Dot Moms and the 4th of July

Today’s post is over at Dot Moms. I am whipped. We took five children and four adults to the Virginia Aquarium today. Lots of fun, and we had a picnic at the park afterwards. The children, of course, did not nap. Why would they? Too much to see and do.

My son loved the sharks, but one of my favorites is the fish tanks. I love to just sit and watch the fish. It’s very relaxing.

Tonight’s menu: grilled ribs, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, and peach pie for dessert. Anyone want to come for dinner? :hungry:

No real writing was done the past two days, due to family obligations. And if any editors or agents are reading this, of course I’m going to get my book done next month. Ahem.

We will not be watching fireworks AGAIN this year. Sigh. Something about keeping toddlers up past ten o’clock, you know. Very sad. I miss those days. But we would have screaming demons on our hands, so hubby and I will just stand out on the back deck and hope for the best. Yes, I know we are SO pitiful.

What about you? Any plans for the 4th of July?

To Trend or Not to Trend

11 pages of writing for me today. :woot: I rewarded myself by going shopping at Old Navy. Okay, technically I was there to buy a birthday gift for my niece, but I had to window shop for myself, too.

Every time I go into a store like that, I have this wild urge to throw caution (and all fashion sense) to the wind. Electric purple flip flops with rhinestones! Orange bikinis with camouflage ties! Crocheted tops and animal print capris! I would love to be a hippy, trend-setting chick. For whatever reason, I apparently am doomed to buy normal clothes.

Why can’t I buy the funky Paris Hilton sunglasses and look trendy instead of possessed by the devil? I think it comes down to attitude. I’m just a blue-jean wearin’, T-shirt kind of girl. The wildest skirt I own is red with a black ribbon and some white swirling things. My husband just shakes his head at me in bewilderment. “Why would you want to wear that?” he asks. I believe if it were up to him, I’d be wearing a Burka.

I’m definitely the one to buy clothes in our household. I probably buy more clothes for my husband than he does for himself. (There’s something really fun about shopping for your significant other. Oh, the power!) :kneel: But truthfully I don’t do it all that often. Whenever I need an article of clothing or shoes, I can’t find it. It’s always when I don’t need something that I end up buying it. Like the other day when I was dragged, kicking and screaming into a Talbot’s Outlet Store. There was a melon-colored short-sleeved dress for $3. Yes, THREE, people. Okay, so there were probably fifty dresses and all of Washington D.C. will be wearing it. But it was $3, so who cares? I could mow the lawn in it and it wouldn’t matter. Hot diggety.

What’s the best sale item you’ve ever bought?

Antiques and Home Decorating

The manuscript is going well. I wrote 10 more pages yesterday and now I’m within 100 pages of finishing. This is where it gets tricky. I have “Fear of the Ending” syndrome. The closer I get, the more I start to worry about tying up all the loose ends. Hopefully I’ll get it right!

I have trouble with house decorating. I stand in awe at the people who can hang pictures artistically, color-coordinate fabrics, and make a room look like a Laura Ashley showcase. With that goal in mind, I decided to tackle my daughter’s room.

First, I appealed to my mother for help. She has amazing taste in decorating, not to mention a degree in home economics. The problem I had was the large blank walls. Aside from shelves, how do you fill up the space? My mom, God bless her, raided her extra picture collection. She found several prints of dolls which were gorgeous. They were painted by Maud Humphrey. If you’ve never heard of her, she was Humphrey Bogart’s mother. This is a sample of one of her paintings. They’re very delicate and perfect for a young girl’s room. Mom advised me to hang the paintings in triplicate with the larger at the top and the two smaller ones at either side. It looks wonderful. But to me, what’s magical, is having a piece of the past. I love antiques because they make me wonder what the people were like who owned the pieces. Once, my mother bought a secretary when we lived in England. I opened the writing desk portion and found a collection of old fountain pens. I’ve often wondered who left them there.

Do you have any antique furniture or furniture that was passed down? Or how about awful, hand-me-down furniture with the electric Day-Glo 1970’s patterns?

Waiting on pins and needles

Okay, you know, the waiting is starting to really get to me. Lots of pins and needles here. I know I can’t worry about it, it’s out of my hands, but my little writer’s imagination starts to get excited and start having hallucinations dreams about agents and editors. I really do hope there’s a happy ending in all of this.

I spent the weekend traveling up to D.C. to attend Debra Dixon’s “Goal, Motivation, and Conflict” workshop, as well as her “Hero’s Journey” workshop. My brain is full now. :popcorn: I intended to use the time to plot out my Book That Shall Not Be Named (top secret high concept idea here). I did start to get some ideas about my characters, but darn it all if I didn’t come up with ideas to tweak two of my other books. I think it’ll be good.

This past week was a good one for me, in terms of production. 50 pages. Yep, gotta like that. :woot: I’m aiming for another 40 this week, which will bring me toward the book’s end point. I should be able to wrap this book up in a few weeks. If you really held my feet to the fire, I could potentially finish the book in 16 days. But let’s be real. I have toddlers. :rotfl: The fact that I can dress myself in the mornings is quite often a miracle.

Ireland plans are still simmering. I want this to be a real experience, not of the tourist sort. So I’m mulling things over and figuring out what I want to do. Clarification: what I am able to do on our budget. :help: If I were of the rich and famous variety, I’d have our chaffeur MacEgan drive us around and we’d dine in castles and sleep in palaces. Yes, I am a woman of simple and humble tastes.

My children visited a petting zoo with my mother this weekend. My son had the chance to milk a cow. But of all the animal petting, all the zebras, ostriches, cows, pig racing, and chickens, what interested them the most? The fact that the animals went to the bathroom on the ground! :confused2: This was all they could talk about, because it was IMPORTANT! As for me, I just wanted to be sure they washed their hands with disinfectant. Yeeech!

How was your weekend?

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire…

My son learned a very important lesson last night. At the age of four, he tried to avoid getting into trouble by lying. Not a good idea.

While I was in the laundry room and he was supposed to be finishing dinner, he sneaked into his dad’s Father’s Day stash of cookies. I came back and saw him sitting on the couch.

Now, the funny thing about four-year-olds is, they seem to believe that there is NO WAY Mom will find out about it. He had so much chocolate on his mouth and cheeks, he looked like he had a beard and mustache. He had a stunned expression on his face and both hands were hidden behind his back.

Me: What do you have in your hands?
Him: Nothing.
Me: Were you eating your dad’s cookies?
Him: No!

I force him to step away from the couch and found a hidden half-eaten cookie on the couch. I’m sure he believed the magic fairies put it there. Riiiigght…

Needless to say, there was a certain somebody who learned that lying is a BAD IDEA when it comes to Mom. :angry: It’s one of those choose your battles scenarios, and this one I am definitely fighting. :sword: If I don’t teach him to always tell the truth, then when he’s a teenager, I’ll have much bigger problems on my hands. There was a great deal of sobbing, gnashing of teeth, and an early bed time. But later when we talked, I think he got the message. It probably won’t be the last time he lies. Maybe he’ll think twice, though. What about you? Any experiences with kids lying?

The agent scenario is getting interesting. I don’t really have much more on it, except that one of the lead agents in that agency is reading it now. She e-mailed yesterday, wanting a full submission history, etc. Don’t know if anything will come of this or not, but it makes my day interesting.

Today my goal is to nail down some more Ireland details. Hope I can get some good prices! :shimmy:

A nibble of interest…

Well, to counteract the agency decline from last weekend, I e-mailed my revised book to the new agency. They read it the same night. Yes, I know. I fell over in shock, too. :shocked:

Do you see that ridiculous grin on my face? The agent wrote back that my book was “the most promising romance manuscript I’ve read this year.” She stayed up late to finish reading it. :worthy: Yahoo!

Hey, I take my crumbs where I can get them. She did say that the book needed some revising, particularly with the heroine. They’re not sure if they have the time or ability to work with me on revisions (the down side). But you know, the e-mail she sent was one of the best confidence boosters I’ve ever received. I’m always happy to revise work. I don’t know if this story will have a happy ending and an offer of representation or not, but I’m still smiling.

What a great day! :dancingfool:

Ireland is Now Real…

Betcha didn’t know it was fake, before? :waving2:

We booked our plane tickets to Ireland today. :woot: No, I’m not excited, why do you ask? My little writer’s brain is bubbling over with all the 12th and 13th century Norman ruins to visit. My poor husband doesn’t know how many places I plan to drag him. I may have to bribe him with a pint of Guinness…

16 days of leisurely travel. I want enough time to find the out-of-the-way spots and avoid the tourist traps. Some of my favorite places to visit are where you’d find the locals. I loathe tourist traps. The idea of taking an escorted tour makes me want to stab myself repeatedly with needles. I really really don’t want to sit on the bus singing Kum-Ba-Yah while we drive through the Ring of Kerry. No, for us, it will be more a situation of: “AAAHHHH!! A SHEEP! Quick, the hedges!” while we frantically crash the car into shrubbery.

Hmm, maybe that’s why lamb and mutton are served so often there. But, I digress.

Given a choice, this is where I’d like to stay. But somehow, methinks it’ll be more like B&Bs. Which is okay. I’m not complaining. I’m really excited about this trip. The only thing that would make it better would be if somehow Mills & Boon would buy my book. Many of my friends have recently heard back on their submissions, so I’m hoping my turn will come soon. :worthy::worthy: Keep your fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I’ll be e-mailing the latest book off to an agent. And it’s back to the latest Irish medieval. Goal is 50 pages by the end of next week. I just love summer break.

Are you going anywhere fun this summer?

And then the universe bites you on the butt…

I’m definitely a “glass is half-full” type of girl. When I was a kid, my parents had a unique motto. Every time life came around and bit me on the butt, they told me it was because something better was coming my way. Disappointments were there to help me build character, but they were also paving the way for something AMAZING.

Now that I look back, it’s so true. I lost at the science fair (okay, humor me, I was twelve. It was traumatic for a geek like me, people!), and after I dried my tears, I was accepted into the Wonder School of Geekdom.

Years later, I was rejected at every single graduate program for creative writing that I applied to. :loser: I had thought grad school would teach me what I needed to know to write a novel. :rotfl: Instead, I found my own mojo and wrote four children’s books and four adult-length titles. Because I was mad at their rejection. I would show them!
Would I have written so much if I’d been accepted? Hard to say.

Then there’s my favorite. I had the Date From Hell. I believe bread mold had more personality than the guy I went to a college dance with. He was nice, but he didn’t dance, didn’t talk, and I kept wondering if he was actually breathing. I went home that night, thoroughly frustrated with my love life. I was tanking, people! And the next day I met my husband.

Yep, the glass is definitely half full.

This week alone I’ve gotten two rejections from agents on the same book. :help: The second one came today. But, I still have one more agent request waiting for me, and I’m giving this book the hairy eyeball. I keep wondering, is this a matter of personal taste or is there a flaw that I can fix? Hard to say. Maybe this agent will be The One. Maybe we’ll click. Maybe not.

Still, rejections help you grow a stronger skin. I’ll need it one day when book reviewers read my books. So, I’ll chalk this one up: Universe: 2. Michelle: 0.

I’m ready for my something wonderful to happen now. :woot: Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

And tomorrow is the last day of school! :wave: No, I’m not excited. Not a bit. I will be happily waving as the buses drive off. :waving:

So, have you ever had a major disappointment, followed by a fabulous success?

Revising with a Shovel

TheBookThatWouldNotDie got an agent request for the full manuscript. :wave: Yes, this is the Victorian Wedded to the Enemy which I truly love because it has my snarky little historical writing voice.

I love deep, dark medievals. But for some reason when I write in the 19th century, something happens to my writing voice, and I get quirky. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe not. But quirky just doesn’t go with medieval times for me. Regency and Victorians–absolutely.

It’s probably because I get tired of the same old drawing room Regencies that I inhaled like M&Ms as a kid growing up. I could read 4 or 5 of those at a sitting. Could. Not. Get. Enough.

Now, if you give me another bluestocking heroine who’s in love with a brooding hero, I’m more inclined to toss the book against the wall. But when I write in that time period, I love twisting the genre to make it my own.

Problem is, my writing voice gets out of control. I’m like a two-year-old in a candy store. The characters’ emotions are ping-ponging all over the place. So even though this book is already with another agent, I’m going through it one more time to see if the emotions are working. Um, yeah…not so much. I see places where I let the conflict drop. There are emotions that just don’t match the scene. I think it’ll be minor changes on the whole, but I’m forcing myself to read the whole thing in one sitting while making notes, in the hopes that I can see the overall picture.

So, revisions with a shovel.

In the Ireland plans, I’m pretty sure we’ll be going in August. I’m researching B&B’s. I’m excited about it, but B&Bs make me nervous. Some are just wonderful while others make you feel like you’re invading someone’s house. I’m hoping I can find the right ones that give us the private retreat we’ll want at the end of the day and yet not feel like we’re taking over someone’s guest room.

One thing I love about the Irish people is their hospitality. I have such fond memories from my last visit. Our host families would pack us lunches, and I swear they must have thought the Anglo-Normans were invading again. Instead of one sandwich, they packed six. Instead of a slice of pie, it was half the pie. :popcorn: Such wonderful people. It’s a good thing I only stayed there for two weeks; otherwise I’d have been the size of a barn. :hungry:

So, in a way I’m hoping to find the right places. I’m checking out Town and Country, Fodor’s, and a few other places. Can’t wait!

In the meantime, I am really really hoping I hear a decision soon from Mills & Boon. I’m dying here, people. 8 months on the second round of revisions, 2 months since it was passed to the senior editor. I am a little puddle of nerves here.

Guess that’s a good reason to go visit Bushmills, huh?

5 Ways to Make a Teacher Throw Sharpened Pencils At You on the Last Week of School

5. Whine, “But I didn’t KNOW my child was failing!” after 34 e-mails, 16 phone calls, and 2 conferences
4. Demand to know how many other children failed the class because CLEARLY it is a teacher problem.
3. Call the principal and make irrational excuses about why the teacher hates their child.
2. Complain, “But we’re going to Disney World! We don’t have time for summer school!”
1. Demand a conference on the last day of school.

And here are 5 Things That Make a Teacher Smile on the Last Week of School

5. Chocolate! :hungry:
4. Seeing a child pass who struggled the entire year.
3. Seeing that same child’s smile when you tell them they passed. :wave:
2. Getting a note from the child who made you want to tear your hair out that says, “You were my favorite teacher.”
1. Receiving a high school graduation photo of a former 6th grade student with a note saying, “You made a difference. Thanks.”

I remember my eighth grade Civics teacher Mr. Marcy. I was convinced he ate nails for breakfast. When we wrote a definition for a civics term, he wanted it word for word not in the ball park. If it wasn’t word for word, it was WRONG. He taught me to be precise and to mind the little details. He was calm, never yelled, and was the hardest teacher I ever had. I truly respect him. :hello2:

Do you remember your favorite teacher? Who was he/she and why do you remember them?