I am making up a blogging prompt, because I feel like it! One year ago, on this date, this is what I wrote in my real life journal:

8 months? Seriously? I just don’t know how some people have the balls! I was sitting in the doctor’s office with Dylan, waiting, and this woman, mother, asks, “How old is he?” and then before I can answer, she blurts out, “8 months.” Not even a question, but a statement! Then I say, “No, 14 months.” And she has the balls to say, “Oh, he’s little.”

First of all, my kid may be skinny, but he is AVERAGE height for his age, NOT small. And how often do you see an 8 month old standing on his own, walking very independently? I think there is an obvious difference between and 8 and 14 month-old. Seriously! *rolls eyes*

LOL, that’s me having a very obvious hissy-fit. I should have shared that then. How funny

Fess up Friday:

I haven’t done this in a couple weeks, as I’ve been mostly in reorganizing mode. Well, I’m organized now. 13 chapters have become 18. Seven POV characters have become four. And I am really very happy with the new shape it’s taking.

Hmmm, progress? I don’t really know how to update progress at this point, as there isn’t really the same marker of finished-ness as there was the first time through. All of my chapters are in between some state of sketchily written and second-drafted (one problem chapter is on its fourth or fifth draft, lol). So maybe I’ll just update on precisely what I’ve done in the week?

My second-draft of chapter 1 is being polished up for my writers’ group. Having lost Danny’s father as one of my POV characters, I ended up writing my first chapter from a seven-year-old Danny’s POV, which I was scared to try, but I think it actually turned out well. I wouldn’t want to write from a child’s POV for a whole novel, but just one chapter was a lot of fun.

And having lost their mom as a POV character as well, I’m rewriting my third chapter from Hannah’s POV, when she’s thirteen, and it’s fun to see how the exact same chapter told from a different POV can become so totally different!

I’ve been digging into Hannah a lot this week. She’s Danny’s little sister, and she’ll be between 12 and 18 for the span of the novel. (Danny, Lexi and Sam will be between 16 and 22) Hannah is strange and ethereal and sometimes explosive and very mature for her age. She’s fun to write

But then, I think all my characters are fun to write, because if they weren’t they would be boring

That’s all, really. It’s raining outside. Dylan’s being a surprisingly good boy these past few days. One of his cartoons, Avatar, is really pretty neat. Sims continue to be simmed. Huge and whiny and annoyingly self-indulgent books continue to be read, for some reason. Playing Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough” on guitar this week. Eating tortilla chips with cheddar cheese. All that, and killing giant pterodactyl-sized moths at 1:00 a.m.

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?

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.

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!

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?

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

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.