The Author Photo - Let's Hope It Doesn't Lead to Book Burning (by me!)

Everything is just about done now before Some Kind of Normal goes into pre-print mode. I'm wrapping up the last details, the worst of which is the author photo. It was harder to take photos and find one I liked than writing the book. I love photography as long as I'm the one behind the camera.

Before I even started sorting through them, my husband said, "Let's just acknowlege right now you're going to hate them all. The object here is finding the one you hate the least."  Such a wise man!

So here's the one I hated the least. I'm sending it in before I decide to burn it and just submit a picture my 6 year old has drawn of me ( a suggestion by a friend that makes a lot of sense, since my daughter draws me with perfect hair and a really skinny body).

There were actually not-so-serious ones. I definitely prefer me smiling, but it didn't seem to fit the book. Characters all stressed out and panicky and dying and me all, "Hey! Look! I got a book published! Aren't I happy?!"  So I went with the contemplative one (I prefer contemplative over constipated, but feel free to make that judgment yourself).

Friday Bonus: Win a Kindle!

You know how sometimes you have a social circle that overlaps with someone else's, so that at parties and events you keep running into the same people who aren't necessarily people you know, but you feel like you know them because they are great friends with the same people you are great friends with?

That's like the blogosphere.

And two people I keep ending up in the same place with are Lisa and Laura, authors and bloggers extraordinaire. Nearly every blog I visit, they've been there first, and always left witty, funny remarks that make me feel like I wandered into a party late and inferiorly dressed.

In any case, they have a great blog, and you should go read it.

Especially today, because today the universe has dropped a KINDLE into their laps, and they are passing it on to one lucky winner!

Go! Now! Enter! Even though I'm pretty sure the universe wants it to be passed on to me.  :)

The thing I love most...

It's Friday and I find myself asking, where the heck did the week go? I guess I had kids home several days because of teacher conferences, another got the flu, there was a final goldfish burial, election day, a random trip to the gym (which is getting infrequent enough to be rendered almost useless)... and there went the week.

Because of NaNo it's been awfully quiet around the blogosphere. I love the fact that in the quiet, I know there are hundreds of you out there pounding on the keyboard, creating people who were not just a month ago, creating worlds and creatures and accidents and secrets and lives. I am motivated by those of you who are steaming ahead, the word count racking up; and I'm consoled by those of you who are struggling along, hoping just to make it through the month alive.

I didn't attempt NaNo this year, but I did make the pledge to myself to get at least 1000 words a day, weekends included, no matter what. I'm pleased as punch (what the sam hill does that mean, anyway?) to say I've done that.

The thing I love the most about writing is how it unfolds itself as I write. When I start, I have an idea of where I'm going, who the characters are, what journey they will take. But as I write, it morphs. The characters become less names on a page than voices in my head - real people, and the journeys deepen and change and grow. There are moments in writing when I have to stop as the ideas tumble into me, and I think, Wow! This is so much more awesome than I thought it would be!

Which isn't to say that I don't doubt my own ability to tell that awesome story. I think the doubts grow the deeper into it I get, because the deeper I get, the less the story is mine. It becomes the characters, and even though I know it's from my own head and my own imagination, it doesn't feel that way. The more it becomes the story of the characters, the more responsibility I feel to tell it well. So it isn't the story that I fear won't be good... it's my ability to write it.

So this Friday, if you are a writer, tell me: what do you love the most about writing? And what is your greatest fear about it?

Friday Bonus: Favorite Blog Post Title of the Week? NaNoWriMOhNo!

Harsh...But Funny

I know many of you are hunkered down working on NaNoWriMo (and at least one of you, I won't name names, is already 27% done.... I've got no words for that...).

So instead of a lengthy post, here's something lighter that came through my email this week.

Enjoy... then get back to work!

A College English professor's comments on a student's paper:

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you
because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your
name at the top."

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

 I originally wrote this post last November, right before the over-hyped presidential elections. At that time, the whole world was watching the US and picking sides.  This year, it's less contentious in most places, and yet, we in Virginia find ourselves in the spotlight again, deluged by ads and what is turning out to be another much hyped election.

For the first time in a long time, we are making national news. This state, traditionally a Republican presidential voting state, went Democrat and helped vote Obama into office. Now, less than ten months later, our governor seat is up for grabs, and it looks like Virginians are going back to a Republican.

It's garnered national attention for two reasons. One is that it was a huge coup that the state went to Obama, and the fact that now it may turn back around is taken as a referendum on how Virginians see Obama's presidency going. (Let's ignore the fact that gubinatorily speaking, VA has gone back and forth between Democrat and Republican many, many times.)

The second reason national news outlets are looking at us is that the White House - once the Democrat nominee began losing in the polls by double digits - suddenly backed away from him and began blaming him for a bad campaign and for not using Obama's name enough. It's now become a national debate on whether or not Obama is to blame for Republicans winning in VA, and why the White House deems it necessary to blame someone in the race. It seems to be in hyper-defensive mode.

And yet, in the midst of this, Afghanistanians are now resigned to a rigged election and a leader they have no trust in and didn't truly elect.

In contrast, I get a say in who goes into office. I may not like the million phone calls a day I get by pollsters and politicians. I may get upset by the forests of trees that must have been leveled to produce the slick marketing pamphlets I get in the mail. I may have to watch only shows I've TiVod so I can skip the multitudes of mud-slinging ads.

But today I get to go to the polls and put in my vote. I get to slather on that hand sanitizer they are so freely offering to prevent the spread of swine flu and hit that touch screen button with all the love of freedom that is in me.

Today I get to vote.

So here is the post I wrote last year. It is as fitting today as it was back then:

Tomorrow is officially election day. I've waited to vote on the day as opposed to absentee ballot or early voting. Part of it is so that my kids, who always get off school on election day, can go with me.

They've gone since infants: my son first went in a car carrier seat at less than a month old. They've never missed one. I think it's important for them to know what a privilege and responsibility it is to vote, and how magnificent and unique this country is. We've used purple markers to color in the box, pulled the curtain behind us and flipped the levers, and touched a computer screen. We wear our flag-bearing "I voted" stickers all day.

Another reason I wait is for the experience of it. Mailing an envelope doesn't quite feel the same (although if I had to do that, I'd do it proudly!). And the early voting is in a different location. As a creature of routine, I like my home polling place. I run into neighbors. I know the polling volunteers.

So tomorrow I brave the crowds. Tomorrow I vote.

I'm proud of being an American. Proud of the history of this country, although it's far from perfect. And whichever way this election goes, I'll still be proud to have been a part of this process. Whichever way it goes, I'll be glad to live in this incredible place I call home.

My Two Mistresses

In the recent Entertainment Weekly, there is an article about Stephen King's new novel, Under the Dome. While I'm not a fanatic about Stephen King's novels, and I didn't read the extensive excerpt from the book that is included with the article, I did find the interview with him fascinating.

This book, which runs more than 1,000 pages, was started 33 years ago. He wrote 75 pages before abandoning it. 3 years later he picked it back up and wrote another 450 pages before abandoning it again.

Did you catch that? 450 pages!!  That's more than my entire last book by about 130 pages. It's probably more than your last book, if you're a writer. And that's what he wrote before he decided not to finish it!

But he did eventually pick it back up and finish it. 33 years later.

And for some reason, I really needed to hear that this is okay to do.

You see, I have two books begun - and not just a first or second chapter done, but a fair ways into them begun - and I've set them aside, both for different reasons. The first I think is really a great book. I want to write it. I think it will be an awesome book once it's done. It's unique, it has great characters, and it has the potential to be really powerful. I liked writing it. But 50 pages in, it felt all wrong for right now. It didn't fit with the book that is being published, and if I'm going to build a readership, it's not the right one to follow Some Kind of Normal. I think it might seriously confuse people about me as an author.

And so I put that one aside for the time being.

The second one I love for really personal reasons. I have an outline for it: I know exactly where it's going.  I have a passion for it. I can sit and write and write and write on it. It fits with my "branding." But 50 pages in I realized it's not that interesting as it stands now. Deeply personal for me, but for the reader? Maybe not so much. At some point I stopped typing long enough to realize, I'm writing this book for me.

That's an important lesson to learn, I think. To be able to tell the difference between the stories we need to tell for ourselves, and the stories readers will want to read.

And so, reluctantly, I put that one down as well.

I love love love my new book. But there is a part of me that feels like I'm cheating on these others. I'm keeping them on the side, as if I can't let them go, and yet not giving them the attention they deserve. And I'm ashamed to admit I have these stories I just didn't finish. Not because I couldn't finish them, or because I realized they were bad stories, but just because my gut told me the timing was wrong.

And so today I fell in love just a little with Stephen King for admitting that he, too, keeps mistress books.

I love having a little validation that it's okay to start something and then put it aside. And in the end, it doesn't matter that I'm embarrassed now to say I didn't finish something. What matters is being able to say I chose the right one for the right time, and I didn't stick to something just because I felt like I would be a failure if I didn't.

So what about you? Do you have stories tucked away that you plan on revisiting someday?