rejection letter, saying they weren't publishing children's books. One rejection must have been all I could take at the time because I put it away until now.

But last week I dusted it off, gave it a new sheen and am ready to think about shopping it around again. I read it to my daughter's school class today, and they seemed to like it.

Maybe that's because I bribed them with White Chocolate Popcorn first.

I can't really think of a tie between the giant shopping cart full of candy and the new children's book thing. Maybe enough overthinking is enough.

Oh, I guess I'll justify myself here. I bought my daughter a book for her birthday:


It's a perfect food/craft/kid-fun blend. I HAD to get her the ingredients to make the fun, right? I can't wait.

The Dangers of Leaving a Project (and BottleCap Candy)

So, I have this fun little writing project I started about three months ago. I love the concept. I love the main character. I think this is a great book. Er, going to be a great book.

One big problem: I had to take a break from it to finish my other novel.

Now, I am trying to go back to the fun new thing and I've lost the energy in it. I can't get the characters talking to me anymore, and I was a "pantser" not an outliner (someone who writes by the seat of her pants instead of with a definite plan) and I can't get back on track.

Bummer. Super bummer.

Maybe I'm just having an "off-writing" day because I spent three hours trying to do all the paper filing that I have let languish for almost TWO YEARS, piling up in boxes in my closet. Ew. That pile-up was also due to finishing my last manuscript.

I remember reading somewhere that while J.K. Rowling wrote her series, she didn't do housework once. She has a lot to show for that now. Like, a castle, right? Didn't she buy a castle? Good for her. Writers should get to buy castles, too. Not just movie stars and sporty guys. Writers need large libraries. Who deserves or could appreciate a large library room more?

Anyhow, it might look like I took a vow to never do housework around here, but I think it was mostly the giant filing box that got away from me. And maybe some soap scum buildup in the shower.

This rambling is why I need an outline. Some people can be pantsers. I think I'd better not risk it.

The other day I bought new running shoes since I'm turning into a runner, accidentally. And the very first morning I wore my new New Balances, boom. I'm going through a neighborhood under construction and I get a rusty nail up in my shoe. Good thing I got a pair with a lot of cushion in the heel, or I'd be heading into the doc to get a tetanus shot.

It made me think about Bottle Cap candy. Willy Wonka makes it. Why? I'm not really sure why candy that resembles metal litter would be appealing to children. Yes, it comes in cola and orange and cherry flavors--all our favorite sodas--(I'm strategically leaving out root beer). But, why?

I don't really get it.

But it doesn't stop me from eating them if they're sitting there. I'd probably even still eat it if it had been lodged in the tread of my shoe. Candy junkie of junky candy.

Gummies (and What to Ask an Agent)

Aren't gummies the best? It must have all started with Gummy Bears. I remember back in the day at West Side Junior High School when the little store across the street in Dayton had treats we could leave campus and go buy at lunch, if we pooled our money Jamie and I could sometimes afford a bag of the Haribo Gummy Bears from Germany. The only better thing that came out of Germany was Toblerone, and that might have been from Switzerland.

The fact that we were taking German at the time from the wonderful Mrs. Durrant made the Haribo Gummy Bears even more perfect. How could two girls from a tiny village in Idaho have been more cosmopolitan?

Thank you, Haribo.

When I did finally go to Germany about 7 years later, you'd better believe I found myself some Haribo Gummy Bears.

Now they sell them at WalMart, here in my new small town not in Idaho.

They still make me feel so cosmopolitan. So chic. So traveled.
Kids and Grown-Ups Love it So

As do the gummy Vitamin D (raspberry shape) "pills" I take. A spoonful of gummy helps the medicine go down. My doctor mentioned he takes 14000 milligrams at a time of Vitamin D. I don't know if it was an off-hand comment, but I suspect he likes gummies.

So do I.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about getting WAY outside my comfort zone and shopping my MS to an agent. Sometime soon. It will be like letting a cat out of the bag. Once it's out, you can't put it back in. I like the story, and I think everyone in the world will want to read it, and for sure it's going to become a summer Hollywood blockbuster, so I probably might as well get going on it; but it's not exciting to have to venture into the unknown. Well, I guess it's exciting, but not always in a good way.

In my online digging, I came across an excellent post VERY USEFUL FOR ANYONE WHO IS THINKING ABOUT SEEKING REPRESENTATION. It's from literary agent Rachelle Gardner, and she posts about QUESTIONS TO ASK AN AGENT before you sign any contract.

I think I'm going to print this out and keep it by my phone for when (not if) I get "the call."

Sometime I'll blog about the time I got "the call" for my screenplay. Possibly not my most graceful 15 minutes. Dorkarella.

In the meantime, I'll be researching about whether it's possible to overdose on Vitamin D. And doing a little cuisine travel to Deutchland.