New strategy for fiction writing

I've been in a slump, recently, about getting the Frontier Team published. The Summer of Rejection really took it out of me. And I have some revisions that I'd like to make to Book 1, specifically to make the main character more vivid and recede the other characters a bit. So it seemed that I should hold off on trying to get it published until I made the revisions, and then I got paralyzed about making the revisions...and more rejections came in... you can imagine.

So, at least partly in response to the "too wholesome" criticisms I seemed to be receiving from the hip agents who were rejecting me, I started my own personal rebellion against wholesomeness: I started writing another book, a book that I had vowed to write when I was nine years old, in response to what I perceived to be (and what in many ways was) parental tyranny: My Father the Health-Food Nut. I've been thinking about rebellion for many years, and trying to make distinctions between the right kind of rebellion (acting on principle to create a condition proper to humankind even if social forces are against you) and the wrong kind of rebellion (stamping your foot and wailing because you don't like something). The kids in this book use the American Revolution as a guide in their quest for independence and self-determination.

So, thanks to encouragement from my writing buddy Adrienne, I decided to hold off on completing Frontier Team Book 2 until my Book 1 revisions were done, but I'm also writing this other book because it's a heck of a lot more fun than revisions.

Getting the oomph to make the Book 1 revisions was getting me down, though...couldn't seem to find it. But Ella, blessed Ella, might have saved me. She finally, finally, is interested in The Frontier Team. So we started reading it together today.

We finished Chapter 1. "More, more!" she cried excitedly.

We read Chapter 2. "Keep going, don't stop" Ella said again. We had to set it aside then, though; I thought I'd end it on a cliffhanger to keep her interested. It seems to be working.

And, reading it aloud is helping me see good stuff to cut.

As a matter of principle, the kids are not means to my ends, of course. But they do come in awfully handy sometimes.

Talking Hands and the Answer Swan

Ella has recently been doing what started as an impromptu shadow skit the other week, but which has become a regular feature of our bedtime routine: Talking Hands.

We do it in my bedroom: She turns off all of the lights and then turns on just the tiny reading lamp that David uses when I'm asleep. She projects that onto the wall and then uses her hands as shadow puppets: the Talking Hand family! The mom, the big brother, the little sister, and two dogs, Pinky and Ringo. You'd think that her skits would be like other kids of skits that kids make up: You know, the kind for which you paste on a smile while you're wincing inside. But actually, Ella is hysterical! I think she takes a page from Jim Henson in her characterizations. The brother is sneaky and always getting into trouble by locking his sister in the closet and lying to his mother about it, the little sister is by no means beleaguered; she takes the locking up with good humor and a healthy dose of revenge, and she loves to train the dogs. What's funniest is when Mom Hand finds out about the brother's nightly perfidy: Ella brings the mom hand closer to the light source so she is huge, and looms over the brother in size as the brother glumly accepts his fate.

I think this might have gotten started because of the Birthday of the Day, oddly enough. We review the Birthday of the Day in the morning at the breakfast table, and at dinner we see how much they remember (for every correct answer, they get a nickel). Well, when we ask a question at dinner (Question: What did Hank Williams die of? Answer: Drugs and alcohol), in the past the kids have almost fallen over themselves waving their hands wildly in the "pick me, pick me" manner of schoolkids. So we started trying to get them to be a little more graceful with the admonition to "Raise your hand like a swan."

Ella started doing complying, but with a twist: When she knows the answer, she makes a "swan" shape with her hand and forearm and starts gliding it around, opening and closing the beak. We've taking to calling her "Answer Swan" at these moments. (Madison mostly still forgets to be calm...we've taken to calling her "Answer Rocket" as her hand shoots up into the air.) Anyway, the Answer Swan looks a lot like the Talking Hand family that has now become a new tradition in our house during Comedy Hour...um...I mean bedtime.

Children of the electronic age

Madison had been wanting to call her friend Max all morning.

She did so a few minutes ago. It was a very short call.

From what David and I can piece together, apparently they decided that what they needed to communicate could be better done by email. Madison put the phone down and raced up to her computer.

Simply happy

The girls and I were talking about this past summer, and we all agreed it was the best summer ever. Not just because of the trip to Yellowstone, although that was cool beyond words. And not just because we did tons of other interesting stuff. And not because I got a lot of work done, progress made on lots of projects (though not fiction writing, so much). We had relaxed down time, too. We played tetherball. The kids didn't go to camp. Madison started flute lessons and joined the tournament team at karate. The weather was great, no heat waves at all...I think it got about 90 only once or twice the whole summer. Madison even wrote a poem about "my summer vacation" our first day back to official school, which was Wednesday.

I think it was the best summer ever because we have slid into a groove. A nice groove. No more moving (not for the next 10 years, I hope!), no more settling in, no more figuring out of career paths, Ella can read, and Madison has thoroughly gotten over the jittery period of age 5-7-or-8 where you never knew whether she was going to try to read too much into something and it would send her over the edge. There was less developing and more enjoying. We didn't do school, but of course we did the Birthday of the Day and everyone read every day and the girls wrote in their summer journals and we did the brainy talk that we always do that is full of our lives anyway. I can't think of any way that the summer could have been improved, aside from, you know, the political situation in the world beyond our four walls, which doesn't touch the girls' lives anyway.

Of course, ex-Catholic that I am, I have a tendency to project ahead into the future, which slightly mars the warm glow of this summer with the fact that it is ending. Maybe...probably... I will someday look at the misery around me and long desperately for sometime BEFORE... I'll long for the Summer of 2009, when the girls were young and I was still actively their mother and they were happy, happy, happy... before hormones kicked in and then they went to college, off to their own lives, and before I lost my purpose AIIIEEEEE. Let's not do that.

I mostly succeed at banishing these thoughts and living in the moment, especially when the moment has them snuggled up in my bed with me watching an old episode of Columbo on the laptop. Or when we're on the couch and they're listening raptly to me reading the Penderwicks. Or when we're playing 2-against-1 at tetherball.

Someday they will be big enough to beat me at tetherball. But not yet.

Madison is 10.

In this morning's weekly e-newsletter to my KOA list, I took a rare moment to indulge myself in public thoughts about Madison's birthday:

Ten years ago today, in the wee hours of the morning, something magical happened. After 21 hours of labor, during most of which I was elated that the baby would be born on 9-9-99, Madison May Ross made her long longed-for entrance into the world the morning of September 10, and my life was forever changed. I had had all kinds of romantic visions of what childbirth would be like, how spiritually uplifting it would be, how I would always tell the baby that her birth day was the most wonderful day of my life. Well, of course, that was one of those bubbles that burst with the living of it--all of us parents have them, many times over, I've since learned. That's okay, though. The actual living of her life is much more important than the details of her birth.

These milestone ages--double digits!--provide a handy reason to pause and take stock, don't they? I've been doing that this week. One of the secrets of parenthood that I've learned in the living of it these past 10 years, but which people in the media rarely say because it sounds so boring and practical, is that the parenting issues I prepare for in advance are the things that tend to work out best. If I think about what's coming up in the girls' lives, gather information about it, read about it, talk about it with others I trust, and ponder its implications deeply, I am able to align what I do with reality, with my child's unique nature, with my principles firmly in mind. The things that blindside me don't work out so well. So, like many parents, I try to think hard about and plan for the things that are mostly under a parent's control. I think minimally about the potential disasters that wake us mothers in 2am cold sweats, and use those times to remind myself of how fortunate I am to have these precious people in my life. And, of course, I try every day to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed--that's partly what KidsOutAndAbout.com is about, isn't it?--to show my kids that our goal is to make life as happy, healthy, and productive as possible. So, happy 10th birthday, Madison, my love, my life.

I try not to get too preachy in my newsletter. Yes, I feel that I have a lot of answers to questions that most parents aren't even asking, but hitting people over the head with brainy or strongly-worded opinions will only alienate them. Instead, I want people just to feel that my ideas ARE their ideas...I don't want them to think that *I'm* smart, I want *them* to feel smart when they read what I have to say. But of course what I'm saying, when you distill it to its essence, is rather extreme. THINK, people. PLAN. Align your goals with REALITY. Don't fly along by the seat of your pants just hoping everything works out okay. THINK LIKE HELL. Children are not simply means to your ends. It's your responsibility to see that they grow up happy and healthy and productive. Have principles, and stick to them.

Anyway, on the 10th anniversary of Madison's birth, I took the opportunity to indulge myself a little. And I got a couple of nice notes in response.

At the end, I also added a few comments about 9/11. Last year I forgot to do so, and a reader wrote in wishing I had recognized it. So today I wrote:

As everyone knows, tomorrow is September 11, the eighth anniversary of the tragedies in New York, D.C., and Pennsylvania. May I take a moment to thank, publicly, all of the people whose work keeps us safe? Police, firefighters, EMTs, and those in the military -- and, also, their families, who every day recognize the risks that their courageous loved ones are facing. The significance of the events of September 11 was driven home to me much more profoundly because I had children. So when I look at my girls and take solace in their safety, I remember the people much braver than I who are willing to put their lives on the line to keep our country safe and free. They deserve my gratitude. They have it.

Harry Potter Party

The big Harry Potter party was a success! I think everyone had a good time, no problems with the kids, no one felt left out or anything, I think.

Here was the itinerary, heavily influenced by the Great Lynne, who sent me a bunch of ideas from *her* HP party for her own daughter:

Sorting hat: Hand out cards saying which house you were in. This was important for the Quidditch game later.

Diagon Alley, Olivander's.: Wand decorating; Decorate a little pot for Herbology later

The Care of Magical Creatures: Hagrid's baby dragon egg hunt in the back yard

The Magic Guy (a smart-ass magician who's quite popular around here)

Potions: Make yourself a drink by mixing a potion from seven different ingredients: Orange soda, root beer, ginger ale, 7-up, grape juice, apple juice, V8 Splash

Time Turner: Personalize magic calendar (cute thing I got at Oriental Trading Company...a little calendar that had that black coating you can scratch off, revealing the rainbow colors underneath

Herbology: Plant some herbs in your new pot (thanks to my friends Will and Sue who took charge of this event!)

Professor Trelawny: Fortune Telling with the Magic 8 Ball (We didn't get to this! And I even got a Magic 8 Ball, too! But we love the Magic 8 Ball!)

Quidditch, Madison style (essentially Capture the Flag with two golden snitches I made from tennis balls sprayed gold)

Charms: “Habeas felicitatem in die natale sua." ("May you have happiness on your birthday." Got my friend who is a Latin scholar to give it to me precisely, and spelled out phonetically, too.)

Cake

A few photos:

Everyday activism moment

I had a really proud Everyday Activism moment today:

This morning, I drew the names of the winners of the vacation getaway packages I got venues to donate to KidsOutAndAbout.com for my big newsletter membership drive. It resulted, in the month of August, in about 500 new readers, which I think is pretty good!

And this morning I got to spread joy by calling up the various winners and telling them what they won (overnights in various fun locations driveable from Rochester). How excited and happy people were! But with one caller, the joy was mine, too. She told me that she'd been thinking of writing ME an email, because thanks in large part to the inspiration my newsletter has been providing her for years in small ways, she decided this summer to pull their kids out of school and homeschool instead. "You showed me that it can be done," she said. "I'm really looking forward to it."

Wow.

It's not that I actually advocate for homeschooling in the newsletter; I don't hit people over the head with it at all, I never make snide remarks about public schooling or anything. I don't even say explicitly how much I love it. I just highlight some of the great homeschooling resources in our community, and make no secret about the fact that we do it.

It works, fellow homeschoolers. Just be your happy, confident, normal selves, obvious contributors to the community. People will want to be you. And their kids will benefit.

And so homeschooling moves away from the fringe and more into the mainstream.

P.S. I just got a lovely compliment from the marketing director of one of the organizations I've been working with to bring SteveSongs here to Rochester later this month. She wrote: "You are the best "ball of fire" for this community! Don't ever move away!" I just thought I'd share. Everyday activism, even on this tiny scale, helps to keep my spirits up when sometimes it seems like the wider society is going to hell.