Planted Passion

Thanks to a freakishly warm January and a friend who graciously shared her bounty of fall-planting bulbs at Christmas time, I found myself outside at sunset last night with a couple of my favorite people on earth, all of us feverishly getting those tulips and paperwhites into the ground.

Watching my son wield the shovel reminded me of a conversation I recently had with a student about how one of the neat things about being an adult is looking back on childhood and realizing how the seeds for what we love to do (or wish we were doing) now were so often planted during those tender years. I can remember clearly, for example, how much I loved to write and illustrate stories, poems, radio scripts and anything else that could be brought to life on the page. I could sit for hours writing, drawing and losing all track of the time-space continuum as I composed my masterworks. Here's a sampling that found publication in Ms. Rowe's Book of Second Grade Poetry at Sleepy Hollow School:

Squash

I used to squish my squash.

Now I squash my squash.

I know, right? The genius made itself known early.

Now that I have a tween and an almost-tween of my own, I tell my kids to nurture the seeds of things that bring them joy - things that, when they're doing them, make everything else disappear, time, space and worldly problems included. Not that those problems will go away, and not that we won't regularly have to do things we don't want to do (root canals and bill paying, anyone?). But I firmly believe that letting the seeds of dreams and calling and vocation dry up and die before they have a chance to take root can make it exponentially harder to face the sometimes harsh realities of life. It's why my kids no doubt get sick of me telling them, "Don't lose your passion - and if you do, work like heck to get it back again!"

What do you think about this? Were the seeds of what you love to do as an adult planted in childhood? Have you ever lost your dreams and subsequently had to track them down, grab them by the scruff of their necks and haul them home?

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terrible roars

Where the Wild Things Are was never one of my very favorite childrens' books. Oh, I liked it all right. But I suppose I always had a sneaking suspicion it was written for other children, boys especially, whose lives were much harder than mine was in 1970's Marin County where people worried mainly about the temperature of their hot tubs and the scarcity of peacock feathers on their blocks (if social legend is to be believed, anyway).

Don't even get me started on the recent-ish movie version of the WTWTA, though. What a nightmare, and one from which I wasn't totally sure I'd ever wake up. I didn't think it did the book justice. At all.

Anyway, this interview with Maurice Sendak  (which I found thanks to the good folks over at DGLM) is something else entirely. He's no doubt a crabby curmudgeon indeed, but I admire his frankness.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

fat n' sassy farm animals, etc.

It's been a good long while...again...since I've updated the blog. And I've decided I need to be okay with that, because I'm rediscovering that doing perfectly all the things I want/need to get done at any given time is just not possible. The good news is that a lot of imperfect, gorgeous things have been going on since I last checked in. Things like the kids starting back to a school year that's going very well. I'm proud of our little rural school for being one of the top performers in the state - and that includes private and charter schools! We have a pretty amazing blend of teachers and administration, and I always feel that my kids' education is right at the top of the priority list where it belongs despite the budget crunches and other woes the American educational system has been facing for way too long now.

The all-school field trip to the County Fair happened last week, and even though Zzari got out of the pasture and decimated a good chunk of my corn crop while we were gone, it was still a great day: The 4-H kids from our school and other districts showed their animals while we were there, which is always fun. I'd had some big fun judging the 4-H County Fair horse show the previous weekend, and it's always neat to see horses and young competitors from all of the county showing off the skills they've been honing all year. So, life has pretty much been all about fat and sassy farm animals more than usual for the past month or so.

What else? Oh! Laurie Halse Anderson had a writing challenge going on her blog for the month of August, but I didn't realize it until it ended! No matter. I'm going back to day one and starting from there, making part of September and October my own personal writing challenge month. This will be fun especially since I'm still undecided about NaNoWriMo this year: it's going to be a super busy soap season for me in November and December, and I've learned the hard way that trying to soap, write and teach at 100% capacity all at once is not conducive to also maintaining my sanity. And I need my sanity, thankyouverymuch.

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people stew

It often happens like this: I'm finishing up a manuscript, getting ready to send it out into the big world with it's still-moist wings and focusing on keeping myself hopeful. Meanwhile, there's a crockpot full of other ideas...things strangers are saying, thoughts and memories these strangers are having...simmering in another part of my brain, distracting me a little from the task at hand. But I don't want to unplug the crockpot. I don't want to throw out its contents. Instead, I press the lid down - gently but firmly - hoping nothing escapes for just a little while longer.

I finish releasing the new bird, my most recent baby, and then I turn to back the crockpot, which is by now threatening to boil over. Carefully, carefully I lift the lid and peer inside, giving a little bit more attention to what's being said and who's saying it - what's being thought and who's thinking it. Getting to know the strangers inside.

Sounds a little grotesque, I know. Like, what is she talking about? People in a crockpot? Ew. Such a rash, blatant mixing of metaphors! Birds, horses, boiling people? Gimme a break!

And yet, I don't know how to explain the process of letting go of one book and starting another any better than that. Not yet anyway

Today's note to self:
Be ridiculously optimistic.
And stand up straight.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

gone egg noggin'

I'll be out and about, perusing the wide, mad world for the next...oh, ten days or so. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of the holiday season, and I'll catch you on the flip side of 2010. In the meantime, there's this:

"But the real life of a writer resides in showing up at the keyboard every day, with the necessary patience and mercy, and making the best decisions you can on behalf of your people. It’s a slow process. It often feels hopeless, more like an affliction than an art form.


Most of us will have to find our readers one by one, in other words, and against considerable resistance. If anything qualifies us as heroic, it’s that private perpetual struggle.

Put down the magazine, soldier. Forget about the other guy. Remember who you are."

~Steve Almond, The RumpusFollow @nicole_mcinnes

NaNo FAIL

Just call me NaNoWreckMo Nicki. The woman whose NaNoWriMo dreams imploded at 31,000 feet words. It happened a little over a week before the end of NaNoWriMo. I just…stopped. And for some reason it’s totally okay. Normally I’d be awash in chagrin by now, pointing my finger at myself for not having finished something I set out to do. But, you know, life’s short. And it’s the holidays, and frankly, I decided I’d much rather spend time with friends and family and get my paying obligations met rather than chain myself to the keyboard to ensure my word count for the day was met. So, I let it go.


The good news? I got some solid material for the next project generated with those 30k words, material that now sits in the hopper fermenting until it’s ready to take on new life as a potential draft. I’ve had the “NaNoWriMo Winner!” badge on my blog before, a few years back. I have to say, I wish they’d come out with a “NaNoWriMo FAIL!” badge, as I would no doubt display it proudly. Or maybe it’s like the equestrian endurance racing folks say: To finish is to win. Maybe I’m a winner after all…but nah. Twenty thousand unwritten words tell a different story. Oh well!

In other news, I’m going to be redundant and link to a blog post Nathan Bransford has already linked to on his phenomenal blog. Kudos to Ms. Whipple for going where most authors don’t dare to go.

Happy Friday, Everyone!Follow @nicole_mcinnes

writing and running

Seems a lot of writers are also runners, and as I work the theme of running into a new story I’m working on, I can see why. The physical act of writing is fairly static: You sit in a chair, you stretch once in a while, but mostly it’s your fingers moving. Running is a chance for those of us who otherwise sit a lot to get out and get moving. It’s a way to connect with motion and forward momentum. I’ve found this can be really, really useful when a project is getting bogged down and losing that page-turner quality.

Running – especially outdoor running…especially trail running – is anything but static. When you’re out off-roading it, your entire being needs to be alert and aware. It’s good practice for writerly types who, if given the choice, would spend most of their time with their heads in the clouds. I remember when I used to go for runs across the remote prairie where I lived I always had at least one ear and one eye on the alert for mountain lions because a canyon they supposedly liked to frequent was just a couple miles away as the crow flies. It was great motivation to keep moving at a good clip, let me tell you (and I was never quite sure what I’d do if I actually ran into a mountain lion, but just being aware of the possibility seemed somehow like a good idea).

These days I run mostly on a frontage road near the interstate, but I usually take Lizzy the Cow Dog with me on her telescoping leash. That means I have to keep my eye out for cars, since she has very little sense that way and will basically run right out into the road, completely oblivious. So, my eyes are on the dog and the road ahead, my ears are kept busy with iPod tunes, and my legs are doing their thing, reminding me that forward momentum is what keeps the world – and the story – alive and interesting.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

wri-ing the mo away

So, National Novel Writing Month. Yeah, that thing.

It's actually going pretty well, which is surprising. I'm up to just over 16K words as of last night, which is just a couple hundred words shy of where I 'd ideally like to be. Normally, by this point in the process (well into week two), the initial exuberance has worn off a bit and things have started to plateau. Also, a few weeks in I generally start finding it really tough at times to meet that daily word count.

Not so much this time around, though. It probably helps that I jumped into the writing with some fairly strong ideas and story leads I wanted to follow. Having just finished getting a YA novel ready for submission, I figured my muse would be pretty much spent, and I'd end up writing 50,000 words of drivel. And while some of what I've knocked out definitely has been drivel, I'm finding some pretty nice passages when I look back through the past ten days of content.

If you're doing NaNo this year, too, how's it going?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

crunched

October, as promised, has been...how shall I put this?....

COMPLETELY INSANE!!!!

There have been tornadoes, birthday parties galore, the loss of a beloved canine friend who was like my first baby, special events at kids' school, work, work, work and more work....

Deep, cleansing breaths are in order.

November promises to be fairly jam-packed, too, but hopefully in a slightly less frenetic way. The final (hopefully) edit of the new YA novel will be (fingers crossed) zipping across the Interwebs to my agent tomorrow, at which point I'll have approximately 2 days to catch my breath before the onset of NaNoWriMo on November 1. Of course, I must help prepare Princess Tiger and Pancho Villa for the Halloween festivities first.

Phew! Yoga, anyone?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

to do:

1) Join in the fray for a fellow writer (read to the bottom of the post)

Got a blog, a site, etc? Why not jump in on the 29th, too?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

oh, she's good

I already can't, for the life of me, recall the particular web-surfing trail that landed me at Cheryl Klein's website and blog. Glad I found her, though. This article/outline/speech is just one of the many gems I've come across via a casual browse through her website archives. Good, nutritious stuff for writerly types.

Here's a snippet of the talk, wherein she writes about falling in love with a book:

"Last year I had a mad passionate affair with an adult novel called The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger—I read it on my lunch breaks, I rushed home from work to be with it, and once we stayed in bed together all weekend."

It made me think of the last book that made me feel this way (Water for Elephants), and why it is that the capricious muse of magical storytelling seems to alight on one author and not another.

What's the last book that either made you stay in bed all weekend or made you wish you could (bearing in mind, of course, that this is a family-friendly blog - lol)?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

friday soap giveaway: January Garnet!

These January Garnet bars are the last of the new GemSoaps line that I'll be officially introducing this year at the big November Craft shows. In early 2008 I plan to start working on the spring and summer birthstones, which should be fun.

Since I was told that the picture I took of the November Topaz bars made them look like cheese (not what I'm looking for in a soap pic - then again, maybe I should think about starting a stinky cheese soap line...), I decided to move the garnet bars outside. Maybe I should have taken them out at the crack of dawn or dusk, though, since I still don't think the picture does justice to the yummy, sultry sparkliness. And, lawdy, things just don't get much more yummy smelling: I used a winter grapefruit scent for these, which means that whoever ends up with today's free bar will have to practice great self-restraint and not eat the soap during shower time.


Thanks to Laura for coming across my blog and posting these giveaways on her nifty site.

So, ya want one of these bars? As usual, leave a comment to this post, and the winner will be announced Monday.

Have a great weekend, y'all. Mine promises to be rich in kid birthday fun, Halloween preparations and continuing on a (hopefully near-final) novel revision. And don't even GO there by reminding me that NaNoWriMo starts in just days.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

be afraid. be very afraid.

Sign-ups for NaNoWriMo begin tonight, and I'll be a first-time participant this year. I try to tell myself, "50,000 words in a month? Pthhh. No problem."

After all, that's only...you know...a little under 2,000 words per day. I mean, what could go wrong?


Other writers I know have done this, so I take heart in that. It will be a nice boost to my segue into writing for the Young Adult market anyway, since 50K is a respectable word count for YA/Middle Grade books.

In other news, hop on over to my friend T's blog and congratulate her on her GAZILLIONTH (or maybe it's the fourth with a deal for the fifth as well? Seems more like a gazillion from where I sit) novel to be published in Spring of '09.

This woman was my office mate in graduate school, hailing all the way from Vermont. I remember hearing about her first published book when I was pregnant with my first kid. It would have been a lasting case of professional jealously (rather than a relatively brief case) if she wasn't such a dad-gummed nice, lovely person in addition to being a kick-*ss writer. Not fair, but there you have it. (Oh, did I mention her photography? Seriously, don't hate her for being beautiful OR talented. She's way too nice for that.) If you haven't read her other books, such as Undressing the Moon and Breathing Water, I highly recommend them.

Way to go, T!!!!!Follow @nicole_mcinnes

gallows humor for writers

My crack-up of the day: While researching alternate terms for a character's demise, I came across this list of writerly euphemisms for death on DeathSlang.com:

Made the big deadline.
Taking minutes for the Maker.
Went to that big spell-checker in the sky.
"Lateral mobility."
The final Edit.
The eternal offsite assignment.
Documented the Big D.
Reformatted.

And my favorite...

Very, very passive voice.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

rough

April 23.

Snow coming down outside the window.

The book is beta-reader ready, more or less.

It's been a long, hard year.

I'm kinda happy and extremely tired.

Strangely, this describes my current mood pretty well.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

"I like your buttons."

Recommendation 1: Go see Blades of Glory, especially if you've gotten into the unfortunate habit of taking yourself too seriously lately.

Recommendation 2: Do not eat a large meal of Indian food beforehand.

I had a great birthday yesterday. It started with a call from Mom, a gift of flowers from a friend, and hugs and drawings from the kids. I did some spring cleaning, worked on the manuscript draft, which is coming along nicely (I met my goal of having something halfway-decent hammered out by the time another year turned over on the ol' odometer), and then got to enjoy some cake and ice cream before heading out to one of my favorite Flagstaff restaurants of all time - Delhi Palace - with my husband. The meal was awesome - tandoori-style meats, curry spicy enough to get the nostril hairs tingling, and, of course, one of my favorite carb vices: Naan (fried potato-ey, bread-y pancake-y things).

After gorging ourselves thusly, we rushed over to the theater, arriving just in time to see some of the upcoming summer movie trailers. It's going to be a good film season, methinks, considering the triple whammy of Shrek 3, Pirates 3 and Spider Man 3, all of which look like they're going to be excellent. So, then our movie began. Now, I will admit up front that I am a huge John Heder fan. I'm one of those people who "got" Napoleon Dynamite (and, thanks to my sister-in-law, I even have a "liger" sticker on my truck to prove it). I also enjoy Will Ferrell tremendously. The two of them together are almost too much for my brain and stomach to handle, and I mean that in a good way. Honestly, I don't think I've laughed so hard since watching Sinbad's show at Morehouse College called Brain Damaged, which used to air on the comedy channels all the time in the late 90's (my husband and I have tried to find a copy of it for years, to no avail). Seriously, Blades of Glory actually caused laughter-related pain, and afterward we both felt totally depleted, which is what I consider to be a quality movie-going experience.

So, now it's full-on spring, I'm officially not getting any younger, and I want to go outside and play with the kids and dog and cats and horsies and chickens...but first I need to get this book beta reader-ready. I could actually use one more really good snowstorm at this point as an excuse to chain myself to the computer for a couple more days. Barring that, I'll just have to draw the blinds, shutting out all that gorgeous sunshine for a little while longer.

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wherein I get the tiniest glimpse of what Simon Cowell’s mother must have experienced

Yesterday a cool thing happened at church: My son let his voice be heard loud and clear among all the other voices during singing. This may not sound like a big deal, but we attend a very small church (record attendance is 61 if memory serves – there were about 20 of us yesterday), and the songs are always sung without piano or other accompaniment. In a group that small every voice stands out, so I thought it was pretty brave of him. In fact, not only did our boy sing, but he followed right along with the words and music in the hymnal, even mastering most of the tricky pauses in songs like “How Great Thou Art” and “I am Resolved.”

So, naturally, on the drive home, I told him that I thought his singing was fantabulous.

There was a pause. Then, from the back seat, I heard, “Really? You think so? I thought it was sort of pitchy and all over the place.”

This may be a stretch, but I think there exists the slightest possibility that I’ve been letting him watch too much American Idol.

In other news, THIS IS IT. The final week of my writerly blitzkrieg with which I hope to accomplish the completion of my latest manuscript (or at least a half-decent draft) by the time I turn 37. So, please, ESP those thoughts, prayers and vibes of endurance. I need all the edge I can get.

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can't talk. writing.

Okay, maybe I can talk for just a minute. I've morphed into a composing machine, still intent on finishing this draft of the new novel by my birthday. I have two weeks. I like to think this means I'm "borin' with a big auger," as the cowboys say, but it may mean that I'm just delusional.

And speaking of things completely unrelated, please tell me that Barbie doesn't have a new dog named Tanner that poops little Barbie pet-sized loaves. Please tell me I was hallucinating when I walked by the television and saw the ad this morning. I mean, just don't even get me started here. First of all...Tanner?? Who would name a dog something that makes you think of taxidermy?Follow @nicole_mcinnes

tough flowers

As Mr. Groundhog predicted last month, spring has sprung early here on the prairie. I planted these crocus bulbs several years ago, in a little patch of hard, rocky soil next to our pump house. But they're tough little blooms ready to herald the arrival of the Vernal Equinox next week, and each year they prove that they won't be deterred from doing their job, despite lack of pampering. I like that in a flower.

And speaking of things resilient and beautiful, yesterday I got to see some old playgroup friends I haven't seen since before we moved to the Bay Area for our year-long sabbatical. For the first few minutes of our brief reunion everyone just stood around marveling at how much all the kids had grown. One of these families has been a part of our life since our son was just a year old, the other since our daughter was younger than that. And there's something about forming friendships as a new parent that must provide extra glue; although I haven't seen these women in well over a year, it felt like we just picked up where we'd left off. It's nice to know those bonds transcend the temporary convenience of early childhood play dates because Lord knows we moms have all been to H-E-double-toothpicks and back in various ways since playgroup unofficially disbanded a couple of years ago. I may not live in a mansion, and I may not drive a Rolls, but these women remind me that I am rich with friends-for-life friends.

In other news, I'm still laboring daily at a draft the new book, which is finally deciding to cut me some slack. In this respect it's a far cry from my last novel, which seemed to spring to life almost fully formed, like Athena from the forehead of her daddy, Zeus. I was on fire with that last one, writing more often than not in what felt like a state of near-effortless inspiration. Little did I know how cushy I had it. But I'm excited by this new book, and it seems somehow fitting, given the gritty storyline and characters, that I should have to sweat over it a little. My dad commented the other day that I must be as busy as a one-armed paper-hanger, which is a figure of speech I like (and may use).

That's all from the Western Front for now. Time for me to don the helmet and flak jacket (i.e. sit at my keyboard and open up the draft file) again, 'cause "I'm goin' in."Follow @nicole_mcinnes

beware the ides

This is a picture of our son's gelding yesterday - the last day of February - when I went out to feed the horses their dinner. Note the black, snowthunder sky before sundown.

While March didn't come roaring in as fiercely as it could have, I'm banking on that "out like a lamb" thing at the end of the month. 'Cause, Baby, it's COLD outside.

I probably won't be blogging as much as I'd like for the next few weeks, primarily because I've committed myself to finishing a working draft of the new novel before my early April birthday. I'm also swamped by my work-from-home work, which is a good thing.

Today I picked up some Luci Tapahonso books, both for research and enjoyment. She's a Navajo poet and fiction writer, more well-known now than she was over a decade ago when I first heard of her via my NAU office mate, who was basing her doctoral thesis on Ms. Tapahanso. So far, what I've read is lovely, and I wish I'd looked into her books sooner.

One thing that's keeping me plugging away at this draft is the carrot-on-a-stick thought that I'll be able to get back to reading for pure enjoyment when I'm done (as opposed to reading for enjoyment while simultaneously feeling guilty for not reading for research).

Another think keeping me going is the fact that, by the time April arrives, the geldings will have shed the majority of their woolly mammoth haircoats, and the days will be getting long enough to canter off across the prairie after my husband gets home from work to watch the kids.

Until then, though, I need to focus on wining and dining my muse as much as possible. Wish me luck in keeping that finicky gal happy until the the draft's wrapped up.

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