Fairy Houses & Finishing Up

I don't know about you guys, but this year is flying for me. Spring broke in the Midwest about two weeks ago (to everyone's surprise), and my daughters learned a new activity: building Fairy Houses.

When we moved here last summer, Catherine and several of her friends from our previous home in Baldwin County, Ala., invented this thing called Fairy World. They all meet there at night while they're sleeping and play and have adventures, and when they talk on the phone, they discuss what they did. It's how they pretend to still be together. 

The Mom in me gets very sentimental about that little game. These girls have been friends since they were three years old, and last June, they said good-bye to each other as we moved 850 miles away. It was tough.

And now we're here, the girls are making new friends, and some of those new friends have taught them to make Fairy Houses. They gather assorted objects from the yard--flowers, feathers, rocks, shells, sticks--find a safe nook at the base of a tree or on a ledge, and assemble it all into a "house."

They spend hours doing it, and they're lovely! Now they say that's where they meet for their play-dates. Le sigh.

Some fairies live here.

In other news, if you've been following, you know I spent this month doing the 30K in 30 Days challenge with the lovely and talented Janet Johnson (link) of the Hacky Sack Club.

I'm at 57,200 on my south Mississippi sci-fi, and I'm feeling good about bringing that one home. I know my characters, I know what's about to happen, and I know the end.

Complication: Today marks Day 1 of my daughters' two-week spring break (yes, you read that right). I've been pushing to get my WIP to that point where it's sailing to the end because I'm worried how all this togetherness is going to affect my writing schedule.

How am I handling this? Janet and I are renewing the 30K challenge for April. If you'd like to join, hop on! It's an honor-system challenge. If you miss a day writing 1K, you have to post an embarrassing video (or story) on your blog. Easy peasy! And it works.

As for burying the lede, I'm going out on subs again in April. Wish me luck, kids. I have no idea what to expect.

Others live here.

My plan is not to think about it. I'll be working on JACKSON and hoping I'm a skilled enough writer to accomplish what's in my head for the climax and conclusion.

And one of the weeks, we'll be headed south to visit all those little fairies we left behind.

Good luck to my bleeps doing the A-Z Challenge (link) and those rock stars who've made it to the quarter-finals in the ABNA (link)! Three great bloggy friends are there, and one's my super-awesome critter Tami-Hart Johnson (link).

April is the cruelest month, according to Eliot, but my yard looks about as far from a Waste Land as you can get. I say let's break with tradition this year. The weather's already setting records. Let's get some fairy dust and make it magical. It's working for the girls.

Have a great week, reader- and writer-friends! <3

To post or not to post

So I had this whole post ready to go for today, and at the last minute, I pulled it.

It's about where I am in the submissions process and my thoughts and concerns--mostly my feelings of self-doubt and second-guessing. But then I got to thinking about all the things we're advised not to put "out there." How we might hurt our prospects through a careless online post.

That makes me sad.

All through this process, you guys have been my support network. Through development, writing, querying, revisions... It's difficult for nonwriters to understand what this path is like--the ups and downs--and it can be very isolating.

It's hard for me to believe that what I put in this little space can truly harm my career. First, I don't write inflammatory posts. Second, even when I do write posts that are borderline rants (have I ever done that?), I temper them with enough rhetoric to make them palatable to any reader.

So I'm frustrated.

We have such a great little writer-friend support circle, one that would be difficult (impossible?) to create were it not for this medium, and now I can't use it.

True confession: It's also hard for me to believe anyone is out there searching for me right now or interested in what I'm posting online at this point. My ego is not that inflated.

One of our bloggie buddies at times will email her posts to some of us to get our responses before she puts them up. As in, "Is this offensive?" or "Am I going to lose all my followers if I put this out there?" I always err on the side of caution. She always posts them anyway.

Then we joke that if this were American Idol (which I don't watch), she'd be Simon and I'd be Paula... I don't think she's lost a follower yet.

What do you guys think? Should we self-censor our posts? Should we put whatever we're feeling out there or hold back the borderline stuff? Is censoring defeating the purpose of what we're even doing here?

I don't know. I'm not naming names. I'm not even saying anything bad about where I am--I'm not in a bad place! I'm just feeling self-doubtish. And I'm sure it's provoked by this move...

So. Terrible about what happened in Norway, yes?

Til Thursday, I'm just over here playing Hamlet. <3

9 months ago

Warning, over-sharing ahead: I was sitting on the toilet looking at the ceramic tile floor in my bathroom when it hit me. Everything in my life is upside right down, and nine months ago it wasn't.

Why the ceramic tile? Well, I'll tell ya.

My dad and I put that tile down. The two of us. By ourselves. And it looks pretty darn good.

Before that I had carpet in my bathroom. Carpet. In the bathroom. Yuck.

But at the door leading from my bathroom to my bedroom, we couldn't find the right strip to put there. So we left it with just the tile meeting the carpet. No overlay, no nothing.

It was fine for me, but now that I'm trying to sell my house, I realize potential buyers won't know this story.

They won't know that my little girls were six months old and 17 months old when we moved here, which explains why there are chocolate milk spatters in various odd locations throughout the house. (Sippy cups leak when thrown.)

I've tried to wipe them all up, but I still find stray ones hidden in corners.

They won't know that nine months ago, I decided this less than two-thousand square-foot home was too small for us and started looking around Spanish Fort for a new one.

They won't know that I gave up after a week.

Because there aren't any other homes on corner lots that end in cul-de-sacs where I know all my neighbors and we all like each other.

Where the youngest had daughters old enough to babysit when we moved in, and where the oldest brought me an Easter lily and told me what all the flowers were in my yard.

And then she groused because the previous owner "didn't know when to stop" when it came to buying new flowering plants.

That neighbor and I had the same birthday. She died four years ago, and when we put the For Sale sign out in front of my house, I went for a run. When I got back, I went straight into the front yard of her now-empty house and held onto her satsuma tree and cried.

Some mornings when I'm in the kitchen making coffee, I can still see her 87 year-old self puttering around her over-planted yard. The people who buy this house won't remember her.

Nine months ago, I was active in the PTA. I volunteered in the cafeteria when budget cuts meant we lost a lunch lady, and I never missed a field trip.

Nine months ago I belonged here.

And now I don't. Now my friends talk about the kids joining soccer teams and school functions I won't be around to attend.

Wow. I'm sorry!

It's Monday, and I've turned into a depressing ninny-baby on you all! I've even picked up some new followers. Hello, new followers! I'm typically not such a dismal hostess...

Here's an incredible story:

We moved here in Feb. 2004. In March 2004, a couple came to the house and asked if it was still for sale. I told them that it wasn't anymore, we'd bought it. They asked if they could see the place anyway, and it was so odd, I said sure.

They were from south Louisiana, too. They'd been off living on a yacht--people do that around here--and had seen the house online and wanted to buy it. I apologized and said I guessed I'd beaten them to it.

They were very kind, and we shared some laughs. And I never heard from them again.

Yesterday, they drove past the house, stopped and got out. They've been wanting to move back to this area and had been driving around looking at houses. None of us could believe it. I wonder if they'll make an offer.

Finally, True Confession: I buried the lede. My MS is on submission right now. It has been for two weeks, and so far I haven't heard anything. I really thought I'd be cool during this part of the process...

I am so not cool during this part of the process.

I'm freaking out. This is so much worse than querying because this is IT. The last layer where I find out if I'm in or I'm out. I feel jumpy and sweaty and nauseous all at the same time if I think about it too much.

Nothing like everything happening at once.

Have any of you experienced any of these things? Any words of advice for me? I could sure use a bit of encouragement. Thanks, my reader- and writer-friends.

Have a great week, don't forget to sign up for the "Laughter is the Best Medicine" blogfest (link) to be held May 16. (I could use it today!)

Til Thursday~ <3