Ham

Thanksgiving was fun. We had ham, and it was delicious. The no-turkey tradition goes back to a "food allergy" contrived by my great-grandmother to avoid the traditional fare herself. She's gone now, but the ham lives on and has become a tradition of its own.

Studying my own family dynamics is a storytelling lesson in itself. A house containing several generations of the same clan, with all the moments of joy, humor and (yikes!) tension, makes a laboratory of sorts. I become an observer for my art, a behavioral scientist of sorts.

I watch, and wonder at the difficulty of re-creating this sort of wonderful tension in a work of fiction! The kind that is full of subtext and implications. The kind that is a dance among stakes that are constantly changing. The kind that might not look like tension to the casual observer, and yet is palpable beneath the surface.

As a writer, I live to re-create the beautiful moments, too. The laughter, the love, and the lingering sense of the magical Now. The baby who will be like a different person next Thanksgiving. The grandmother who may not be here at all. The awareness that all we ever have is today, and so we should love each other as best we can.

Family is a story with an arc that is not a perfect bell shape. There is no clear protagonist, except for we, the characters, who might sometimes each mistake ourselves for the hero. The ending is sort of nebulous at best. But I know that without this most sacred family narrative, no other story can exist for me. We tell it with love, and with laughter, and with ham!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thankgiving to all! I'm leaving for the north country soon, and probably won't be blogging. See you on the other side of the turkey (or, in our case, ham).

Feverish Post

I've just been thinking about November.

Full disclosure: I've been sick in bed all day. Suffice it to say I've been pondering a lot of things and not all of them coherent. Anyhoo, blogging is about all I can bring myself to do, so, on with November. . . .

Why is it that we celebrate the season of gratitude during the second darkest month of the year? I find this unnecessary. I'm sure there's a good reason. I'm sure there is. But a November cold is all it takes to get me questioning the placement of holidays.

Perhaps the act of practicing a gratitude ritual in the dark is supposed to somehow be more authentic. I mean, anybody can be grateful in the bursting buds of May and June, right? Perhaps Real Gratitude lives in the dark, irrelevant to circumstance.

Tell that to the turkey.

Getting Down to Business

I am inherently lazy. Particularly when it comes to things I'm not very good at and lack experience with, such as the submissions process.

Everybody knows there is a way to submit one's work that yields better results. Do lots of research about different publishers. Find those hard to reach editorial assistants whose names aren't emblazoned all over the house's contact information. There's a lot of internet surfing involved. A lot of library visits. A lot of publisher catalog downloading blah blah blah.

It's kind of fun, digging for those little golden nuggets. But I wish I enjoyed it more so I would hurry up and get it done already. There has been some progress--I did some preliminary research on fifteen publishers and found about half of the names I need. I have all the various submission guidelines in place. I went through an online Excel spreadsheet tutorial so I could learn how to make "Lori's Fancy Online Submission Tracking Chart," complete with color coding and neato rejection font. I called my whole family into the room to look at my spreadsheet, because I've decided to celebrate every blessed step of this process that very closely resembles the homework I loathed in gradeschool.

In the meantime, it's been very easy to digress to creative work. My other picture book ms is evolving shrinking and expanding and generally trying to make itself "spreadsheet worthy." If you're like me, and having a hard time getting yourself to write, try forcing yourself to do some data entry. It won't be long before you're crying for your word processor. Or at least a pen.

Then I realized somthing. I really really love my spreadsheet. I do! Maybe there is hope for this lazy one yet.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to Erin, my ever reliable phone-a-friend, and all around good buddy.

Picture Book Boot Camp

That's what Lisa Wheeler calls her picture book workshop, which I attended this past Saturday. I received a very helpful critique from this woman who has clearly mastered the form. As someone who has focused on middle grade so far, I gleaned a few helpful little tidbits about writing specifically for younger kids. I also was generally refocused, reminded and re-charged with regards to my writing in general.

I almost didn't go for the stupidest of all reasons.

After eight years of seriously studying to improve my writing to the point of marketability, (attending conferences, workshops, having a top notch critique group filled with published writers)--I, um, kinda thought, *blushes* that I knew enough.

Here's what I learned (yet again).

Lesson #1: I will never, ever, never know enough about writing and storytelling. Even if I were to get fame, critical acclaim, and a devoted audience that turns everything I write into a bestseller. Period. I will never be GOOD ENOUGH.

Lesson #2: I will always remember to enter a teaching moment with a teachable spirit. I will be open to learn. Because if I do that, I WILL LEARN SOMETHING.

Lesson #3: I will never, ever, never pass up a chance to sit at the knee of someone who is a master of the craft I want to master. Even if I only learn one new thing. (it's even worth listening to fellow attendees who would rather talk about how to get an agent than how to improve their writing) It's worth it if it clicks me to the next stop on the learning curve.

Adventures in Subbing

I find myself in kindergarten again. It is the most fertile ground for kid humor, I've found. Today there were definite religious overtones to these overheards:

Boy: I have superpowers, you know.

Girl at his table: There are only two people who have super powers. Santa Claus and God.

Me: What about the Easter Bunny?

Girl: Oh, yeah, him too.

******

Two Girls approached me at playtime:

Girl #1--We were playing with--

Girl #2--With the dollies and--

Girl #1--And the little blender thingie, you know, with all the little teeny tiny white balls in it--

Girl #2--We didn't DO it--

Girl #1--Yeah, well, the TOP came unglued and--

Girl #2--WE didn't do it! But the balls came out and they're all--

Girl #1--(gesturing wildly) All over the FLOOR!

Girl #2--But WE DIDN'T--

Girl #1--Someone else DID it, but we just--

Girl #2--Yeah, we just FOUND it--

Girl #1--We think maybe Jesus did it.

Yep, that's my motto. When in doubt, blame. . . Jesus? Then again, I suppose that's not unheard of.

Living Room Time

I am forever trying to find new ways to keep my family close knit and engaged with one another. One of my favorite ways is something called Living Room Time.

It's exactly what it sounds like: All four members of the family must spend an hour together in the living room. One is not required to talk or even do anything with another person. But you must do something that doesn't require batteries or electricity. You may:

Read
Write (without a computer)
play a quiet game by yourself or with another agreeing party
work on some crafty thing
Give someone (preferably the mother :o) a foot massage
daydream
talk

or, do nothing at all. Just listen to everybody breathe if you want.

I love living room time. Living room time is good. It used to be that the living room was the place where most family leisure happened. The family TV was there, the radio, the books, the games. Leisure is portable now, and we don't have to share anything or any space if we don't want to. Certainly not in our own homes.

I thought my kids would balk at having to stay in the living room, away from the electronics of choice. Away from the TV and even neighborhood friends. In fact, they love it. Even my son, who greatly values his "alone time." There is something deliciously comfy about sharing companionable silence with people you love.

Another unexpected side effect of Living Room Time: My husband had finished his book one night and wasn't in the mood to start a new one. He found the dog brush and groomed our dog, a kind of attention she rarely receives. He said, "I should do this more often, but there's no time."

When you take a person's computer and telephone and TV away, it frees up a moment to think about what ELSE you might do. And you find that your dog would love to be rid of her snarled coat. And your child would still love to be read to, and be cuddled with even though he or she is eleven and thirteen. And you discover that leafing through a travel magazine with your husband or son or daughter is a kind of vacation in itself.

Your kids find themselves absorbed in creating a little scrapbook, or doing a Mad Lib, or making people out of pipe cleaners. They begin to re-wire that part of the brain that has to "come up with something to do." And it's just a bit more difficult than flipping a switch. And that's good.

Of course, Living Room Time doesn't happen every night. There is soccer and gymnastics. There is homework and music practice. There is the other kind of life that must also be lived. Sometimes there is arguing during living room time, when people are tired and irritable, and then I wonder whose bright idea this was in the first place.

But a few days a week (during a majority of the school year), I'm surprised to find, with a little effort and planning, we can manage one hour of Living Room Time, a dying practice that deserves to be resurrected. And well it may be, as the economy gets worse and people are in need of cheap entertainment. You can't get cheaper than sitting in your living room!

The Thrill of Creativity

I had been in a lull. My novel was at a standstill and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Still can't. But now a new project has taken hold and I am basking in the joy of creativity. Ideas and characters are having a party in my head, saying "How about. . .? and Oh! Oh! What if. . .? And I, the author, am saying "Yeah, that sounds good." or at least, "I'll try that. It's so crazy it might just be original."

My internal editor has become irritable and now resorts to immature, attention seeking behaviors. She shoots spitballs. Her hair is down, the glasses are off, and her feet are up on the desk. She's eating licorice and complaining loudly about her salary and not being appreciated.

I've warned her about the poor economy and potential lay-offs in sight. I've told her if she has such great ideas she should go and write her own book. :o)

Hope

A new era has dawned. This much I know for sure. :o)

I'm tired now, but it was totally worth it to watch such poignant history being made. Now he gets to prove to the world that he's more than just an eloquent speaker. And boy I hope he does!

Image courtesy of Ann's Blog