A Little Bit About Me...As Seen Through the Eyes of a Preschooler

My youngest is a preschool graduate. It's amazing how quickly the years passed from when I started dropping my oldest off to now, seven short years later. I cried. Not because I'm particularly sad, but because I'm letting go of a part of my little girl. She'll soon be in elementary school...losing teeth, having homework, playing hot lava monster on the playground.

Whenever one of life's transitions hits me, I think of the movie, Hope Floats. I love the ending when Sandra Bullock says, "Beginnings are usually scary, endings are usually sad, but it's what in the middle that counts."

My daughter brings so much love and silliness to our family. When her teachers sent home her portfolio, it included her answers to questions regarding her parents.

It's amazing how our children see us.

My Mom

How old is your mom?  50

What does Daddy call Mom?  Miss

What was your mom like when she was little?  She liked to play like me.

What is something your mom cooks that you don't like at all?  Rice because it give me a headache.

Why did God make mothers?  So they could take care of little kids.

Where is your mom's favorite place to go?  Africa and Disneyland.

My Dad

How much does your dad weigh?  68 pounds

How tall is  your dad:  10 feet tall

What does your dad like to do when he's relaxing?  He mows the lawn.

What does your dad like to buy when he goes shopping?  Stuff to shave and toothbrushes.

Where would your dad like to go on a trip?  To my cousin's house.

How does your dad make you laugh?  He tickles me

I'll let you figure out how much of that is actually true...

Mother's Day and the Waiting Game

I celebrated Mother's Day with both my mom and my children. It was a perfect day really, complete with homemade gifts (my favorite) from the kids. My oldest is developing just enough sarcasm to start using humor in her cards, things like, "aren't you happy you're raising such a great kid?" Since I'm inherently sarcastic, this works for me, and it's true...she's awesome. My youngest still thinks I hung the moon, so hers say things such as, "my mom makes dinner in three minutes and always gives me hugs and kisses." My son, well, his affection is always enough to make me smile. 

I was also able to fly out of state, by myself (!) to visit my brother, his wife and their ten-week-old daughter. They commented on how low maintenance I am. Apparently everyone else who comes to visit likes to go shopping and drive around town all day. Honestly, all I wanted to do was hold the baby and sleep. I worked out, I slept, I watched television. I didn't even bring my laptop because if I had, I'd have felt the urge to work. What I needed was to rest, and rest I did.

 I recently finished (finished being a very loose term) my current WIP, a contemporary young adult novel. I literally pushed forward to make my self-imposed deadlines. I edited draft after draft, anxious to get it out to my betas before mid-May. When I did, the real wait began.

I checked my email.

I checked my email again.

I worried they hated it already.

I checked my email again.

I realized just because my life revolved around this novel, theirs might not.

I checked my email again, then my phone. They might text.

Would they email? Should I send them a text?

Why am I stressing? They have lives.

They hate it. I'm sure of it.

I wrote the seventh draft of my query.

I checked my email again, then my phone.

I put off writing the synopsis.

I decided to wait it out. I know they'll get to it, and they're all busy. After all the end of the school year is busy for everyone.

But just in case, I'll check my email again.

And I'll keep working on the synopsis, and editing the query, and checking my email again.

Hitting the Brick Wall

13.1 miles.

That's the length of a half-marathon. A full is 26.2 and that's another story entirely, a goal I have yet to achieve. Believe me, 13.1 miles is plenty. There's this point between nine and eleven miles when I always hit the brick wall, so to speak. My feet go numb, stopping at the water tables feels like more work than it's worth, and I begin cursing myself for having this stupid, horrible idea. That's the point when I say I'll never run another half as long as I live.

And then I hit the twelve mile mark and think...I can do this. Am I stupid? Probably. Was this a horrible idea? Ask me tomorrow.

I hit the brick wall recently in other areas of my life. The querying of my women's fiction novel wasn't going well. I'd received several rejections, a couple on fulls, and I write this knowing there are several queries still lingering in the ether, which I may or may not, ever hear responses to. I was attempting to revise, query agents, research agents, blog, and keep up on social networking. (if you don't think there's research involved in querying, you're not doing it right.)

Then there's the housework, taking care of the dog, doctor's appointments, after school sports, yardwork, Booster Club Meetings, school volunteering, cooking, laundry (oh, the laundry).

I started to feel that I wasn't completely there for my husband and three children, the most important people in my life. I was letting the query rejections control our lives, and it made me sad to think that the subjective opinion of one agent was resulting in my children having to eat leftovers for the third night in a row. In essence, I started to feel like I was failing in every area of my life.

When I hit the brick wall, I honestly thought about giving up. But it wasn't until I was running one morning that an idea popped into my head. Maybe it's symbolic to say that on mile four of a six mile run, I had an idea that hasn't yet left my head, for a contemporary young adult project. I sat down that afternoon and began to write again. I stopped querying, social networking, blogging, and volunteering for awhile and finished a first draft in three weeks. 

Maybe my women's fiction won't be published. Maybe it will. But I'm not yet ready to give up. Because no matter how hard it is to write, or how numb it makes you, it won't let go. Sometimes you've just got to take a break, clear out some of the extra stuff bogging you down, and run with it.   

Oh, and I registered for another half-marathon. Stupid? Ask me in June.

Write at Home Moms

One day, I lamented to my mom, "If you can't handle rejection, don't become a writer." To which she quipped, "and don't parent teenagers."

I laugh about it now, although I have yet to raise a teenager. Just as my mom sympathizes with my disappointments, I catch sight of the teen years every time my oldest gives me an eye roll and huffy breath while complaining about having to fold her own laundry. Oh, the injustice of it all.

Yes, being a writer involves a lot of rejection. But, with that said, it also provides opportunities to meet and connect with other people who, like myself, love to write. I'm fortunate to be part of an online group of mom/writers. Some of them are awaiting the release of their novels, others are on submission, some are agented, others- like myself- are querying. The common bond, however, is that they are moms who write.

If you have a chance, stop by their websites... Meet some of the Write at Home Moms.

Katie Ernest           http://tinkeringwithwriting.blogspot.com

Tristina Wright       www.tristinawright.com

Gennifer Albin        http://blog.genniferalbin.com

Aryn Youngless      http://www.weeklyadventuresordinarygirl.com

Bethany Hagen     www.bethanyhagen.com

Michelle Bruhn       http://thewriteabout.blogspot.com

Anita Howard        http://authoraghoward.blogspot.com

Amber Clites         http://amberafterglow.blogspot.com

Robyn Lucas         http://www.RobynLucas.com

Bethany Crandell   http://rookieriter.blogspot.com

Jessica Nelson       http://jessicanelson7590.blogspot.com

Laura Barnes        http://laurabwriter.blogspot.com

Leah Rae Miller      http://leahraemiller.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Otto       http://elizabethottowrites.blogspot.com

On a Typical Day...

I'm not a fan of chaos. Shopping at the Mall stresses me out, and that's even before I pull into the parking lot. In fact, I usually do all of my Christmas shopping online...or at Starbucks, because I'm always there anyway. I never go out on Black Friday or Christmas Eve. Shopping at Costco on a weekend makes me want to carry a flask in my purse. I'm one of those people who can't cook unless the kitchen is clean, who won't go to bed before the dishes are done, and who'd rather stay up past midnight to scrub a bathroom than see toothpaste stains splattered across the mirror.

At least I was. Until I became an aspiring novelist/stay-at-home mom.

On a good day, my desk looks like this.

On a typical day, my desk looks like this.

On a good day, the play corner of my office looks like this.

On a typical day, the play corner of my office looks like this. 

On a good day, my youngest realizes that she actually has a playroom. She also recognizes the play corner of my office was created out of sheer desperation, so I could finish editing. On a good day, she doesn't move all of her belongings into my office while I'm working. She recognizes that the toys belong in their own pink bins, and she puts them away.

On a typical day, however, the toys never make it into the bins. Rather, the child does.

Isn't she thrifty?