Avoidance Tactics

Have you ever had a day like mine?

9am--Drop my youngest son off at preschool. Now I have 2.5 hours free to write! But, wait. I'd better send a couple of emails and make some phone calls first. (I'm planning a funeral luncheon, so that was totally legit.) And oh, yeah. It's Friday. I need to post a short story on my Facebook page. I need to write a blog post too. I'll do that first and then write. But I have no blog post ideas. I guess I'll just read blogs and catch up on typing instead. Suddenly it's:
 
11:30am--Pick up my son from preschool, feed him lunch and take him to his friend's house. I know have approximately 3 hours free to write! Sweet. Except I have some more email to answer and more phone calls to make. Now it's 12:30, and it sure is a nice day out. I think I'll go for a walk at the park. I need the exercise, right? Right. That takes until:

2pm--It's time to make a salad to take over to my neighbors. (This is also related to the upcoming funeral.) Then I pick up my son from his friend's house and it's almost time to get the other kids home from school. I'll just read Facebook until then. And finalize the funeral luncheon arrangements. And make a few more phone calls. Now it's:

4pm--I can really, really write now. Really. I think the food is all arranged for the funeral. But, hey! I finally got an idea for a blog post. I'll just write that, and then I'll work on my novel. Maybe...

Does that sound familiar? Do you ever avoid writing? What do you do to get around it?

I'd love to know, but now I am going to sit down and WRITE. I promise.

Occupational Hazards

As a writer, there are some occupational hazards you should be aware of. I'm sure you know about carpal-tunnel syndrome, eyestrain, back pain, etc. But have you considered these others?

Ink stains on all your clothes. (At least if you write by hand like me.)

Ink stains on your family's clothes, too.

Ink stains on the walls. (When you fail to notice your three-year-old sharpening a pen in the pencil sharpener right next to you.)

Other lost-track-of-the-three-year-old disasters (including, but not limited to, half an inch of water on the kitchen floor, a dozen broken eggs, toilet-flooding, etc.)

A tendency to space out in the middle of a conversation when a great plot point suddenly pops into your head.

Compulsive email checking.

Losing track of time and realizing you're ten minutes late for picking your kids up from school.

Accidentally posting on the wrong blog (like I just did).

Any others you can think of?

Summertime...And the Bloggin' is Easy

My brain feels like that picture up there. I'll call it summer brain. It's a good thing, really. It's just I can't think up anything interesting to post about.

I have written 35 pages of my new novel. Not bad. I have also been taking kids swimming and to the library and out for picnics. Hopefully, we'll get some camping in soon. I love the lazy feel of summer, the lack of schedule, the freedom to play.

What have you been up to this summer? Anything fun? How's your writing going? Anything else you want to share?

Fourth Grade Writing Advice

Last week, I went to my son's fourth grade authors party where we got to celebrate all his writing for the year. Super fun! He even had two of his stories published in hardbound books. Pretty neat. During the party, all the kids stood up and offered their best writing advice for incoming fourth graders. They gave the best advice! So, I thought I'd share it with you. I'm just going to paraphrase because 1) Some of them don't talk very loud and I couldn't hear them. 2) This was last week, and I didn't write it down at the time, so you know... This is what I remember of the fourth grade writing advice:

Use good word choice. Like, "He dashed," instead of, "He went."

Create great characters by using people from real life.

Always be thinking of ideas. Write them down

And the best piece of advice from many of the students:

Don't give up. Keep trying. The more you write, the better it will be.

Pretty wise ten year olds, don't you think? They have an amazing teacher.

Then I made my son sign his books for me. That's what author parties are for after all!

Book Fair Volunteer

It's time for the spring book fair down at the elementary school. It's pretty much the only PTA activity that I volunteer to help with anymore. I went a little crazy this time and volunteered to work two afternoon shifts this week, 3.5 hours apiece. No biggie. It's easy and I enjoy being there, surrounded by books and people who want to read them. I'll probably even get some of my revising done. I just didn't think about what I am going to do with my two little ones (age 6 and 3) for those 3.5 hours. I don't want to find a babysitter for them. So, I'm heading down there today with a bag of books, paper, crayons, puzzles and toys and hoping for the best. Wish me luck.

Also, seven hours at the book fair is going to take a chunk out of my blogging time. I won't get to read as many blogs this week as I'd like. Come to think of it, I didn't last week either. Life comes up and, frankly, blogging is lower down the list. So forgive me. I'll be visiting blogs as best I can. As always, I appreciate those of you who stop by to read and comment on mine!

And stay tuned: I'll soon be posting a review of Dan Harrington's Who's at the Door? A Memoir of Me and the Missionaries, plus I'm going to a writing conference this Saturday, and I'll let you know all about that too.

Until then, I'll see you around!

Putting Their Heart Into It

One Day More

Last weekend, I went to see my oldest son in the high school's production of Les Miserables. It was incredible! Really, I can't think of enough superlatives for it. I cried through the whole thing. Now, I admit, it's not that hard to make me cry, but there were grown men in the audience in tears too. They got a standing ovation, and they deserved it.

Jean Valjean

I was stunned at how moving a performance a seventeen year old could give as Jean Valjean. Ditto Javert (wish we'd gotten a picture of him). Really, the entire cast did a fantastic job.


They performed with such passion and intensity that I forgot I was sitting in a high school auditorium, forgot these were kids that I know, kids that I go to church with. I felt like I was right there. The put their whole hearts into this play and it paid off. I don't think I could have been more impressed if I had seen a full-scale Broadway production.

Greatness isn't measured by the size of the audience, but by the passion of the performance.

This is my boy (a student at the barricade). "Drink with me..."

Rise and Shine!

"Retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated." Doctrine and Covenants 88:125

I've usually interpreted this scripture to mean, "Get to bed before 1am and get up before 10am." Yeah, I'm not much of a morning person. I can remember a time, when I was pregnant with my second child, I think, that I got up at 6am to write. But then sometimes I think aliens must have abducted me and implanted a false memory. I mean really. 6 am! That's insane.

However, with the beginning of the school year, I felt that I should make a bigger effort to get up and see the kids off, at least the elementary school kids. So, I made a goal to go to bed by 11:30 and get up by 7:30. Hard! I promised myself I would try it for two weeks no matter what, and then if it doesn't work, I'll go back to the night owl routine. I decided that I would spend an hour writing in the morning, since I'd be going to bed about an hour earlier than usual. I started on Monday, and so far, so good. My body hasn't quite adjusted yet. I tend to lay awake after I get in bed, but getting up is getting easier every day, and the morning writing is going quite well. In fact, I spend more like two hours, so it's nice. I'm only three days into the two weeks, but I feel pretty optimistic about it. I think it will be good for me.

On a side note, I stopped working on the new novella and I'm concentrating on revising the novel so I can get it out to beta readers. I'll let you know how that goes.