Hey Howdy Hey - I'm On A Roll!

I read the best interview this week. It was in Entertainment Weekly Magazine (no judgments, please), and it was in regards to the upcoming third installment of the Toy Story franchise.

Before tackling the movie, the directors and producers met to watch the first two movies back to back. Director Lee Unkrich said this:


We were immediately depressed. We thought, 'These are so good, how can we make another one?' Then we remembered we were the people who made them. If anyone is going to do it, maybe we can pull it off."

I have been in this place for the last year. I wrote a book I loved. Then I've floundered for the past year trying to write one to top it. How can I ever write another book that I like as much as that one? 

Then I realized: I was the one who wrote it. And if I could write that one, I could probably pull off another.

Okay, to give credit where it's due, it was mostly my writers group that impressed this on me. And it's mostly as I siphoned small bits and pieces to them with email subject lines like "I think I'm boring myself with this one" and "to dump or not to dump, that is the question," that they pointed out that what they loved about my writing in my last book is still coming through in this one.

So I've stopped asking, "Is this good enough?" and just started writing. And the more I write, the easier it is to write. I'm starting to really love the characters, although I have to admit that to some extent I'm still figuring some of them out. But that's been part of the excitement of the journey through this story. It's the same excitement as Babs developing over the course of writing.

So I'm writing a lot more. Which means I'm blogging less.

No worries, though. I'm sure this enthusiasm and writing spree won't last and I'll be back to regular blogging. Until then, though, the TV shows are piling up on the DVR, the book beside my bed lays unopened, the dinners are late, and the milk is running low.

But hey howdy hey, I'm on a roll!

If Car Companies Made Computers

At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash ...... Twice a day. 

2.Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.

3.  Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason.  You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue.  For some reason you would simply accept this.

4.  Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.

6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.

7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.

8.  Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.

9.  Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

10.  You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.

(This was passed on to me via email. I thought it was too funny not to share with the people who would most appreciate it!)

Book Review for Scenarios For Girls Books 3 and 4

 Molly Jacobs isn't sure what she should do: Should she follow through with stealing some clothes for her friends from Magna the trendy girls clothing store where she works? Or should she do what she knows is right, even if it means losing her newfound popularity?

 Kate Walker joins the swim team and becomes obsessed with practice and making it through the championships with flying colors. What will Kate do when she's faced with pressure from her teammates to take an illegal substance that will help her swim multiple events in their championship meet?







A few months ago I had the privilege of reading Nicole O'Dell's first books in her Scenarios For Girls series. They are a unique twist on the old choose-your-own adventure books aimed at tween girls age 10-15 in which the main character finds herself in a morally compromising situation. At the point in the book where the character has to make a choice, the reader gets to choose as well, and then read the ending that comes from that decision. Two choices, two endings.

In the next two books in the series, O'Dell creates two more very relateable characters, Molly and Kate, along with their group of friends, some truer than others, and two situations any young girl could easily find herself facing.

As much as I liked the first books, I liked these even more. O'Dell has clearly continued to hone her gift of writing stories girls will identify with and has managed to avoid getting into the predictable pattern and plot lines that so many series fall prey to.

My daughter, who is still a bit young for these books, is an avid swimmer and anxious to read Making Waves. I can easily see this as a great tool for talking with her about how quickly small decisions lead to bigger ones, and how doing something marginally acceptable - like chugging energy drinks and relying on caffeine pills to give you an edge in competition - can lead to more difficulty saying no to  illegal substances like speed.

Anyone who has been involved in swim teams will feel right at home in this book. Another thing I loved was the less-than-traditional family of Kate. While her other books centered around traditional Christian families, O'Dell gives Kate a widowed mom, lending the book another layer of complexity that adds to the real pressure and emotional weight Kate feels.

My favorite of these two though, and probably of all four so far, was Magna. I really liked Molly, and the dialog between her and her friends rang very true.  The "villains" in the book also rang true, in that delicious way the teens will love to hate them. I loved that Molly really, really wanted to do the right things, and she worked so hard for them. I liked that she had a supportive church and family, and yet the book never got preachy.

The characters in these books seem older than the ones in the first two, and in a good way they are less naive and more aware of the seriousness of their situations. Like the first books, these provide safe, Christian reading for young girls, a hole in publishing these days.

If you have a daughter 10-15, I highly recommend both of these books, and I look forward to more in the near future!

It's Friday; It's a Good Thing: Randomness

I didn't want to leave this weekend with such a sad aftertaste on the blog, so I'm going to do a quick round up of random good things this week.

1. Barnes and Nobles has updated the software on the Nook and I can now browse the internet, get email, and play games in addition to reading! It's like an iPad, only not. :)  I think with this new technology it now really is the best eReader out there (apologies to Kindle lovers, but what have you got on us now??).

2. My Dad (along with several other people I know) were traveling overseas last week and got stuck by the volcano. It feels very B.C. and Pompeish, being stuck because a volcano erupted. This is not the good thing. The good thing is that my dad, in typical dad fashion, has turned this into a advertising opportunity for my book. When our local paper called him to find out what his situation over there was, he moaned about how he was missing his daughter's debut book signing. Well he, his picture, and my book made the front page of the newspaper today. It's not like I live in a small area either. This is a huge suburb outside of D.C. So way to go Dad!

3. My photography blog is still going. I've managed to post a pic a day, and inspire a few other people to start taking photographs of ugly suburbia as well. This week I had a theme: the celebration of the book signing. (Yes, I promise this is the last time I'll speak of this...today). So if you want to see some "artistic" photos that don't involve books or signings or Barnes and Noble stores, you can head over. Next week's theme is going to be "Looking Up." I'm excited about what I'm going to find!

4. The store I shop at is carrying sugar snap peas again!! YAY!!  Now I have something to munch on while I write!

5. Writing is going really well. And the rewriting, too, since I'm doing a lot of that. I worry, of course, that I won't be able to pull this one off, but little by little I'm getting there. Writing perfectly is really hard and takes a ton of time. Writing not so perfectly is a lot more fun....and then I get to rewrite, which I LOVE!  So it's a win/win.  :)

6. I can tell the book is "the one" because I'm thinking about it all the time now. I feel like I know the characters - like they are friends. And some not friends, because they're not that nice. But I think about them a lot too...dreaming up situations they can ruin. So fun.  I'm not sure why it takes 100 pages for me to get really settled into a book - that seems excessive to me - but that's what it is. Now the fun begins.

7. The sun is shining. The air is warm but not hot. Pollen is abating somewhat. The flowers are out and gorgeous, and the leaves have filled the trees so we can no longer see any neighbors. The puppy alternately chases squirrels and bees, hopping and leaping and running, or lays and naps in spots of sun. Right now he's at my feet in a patch of warm sun looking totally and utterly adorable.

happy weekend all! I hope you find some good things in life today too!

Heartache

I'm heartsick tonight.

Right before bed, my daughter started crying and proceeded to tell us that her best friend, the little girl we've loved and taken to baseball games and had to dinner and over to play, has been demanding she give her money to be her friend.

She took money out of her own piggy bank for who knows how long, a quarter at a time. And then, when her friend told her to take it from her brother, she snuck into his savings and took two dollars from him.

It finally crushed her. It crushed us.

I had to call the mom, a woman I completely and utterly adore, who I think is probably one of the best moms I have ever known, to ask her if her daughter had taken money from mine.

8:45 at night is not the time for this. There is no good time for this.


It is heartbreak for all of us. For the kids, who may or may not ever have that special friendship they once had. Us moms, who may or may not have the special friendship we once had. The kids, utterly broken because they know they made some very bad choices. Us moms, utterly broken wondering where we went wrong.

I don't think there was malice on either of the girl's parts. I don't think my daughter's friend is a bully. I just think something that started fun ended up very badly, in a situation that spiraled out of control. Part of what makes me heartsick is how easily is spiraled that way, and how young they are for such a thing.

If they had been older....

If it had been something even more serious...

It is the reason I can never find it in my heart to judge another mom or child. In even the worst of cases, I never think, That couldn't be me.

It is the reason I live on the teetering edge of worry: because that could always be me. 

One small decision. One bad choice. One friend who makes a bad choice.

The perfect world we try to create for our children is a fragile and precarious one.  Just like our own.

The Signing! The Party! The Food! Oh My!

You know what I'm doing right now as I write this? I'm drinking a glass of champagne left over from the signing party on Saturday. It's left over because I drank almost nothing – ate almost nothing – at the party, such a fabulous time I was having!!

Can I back up and say it felt a bit like being a rock star the whole day? Well - a very small rock star...one that no one's heard about. But still, a rock star nonetheless. :)

I won't give the blow by blow, but I will say the day was hugely fun. And successful.

When I arrived at Barnes and Noble, the table was already set up with books and a sign announcing the signing. I was sandwiched between a table with Mo Willems books, which my seven year old thought was totally awesome, and the hardback bestsellers.

Highlights:

A guy with MS came up to talk to me about the book and the similarities with what diabetics face and what people with MS face...and the hopes and futures of both. A genuinely nice guy I loved talking to!

A couple stood off to the side for a while watching me sign books and talk to people, seeming very hesitant to approach. (I promise I don't bite!). When the crowd cleared a little they moved up and the husband kind of pushed her and said, "Go ahead. Just say hi." She was actually nervous about saying hi!! I wanted to tell her, "Seriously? Trust me, I'm more nervous than you!" I loved standing and talking to her for a few minutes.

I was within spitting distance of the Nook display, where I spent 30 minutes watching a salesperson trying to sell a Nook to a guy who clearly was interested but hesitant. I finally couldn't keep my mouth shut and started talking it up to him. He was so fun to talk to, even if he said he didn't care that much for fiction. I think I did get him interested in the development of adult stem cell therapy, and though I wasn't even going for a sell with him, I think he's downloading my book into the Nook I convinced him to buy. (and no, I didn't get a commission for it, although I tried to talk the rep into giving me one).

I sold out.

That was my favorite thing.

Even though the store ordered twice the amount of books as they usually do, I managed to sign and sell them all.

(Look! All but one of the books are gone! And that's the couple nervous to talk to me. I loved them!)

When I left, the check out clerk said, "You did really well!" and the representative invited me to come back another day for another signing, promising he'll order more books next time.

I didn't say anything too stupid, although the pictures might look otherwise, so I count it a raging success.

Then the party afterwards, which I don't have pics of because the house was too crammed with people and I spent so much time talking and chatting that I didn't even have time to drink the glass of champagne in my hand let alone find my camera. But it was fun. Lots and lots of fun.

It was supposed to end at 9:00. The last of the people left at 11:30. You know it's a good party when it goes twice as long as it was supposed to.

I'll be eating strawberries and drinking champagne all week, though. Which isn't a bad thing. Especially when accompanied by chocolate cake.  :)