Telling the truth

About a month ago, I was sitting in a Marriott ballroom trying to explain to my husband that although he had been so sweet to fly up to Provo just to be with me for the Whitney Awards, and that although I had two finalists in the romance category, and that although I was eligible for three awards that night, he would not be hearing my name called.

I'd read all the books. I knew exactly who would win. I'd known from the minute I hit the halfway point in Carla Kelly's novel Borrowed Light that it would win. And I was right. 

So I've had a month to process the loss. Want to know how I feel about it?

A hundred percent fine. The woman who won the Whitney Award for Best Romance has studied and honed her craft over a couple of decades in the national market. It's obvious when you read Carla Kelly's book that she's got a clear grasp of storytelling, a deep love of history, and she marries those two things here to write an utterly enjoyable novel.

The reality is that my first two novels ever published were chosen as two of five finalists from a crowded field of romance novel nominees. That felt amazing. I admit that the only thing that bummed me out about losing is that I feel like Not My Type is one of the best things I've ever written, so if it didn't win then I'm not sure anything I do in the future will ever have a shot of winning, either.

But here's the thing: I was bummed for about a day. And by "bummed" I mean that I eventually consoled myself with an extra piece of chocolate and that pretty much cured me. It's hard to be bummed when you agree with the outcome of a decision. Borrowed Light deserved the win.

And just so you know, there are at least two dozen people who can tell you I was on record as saying it would win weeks before that awards ceremony ever happened, so this isn't me trying to be a good loser.

However, the whole experience just affirmed for me how much I appreciate what the Whitney Awards does in recognizing great fiction from LDS authors, and specifically for me, LDS fiction, which is sometimes a hard genre for a newcomer to navigate when trying to figure out who to pick up and read. It's not a perfect process: There were a couple of head scratchers, and I think a couple of categories were weaker than they should be, but that's utterly subjective. Who's to say that those books aren't all excellent but I just don't care for the genres, you know? So many of the finalists this year knocked me right out with how good they were.

Anyway, reading books for the Whitneys consumed all, and I do mean ALL, of my reading time from Thanksgiving until the beginning of April. But now I've had two months to pick up books I like all on my own and I'm about ready to make some nominations again for books that I believe deserve consideration in this year's nominating process. 

Which is all to say that I'm fixing to tell you about some good books I read, and that you should check them out. Also, if you've read something great from an LDS author then you can and should nominate them here. It's about a ten second process.

Also, this is a list based purely on what I've been able to get to so far, so no friends of mine better be getting in a snit about not seeing their books. If it's not here, I haven't read it yet, so chill RIGHT NOW.

In the always crowded YA category, here are some great contenders:

Becoming Bayley wins the award, hands-down, for the author who I could not for the life of me figure out why she wasn't published yet. Susan is a dang good writer, and this is a great story that I fully expect to see as a finalist this year in the YA general category. Strong, imperfect, lovable main character. Soccer. First love. Hard choices. Doing the right thing. Being bone-headed sometimes. Learning. Hot soccer guys. Really, what else do you need to know? 

Not going to lie: I don't do scary well. Hate scary books. Hate scary movies. And when Luisa Perkins asked me to blurb this book and I had to read it, I was like, CRAP. Because she's a friend and I couldn't say no, you know? And I'll be honest, I read Dispirited only in broad daylight and usually at the park where nothing could sneak up on me without me seeing it coming. And I can't even really describe this book but I'll say this: it does a great job of being creepy without being terrifying. I didn't have to sleep with my light on, but I thought about it often when I wasn't reading it. So what's it about? Er . . . k, try this: a kid mourning his mother figures out how to slip out of his body and let his spirit roam to find her. And then something awful locks him out of his body. For years. And then there's this new family with a sweet girl. And a mysterious disappearing and reappearing house. And her sense that something isn't right. And she's brave. And . . . all right, I can't explain it. It's an eerie, haunting, awesome read. 

If your 8 to 13-year-old hasn't discovered this series by Julie Wright and Kevin Wasden, let me do you the enormous favor of recommending it to you. My 12-year-old son loves these books and I jumped all over the chance to review this book because it's so FUN. Great illustrations and a wonderful story of kids traveling through space on a quest. I love the plot, the creatures, the adventures, the resourceful kids AND the present, trustworthy, COMPETENT adults who help them (such a rarity in middle grade fiction, it feels like). Seriously, your kid, boy OR girl, will love these books.

And now, for the grownups:

For the grownups, here's another debut author to keep your eye on. Krista writes with so much heart. This novel, like mine, is a bit escapist. But where my books are kind of citrus-y meringues on the dessert spectrum, this book is . . . oh, come on: look at the cover. This book is CHOCOLATE. It's not an airy confection like my work tends to be, but it's not one of those choke-a-horse death-by-chocolate-cake-slices either. This is a premium milk chocolate book. Which is to say it's about a girl (but a grown one) who has some unexpected people drop into her life, like an ex-flame and a wayward sister and a love-her-on-the-spot baby niece, and bad guys--drug-dealing bad guys, no less--and a dad who tried but didn't get it right but maybe he will now. So read this.

If you like mysteries, then you need to discover Josi Kilpack's Sadie Hoffmiller series if you haven't already. My mother-in-law loves them. But so do a bunch of my friends around here. And Banana Split takes Sadie on a hard emotional journey where your heart breaks for her. It's a different flavor than her other Sadie stories, but in my opinion--and I'm right about this, btw--it's Josi's best work in the series. And that's saying something because the rest of the series is great.

There's a growing list of books I haven't read but already suspect will be finalists this year too. And I'll get to them, believe me. Obviously, I focused in this post on releases this year from LDS publishers. I'll have to do a future one about stuff I'll be reading in the next two months that's non-LDS fiction by LDS writers. I imagine you're going to want to keep an eye out for work from authors like Jolene Perry and Jennifer Shaw Wolf and Kristine Tate.

And now, to sleep for a week

Your next chance to win TWITTERPATED is at the fabulous Donna Weaver's blog. Just hop on over and comment to win.


This weekend, I did the launch party for the book at my friend Brittany's house. Three different launch parties, three different experiences. 


Right off the bat I'm in a slightly odd situation compared to most LDS writers in that we are nowhere near an LDS bookstore. We don't even have an independent bookstore of any kind in town or anything, so I'm already in that "do something unconventional" place by default. 


My first book to come out was The List and my husband insisted that we do a BIG party. This made me nervous for a few reasons. My thing with parties: I love having them, I love entertaining, but I hate the rejection side of things. So to invite 100 people to something = massive potential rejection.


But he insisted. He was so proud of me and that book and he said that for the very first book at least, we had to do it up big. So I caught his enthusiasm and dove in. We rented the club house at our "beach club" (pool with a sandy beach next to the city lake) for my beach-themed book. We had a mocktail stand with signature drinks named after the characters. We had a massive buffet of marinated chicken threaded onto skewers for hours by my aunt Linda who flew in from Illinois just to help with the party, and grilled by the long-suffering Brittany who had no idea what she had volunteered for. We had all kinds of other tasty food, giveaways, a cake with the book cover on it thanks to my MIL and Aunt Beth, and we had coordinated table cloths and tropical decorations, beautiful tropical floral centerpieces, and on and on and on. I had friends drive in from all over to help or attend. The faraway LDS bookstore sent someone down to sell the books.


My husband's band played. People ate and partied. It was awesome.


It was also incredibly stupid from a financial standpoint, but we knew that going in. I only sold maybe 25 books, although we had over seventy people there throughout the evening. It's not like a couple needs TWO. The party was just a celebration of some years of sacrifice of time and sometimes sanity at our house while I went through the publication journey. While WE went through the publication journey. It cost us a lot of money and we didn't mind one single penny of it because that wasn't the point.


Book two . . . definitely wanted to do something on a much smaller scale. But I still wanted it to be fun and worthwhile and easy for people to get to. So I approached the manager of the local Nothing Bundt Cakes (which if you haven't discovered them, don't, because I hate cake but these are dangerously good), and asked about doing a launch party there. It's a quaint little shop and had plenty of sidewalk space out front to set up a temporary cafe where people could hang out and visit. I also partnered with my critique partner, Kristine Tate, who had just released her first self-published book. We borrowed cute cafe tables and table cloths, made a few treats, put together a couple of giveaways, and then gave everyone a little bundtini when they bought a book. 


Great attendance. I worried a lot less about the rejection thing because I was with someone else. It cost way less. People had fun. They loved the shop. The shop owner was thrilled with the traffic and potential new business. It cost us nothing to use the shop and it cost her nothing to let us use it, plus we bought $75 worth of cake from her, not to mention that lots of our book customers also picked up a little sumpin' sumpin' from the bakery case to take home to the family. We also did it on a Thursday night to avoid conflicts with too many church meetings and billed it as a girls' night. I sold 23 books, I think, and Kristine sold even more. (Hers cost $5 less, which helped.)


And then it was time for the third book, and I was so burnt out. Not just from book launches. Book everything. Outside of family stuff, 90% of what I do is eat, breathe, and sleep reading and writing, and pretty much all of it is obligatory right now. A book launch felt obligatory too. I was convinced my local friends were burnt out on my book launches coming as they were every six months. But I wanted a way for my local friends to get a copy of the book for cheap without having to pay the shipping, and to be able to get it signed. It's fun to have books signed by people you know. 


I finally was like, "All right, I'll do it because I know I have an obligation to promote this book, but I'm too wiped to do it anywhere else but my house." HAHAHA. This is way more work and stress if you think about it. But anyway, Brittany stepped in and was like, "No, I'll host it." Which worked out for a lot of different reasons.


We did it on a Saturday night because that's what worked for her schedule. I had mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I figured I'd have a whole day to get everything ready. On the other hand, I had a feeling lots of people would already have other commitments. I insisted on making most of the food because I hate putting people out on my behalf. And I did a lot of the decorations too (with the help of my mother-in-law and her tireless Cricut) for the same reason. And I spent too much money on all of it. And about twenty people came. I'm pretty happy with that number, but even though what's I predicted, I have this pathological thing about making sure that not only is there enough to eat, but that's there something for everyone to like. I rarely show up to a potluck with less than two dishes. I can't help it. Where I grew up, it's considered the height of tackiness not to have enough food for people and I always way overdo it.


I had blue cheese-stuffed bacon wrapped dates that Kenny and I pitted and stuffed and wrapped. We had hummus, guacamole and artichoke dips with assorted crackers, chips, etc. I made pecan praline fudge and a broccoli slaw salad. I bought three different kinds of treats from Trader Joe's and chocolote-covered acai berries from Costco. I had sodas. My critique partner Kristine made homemade cream puffs. And Brittany made these insanely cute sugar cookies shaped and colored like the birds on my book cover. And I sold fifteen books, and only nine of the new one.


So it begs the question: why do a book launch? It's what you have to ask yourself before you do one. What's your goal? To sell books? Then don't do it my way. You'll never, ever make back what the parties cost you.


But the thing is, that's not why I do the launch parties. I do them because I know the friends who really want to celebrate will come, and it's worth doing the parties for them. They help me feel loved and appreciated and I feed off of their excitement for the new book. So it's worth doing the parties for me. (I'll admit, I do overspend on these things still because of my Louisiana-bred FEED EVERYONE AND NEVER RUN OUT genetic issues, but I do it out of my book earnings now so the guilt is pretty minimal.)


I am totally trashed now. Not the drunk kind of trashed. The tired kind. I also hosted a book club at my house Saturday morning and a family birthday party for my little girl yesterday. Today is a down day where I'm just coping, you know? But now reflecting on everything, I think the right approach for me to doing a book launch is choosing somewhere free that is NOT my house or a friend's house and doing an event there. It makes the most financial sense and it's the least stressful for me and my friends. Also: definitely partnering with someone else and their book whenever possible. But now I know. 


And now for pictures of the three launches in order:

The List, local beach club (it's really a beachy-looking pool)

 Not My Type, cute little cake shop, joint launch with Kristine 

Twitterpated, at Brittany's super chic house

Tell Me Who I Am

I contributed an essay to a book. Two, actually. It's a book with fifteen other peoples' essays, too. It's a book about being Mormon. But the parts we don't always hear about. And with essays that may not even use the word "Mormon." It's a book about the Mormon experience sprinkled with vomit (a lot, I think), jokes, jokes, jokes, touches of grace, more jokes, and maybe a little . . . enlightenment. For we who are Mormon. For we who are not but have always been curious about whether those of who aren't Mormon can fundamentally connect with those of us who are. We do, I think. On so many things.


This book will mostly make you laugh. But also probably cry. In a couple of places, laugh until you cry. Think, for sure. Relate, definitely. Occupy the here and now and be totally and completely present as you read it--yes. That, too.  


I'm totally going to cheat and copy this from Becca Wilhite's explanation because it is a good one: A bunch of us  (bloggers, writers, thinkers, people, Mormons) we put some words together. Some funny words. Some sad words. Some thoughtful words. Words that we use to describe ourselves. To explain ourselves. To share who we are.

Telling, sharing, explaining who we are can be a crazy-difficult undertaking. But when we do it together, people can see sides of us, facets, that we didn’t even know how to show. So if you’re interested, you can pick up our words. Right over there, to the left, there’s a Paypal button. That button is the Official Early Order one – where you can get 30% off the after-March-10th price (which will be $15, I’m pretty sure.) 

Contributors, in the order DeNae has us listed on her website: Melanie Jacobson, Luisa Perkins, (me), Ken Craig, Annette Lyon, DeNae Handy, Debbie Frampton, Jana Parkin,Karen Burton, Patrick Livingston, Stephanie Sorensen, Cari Banning, Christopher Clark, Josh Bingham, Michelle Budge and Gideon Burton.

So there you go. And you really should go. Click the Paypal button, I mean. I plan to keep mine on my nightstand and explore these essays on Sundays when I experience being Mormon more keenly and at a more metacognitive level than I do on other days. (Sometimes, anyway. Sometimes I feel like that on an otherwise ordinary Thursday. Or Tuesday. Or any time.) And then I know I will sneak back to it and read funny and witty and wise and achy things on other days of the week because the thoughts here are just that good. And well-written.


But wonderful book aside, I have many things to tell you guys. Every day I compose blog posts in my head about the funny or odd or poignant things I see or think or feel. But I can't figure out where to carve the time from days as they now unfold to sit and write them. I'm also often wrung out from the writing and revising I do constantly as it is. I don't want to think about choosing and stringing together words for even one more second, one more word. Definitely not for a whole blog post. 


But . . . I miss this space. And I see a little give in my schedule coming up that may allow me a bit more to be here more, and in your blog spaces more. But in the interests of staying sane, I'm keeping my expectations low and doing what I can for the moment so I don't stretch myself any thinner.


Do I sound like an emotionally exhausted crazy person? I thought so. Don't worry; this introspection is purely and totally the fault of the 8 oz of Diet Dr. Pepper that I drank too close to bed time last night, thus causing me to suffer lack of sleep, thus causing me to be kind of blah today. I am about to go experience the wonderful restorative powers of a good book and a nap. Then I shall be chipper, etc. 


Also, the chocolate I'm about to consume can only help. 

Missing Mom

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my mom's death. I spent it helping out at a funeral. I didn't know if that was going to be okay. It totally was. It was a good thing to do. I stand in a room full of mourners now and I look around and I know, "I am one of them." I am not separate or apart. I have been there. I understand. 


It was a good day to remember my mom, the kindnesses of others during that time, and to take the morning to pay it forward. 


In remembering her, in thinking about this somber anniversary, I had two small breakthroughs. One will sound dumb to you, but it told me some interesting things about me. Yesterday would have normally been a day where I would decide I had an excuse to overindulge in either food or shopping. "This is a sad anniversary. I think I'll eat a bunch of crud." Or "This is a sad anniversary. I'll buy new shoes to cheer me up." But I didn't have time to do that. Because I was busy helping others. And it felt better than new shoes or pigging out would have. And just like that, in a rough moment, I walked away from two emotional crutches I've leaned on heavily in the past. It wasn't even conscious; those things just didn't matter as much as the other things that needed doing.


I had another realization, too. I wondered what my mom would have thought about my big announcement on Monday. My dad would have been busting buttons and telling everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, that his daughter has an agent, that she's a writer, etc and so on. But my mom wouldn't have. She would smiled and rubbed my arm. And if I said, "I learned how to make bread," she would have smiled and rubbed my arm. And if I said, "I made honor roll," she would have smiled and rubbed my arm. Because it was all the same to her. In a good way. She was not more proud of me when I did more impressive things. She just loved me, whatever level I was at. "Mom, I won the Nobel Prize in Literature." She'd still just smile and rub my arm.

I keep a bookmark in my scriptures with her picture and obituary on it. James stole the one I used to keep upstairs. I read it to him, and we talked about her and shared a couple of memories. The conversation wandered to memories of other things. He wanted to know the funniest thing he'd ever done. He wanted to know about the time he was really sick when he was little. And so on.


It was good to talk about stories from our family. It was good to reminisce and remind us both of where and who we came from. I like that something little every day can become part of my story. I believe so much that our stories matter, that when we share them we grow closer. Stories connect us. 


I used to run a scholarship competition for 8th graders. I organized it for a simple reason. Yes, it gave them experience in essay writing and resume writing and interviewing. But more importantly, it taught them that the winner wasn't the kid with best grades; it was the kid who could tell their story best. That's who the judges connected to and awarded a scholarship to, every single time.


I know you've heard about the Story at Home Conference March 9-10. The info has been floating all over the internets lately. Check it out. It's sponsored by Family Search and Cherish Bound. I'd look hard at the schedule; there are so many great storytelling tracks, for people who think they aren't born storytellers. Guys, it's cool. Super cool.


Go. 

C'est la vie

It's funny how life is so full of highs and lows. I think whichever one you find yourself in, the trick is to hang on. You either have to soak up every last second of the good times or grit your teeth and tough out the bad times, and those are the times where all you can do is hang on to hope.


I guess it has to be like that. Or maybe it doesn't. Maybe we could be perfectly happy in and of ourselves except that sometimes we're forced to live with the consequences of other people's mistakes and in those moments it's hard to be happy. So maybe it doesn't have to be good and bad. But it IS good and bad. So we have to deal.


I remember the insight that changed my life. I was a teenager. And someone said something about that scripture (it's probably not even a scripture and I don't feel like Googling because I want to pretend it's a scripture even if it isn't) that says, "This too shall pass." And I had this realization that there were things that had seemed earth-shattering the year before when I was fifteen that by sixteen had become no big deal at all. And now twenty years on, I can't remember anything that was a big, bad deal when I was fifteen. I remember some fun stuff, though. And that's a lesson.


It's one I've been able to cling to when I've been in the very lowest troughs. It can't last forever. Einstein proved it with a mathematical formula, I think. At any rate, reminding myself of that makes the challenge of the moment more get-through-able.


I'm braced for the onslaught of messages and comments. "What's wrong? Is everything okay? Can I help?" The answers: I'm not going to tell you, No, and No. But I would also add I have lots of help, the best kind of help. I also have lots of hope. I am not sick. No one is dying. I think we're dealing with something fixable. I'm married to the best man I've ever known and it makes everything doable. He is my rock.


But I appreciate your worry. I feel better venting this tiny bit of steam. And now I'm going to walk into the kitchen and engage in the hundred little repetitive things I do every day that someone how right now make me feel so much better. And I will be fine and on my way to getting finer.


And also, I will probably spend some quality time with Veronica Mars and a pile of clean laundry and that will help tremendously, too

I remember

I'm a defiant person. I am obstinate and contrary. And when terrorists told me that were going to change the way we did things forever, I said, "Screw you." That's what I do. Shortly after 9/11, I had to fly into Denver for business. The airports were virtually empty except for armed National Guardsmen with their submachine guns slung across their chests.


But I marched through the airport defiantly, glad to take my shoes off to clear security, glad to be one of the few people straggling through the eerie climate of the post terrorist attack airports. No sick, warped terrorists were going to scare me. No way would I let them win. 


It's one way to do it, I guess. 


But last year I met Sally. She was the primary president in our new ward. She's a tall, quiet woman with a soft voice and sweet smile. She has two neat teenage sons. She is kind and humble and you would never know how fiercely intelligent and accomplished she is if someone else didn't tell you. And she greets the whole world with guilelessness, such openness of spirit, that you would never know her brother was on the first plane that crashed into the first tower ten years ago, that crash that made the whole world gasp at once.


I remembered that today when our stake president stood in conference to address this anniversary and honor the fallen. Immediately I wondered how Sally was doing. Then several people were asked to share their testimonies. One elderly gentleman spoke of how the gospel has sustained him through sixty-four years of marriage. One woman spoke of a funny missionary experience in rural Ohio. Another man spoke simply of his gratitude for Jesus Christ. And then Sally's husband stood and talked about this very tender day for them, and of the love they had for the prophets and apostles who reached out to her as a young mother to stand in comfort when she needed comfort in the fog of those days after the towers collapsed and took her brother with them. I think of what I've seen in her in the year that I've known her, her graciousness and lightness of spirit, her simple testimony of her Savior, her surety that she'll see her brother again. And she goes on living the gospel, because nothing that happens makes it less true and so she just keeps on following Christ.


And I think that's the better way to do it.

Thankful Thursday

Dear Mrs. Herring,

You're probably dead, I know. You were old twenty years ago and the cigarettes were aging you exponentially even back then.

You were the coolest teacher I ever had. When they talk about "old broads" they mean you.

I remember how mad I was that you wouldn't put me into Honors English because I was new to the school and you didn't know anything about me. And I'm so glad the guidance counselor had the foresight to put me in your advanced English class so we could feel each other out.

I still remember the little glances that you would shoot me when you started to catch on to who I was. Even then, I believed in myself. I wouldn't pretend that I wasn't as good as I was at doing the two things I loved best: reading and writing. You nurtured that. You had me doing the honors work by the second week of school.

When you rearranged my schedule to move me into journalism without telling me, I was taken aback. But honored. Honored that you thought I could do it. I hope I did it. Even when I wrote that article about how everyone should wear denim jumpsuits to prom and half the school didn't realize it was a joke. Thanks for laughing.

I loved your stories of meeting and learning from Robert Frost and Allen Ginsburg. I was awed.

I hope you had a comfortable retirement. I hope you spent long days reading books and smoking, damn the consequences. I hope you know that because of you, I felt really seen, a minor light in a bright constellation, but a light nonetheless. My own light. A light you fueled.

Thanks for teaching, Mrs. Herring. We need more like you.

Love,

Melanie Bennett (Jacobson)

City Lights

Just yesterday I was looking down over the hive of Times Square in New York and thinking how ironic it is that the busiest part of Manhattan holds the fewest New Yorkers. It's mostly tourists and the vendors who hawk their cheap souvenirs to them that fill the streets. Pretty funny stuff.


I got back today. It was heaven to hold hands with my husband and take big gulping whiffs of my kids. But Kazzy's husband, formerly Professor Burton to me, posted a quote on Facebook today that best sums up my experience. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." — Mark Twain (The Innocents Abroad/Roughing It) 




Now, I know it's true that all profound words ever spoken in the history of mankind before 1950 are attributed to the same four men: Abraham Lincoln (anything about justice), Winston Churchill (anything about courage) and Ben Franklin and Mark Twain (anything pithy and clever). But that quote sounds exactly like Mark Twain.


Anyway, it says better than I can the exact thoughts that had been running through my head through my whole four day trip. Even as I spent a few days with my old college girlfriends preoccupying ourselves with eating and shopping, my mind kept expanding in spite of itself.


It's uncomfortable sometimes. But I'm coming back from vacation more charged up than ever with ideas about things and people and time and art and culture. And my contribution and my gain.


I love New York.

Siss-boom-bah!

I'm confused.

The girl down the street, an eighth grader, is a competitive cheerleader. As in, she's on a squad. She goes to competitions. She takes tumbling classes to improve her performance. But she doesn't cheer for any team. The squad is sponsored by a local cheer coaching gym or something like that.

I kind of get this. If she's investing all this time and energy into cheer because she eventually wants to make the high school squad, I can see it. In fact, I asked her mom if she would be trying out to be on the the freshman squad.

"Maybe." 

Apparently, you can't be on both. If she cheers for the high school, which has actual teams, she can't cheer on her club squad. So she thinks she might rather stay on the club squad. Which doesn't cheer for anything. They just put on their cheer uniforms and go to competitions where they cheer against other cheerleaders who also do not have teams.

I do not understand this. Someone please explain the point. And let me clarify, I support cheering as a sport just like I do gymnastics. I like watching the national high school and college competitions on ESPN. But those cheer squads all have teams they cheer for during their athletic seasons.

I'm trying to figure out the concept of cheer squads that just cheer . . . because? 

I don't get it.

Q-tips, please.

Some people call it karma. In our family, we call it earwax.


When my father-in-law was a kid in school, he noticed that the boy in front of him had a bunch of earwax in his ear so he teased him. Then guess what happened? The very next day, my father-in-law had earwax coming out of HIS ear. And now he doesn't tease people any more. I haven't heard him tease anyone the whole time I've known him.


But that's beside the fact. We're talking about earwax. Or karma.


A few months ago, I read a book from an author I like. And I was kind of let down by what I would term a little bit of the "sloppiness" I found in this book. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't as good as it should have been. Or as good as I've known her to be. There were little things, like metaphors that were too forced, words that were repeated that didn't need to be, slightly clunky dialogue tags. But it was distracting to me sometimes.


I mean, really, is it so hard to double check for some editing basics?


Ha.


HA HA.


I just read through what's called a press copy for my first novel. It's where it's all typeset exactly like it's going to look on the page. I was equal parts elated and horrified. Elated because it's one more step toward holding my very own real book in my hands. Horrified because it was riddled with mistakes. And here's the thing: I have read through it at least six times, start to finish. At least five other people read through it and pointed out mistakes. My EDITOR went through it. And still, there were mistakes. Not even grammar things or typos. Just stuff like using the word "wobbled" twice in two pages. Or overusing the word "just" even though I took a bunch of them out. Or saying something like, "She felt like the feeling in her legs was gone." (Or something similar and almost as bad.)


It's the kind of thing most readers won't notice. But I will notice. Most other writers will notice. It's mortifying.


But it's kind of a done deal on some of this stuff at this point. So I guess I'll just deal with it and learn for next time.


But man, earwax sucks.

Free toaster with purchase

What to do, what to do?

Actually, I know what I'm going to do. I just wonder if I'm crazy.

I'm a writer. (You've seen my header, right? This shouldn't come as a surprise.) And my first book is about to come out. And there are hundreds of people/blogs/articles out there telling writers how to promote their books, how to get them out there, lalalalalala.

Conventional wisdom says: start a blog, build a readership, get them to buy your book.

Hm. 

I started a blog. I built a readership. And then . . . that turned into relationships. And for the same reason I'm not going to hit you guys up to come hear about a great new business opportunity at my house, I kinda don't want to pitch my books to you.

Don't get me wrong. You'll hear all about them. I know a lot of you as my friends are going to be excited about my book and want to read it and I love you for it. I'll ask a lot of you to review it or post it about it on your blog. 

But what conventional wisdom also says is that I should be running around trying to make a lot of new blog friends so that THEY will want to buy/advertise my book for me too.

And I can't do that. I just can't. This blog has become a space for me to hang out with people I enjoy. Of course I'm going to do some giveaways and be all excited about my book and talk about it often for a while . . . but it's not really the point of my blog anymore. 

Honestly, if we saw each other in real life all the time and every time I saw you I was blabbering on about an amazing XYZ product you HAD to buy and it's all I ever talked about, it would get a little old, right? I have friends who do network marketing and are excited about their stuff (Avon, Scentsy, etc.) but it's not the ONLY thing we talk about. 

My blog isn't going to be all about my book. It'll be lot about my book for a little while because that's major in my life right now and I"ll focus on that the same way I fixated on getting our new house or having baby Eden, but that's just because it's a natural part of what I'm doing. I can't bring myself to be all like, "Help me get to 200 followers and I'll do this fantastic thing for you!"

I like having people come here who want to be here because we're at least slightly kindred spirits. So I don't think I'll do any contests where it's about trying to get more followers/readers. I mean, sure, I'll probably do something with a component where I can give someone more chances to win if they post about my book on their blog, but with the intention of getting more readers for my BOOK, not my BLOG, if that makes sense.

And then when the craziness of this book launch dies down in a while, this blog will still be my happy space, the place it's always been.

I don't have any issue with authors using their blogs to market their books. It's when they suck you in under false pretenses and then suddenly they're selling you something. You know, like if you went to lunch with a friend and then suddenly they started pulling out flip charts and rattling on about magnetic balance bracelets and how you should buy some and sell them to your friends. And then you're sitting there like, "What the heck? I thought we were hanging out?"

I don't know. I'm being weird about this, I'm sure.  And I realize I'm thinking out loud.

But it's my blog. That's what it's here for. :)

I want the box of 64 with the sharpener!

We've been picking paint. Lots and lots of paint.

One wall in James's room will be red. "Red Delicious" is too dark for him and "Candy Apple Red" is too bright, so I'm trying to find the one shade exactly in the middle that he'll like. That has resulted in splashing Quite Red and Ruby Ring on the walls.

For the bathroom, we want a spa feel so we have shades of brown ranging from Pumpernickel Bread to Mocha Latte.

Grant's room was easy, a nice bright shade called Marina Blue.

Eden's room gets tricky again. We're doing two shades of pink split by a chair rail. So far we've tried Lauren's Lullaby, Colonial Rose, Deep Dusty Rose, Temptress, Morning Blush, and Sweet Baby Girl among others. Many others.

And we're just touching up the front room and hallways, but who knew there were so many names you could call white?

My head hurts already and we haven't even bothered figuring out what we're going to paint the kitchen. Right now it's a violent red color courtesy of the previous owners and it totally clashes with the cabinets (which will be repainted a soft white called "Swiss Coffee") and the granite counter tops. I know the walls will be some kind of neutral and I'm sure it will be called something like Sole of a Foot or Coppertone Self Tanner or some other nonsense. 

It occurs to me that maybe my creative talent is wasted on being a novelist. I should be a paint color namer. For example, let's take gray. Gray? Gray? I spit on the word "gray." No. It should be more like "Dirty Old Spoon" or "Slide Bolt on My Garage Door." Now that tells you what color you're dealing with, right?

And yellow. Hah. How about "Raw Egg" or "Yellow Snow?" Much more helpful and descriptive, n'est-ce pas?

Let's play a game. I'll give you two colors and you give me your best color names. Winner gets a cool prize, specifically a book. You can choose between The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt or My Fair Godmother by Janette Rallison. If you've read both of those, then I'll find something you haven't read. And if you hate books, then . . .

You are a sad, sad person but I will send some sort of candy that won't melt en route, okay?

Here are the two colors. Take your best shot:

Happy Friday, y'all.

Hello, mellow.

Clarification: I'll still be posting. Just not so . . .longly. (See? I'm already struggling to come up with real words. We don't need pages-long posts from me at this stage in the pregnancy. We also don't need 8000 posts on my pregnancy which is pretty much all that's on my mind.)

I am looking at a living room that is in the very vortex where chaos and panic intersect. It's drowning in pink tulle and daisy spangled rompers with a dash of whatever food Grant threw down from his high chair when he was done. 

I'm trying to reorganize all the lovely bags of goodies people gave us for baby Eden into categories and piles that make sense, but preparing for a little girl is definitely different than getting ready for a boy. There's pink. SO much pink. I kind of love it, but it's foreign.

Anyway, in light of the billion details that still need tending to before this baby girl gets here (washing car seat covers and bouncy chair cushions and piles and PILES of new clothes), I think I'm not going to knock myself out over any blog posts if they aren't just coming to me magically. Today, one is not.

Life is good and full. At the moment, I'm just living in it and enjoying it and going with it--but not so much thinking about it. This is an excellent way to live, for me, but it's not so good for blogging since I recently pointed out that I'm a slice of brain blogger and lately I'm not thinking about much. When I get to thinking, I get to writing. Mainly, I'm just chillaxin' (as Crash might say). 

I'll be commenting as much as ever at your blogs, but unless something (or someone) really ticks me off or amuses me over the next while, I may not have much more to say than, "Hi. Still here. Mkay. Catch you later."

And here's how I know I've grown as a blogger: I realize that that's totally okay.

Eat with fava beans and chianti

Every blogger (or nearly so) seems to go through these periodic reflective spells where they do this meta-musing on what their blog is all about. Am I a lifestyle blogger? A humor blogger? Do I specialize in snarking? (Yes, I made up my own word. Is there a problem?)

It's normal. We do this same kind of reflecting about everything, probably. I went through this mini-blog identity crisis when I first started. You can kind of see it in the domain name of my blog. "Read and Write Stuff." Of course, mostly I just focus on the writing stuff part.

In the beginning, I thought I would blog about my writing journey and review books that I read. That lasted for a couple of months but I discovered quickly that as much I love both reading and writing, I can say only so much about writing and then I'm ready to move on. It's just not something I can talk about all the time. Sometimes, yes. But not for a year-and-a-half. Reading I could talk about forever, but I have a book group and Goodreads for that.

I got to thinking about this whole identity thing a couple of weeks ago when I think some of you wandering by thought I was having one of these blog identity crises. It was due to a post I did about how I feel guilty that I'm too shallow to spend much time on some of the deeper, richer blogs out there. Several commenters seemed to think that meant that I was thinking I felt I needed to get deeper and . . . stuff. A lot of you were like, "No! Please, continue to be shallow! We need more shallow in the world!"

Never fear. If you fall into deep waters around here, consider it a cosmic accident. Swimming in deep water is neither typical nor intentional on my part in my blog or life. I DO spend quite a bit of time in deep doo doo, but that's typical (although also not intentional). It's also literal more often than I'd like.

Anyway, I know my category and I know it well. I'm not a lifestyle blogger (and we'd be in a lot of trouble of I was. I'll post pictures of my house some time so you can see how much this would be a BAD idea) or a mommy blogger in the sense that I don't really focus on my kids (IN MY BLOG!). And I'm not a reviewer although I'll tell you when I love something. For example, I could tell you where to find some great lifestyle, mommy, and review blogs that I LOVE and read daily. And maybe I will later this week.

Maybe the closest is to say I'm a slice of life blogger. But I thought about that label and realized it didn't fit either so I found exactly the right one: I'm a slice of brain blogger. I just pluck out a cross section of my brain and plunk it down and it is what it is. This blog is my place to spew all the things that I had a talent for writing but no forum to write it in. And the comment box is my personal network of kindred spirits who stop by and confess to being equally crazy.

I love that I can find whatever I want in Blogland. I daily visit slice of lifers, funny ladies, deep thinkers, diligent mothers and reviewers. But for me, it's enough to have a space to dump out the random thoughts that regularly dart across my mental television screen like snippets of the sitcom that is my life or a sound bite from the arguments that occur when my multiple personalities gather in their own version of The View to bicker about . . . whatever.

Thanks for hanging in my neighborhood.

Out to Lunch

I will turn very few sugar-based foodstuffs away. If it's made with sugar, dipped in sugar, and then sprinkled with sugar, bring it on. If there's also some sort of cream involved, serve me a double portion. But sometimes...


Sometimes something is so rich and so amazing that a very small portion of it is all I need.


I know some blogs like that. And I've been thinking about them lately. They are beautifully written by wonderful ladies, but when I visit, in general I have to skim or I'm overwhelmed by the richness. Then I'm off to drink my fill of other frothier confections.


I see this as a failing on my part. I've tried to figure out why some of the most honest blogs out there are a hard place for me to be. I'm not talking about the ones that are trying to wring your tear ducts out on a daily basis. That's not real. Those are the same folks who assume anyone crying in testimony meeting when they talk  is feeling the Spirit. Not so. That sniffling is just me, begging for you to STOP. TALKING. NOW.


No, the rich blogs I'm talking about often take on hard or difficult things. Just as often, though, they take on sweet and tender things. But it's still hard for me to go there regularly or stay there long. I'm in the minority. I know because they've got boxes overflowing with comments and followers fist fighting in the sidebar widget to be top dog. 


I've thought about why those blogs are hard for me. I love fantastic writing, which is a hallmark for these bloggers. I love honesty. They are all honest. 


And it took a while but I figured it out. These ladies are very PRESENT in their lives.


I am not. In my life, I mean.


Sometimes I am. But it's not the default setting for my personality. Unless I'm absorbed in a book, I'm either doing two things at once or doing one thing but thinking about the other that I should be doing and I'm not, or thinking about what I'm going to do next. Playing with my kid, making dinner, watching TV. Doesn't matter. It's how my brain works.


I've always been that way. It's made me incredibly effective in certain situations. Trust me, whatever job you're trying to fill, you'll want me doing it. But in doing the mom job...it's not actually an asset. 


I think I like a little distance from my life. I filter everything through an intellectual lens. Sometimes things slip through to my emotional filter, but rarely. I like to examine everything with a buffer between me and it, no matter what the experience is it. If it's at all emotional, I need a safety zone that may not ever be breached. My buffer is usually either logic or humor. They work well for me.


Mostly.


But as I examine this phenomenon of keeping this safe distance from me and things in my life, I wonder. . .


Maybe this is one of those times when a strength has become a weakness because it drives me to limit my exposure to anything that might push me out of my emotional comfort zone.


I'm going to have to think about this. You know . . .pick it apart, analyze it. Logically. 


Of course.

Live and learn.

I was watching So You Think You Can Dance the other night, because uh, see last week's post about TV.

Anyway, there was this one guy with a total hard luck story. His mom was a drug addict and he was born addicted. He grew up in a tough neighborhood full of gang members and prostitutes. His mother couldn't take care of him so his aunt raised him. He was hoping dance would be his escape route from poverty.

Sad story. And yet . . . something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

Fast forward toward the end of the show and a cute young blonde girl about to take the stage. Turns out she had just found out the day before on the drive down to the audition that her grandfather passed away. She danced anyway. She danced her little her heart out, and if it wasn't the most elegant dance of the night, it was certainly the most heartfelt. Her face shone and she said something about she had always liked the words to her song, but now they told a story. She cried, because who wouldn't, but it wasn't self-pitying. She set her chin in determination, and with a smile, said she figured her grandfather had really just tried to guarantee himself a front row seat.

She gripped me in the way the guy with the earlier sad story didn't. I thought about it for a while and then I figured it out. The first case was a guy who was defined by his tragedy. The second case, the girl, was defined by her reaction to her tragedy.

I thought about it again when I was flipping through pictures in my Facebook album and I ran across this one from our last family reunion three years ago:

See that grumpy looking guy in the middle in the white shirt? The one I'm standing behind? That's my Pawpaw. He laughed all the time but he rarely smiled for pictures. To his left in dark green is my dad. Above him to my left is my mom. I'm surrounded on three sides by some of the dearest people in my life in this picture.

In six months, all three of them were dead. We didn't know this picture would be two months before my dad's first episode of respiratory failure. Or that a week after that we would find out that my mom's breast cancer had returned after four years and it was stage four. We didn't know that my dad would die six weeks before my wedding or that my mom would die a month after that. Or that my Pawpaw would die of a completely unexpected heart attack the day after that.

For the first year, I won't lie: it really did define me. I was the girl who'd become an orphan at 32. I was the girl who had buried her father, gotten married, and buried her mother and favorite grandfather in less than three months. I almost couldn't keep from spewing it out to everyone who said, "Hello."

But now . . . I think it's become more about how I've moved past that.

No, that's not right. Those experiences are a permanent part of me. But they're not an anchor holding me back. They're just part of the fabric of me, something that I've woven in over time.

I'm thankful I know how to do that. Do you want to know who taught me that?

The cute man in the middle. And his son to his left. And the pretty lady just above him.

What an asp.

There are two kinds of drama in life: manufactured drama and inevitable drama. I avoid both, but I just outright don’t do manufactured drama and limit my time with people who do.

I figure the inevitable drama is going to come anyway, so why am I going to make things even harder for myself (and the people around me) in the meantime?

Take this week, for example. It has been drama central around here. Poisonous vipers, both literal and figurative, have reared their heads to strike. Let’s look at the difference between the inevitable and the manufactured:

We got a call from my brother on Wednesday morning that his girlfriend’s brother had been hiking with his wife in Cambodia and got bit by a green pit viper. Its venom is hematoxic, which means it prevents your blood from clotting when it enters your system. It took Asher a full day to even realize he’d been bit by a snake (apparently between the giant bugs and his many leech wounds, he thought an insect had gotten him. Cambodia, anyone?). His wife (a nurse) figured it out when the wound wouldn’t clot. It took another full day for the local snake bite clinic to arrange medical transportation to a top notch hospital in Bangkok, Thailand where they would have to test him to determine which specific serpent had bruised his heel, so to speak, so that they could give him the right antivenin (no, I didn’t misspell that). In the meantime, Asher was getting sicker and everybody else was getting more worried. By last night, his platelet count was…11. It should have been…uh, 1000. He was taking over ten hours to clot. It should have been taking about 5-ish minutes.

To make the rest of this long story short, he is showing a slow improvement and will probably be able to keep his leg. If he’s still stable by Saturday, then he’ll be permitted to fly home to London to continue his treatment there.

THAT is drama of the inevitable kind. Not so much the snakebite specifically, but the fact that bad stuff happens without any invitation. It’s hard on his loved ones. I don’t know Asher (because he’s English and London isn’t around the corner) but his sister has been with my brother longer than Kenny and I have been together. She’s family, and her mom is, too.

And here’s the thing…my brother knows and cares about Asher, and my sister does, too. And I care about them, and so I worry. Kenny and I prayed a lot as a family for Asher's recovery and for Nadine and her mom’s peace of mind. I felt really helpless to just sit and wait for updates. I worried about what would happen if the worst came to pass. Nadine doesn’t believe in God, and my brother doesn’t either, really. They don’t pray or believe in life after death. Would they be okay if they lost him? How do you get through that without faith? Could Nadine comfort herself with the knowledge that they had an amazing relationship and he had lived a full and adventurous life in a short time? Would it be enough? Was there anything Kenny or I could to help? I worried and worried and worried.

And that’s all for someone I don’t even know. The impact obviously grows deeper and greater the closer you get to the center. It's harder on my brother and even harder on Nadine. A million times harder than it was on me, and that was hard enough.

Would you EVER go out of your way to inflict that kind of worry and heart sickness on someone you love?

But people do. Take the second drama that unfolded with a phone call this morning…

This is a long post so I’ll get into it later, but trust me, a green pit viper sounds downright cozy compared to the craziness coming…

Sigh.