Did you know that cuteness is a biological construct? The over-sized head, the big wide puppy-dog eyes, cute little button-nose – children are born like that so their parents are inclined not to eat them for breakfast. It enhances the instinct to bond and create a loving attachment to the child. If babies were not born cute, the human race would get to just about the six-week stage where colic sets in.

That is something my character Callie might say. She was so much fun to write, but I have to lose her I think. My novel is too big! She could have her own novel she’s so cool – she was an assistant curator at a zoo and took care of elephants. She was insanely beautiful but didn’t even care, with her hair tied up and her standard zoo khakis – like the love interest in an Indiana Jones movie. She was fiercely intelligent but a terrible housewife. She had two funny and lovable children (who get to stay in the novel). Maybe she will have her own novel one day, because she could. Or maybe she’ll live in a short story. Because unfortunately for them, Danny and Hannah’s mom needs to become a religious zealot. So it was said, and so it was done.

I remember reading somewhere that you can’t learn to write a novel any other way than to just try to write one. So that’s what I’ve been doing these past few months, I suppose – man, like eight months! Novel practice. And I’ve learned quite a bit.

See, I was writing my chapters in short-story mode still, and chapters of a novel are not short stories. They function very differently. It took me a while, but I know that now. I think I’ve got it figured out… think. Though if I really had it figured out, I wouldn’t have to keep re-figuring it out.

I’ve chopped my seven POV characters down to four. (I know, SEVEN??? What the hell was I thinking???) Four is even a lot, but their stories are very closely tied into each other, so I think I can make it work. I want to make it work, because I’m in love with all four of them, and they can’t exist without each other. I’ve also learned, in laying out these new chapters, that I do have one prominent character of the four. And the way I had the novel structured before, he didn’t even get his own chapter until chapter five! That can’t work!

It’s not at all a waste though. Not at all! Eight months of practice means that I have the story very well sketched out at this point. I have plot points and scenes that have inspired further plot points and scenes, I have chapters in all states of finished-ness, all the way through the end. It won’t all get used, and the ending could very probably change again, as it has already changed five times so far. But basically, I have a novel, and now I just have to put it together. Actually, I have about five novels, and I’ll save the leftovers for scraps to use later

It’s just a little disheartening, having spent eight months and then starting over. But hell, maybe I could even call that my my shitty first draft? You know, the first draft that goes straight down the crapper? Or at the very least, a .75 draft. Yeah, maybe that’s what I was doing. I think I would feel better if I could pretend that was what I was doing. You can humor me, maybe.

No real word or chapter count yet at this point. I’m still in re-organizing mode. I have all of the chapters written, and none of them at the same time. How is that for progress?

First of all, this is not a recipe, because I am not a chef – I just throw stuff in a pan and sometimes it works.

Second of all, be warned if you try this, your hubby just might freak out as if you’ve just served him a slimy green alien on a plate, and you might have a five-hour fight about it! Because apparently eggs and tuna should NEVER be mixed.

But it’s good

Serves about 3-4 adults, or if your toddler eats like mine (doesn’t) it’ll feed him for a week!

stuff you need:
pasta
butter or non-trans fat substitute
can of sliced olives
can of tuna
2 small zucchinis
pepper jack cheese
cream cheese (lite is okay)
mayo (lite is okay)
milk (skim if you want)
2 very offensive eggs

what you do:
Cook your pasta, about 6 oz. of it. Sautee your zucchinis until their done, toss in your olives and your tuna, about 1/4 cup of milk (maybe a little more? enough to make it saucy) and 1/4 cup of cream cheese and 3 oz. of pepper jack cheese, a little butter (not too much), salt if you like it, mine is garlic salt because I put garlic in everything.

Oh, and you should be pre-heating your oven, about about 425 or something, but you already knew that because you’re making a casserole, duh!

Get your pasta and your saucy zucchini/tuna stuff and bung it all together in a casserole dish.

Get your two eggs, about a 1/4 cup of lite mayo, and 1/4 cup of milk, hand whip, no need to get too crazy. Pour it over the other crap, and it will kind of fall down in the cracks. Bake until the egg is set, about 20 minutes?

That’s all

Prepare for your hubby not to eat it, lol.

I almost forgot there was a reason we don’t go to the park. He was the worst little boy EVER! He was playing so nicely, and he played for about an hour, which is plenty long enough, I think.

Then it was lunch time – past lunch time actually – and I was hungry and he must have been starving. I even warned him ahead of time, “We’re going home soon to have lunch…”

And then when it’s time to get in his stroller, he explodes! Horrible, back-arching, stiff as a board, whipping his cup of juice across the playground, murderous screaming tantrum as I try to get him in his stroller (and he’s stronger than me, I swear!). The little girl he was playing with just sat there quietly, contently in her stroller, drank her cup of juice, and watched him freak out. And the mom says, “Oh, I guess he likes the park.”

Yeah, I freaking guess so!

He’s not going to the park EVER again! Not until he’s twelve! And if he ever wants to ask why, I’m going to make him read this post!

Dylan, sitting on the ground, mud streaks on his cheeks like war paint. I say, “We are going in the house right now if you don’t stop eating that dirt!”

My child plays with his trucks and tries to make a “vroom” noise, but instead ends up sounding like the “grrr” of a monster. It’s funny

I don’t know how he ended up being such a boy – trucks, cars, tractors, airplanes, digging in the mud, bugs! Oh the bugs! There must be something to cultural gender stereotypes, because I swear we had nothing to do with this. We’re computer nerds, people!

not a writer:

novel stats:
52,500 wds.
159 pages
ch. 5 of 13

Chapter five is coming along. Chapter five is a boy chapter – well, he’s not a boy, but a young man I guess. And it’s really fun to try to dig into a male mind, imagine how on earth one manages to get pee on the rim of the toilet, especially when you’ve been doing it for twenty-something years, lol. And what, exactly, is the fascination with lesbians to a man anyway? Considering the fact that they have no interest in men! Hubby is probably sick of all the questions I’m asking him.

These next few chapters are the part of the book I’m nervous about writing – where people are going to be mad, but I don’t want it to turn into a soap opera. Where people will be sad, but I don’t want anyone crying, “oh, pity me!” Where people make mistakes (and I have to let them!), and deal with the consequences. Eeek!

I guess if I end up turning it into melodrama, I can always try again. That’s why we have second drafts, right?

Chair graphic is gone! Colors changed! You really have no idea how proud I am, simply of the task of having not broken the damn thing in the process

My child keeps bringing me sock lint off the floor and saying “bug.” One of these days he’s going to bring me an actual bug and I’m going to freak out.

not a writer:

novel stats:
49,100 wds
150 pages
working on chapter 5 of 13

That’s a freaking lot of words for not even 5 full chapters, with 8 more to go. Crap! What, do I think I’m John Irving or something??? I do know there will be some skinnier chapters coming up, but man! I’m going to have some cutting to do.

Had a conversation with hubby this week that unraveled another huge thread in my novel – about how you grow up with this image of your parents and who they were, whether that is good or bad – and then upon becoming an adult, you start to see them through entirely different eyes. Were the horrible things they did really so horrible, or are they redeemable? And you find out other things about them, less than noble things, secrets they kept from you and mistakes they might have made, things you didn’t know they were even capable of doing, or might have done, that causes you to think about them as entirely different people.

And what does this mean of your childhood memories then? Does it make them less valid?

And crap, I’m a parent now. I can’t help but wonder in what ways I will inevitably fuck up my own child. Because everyone does it. It cannot be avoided. I’ll leave you with that happy thought, lol

As my web-designer, I mean. Which is why my blog looks so funky. Please bear with me as I try to figure some things out… don’t mind the chair in the header… I’m not about to start selling furniture or anything

We went to see Radiohead at the Blossom Music Center on Monday. It was packed! And we were about eight light-years from the stage, but it was such a good show! We were down in Cuyahoga Falls, near Akron/Cleveland. It’s really pretty there, right inside Cuyahoga Valley National Park. I could totally live somewhere like that!

I even bootlegged myself a video of “All I Need” and I am surely the absolute worse bootlegger alive! (not that this is something I aspire to be good at…) But I got the whole song, and even managed to hold the camera still for a few seconds. Like hubby said, I don’t think MTV will be hiring me any time soon

It’s only illegal if you try to sell it, right?… Well, who was going to tell on me, the guy to my left with the joint, or the guy to my right with the joint? There was so much pot in that crowd!

Anyway, some pictures, from eight light-years away.

They’re cutting down all my baby’s trees! He loved to hug those trees. There were four of them in front of our house, and he would run from tree to tree hugging them. I don’t know where he learned that. I mean, sure I’m a tree-hugging hippie, but I don’t think I’ve actually hugged one in front of him before. But he did. He hugged trees and it was cute. But he won’t be hugging those trees anymore

So, I have a shamefully dorky confession to make. You all know I am the biggest dork alive. I mean, there are no illusions of coolness here, so I’ll just come out with it. I write a little blog about my Simmies, narrating their adventures as I play them – something like a soap opera. It’s stupid most of the time, it attempts to be funny (it probably fails), it is ridiculously dramatic. But I check my site stats and people spend hours reading this thing, people come back every day to read it, so there must be some merit. Some of it may be irrelevant to people who don’t play the game, but anyway, I just wanted to say that it’s there. There, I feel better now.

not a writer:

novel stats:
46,900 wds. (~43%)
144 pages
Starting ch. 5 of 13

Just plugging along. Starting chapter five, polishing up chapter four for my writers group to read. Man, I’m coming up on the half-way point soon. That’s a little exciting.

I think I’ve mourned and come to accept the fact that one of my characters does die. Yes, she does. It fits the story too. It’s going to be sad

not a photog:

I’m sorry, but how cute are they???