Benefits of insomnia… I can do this!

It wasn’t a lack of interest that was keeping me from Dust of 100 Dogs, but rather a lack of backbone.

I didn’t grow one over the weekend, but the visually stunning and slightly creepy cover sitting on my kitchen counter began to taunt me. Also, I got tired of feeling like the kid at school who doesn’t know the inside joke. Quite simply, I was sick of feeling left out: “What are you talking about guys? Huh? Huh? Tell me. I want to know.” And all the other readers looked at me disdainfully: “Oh, you wouldn’t get it because you haven’t read D100D.” I’ve already survived middle school once – I refuse to go back to that place again.

Although apparently I haven’t out-grown peer pressure…

I was going to start reading it this weekend, but the writing bug bit. Hard! I think it drew blood and left a bruise. Not that I’m complaining, I’m *thrilled!* that I was able to finish the first draft of my WIP (working title/synopsis: The-Book-About-Leukemia-MacGyver-Cheerleading-Superstitions-And-Playlists. TBALMCSAP for short). There was no time for reading. Yesterday I didn’t shower or get out of my pajamas until 5 pm. (Okay, I’ll say it with you: ewwwww!)

I was barely even a presence in the Twittersphere. And sleep? Forget it. The writing bug’s bite is made of caffeine (or maybe that was just the pots of coffee St. Matt made me each night before he and the puggles went up to bed). I don’t know the total number of hours I slept from Friday ‘til this morning – I don’t think I want to know, and I doubt I could do the math at this point anyway. Suffices to say, the number would be a single digit.

But this is GREAT! No, that’s not just the sleep deprivation talking. This is great because I know I’m going to sleep tonight. Like a baby made out of rock who’s overdosed on Nyquil. So all my fear of D100D keeping me up all night – no longer relevant!

I may still be an invertebrate, but my D100D problem is solved.

Can’t wait to join the cool kids club and discuss it when I’m done!

The Distraction-Fairy has moved in…

The writing forces are against me today. It’s like distraction-faries have taken residence in my house. Not only are there the typical distractions (among them, this blog and twitter), but there’s beautiful weather and a house that’s demanding to be cleaned before my in-laws arrive for dinner tonight.
Also, there are the distractions of my choosing; my own personal kryptonites. I should know better than expose myself.

It all starts with Twilight. This time the DVD, not the book, although the book has been guilty of many hours of distracting me from my WIP. I forbade myself from going to the midnight release party – and before you get impressed, I only did so because the versions that came out yesterday had TWO disks, while Target boasted that theirs had THREE. Three’s bigger than two and even though I don’t know what’s on the third disk – I needed that version.

Target opens at eight. I decided to play it safe at get there at seven. St. Matt agreed to join me and even made the coffee. We grabbed books to read during the wait and left the house at 6:45.
When we pulled into Target at 6:53, we were the only ones there. Sure there were a couple cars parked in the lot, but they were empty, some even frosted over. St. Matt emitted an awkward cough that might have been a suppressed laugh, but since he’d gotten up at six on a Saturday to make me happy, we’ll give him the benefit of doubt.

We pulled out our books and settled in to wait, because any minute now the horde of teenage girls would be arriving and I wasn’t going to lose my copy of the DVD due to a momentary lapse of concentration.

St. Matt had brought a book called Predictably Irrational. He says it’s about business, but it sounds like it might be about me; I’m too scared to look.

I’d brought Alyson Noel’s Evermore. I tucked my feet up on the car seat, angled the heat vents, sipped my coffee and began…

Forty-eight minutes later the next car arrived. It was an employee.

About eight til eight a few more cars trickled in and St. Matt said we should go wait by the door. I grumbled. He had to convince me to leave the car and go get the DVD; the DVD I’d made him sacrifice a sleep-in Saturday to come get. Afterward I stayed in the car and read while he ran other errands.

When we arrived home he asked, “What are you going to do first, finish the book or watch the movie?”

Neither,” I huffed indignantly. “I’m just going to change and then I’m going to go get some writing done.”

“Okay.” He nodded, but I’m pretty sure there was an amused glimmer in his saintly eyes.
I’m positive there was one when he found me sitting on the bedroom floor two hours later, turning pages.

“Good book?”
“I’m almost done – and then I’m going to write.” I would’ve been embarrassed by my complete lack of reading-restraint, but that would’ve required me to turn my attention way from the story, which wasn’t going to happen.

I think he said something after that, but I was listening to Ever and Damen and didn’t hear him.
Now I’m finished Evermore and I can’t regret the lost writing hours because the book was that good.

“Movie time?” St. Matt asked when I finally came downstairs, still half-changed: pajamas on the bottom but wearing the sweater from this morning. Oops.

“No. I’m not going to watch the movie yet. I’m not going to immediately call the bookstore and pre-order the sequel either.” In a show of remarkable self-control, I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue as well.

I was really going to write next. Really. But then the puggles were lounging in my writing seat. By the time I’d managed to scoot them so I could perch on a corner of the chair, I’d succumbed to mentally crafting this blog.

What could I do but write it down? But now, now I’m going to work on my WIP.
Or I could go watch call the bookstore. Or watch the movie. I never did figure out what was on that third disk…

The Birthday Boy behind the curtain

“Your husband is a saint.”

I’ll admit, I’ve heard that comment more than once. Usually after I’ve done something particularly Tiffany-tastic like back the car into the house, drag him to the midnight release party for Breaking Dawn, picked out a pink Kitchenaide mixer for the kitchen (seriously, when HE uses it even once, he can comment on the color), or perhaps, dropped tweezers in the toilet and left him a post-it about it.

“Your husband is a saint.”

And I never know how to respond. “So you’re saying putting up with me requires sainthood? Thanks.”

But he kinda is.

Every time he allows me to write while he does the dishes or eats Mac ‘n Cheese for dinner.

Or lets me listen to a song on repeat one more time because it matches the mood of the scene I’m brainstorming.

The times he patiently prompts me to: “Finish your sentence, please,” when I trail off mid-conversation because I’ve picked up some thread of inspiration.

The way he recognizes my writer-face when I come back from a run and lets me furiously scribble before greeting him.

He’s graciously allowed our family to expand to include the characters from my WIP’s and doesn’t even flinch when I comment, “Mia would love movie,” or “Can you imagine Luke’s face if he heard that.”

He proofreads my blogs (even this one- Hi YOU!) and lets me talk plot lines and conflicts.

He kisses me goodnight and heads upstairs with the puggles and a nightly reminder to “Try and get some sleep tonight.”

He really kinda is.

I’d like to think that the house elves are the ones that make coffee magically appear in the morning or remember to move the laundry I started yesterday to the dryer, but that’s not the case. I appreciate the 17 million things he does behind the scene that enable me to carve out precious writing minutes.

He is.

And I appreciate him: his patience, encouragement & support. I don’t say it often enough, but I do.

And when I get woebegone about my chances of finding an agent, he looks at me in exasperation. I used to think it was because he was sick of hearing the same lament – until he finally told me, “You’re being ridiculous.” And clarified that he wasn’t sick of my refrains (although he might have been this as well), but actually he was annoyed that I would doubt myself. In his mind, I was already successful and there was no way I could fail.

It’s time to surrender the argument and offer to polish his halo.

So dearest, saintly Husband, thank you and happy birthday!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, the play’s done Tomorrow, It’s only a day awaaayyy!

Warning: the following blog is cavity-inducing sweet & Cheese Whiz-tastic.

I’ve been directing the school play, Annie, for approximately the last four and a half years. Okay, it’s only really been since November.

Why they chose someone who can’t sing, can’t dance, to direct the school musical, I’ll never know. It could have something to do with my complete inability to say ‘no.’ Or it could be that tattoo I have on my forehead (it says ‘pushover’ in invisible Sanskrit).

Knowing that tomorrow is the last time I’ll hear the song “Tomorrow” sung by 108 ten & eleven year olds (and accepting that it will be months before I get all the catchy choruses out of my head), I decided to dedicate this blog to the lessons learned from those scrappy orphans and big Daddy Warbuck’s.

Here’s where the saccharine overload begins.

Lessons I’ve learned from Annie
“I think I’m going to like it here!” – When faced with a new situation *gulp* keep a positive attitude and an open mind. And if the laundry hamper you’re hiding in tips over while Bundles the laundry man is pushing you off stage – just go with the flow & improvise. Plans don’t always work the way you expect them to.
“It’s a hard knock life” (sometimes) – There are bad days: days when words won’t come; days that queries get rejected; days when you get thrown up on during the in-school performance (true story) – but these don’t last.
“You’re never fully dressed without a smile” – Nothing makes a bad day worse than a bad mood. I’m not made of cheer & sparkles, but when I give in to crankiness, it never helps the situation. Plus, smiling’s contagious!
“I don’t need anyone but: “ my feedback groups (both of them), my writers’ workshop, my first readers, my blogger friends, my twitter friends…. Okay, I need a lot of people. I’m no Thoreau going off to write in the wilderness. These are the people who lift me up on bad days and remind me that…
“The sun WILL come out tomorrow” – And even though it’s always a day away, as long as I can find something to look forward to and hope for, there’s always a reason to be optimistic and keep going. Who knows, tomorrow could be day Super Agent calls and asks to represent me.
I will now take my bow and close the curtain on this chapter of my life (and on all of these dreadful puns). My only remaining question is: what will I do with all my free afternoons?
No worries, I’m sure I’ll think of something. Or 80 things.

Running & Writing: Learning to sprint

When I participated in high school track, I was a member of the distance crew. I could never be a sprinter because it took me too long to get warmed up. By the time I was ready to turn on the speed, the sprint was over.

In my writing life I function much the same way. I prefer to sit down for an endurance writing session – get lost in the world I’ve created and only re-emerge when my stomach is audibly growling, my muscles are cramping, and my head is utterly emptied. (Oddly enough, this is the same feeling I’d get after a long run!)

But my life doesn’t work like that. There are rare and wonderful days when I can lock myself away and write, but they’re the exception, not the norm. What I struggle with is how to get the most out of the stolen minutes that I smuggle and stack together to construct my writing time.

I’ve tried these tips:

* End your writing session with a half-finished sentence so you can pick up there tomorrow

* Start by reading and revising the previous two pages, then move forward

* End by creating a bulleted list of where you’d like to go next

None work all that well for me – I’m incapable of leaving a sentence half finished, I never want to go back just two pages, and once I start bulleting, I just want to write the scene. How can I teach myself to sprint when I want to run (er, write) a marathon?

How do you make the most of shorter writing sessions?

Pink Laptops & Puggles

At the beginning of each year I have my students draw and discuss their favorite place to write. They sketch a comfy chair in a sunny window, a shady hammock in their garden, they draw snacks and pets and squiggly notes to represent music. One girl drew her pink laptop. Pink! I want one – sorry, Huey, if I could trade you in for a pink version of you, you’d be history.

And every year I feel like a bit of a monster as I do this. Because I don’t have comfy chairs or shady hammocks. And while I can sometimes play music to inspire those that like writing to music, and sometimes have silence for those that like that, I’m not allowed to bring in the puggle pair (I’ve asked), and I don’t have pink laptops to give to each of them. (Pink! I wonder if I could paint Huey…)

So essentially I have my students draw their ideal and then respond with a “Too bad. Enjoy your wobbly desk and clicky pencil that ran out of lead.”

But isn’t the world like this as well?

I have an ideal writing place: a desk made out of refurbished antique door that’s situated in a giant picture window with an amazing view. It’s got wireless speakers and a printer, and a laptop that could only be more fabulous if it was PINK. There’s a window seat where the puggles wriggle in sunbeams, a wall that’s painted with whiteboard and even a inspirational sign that reads: “And they lived happily ever after” so that I remember how stories should end on the days I want to throw my not-pink laptop through the picture window.

But how often do I have time to take advantage of this writing space? Um, never. My writing is slotted in during fits and spurts. Insomniac attacks and while cooking dinner. Composed while running and typed while trying to watch the weather, carry on a phone conversation, and figure out what Biscotti’s sneaking off to do.

Writing happens while waiting at the doctor’s office, I type ideas on Petunia (my Blackberry – she’s pink), while on the elliptical trainer (you’d be impressed by my elliptical handwriting, it’s definitely improving!), writing happens while I’m showering, driving, teaching, reading… living.

So why do I teach this lesson year after year if I can’t match their drawings of the ideal? For the same reason that I keep writing even when I can’t get to my writing nook to do so. Writing is a part of life – it’s not something that occurs only during a designated timeslot or the magical forces of the universe combine to create perfect conditions.

And one of these days I’ll find the time to clear the laundry and dusty post-its off my writing nook and use it as it’s intended . . . Can’t complain though, because as I type this, watch the Oscars, answer parent e-mails, Twitter, and plan dinners for the week, I’ve also got a warm dozy puggle in my lap, a computer that’s great (even if it’s not pink), and a great soundtrack on I-tunes. Ideal? No. But absolutely satisfying all the same.

Round-up of Query Advice

Many of the agents I follow via twitter or through their blogs have been writing about queries lately. There’s been much discussion about how queries are multiplying like gremlins in the rain and they’ve held competitions to empty inboxes. (And I thought I was competitive… remind me never to challenge an agent to a game of dodgeball…)

A few points stood out to me this week and I thought I’d compile and share.

Style in the query is a must.
http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/ Jessica Faust, BookEnds Lit

I know that I fell into the trap of trying to make my query letter sound ‘professional and polished’ (which should really be read as ‘stodgy and dull’). I was worried that if my letter didn’t sound business-y enough, no one would take it seriously. The end result was a letter that was perfect to form, but that had no hint of my writing flavor. (What does my writing flavor taste like? A mix of Diet Coke, Sour Patch Kids, and Honeycomb – delicious!)

Don’t worry so much about your experience. The query is to sell your novel, not you.
http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-story-less-you.html Nathan Bransford, Curtis Brown

Hooray! So the fact that my last publishing credit was in my college literary magazine isn’t going to hurt me? Thank you! I spend plenty of my day job reading and writing – but my experiences teaching sixth grade language arts – while amusing and patience-building – don’t exactly fit in with the rest of my query.

Buzzer words:
http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2009/02/what-not-to-say-part-87.html
Rachelle Gardner, Wordserve Literary

These are the opposite of buzzwords. These are words and phrases that lead to immediate rejection of a query. Using phrases like “literary blockbuster” and “hilarious; you’ll laugh out loud” are buzzer words. Your query letter should show your skill, not tell the agent how amazing you are. (Gah, the same thing I’m telling my 11-year-old students: show, don’t tell!)

Follow the submission guidelines:
http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2009/02/because-you-asked-for-it-compilation-of.html Colleen Lindsay, FinePrint Lit

It was shocking to hear that so many people didn’t bother to read the submission guidelines or type in a personalized greeting. Bad manners, people! What would your mother say?

I highly recommend following each of the blogs above. Any other publishing/agenting/editing blogs you recommend to me?

Happy Querying! Or at least as happy as this fingers-crossed-send-button-pressing-compulsive-e-mail-checking process can be.