Dealing with odds and ends

I'm scattered today.  Too many things on my 'to do' list, with an absolute deadline to do them in.  I get on a plane tomorrow morning to manage some family issues relating to my parents' health and will be out of town for 5 days.

In the era of computer everything, that shouldn't be such a big deal, but there are some things that being there in person is the only way.

So, I'm figuring out how to cover the myriad of little things I do on a daily basis, like 2 teenagers who need to be at certain places at a certain times, and the problem solving with our contractors as they (hopefully!) finish up the work of resurrecting our house after the plumbing disaster.

Being the parent who works from home, all these little and not so little daily issues usually fall to me.

I do know my boys are pretty capable and fairly independent.  While I also know their room will be a federal disaster area when I get home (no one to nag them to put their clothes away), a messy room isn't the end of the universe as we know it.  And quite honestly, if that's the worst 2 teenage boys can dish out, I am a fortunate woman indeed.

I will, of course, be taking the computer with me and my goal is to keep on my 1k/day writing pace.

So it's off to organize and clean my house today.  In a moment of lunacy, I volunteered to teach a how to make bread class as a fundraiser for a local community organization.  And it's tonight.  As ever, my timing is perfect.  LOL.

"Future Tense" at 33K & a snippet

I'm continuing to move forward with this story of Matt, a 17 year old foster kid plagued with flashes of procognition.  The story is at a point where I have enough waypoints to write, but not so much detail worked out that the story feels stale.

That's the compromise I seem to need.  Some advanced planning, but enough wiggle room for both characters and plot to move into unexpected territory.

Today I discovered that Amara has a brother and that things that happened to the brother in the past have an important impact on how she relates to Matt.  That certainly wasn't in my original planning for this story.  Yet in making room for it, the plot, characters, and motivations become much clearer.

This snippet is from the scene where Matt becomes fully committed to the action that will dictate the endgame of the story.  The place where he will choose to act rather than react.  He's not quite there yet, but he will be and very soon.

Amara moved forward until she blocked the sunlight. I held my breath, looking back and forth from her dark shadow at the alley mouth to the chain link fence at its end. She slipped into the alley and hugged the wall until she was standing opposite me, both of us hidden from the street.

My hands were clammy. I wiped them on my pants. Her face was flushed and her eyes didn't leave mine. Seconds ticked away as we stood there. Cars squealed in the distance. A single horn blared. She was breathing as fast as I was.

"Take off your sweatshirt," she said.

"What?"

"Your sweatshirt. Here, catch." She tossed me a dark windbreaker I hadn't noticed she was holding. "There's a baseball cap in the pocket."


"Where did. . . whose are these?"

She shrugged. "Does it matter?"


What's petty theft on top of grand theft? I pulled off my hoodie and threw it to her. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you."

I shook my head. "I don't understand."

She smiled and even the alley seemed a little brighter. "Who do you think set off the fire alarm, stupid?"

I paused, the jacket half on half off, one sleeve flapping by my side. "You? I don't. . . why?"

"You didn't take that stuff. That's Bruno's crew. Payback for last week."

I pulled the jacket on and crammed the hat over my head. They were looking for a kid with light brown hair in a gray hoodie. That wasn't me any more. "Thanks"

"I owed you one," she said, turning around to the alley entrance. "Come on."

"What? Wait."

She stopped and turned back to me. "You want to stay here?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

I hung back, shaking my head. "Look. I'm in a world of trouble. This doesn't involve you."

"The hell it doesn't," she said, her hands on her hips.

I smiled for a second. It reminded me of Lola. But I probably wouldn't see them again. Not Lola, Jack, or Trina.

"We're connected somehow," Amara said. "Whether I like it or not. Whether you like it or not. Now, are you coming, or are you going to hide in here with the rats?" She marched up the alley back the way she'd come.

"Wait!"

She sighed. "What now?"

"How did you find me?" I didn't know I was going to come here, how the hell could she have known?

"I followed you."

I looked back the way she'd come. "We can't go that way."

She stopped and rolled her eyes. "The school is still a madhouse. No one knows you're here. Except me."

I stared out through the gloom of the alley. "You can't know that. Not for sure."

"Well, I barely caught you leaving school and I was looking for you," she said, shrugging. "But if you're that worried, you'll have to help me over the fence."

She was looking for me. My face flushed. I shouldn't have cared, but I did. I should've pushed her away again, but there was no one else. Besides, she was looking for me.

My deep, dark, secret wish

One of my kiddos asked me what I would wish for if I could have anything I wanted.

He ruled out the altruistic 'big' wishes, like world peace, and an end to poverty, etc. He wanted to know what I wanted, selfishly, and secretly.

So here it is.

I want to be a scriptwriter for Dr. Who.

Bet you didn't see that one coming. :)

So why didn't I wish for something related to seeing my book in the bookstore, etc? Because I've come to a place where that is less of a dream than the goal I am moving towards. It's out of the realm of fantasy and wish fulfillment because I truly believe it will happen.

But to be part of the magic of Dr. Who? Well, that's fantasy. I discovered Dr. Who as a child. During the Watergate hearings, there was nothing to watch on the major TV networks, so I found that the PBS channel was showing all these British import shows--Dr. Who, The Avengers, Secret Agent, and The Prisoner.

I became immediately hooked by Dr. Who. (The Tom Baker era and yes, I even knitted myself a 13 foot long scarf. That I still have. That I still sometimes wear. Now stop laughing at me.)

My deepest, darkest, most secret wish? I wanted to be a companion. I wanted to step into the TARDIS and go somewhere/somewhen else and have adventures with the Doctor.

Now that I'm a writer, I will wish for the next best thing: to be involved in the series and write a script for the show. Just thinking about it makes my inner fan girl squee. :)

So there you have it. My most embarrassing secret wish.

Bringing the writing life home

My 13 year old son had an assignment to write a mystery story for his Language Arts class, after studying Sherlock Holmes in school.

As part of his assignment, he had to have readers to offer critique on the story. He chose one peer reader--a fellow student, and then asked me to be reader number 2.

This morning, he was rethinking that, and was very hesitant to have me formally critique his story.

Maybe because I'm his mom, and maybe because he's heard me rant enough about bad writing, but maybe a little of both.

I did convince him that I would be honest, but not brutal, so he shared his story with me.

You know something? It was pretty good. He had a great hook and an interesting main character. The story had a clear beginning, middle and end. Yes, it needed some work. There was a bunch of unnecessary info-dumping and he used a lot of adverbs instead of showing with non-verbal 'beats'. But aside from those issues and some pacing problems toward the end, it was a solid draft of a solid story.

I gave him some examples of how he might strengthen the piece and he went off to his computer, encouraged and prepared to do the work.

Who knows--maybe he'll follow in mom's footsteps.

A post completely unrelated to writing

Why, oh why can't I find a decent bagel in the Boston area?

I am a former New Yorker who has grown to love Boston--its approachable scale, its history, its European feel, its baseball team. But the bagels here are just second rate.

It's not like there isn't plenty of excellent food here. I could wax poetic about Legal Seafood's clam chowder or a Fenway frank, but bagels? No thank you.

I dream of H&H bagels, warm, slathered with cream cheese.

I just don't understand why Boston can't make decent bagels. Is it the water? The air? Traffic?

A perfect bagel is not too big you can't easily finish it at a meal and not too fat around the middle. You should be able to put fillings in the bagel and still be able to fit it in your mouth for a solid bite. It has the right ratio and contrast between chewy crust and soft middle. The crust is 'toothy' enough to crunch when you bite into it, but not so chewy that you have to gnaw through the bagel. The middle is neither so dense it's like eating lead, nor so spongy it's like eating wonder bread.

I'm a pretty easygoing gal. I'm not what you would call 'high maintenance'. But I really, really want to be able to buy a good bagel in my adopted home town. Yes, I can buy frozen H&H bagels and cook them at home. While good, and better than anything I can buy locally, it's not optimal. I don't always want my bagels toasted, and with the frozen bagels, a fresh hot bagel just isn't possible.

This is my rant for today.

Thank you for your attention, and have a nice day.

Committing Murder

Literary murder, that is.

After coming to a screeching halt on "Future Tense," I realized that one of my secondary characters and his whole plot thread is the 'one of these things is not like the other' problem.

It doesn't belong in *this* story. Travis Young is a wonderful character, but he doesn't serve enough of a purpose in Matt's character arc to warrant keeping him. Yeah, the karate class scenes are solid and show a facet of Matt's devotion/commitment, but I show that in other ways.

I think part of me always knew that I'd be yanking this thread from the story. I was concerned enough about the cliche potential of the karate teacher, that I deliberately make him *not* oriental. But that wasn't enough. Having the martial arts teacher be the 'wise council' is still too much of a cliche. Matt has too many adults who care about him in this story.

Sorry, Matt, but your journey needs to be more complicated, more difficult. Having the dojo as a place of sanctuary makes it too easy.

So slash and burn time. And sadly, the word count moves in the wrong direction. But a story isn't word counts. Getting this right now means a stronger and better story later.

Off to commit (literary) murder. . .

The opposite of NaNo

November is "National Novel Writing Month," NaNoWriMo, for short. A crazy time in which writers work to get 50,000 words written in 30 days. Many of my writing friends participate and they feel it helps to silence their internal editors an allows them to get words on the page.

I have never participated in NaNoWriMo. It just doesn't mesh with my own writing practice, but after cranking out 1K a day for the month of October, I'm at a big fat zero word count for November.

I actually figured I'd hit a wall--one of the reasons I pushed ahead all October to get as much written on "Future Tense" as I could. So am I panicking? No.

I am taking this time to plot more of the story, to consolidate what I already have, and to let the well refill. I suspect there are more words lurking just around the corner.

"Planet Earth turns slowly"

I love this song by Owl City.  I don't quite know why, but from the first time my teenage son had me listen, I was hooked.  This morning, it came on the radio and he and I were singing it together.  I had one of those 'priceless' moments:  How often do you get to enter your 16 year old's world?

While there is no doubt in our household who the parents are, and we often exercise the power of 'no', my husband and I also work hard to stay connected with our kids. 

One of the ways we connect is through music.  We've introduced both kids to music 'the old dudes' listened to in college (REM, The Who, Peter Gabriel, The Talking Heads, etc), and in turn both boys introduce us to music they love.

Some of it, I enjoy, some I don't, but I love the fact that we all enjoy the exchange.

I'd like to make myself believe
That planet earth turns slowly
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay
Awake when I'm asleep
Because my dreams are bursting at the seams

--From Owl City's "Firefly"

Go listen to the song--it's catchy--you might even find yourself humming it at unexpected times. Even if you're an old fogey like me.

Happy Halloween, the 2009 Edition

This year, between the wreck of my house after the flood and the real life horror show of reconstruction and contractors, I really didn't have a lot of reserve left to plan Halloween. Add to that a husband with a crazy bad few weeks at work, and it almost left Halloween 2009 in the lurch.

Lucky for me, my son wanted to go as a dalek, and working on his costume got me in the 'spirit' of things.

There are LEDs on the helmet and yes, that's a whisk in one hand, a plunger in another.

He recorded the nasal twang of 'ex-ter-min-ate' on his ipod and he was good to go.

This is what the house looks like before Halloween:

And this is what it looks like after the transformation.

We had a graveyard with open graves that was supposed to be a lot eerier than it was, but the fog machines weren't effective--the huge amount of wind we had just blew the fog to shreds.

Luckily we had enough chocolate to stave off a mad zombie invasion. 

If you look carefully, you can see the shadow of my hell hound in the front door, guarding the portal. . . entrance to the house.

Perhaps next year, we will be able to rise to our usual standards, and my partner in crime won't be called into work on Halloween eve.

"Future Tense" at 27K

11 chapters completed. We're past the beginning and fully engaged in the middle, wherein everything Matt tries to 'fix' his problems only serve to make things worse.

All the characters who will inhabit this novel are introduced, their story arcs intersecting with Matt's as he moves through the novel. I have a good vision for how the story ends, as well as the specific way points/events that have to happen on the way there.

Given my progress on this so far, it is fully possible that I could have a completed first draft of the story by years end.

I've written nearly 30K in 30 days. I'm aiming for anywhere between 60 and 80K for the finished story, post editing. I tend to write lean, and have to add in later drafts, so I'm on target.

It feels good, especially when I remember that at the end of September, I was flailing around for a story to write. And this one emerged from a single word, written on a legal pad by my bed. A single word that teased my brain just before I fell asleep one day.

That word was "run-away."

The rest of the story spun around that.

So far, it's been a great ride.

Tomorrow, be on the lookout for Halloween pictures.