A Few Steps Into the Darkness

I haven't been sleeping well. That's a pretty neat trick considering I'm one of the 50,000 Americans diagnosed with narcolepsy. For reference, there are approximately 300,000,000 (that's three hundred million) people who live in the US., so about 6% of the population have what I have. And the treatment for what I have is so potent and potentially dangerous that it is the only category 3 medication with category 1 penalties for misuse. The monthly prescription of sleeping medicine that costs my insurance upwards of $6,000 every month. I am thankful for good insurance.

I'm giving you all this information so you understand when I say I'm not sleeping well, that means more than your average insomniac. Does anyone know how many 5 hour energies you can safely consume in one day? Thus far that seems to wake me up the best without causing havoc with my fibromyalgia.

But wait, you say, this is supposed to be a preschool and teaching post. Well, it is, and that's the reason I haven't been sleeping. I live in a place where every subdivision has its own Home Owners Association, and mine has been receiving complaints from the neighbors about the traffic associated with preschool. HOAs terrify me. They have the legal right to place a lien against my home and the property if I don't comply with the HOA contract. There are horror stories about HOAs turning people out of their own homes for the color they painted their house or where they park their cars. And the HOA who could take away my house has ordered me to close down the preschool.

I was immediately both angry and so scared I nearly threw up. This is my job. With all of my myriad medical issues, I can't hold down a job outside the home. This is also something I do because I believe every child needs to be given the chance to learn all they can, regardless of economic status or developmental labels. Here I get to indulge my love of reading and science with the only people I've ever found who are as enthusiastic about as many different topics as I am. But I have to end it.

To be fair, the HOA representative I spoke with was very kind and non-accusatory. She allowed me to explain what I do and was surprised at how different the truth was from the complaints. But the traffic was a valid complaint and I can see how it would be a problem, and I am determined to comply with the HOA because I don't want any problems with them and I really don't want to alienate my neighbors any further. Frankly I wasn't aware that any of them had a problem with it, and part of my injured feelings were that none of them came to talk to me directly. I've always tried to be kind and friendly to everyone. I get that anonymous complaints are easier than direct confrontation, but someone should have come to talk to me about it first instead of tattling to the HOA.

That is the first and last bitter thing I've said about it. They live here too, and they have a right to be put out if this has been a problem for them. The preschool parents I've communicated with have all been very sorry and very supportive, Several of them have said either they or their child has cried about the news. Don't cry! The HOA has given me until December 21st so that parents have time to make other arrangements. We still have two more months together. And hopefully that close to Christmas everyone will be too excited and too busy to be sad much. I appreciate each and every one of them, their sympathy, and most of all their understanding. One of the things I was most afraid of was preschool parents being mad at me about this. I've been doing it for four years now- I don't know why this year it's suddenly an issue for the neighborhood.

My husband and I have discussed what we're going to do from here, and there's only one thing that feels right, as scary as it is.

Writing. Letting go of everything else and just trying to make it as a writer. It feels right to write, if you'll excuse the pun. But that's terrifying in its own right because I have only been paid for my writing twice in my life, neither of those were recently and neither were very much. One was a short poetry collection to a poetry journal several years ago and one was a short story years before that. And the timeline doesn't work so well- even though I have a nearly finished manuscript, it takes months to find the right agent and then months more before getting it sold to a publisher. I'm looking at a minimum of 8 months before the manuscript returns any money.

And that's scary. So I'm considering making use of this vast internet and the technological revolution and self publishing, even though 98% of the time self publishing is a waste. If I do this, I'm going to have to dedicate every spare minute between now and January 1st to getting my manuscript ready. Yes, I'm on my 3rd draft and have sent it to editors already, but I haven't started making any of the changes they've suggested and I was planning on having copy editors to rely on and an agent and a publishing house to do the advertising. With self publishing, that's all me. I looked into hiring a freelance copy editor and an editor who would do the editing and formatting for publication for me, and that would only cost about $26,000.00. Yikes.

Self publishing, while almost never successful, at least has the possibility of a return on investment in a few weeks rather than after most of a year. I thought that I would have to buy the book in a bulk of several thousand and try to sell them to recoup the loss, but that isn't the way it works all the time. I've found a company that will print them POD style, which means print on demand. When someone orders a book, then it gets printed. I still have to pay for the printing and pay for all the up front costs like formatting and editing and an initial printing run of one to approve, and pay for the ad and the selling space, but that is significantly less than buying 2,000 books and then trying to sell them. But again, the downside is no help with advertising or copy editing or cover design.

So it's me. And maybe this will work out. I do believe that my book, with its Harry Potter-esque school for the magically inclined meets Hunger Games you still have to fight for survival themes, is well written and engaging. I believe it could be successful because it has merit. But even if it is the best written book in the world, it could flop completely because no one hears about it.

I panicked a few days ago and applied to be a legal assistant. With my background experience and references they called me to schedule an interview the next day. It would be part time and while my sons are at school and it isn't too terribly far away, and part of me is really tempted by the promise of a safety net. I could figure out something for Christmas vacation and Spring Break with my kids, right? But I can't do it. It doesn't feel like the right move for my family and I. I can't even make myself go to the interview without the strong impression that it's the wrong move. So I cancelled it.

The plan. Preschool through December 21st and then throwing myself into my writing, and make it profitable to stay afloat or sink under all the medical bills and keep submitting. This feels like the biggest risk I've ever taken. I'm betting on myself and making everyone else in my family hold the ticket, win or lose. The risk right now is huge; potential severe financial strain and being unable to continue my medical treatments. The reward is equally large; financial independence and freedom from debt, and that's just the gravy to finally finally finally being a published author and getting to do something every day that brings me joy.

I've heard it said that faith is taking a few steps into the darkness and hoping the light will follow. I got a lot of experience staring into the dark last night, and this feels more like a leap off a cliff than taking a few steps into a dark room. Three nights now I've been unable to sleep, and I don't see that stress letting up any time soon. The moment the sword of the HOA's anger is removed by the end of preschool, the walk on the financial tightrope of success or failure begins.  I've considered emailing my neurologist and asking if I can take 3 doses a night instead of two.

On the plus side, I feel more ready to take this risk now than I ever have been before. And I'll document the plunge here. So if you're interested in my self publishing adventure, because apparently I've talked myself into it, you're welcome to come along for the ride.

And maybe I'll sleep again when I'm 33.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4pqqzFWedc

Dialogue Part Two!

"Hello internet! Long time, no see," I said, blinking bleary eyes. Too much worry, not enough sleep.

The infinity of the cloud glows back at me from the monitor, the cursor blinking in the Google search text box. There is a finite, though impressively large, number of sites on the web but an infinite number of clicks and links that tangle us more tightly. It does not care that the medicine I take at night to force me past REM sleep makes me feel drunk, nor that if I don't sleep well with the medicine I wake up feeling hung over. I have friends who are experts in both states and we've compared notes. I'm glad the internet doesn't answer me, because it means I've held onto my sanity for another day.

Not that I'm in any real danger of losing it, I've just heard that people who are crazy never question their sanity, so I make a point of questioning mine. It makes me feel better. Plus I said I'd post again on October 15th, and here it is, October 22nd, and I'm writing my first post in over two weeks. Oddly, not writing in all that time has made me feel more disconnected from myself than any amount of missed sleep. It was worth it, though. Having so many good friends (including my mom, who is also a good friend) come and visit for my birthday was incredible. It was better than incredible. It was peaceful, and happy.

And then one airport trip at a time, they left, and now I'm back to real life and laying awake last night realizing that there's a character in my book whose every line of dialogue needs to change. Yep, every line. Because I struggled every time he entered the scene writing in a voice that was not his, but my idea of what his should be. And that is a writer's struggle when a character will not conform to what you think they should be but continues to fight against you in your own subconscious to be what you really know it ought to be. Which is why this post now changes from "My stream-of-consciousness ramble about how I am and how I'm feeling," into "Dialogue part two!"

We last left our discussion on dialogue with the promise that I was going to talk to you about letting your characters speak for themselves, the best dialogue tags in the universe, how to know what to cut and what to keep, how to spice up the conversation, and how to know when it’s good. I was fighting against letting my character speak for himself because of how he was first presented to me. I didn't let him evolve into a character that would be better for my book, and one who I would write more fluidly. This character is Charlie. I talked about him last time, with the accent and the excerpt. Remember all the distracting apostrophes? Every time he came on stage I fought to make his accent Cockney, the dialect of the lowest caste of the British. And it's awkward. Let's look at it again.

"That's bollocks, I'm out," Charlie stated flatly. "You can't put that kind of pressure on me or on 'im. Giving me six bleedin' days to teach something it takes an 'atchling a decade to get right and then bootin' 'im back into the world with just a prayer you won't need to call the cleaners to fix the mess? No. I won't be on the line for that. You've got enough on me already, and I'm not 'elping you cut the kids arm so it's bleedin' when you throw 'im back in the shark tank." Charlie crossed his arms and stared, unblinking, into Gage's eyes. "Get one of your Omega monkeys to do it. I won't."

Now I did a lot of research into the Cockney dialect and specific words. There are several things in here and all through this character's dialogue that are correct phrases for the dialogue that don't make a lot of sense to non-Cockney speakers. That's the first rule of accent writing- do your research. But even with all my study and near psychotic insistence on correctness, it just didn't fit the character. In my head, he's Scottish. Partly because he's supposed to be a womanzier and to my ear the Scottish dialect is more attractive than the Cockney, and partly because he's supposed to be abrasive and impulsive and the only thing more abrasive than Cockney to a highly educated British ear is highland Scot. But because I knew the concept of the character first as a Cockney, I tried to stay true to that. 

This is a time when strict adherence to the outline made the story harder to write. I was trying to write, but the Charlie in my head was speaking in a Scottish accent, so I'd translate from the Scottish to English to Cockney. Don't make things harder for yourself by doing that. Let's see if the dialogue flows better without all the translating.

"Yer daft. I'll not be responsible for that," Charlie stated flatly. "You cannae put that kind of pressure on me nor on the lad, tae be learning sommat that takes a hatchling a good score to get right and giving us six peerie days. Then what? Yer'll boot him out inta the world with just a prayer there'll be no need tae call the cleaners? I'll not be hooked for that. Yer Sanctum jackanapes have enough on me without me seeing the lad down the road just enough to cut him open an toss him to the sharks." Charlie crossed his arms and stared, unblinking, into Gage's eyes. "Get one o' your Omega monkeys to do it. I won't."

What do you think? There's one apostrophe in place of a letter instead of many, but the dialect is still clear. Which way do you like better? (And for those of you who are very familiar with the Charlie character, think of this as a way to protect his anonymity from generations of jealous husbands). I'm going to have to slog through all the dialogue again to change the dialect to what it was supposed to be in the first place. Learn from my mistake, and allow your characters their own voices from the beginning. 

But how do you know when it's good? After you've been lost in the world of your story for hours, writing down everything as it appears in your brain, how do you know when the dialogue rings true? It's easier than you think. All you need is people. Real live people. First read it out loud by yourself. You'll find that you say the line differently out loud than you wrote it down. Modify it as needed. Then do it again. After a while, you'll move on in the story or you'll decide you need more testing.

If you need to test out your dialogue, what better way than in the mouths of people to speak it? Copy and paste the section of dialogue into a new document. Then either re-write it like a script, or only ask people to help who you can trust to keep their opinions to themselves. Read it out loud with them. Don't tell them anything about the characters, because the more they know the more they'll try to make the dialogue conform. You don't want that. You want to hear it as written, to see if the lines stand for the characters on their own. If it's written well, the words will flow naturally. If it's written really well, the readers will slip into the character without any prompting from you. Just make sure they know to read only the dialogue, and not the tags. That can confuse actors/readers, especially since dialogue tags usually come after the words and if you have those dreaded "ly" words then they might want to read it again to follow your direction, and that will mess up the flow. 

The very best dialogue tags in the world are "said," "asked," and " ". You don't want your writing to detract or distract from your characters and your story. Words like "blandly" "angrily" and "zestfully" are not nearly as useful as you might believe. We've talked about this before in the show don't tell section of another post, but it bears repeating: don't get in your own way. If your character is tired he or she does things tiredly, sure, but that is a word describing other words, not painting an image. Your character doesn't say things tiredly, she says them. Sleep, or the lack thereof, slurs her words together. Her hands fumble with the keys and her eyes droop while she tries to restrain a yawn. Your character doesn't shout angrily, he shouts and bangs his fist on the table, or says through clenched teeth with narrow eyes. It's even better if you don't need dialogue tags at all, but you can tell who the speaker is by what they're saying and how they say it. Go through your most recent piece of writing and search for your dialogue tags. Copy and paste a section of dialogue into a new document and get rid of every tag, then read it. Can you still tell who is saying which line? If not, go back and clarify your characters in your own mind. If so, get someone else to read it. Give them highlighters in different colors and assign each color to a specific character. Then have them highlight who says what. You may be surprised with what they think.

We still have to cover what to cut and what to keep and how to spice it up, but we'll get to that next time. I must cut myself free from the internet for now. But it feels good to be writing again, and it feels good to get myself back a bit more with each word.

Tune in next time for another exciting installment of A Writer By Day, same bat time, same bat channel!

Notice of Hiatus

There will be a one week hiatus on blog posts. I've received some notes and feedback on my manuscript from an editor, and I have less than one week to my self imposed submission deadline of Oct. 12th, 2012. Regular posts will resume (and be consistent!) on Monday, October 15th. Thanks!

Parenthood Prep for Teen Angst 101

 My husband and I did something last weekend that we almost never do. We went out to dinner and a movie. The movie was called “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” and it wasn't very much like I expected. The trailers had all made it out to be a typical high school coming of age story and I thought seeing it would be good research for my book, but it was a lot darker and the stakes were higher than I anticipated. It made me worry about my sons growing up and everything that might happen to them when I'm not around. I'm stuck between two paralyzing fears; that my children will leave my home and be damaged, or that they will be damaged by never leaving home.

The movie also drove home to me that the name Charlie is cursed. Seriously. Can you think of a fictional Charlie who had a good life? Charlie Brown, the blockhead. I always wanted to be his mother because the thing he needed most was affirmation, and I have an unusual talent for that. Charlie Gordon in Flowers for Algernon. He was given a fleeting brilliance and then had it all taken away. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ends well, thank goodness, after that poor boy had over a decade of extreme poverty. I've decided that Charlie needs to be a girl's name now because it needs a reinvention. I'm never watching a show with a main character named Charlie again.

We begin the movie with many references to Charlie having a mental breakdown and spending months in the psych ward of a hospital. No one says why, just infers that it happened. He's starting high school now and the only friend he makes on his first day is his English teacher Mr. Anderson, which Charlie himself says is pretty depressing. Charlie is smart and loves to read. He wants to be a writer. I'm really invested in the character at this point and he makes his first two friends. Both seniors, and step-siblings. Just when I'm thinking “Yay, friends!” the first big plot reveal about Charlie's breakdown. And it's awful. Without being specific, his pretty new senior friend finds out that Charlie doesn't have any friends at school and why, and they welcome him into their group.

Already this is playing on many of my mommy fears. What if my son makes friends and loses them? What if he doesn't have any close friends? I had a very lonely childhood and I made my first real friend my freshman year in college. Sadly, that isn't a hyperbole. It wasn't all awful and I have several good memories of being a kid, but the thing I remember most is being alone. I read a lot. I loved reading, and I'm sure no small part of my lack of friends was part of an unbroken cycle. I didn't have any friends to hang out with, so I read books. I was always reading books, so I didn't ever make friends.

But I don't want my sons to be like that. I want them to be happy and well adjusted and brilliant and popular but also humble and kind and coordinated and just everything. Every time one of my children is hurt I hurt with them, even though I know if I make a big deal out of it they will make a much bigger deal, and so I pretend it's fine until we both believe it. Sometimes I think parents need to step back and let other adults handle tough situations with their kids because parents have too much skin in the game. It matters too much to us so we can't be objective. Then they can't be objective. Then we end up screaming at each other about the stupidest small things because we both care so freaking much.

My kids aren't perfect. As with their talents and personalities, they each have their own unique challenges and flaws. But I cannot allow myself to get into the mind frame of trying to “fix” them. They aren't broken. I was listening to the book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (which I've been wanting to do for years and now I'm doing it, but only in small chunks because the narrator is really dull). The author was talking about raising a younger son who was socially awkward and physically uncoordinated. To try and help they enrolled him in baseball and practiced with him. They'd get after the other kids for teasing him. They would try and encourage him and praise every little sign of improvement. But the son was getting more frustrated and pulling away from them.

What Mr. Covey realized was that he and his wife were coming at their son from the perspective of fixing him, which to that boy implied his parents believed he was broken. Who wouldn't pull away from that message? So the Coveys worked hard not only to accept their son as he was but to actively be proud of him. Not push him to the way they wanted him to be, but to love him as he was. The son was understandably hesitant to accept this new love, but eventually he blossomed and became confident and socially savvy. They gave him the chance to grow up his way, at his own pace, in his own time.

Reading that felt more like a relief than an admonition. My boys are not perfect and they lack some skills, but they are my boys and I get to love them. Yay! So even though I'll worry about them being lonely or not making friends, at least I am relieved of the burden of trying to fix them. I give them opportunities and nurture their interests and support them in their choices.

So Charlie gets friends, a whole group of seniors. Since Charlie is a freshman this presents a new level of difficulties. The seniors party and do things that are inappropriate, like alcohol and drug use and Charlie gets dragged along with them. Another mommy fear. What if my son has friends who are a bad influence on him? What do I do then? It's been a while since I was in high school and even then I went to high school in a small town with a very conservative population. Raising my kids in a large metropolitan area with a variety of cultures is awesome. And terrifying. They will be exposed to so many more things than I was. Yes, I do know that my oldest is currently eight and I'm worrying about what high school is going to be like for him already. Motherhood is love and fear, fear and love, remember?

I try not to pester the young women I work with about what high school is like for them. My curiosity burns bright, though. I want to know if any of them have ever been offered drugs, personally know any pregnant teenage girls, or been to a party where alcohol was served. Is high school here like it is on TV?

Teaching my sons correct principles and then allowing them to govern themselves is the right thing to do, but it's so hard! I want to protect them all their lives from every ache and bad choice. But that's the wrong plan. No baby learns to walk when they are carried everywhere. I want my children to grow up and be strong, confident people who will be an influence of good in this world. But why does that mean I have to let them go to high school?

Charlie falls in love with his pretty senior best friend Sam, played well by Emma Watson. I didn't think of Hermione once. The American accent helped with that, I'm sure. Her character is drawn to bad boys who treat her poorly, and the question that is asked twice in the movie, “Why do [we] constantly choose people who are bad for us?” is answered with “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

I loved that line both times. It is both poignant and tragic while managing to ring true and resonates with so many of us who have struggled with self-esteem. But the second time that line was spoken was just before the climax of the movie, the final twist where we discover the worst and most horrible secret of Charlie's past.

It's jarring and horrible and my heart ached and I felt sick. While the flashbacks aren't graphic (thankfully) the implication is clear. This poor Charlie was the most cursed of all. And it makes my chest hurt to think that we live in a world where these things happen. This is the worst part. The things I can't protect my children from that terrify me, because I can't be with them all the time. Kidnappers and car accidents and pedophiles and gangs and all the darkest parts of society that hide in shadows because they cannot abide the light. My preschool students believe that I would eat a lion before I'd let them be hurt, and they're not wrong. But it isn't the lions I'm afraid of, it's the jackals.

So I have to have faith. Faith that when I drop my sons off at school they will be there when I come to pick them up. Faith that there are more good people in the world than bad ones, and that my husband and I aren't standing alone against a legion of evil. Faith that my sons trust me and will tell me when they're in danger. Faith that the lessons we teach them are sinking in. Faith that just like when they were tiny and learning to walk, they'll get back up every time they fall down and try again.

Faith and my medication. Not sleeping can really make you crazy.  

Walk (well, write) the Talk

            He said, she said, they said, we said. Everybody's talking. The way we impart information to each other is through our voices and our body language, and the best characters are the ones we can see and hear clearly in our heads. How a character speaks tells us a lot about them. What they say can tell us their approximate age and education level, indicate where they're from, and tells us what they find important. Some people are naturally brilliant at dialogue. Some writers will always struggle. I can't give you a magic talisman or a cure-all, but I can give you tips on how to make your dialogue stronger and point out mistakes to avoid.

            Mistake number one is repetition. Repetition isn’t just about words; it can also be sounds, word forms, sentence lengths, and letter combinations. Dialogue should be as brief as possible unless the character who’s talking is verbose. How a character speaks tells us a lot about how they’re feeling in this scene and how they feel about who they’re talking to, so don’t give characters the wrong feeling because you are over doing it with the clarity. For example:

            “Did you get the aspirin, babe? I really need it.”

“Yes, I got the aspirin.”

“And the burger buns. I hope you got those.”

“Yes, I got the burger buns.”

“Did you remember to stop by my mother’s house? She said she had something for us.”

“No, I didn’t remember to stop by your mother’s house. I didn’t remember that she said she had something for us.”

Having the second character repeat everything the first character said is annoying and unnecessary, unless you are trying to get across that she is annoyed with his questioning. Even then the last line is overdone. Keep it simple. Yes or no answers the question, we don’t need the recap. Repetition slows down the story and loses the reader’s interest at best, and at worst annoys them enough that they give you a bad review.

Mistake number two is overusing names in conversations. I edited an otherwise strong manuscript once where the two main characters constantly called each other by name during the dialogue. Since I hear the words in my head when I’m reading, it was jarring. We’ll call the two characters Evan and Sierra in this example:

“Evan, I’m scared. What do we do now?”

“I don’t know, Sierra. I guess we try to stick together and find a way out of here and just hope no one notices.”

“I’ve never been lost like this before Evan. I’m freaking out. Look, my hands are shaking.”

“Put your hands in your pockets to keep them warm, Sierra.”

“Evan, are we going to die?”

“No Sierra, I’ll get us out of here. We’ll find a way.”

Think that sounds okay? Read it out loud. Then read it again, and omit every name but the first two. Even those aren’t strictly necessary because Evan and Sierra are the only two people in the scene. There isn’t anyone else for them to talk to. Using people’s names repeatedly in conversation is awkward and makes the person you are speaking to uncomfortable. Try it, just for fun. Next time you’re on the phone or chatting with a friend say their name every time it’s your turn to speak. It’s funny. You can’t keep a straight face for long.

Third mistake is monologuing. Letting a character go on and on uninterrupted gets boring and loses the flow of your story. Exceptions can be when a character is telling a story, but even then the punctuation can get unwieldy and the story you’re telling is disrupted.  Stories succeed because they’re a mixture of elements- action, dialogue, exposition, conflict, more action, etc. Letting just one element take over unbalances your manuscript. And readers notice. They get frustrated, or bored.

Consider the nature of a story, with its conflicts and adversarial confrontations. Unchallenged dialogue drains conflict. Sometimes you have a lot of information to impart. Sometimes your villain is monologuing about their secret plot. There are many ways to get out exposition and dialogue isn’t the only one. In my book, “The Darkest Lie,” I had a lot of background to explain about why magic exists in our world and what caused that to happen initially. Apparently I decided to make this exposition as difficult as possible, since I placed it while to characters were in a car and traveling. No action is possible because the characters are in a static place. But I could use the needed exposition to tell the background and give more about the characters. Here is the excerpt from my manuscript:

 "It's the same thing," Brennan said, trying to regain his composure. "Science and magic, at their core, just mean something you can explain with physical laws and something you can't. Science here is magic to the Shae, because they don't understand it or why it works, whereas their magic to them is mundane but to us is inexplicable." Thane yawned. "Now I'm boring you?"
         "No, just didn't get much sleep," Thane said, yawning again. "So where does Sanctum come into this?"
         "That's where the magic comes in," Brennan said, modulating his voice to sound deeper and more mysterious. Thane rolled his eyes. "In a universe beyond our stars in a time we don't understand, a group of thaumaturgists set out to control the Song. They-"
            "A group of what?" Thane interrupted.
            "Thaumaturgists. Magicians. This group had studied the singing of space and time for longer than we can know, and found a loophole. They set out to create a golem that could pass through the weaves-"
            "They built what?"
            Brennan pressed his lips together. "A golem. A construct. An imitation person made from other elements like clay or rock or fire or whatever you can manipulate that can move around and follow your directions."
            "Like a robot," Thane suggested.
            "Sure, like an advanced robot. They built one that could change the tension in every string that composed her, thereby changing her resonant frequency. She could phase through the Weave. She also had the ability to access the Song, and increase the tension of those around her until their strings would snap, and they would die. The power of their songs would flow through her to her masters. She had no thought or free will; she was a tool, nothing more. They called her The Sylph and she did their bidding until no life was left in their world but each other."
            Thane's eyelids were heavy, and he yawned again, blinking. "That's stupid. What was the point?"
            "Power. With every life she took their power grew. So as the evil often do, those who created The Sylph turned on each other. They each pulled The Sylph with opposing wills and directives, and for the first time many thoughts were in her head. The combination of the billions of lives that had passed through her and the conflicting desires filling her combined to wake her up and she became self aware."
            "Sentient," Thane said, thinking of Remy. He leaned back, resting his head against the top of the seat.
            "Sentient," Brennan agreed. "And she understood the anger, fear, and pain she had experienced with every soul drawn through her, and that drove her mad. The Sylph killed every one of her former masters and then looked to the stars, and on her first day of life she was the last living thing on her world. She wept strange tears of Song, and where they fell the Weave tore open. The Sylph peered into the darkness and outside the one note of her world she could hear the harmonies of the multiverse. And so she left, being careful to travel with the sound and never cross it, moving between the universes in small spaces between the singers of the Song. The Sylph-"
            "How?" Thane asked, lifting his head up.
            Brennan was irritated. "How what?"
            "How did she move between the universes? How could there be space between the sound?"
            Brennan was dumbfounded. "I don't know if anyone's ever thought to ask that," he admitted.
            "Well, how do you know the story?"
            "From Sanctum. It's part of the advanced reading material."
            "How do they know?" Thane pressed.
            "She told them. During the Guardian Wars when our two worlds were colliding and everything was snapping and shattering from the dissonance and no one knew how to fix it or what was happening. The Sylph showed up in the middle of the battle and stopped it cold, and told everyone the story so they would know it was her fault." Brennan scratched his chin, considering. "She still shows up sometimes, or so I'm told. I've personally never met Sylphie."
            "Sylphie?"
            "Yeah, apparently she thought being called The Sylph was insulting because it sounded like a thing instead of a person, so she changed it after they established the Guardians."
            "What are the Guardians?"
            Brennan placed his palm on Thane's forehead. "You, my young friend, have an intelligent and agile mind. Now shut up." He pushed Thane's head back down against the seat. "I will get to the Guardians and the Wars and the Shae and Sanctum but only if you let me talk without interrupting me." Fighting to stay awake, Thane yawned widely enough that his jaw popped. "Or you can go to sleep, kid, I'll tell you the rest later."
          "No, keep going," Thane tried to sound alert.
         "Whatever you say. So the Sylph traveled in the space between the universes and listened to the song. She filled the emptiness of her soul with the song shared by the living of every world. Until in one distant universe the wrong star exploded." Thane's head lolled forward, and he jerked it up. Brennan looked at him, seeming to expect an interruption, but Thane just waited. "The explosion blew a hole in the Weave of that universe and it started to fail, the vibrations slowing and its Song dying. But the dying Song was going to pass too close to our universe and the Sylph knew we would be destroyed too."
            "What? How?" Thane's words were slurred, but he fought to stay awake.
            "The sound waves would cancel each other out. So the Sylph made a choice and moved us." Brennan held up a hand to forestall any questions. "I'm not sure exactly how. As I understand, she phased into our Weave and tightened it, changing the frequency of vibration. Not much, but enough that the other universe died without taking us with it. The problem that arose was now we were too close to the Shaerealm. We wouldn't collide because we were moving the same direction at about the same speed. It's more like we were tangled together, their Weave and ours, and in one place particularly the Weaves tangled so much the two worlds opened to each other."
            Thane couldn't raise his eyelids, and the inside of his head felt sloshy. His body slumped, shoulders rolling back, and his head slid to rest wedged between the door and the back of his seat. He wasn't completely asleep, but was far enough that he couldn't open his eyes or move his head. In this semi-conscious state, Thane heard a rap rap rap and then a whirring sound, like an electric window going down.
           "He's asleep," Brennan's voice floated through his remaining consciousness.
           "Finally." LaPointe sounded annoyed. Thane could feel the car slowing and pulling off the road. "I apologize for saying the dose was too high. He should've been out within seconds of drinking all that."
          "I told you, the kid is tough," Brennan said, and the car came to a stop.
           A third voice spoke up. "What is the ending of the story?" the accent the man had reminded Thane of villains in old movies. He heard Brennan snort, and the speaker defended, "You have to finish the story, or it is like hanging up without saying goodbye. It is rude."
          Brennan sighed, then spoke in a rush. "So The Sylph became Sylphie and we used science and magic to establish the guardian stones that balance the resonant realities of our worlds. We didn't have the power to close the tears, so Sanctum was established to coordinate the integration of the inhabitants of the two worlds, and establish and enforce ground rules, and generally to oversee the stabilization of both universes so that they could coexist. Happy now?"

            That was a large excerpt, but I wanted to use it to establish two important things about dialogue. One, Brennan’s story about the origins of magic in our world was not one uninterrupted fairy tale. Thane’s interjections and fighting to stay awake provide the reader with a fuller view of what’s happening in my story without losing any of the back story behind it. Two, each character has a distinct speaking voice. Brennan likes to sound intelligent and uses long sentences. Thane is brief and direct. The lack of contractions from the third voice, always saying “it is” instead of “it’s” indicates a dialect. No, he’s not a robot. Remember he has an accent, which Thane learns later is Russian.

            Which brings us to dialogue difficulty / mistake number four. Writing a character with an accent. One of your characters having an accent is not a mistake, but it is hard. You have to keep the accent consistent without overusing punctuation and making it hard for your reader to read. One of the characters in my book has a cockney accent, and that was a pain to write. I’m going to rework it to make it better. Look at the following dialogue:

            "That's bollocks, I'm out," Charlie stated flatly. "You can't put that kind of pressure on me or on 'im. Giving me six bleedin' days to teach something it takes an 'atchling a decade to get right and then bootin' 'im back into the world with just a prayer you won't need to call the cleaners to fix the mess? No. I won't be on the line for that. You've got enough on me already, and I'm not 'elping you cut the kids arm so it's bleedin' when you throw 'im back in the shark tank." Charlie crossed his arms and stared, unblinking, into Gage's eyes. "Get one of your Omega monkeys to do it. I won't."

            This dialogue is clumsy and inelegant, and the constant use of apostrophes distracts the eye from the word and can pull the reader out of the story. If you’re going to write a character with an accent, focus more on the patterns of speech and the words used than on pronunciation. Yoda is a great example of this. He spoke perfectly clear English, but the structures of his sentences made his accent unforgettable. If Yoda you now quote, get it everyone around you will. And no visually distracting apostrophes or strangely spelled words.

            I’m going to halt this blog post now, and do a second one on dialogue later. There’s still a lot to go over, including letting your characters speak for themselves, the best dialogue tags in the universe, how to know what to cut and what to keep, how to spice up the conversation, and how to know when it’s good. That will be next time.

            “The end,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “For now.”

I need a time out.

Blog post! It’s been a crazy week with preschool, sick kids, preschool make up days, extra guitar lessons, canceled guitar lessons, extra writing to catch up with my writers group, cars breaking down, cars getting fixed, trying to sell a car, and working on refinancing the house. So I have done terribly with posting this week. I’m going to try and be better, use some time to get a little ahead and write a few extra posts today. It’s Sunday, so we’re on a “whatever I’m thinking about” day, and today I’m thinking about time. Not surprisingly.

I don’t have extra time. Every minute of my life is scheduled pretty tightly from the moment I wake up in the morning until after dinner, when I finally have some time to do housework. Between preschool, guitar lessons, writing, my sons’ taekwondo lessons, homemaking, and taking time to spend with my family, I have no minutes left over. Because that list is not a weekly schedule, it’s a daily one.

This isn’t to say “oh poor me,” or “look how busy I am,” I share this because when I say I know something about feeling busy and overwhelmed I want you to believe me. I want you to know that I understand. Finding time to schedule doctor visits or visiting friends requires extra juggling and sometimes seems impossible. Regardless of how much I enjoy or value what I do everyday, I still have mornings where I want to stay in bed and pull the covers up over my head and pretend no one will miss me if I don’t get up.

Not to say I don’t have fun. I enjoy teaching because I love the a-hah moments kids have. Those are awesome. And I know I am so blessed to be able to work from home so I can be here with my kids. I am grateful for that. But it means I am never not at work. Literally. My commute is fantastic, sure, but I live at my job, just like every other stay at home mom. I can’t clock out. I never get to be away from my work station, and no matter what I’m doing I feel like I should be doing something else.

Every working mom feels like that. Frankly I think every mom is a working mom whether you get a paycheck with your name on it or not. Every minute of our lives we are pulled in more directions than should be physically possible in a four dimensional universe. If we do the dishes, we’re guilty that we’re not playing with our kids. Playing with our kids we worry about the dishes. Doing the dishes after the kids are in bed makes you worry that you’re not spending time with your 9-5 spouse (which really becomes more of a 7-7 or 6-10 for most of them).

I put out a plea on Facebook for an unpaid intern who would come and be my assistant. One of my favorite girls responded asking what said intern would do. Well, I need someone to come and help me actually finish one checklist- just one- that I could get every item done before I had to add another ten things to the bottom. Time runs away from me and before I’ve finished half the things I want to get done it’s bedtime. Sometimes I resent the medication I have to take- narcolepsy treatment requires that I go to bed at the same time every night and wake up the same time every morning. But I should be grateful for it. Without that kind of regulation I don’t know if I’d ever get to bed.

Because lists never get done, and if I didn’t sleep and take my meds I wouldn’t be functional. But what about everything else I want to do? All the things I want to get done for me- where are those on my list? That’s easy, they’re at the bottom. And they keep staying at the bottom. My husband is a wonderful man and knows how passionate I am about writing, and so he’s been glorious in helping. He’s taken over several chores, like emptying the dishwasher and making breakfast so I have some time somewhere to write. He’s gotten me a keyboard so I can take the iPad with me to the boys’ lessons so I can write while they learn to defend themselves. He let me have the computer for a week and took care of the boys every evening so I could learn to and design my own website.

That kind of support is invaluable. He is awesome. But he can't do a third of the things on my list because of how much time he spends earning money to support us. So there still isn’t enough time in my day. What do I need to do? Time management isn’t the issue. I’ve done the seminars and taken the classes and trust me, my time is managed to the minute. Cut back? Also not so possible. Everything I do in the day is important, and the only thing that could viably be cut is my writing, which is the one thing I’m doing for me. And I’m willing to go a little crazy to keep that.

Is that crazy? Right now I'm working two full time jobs (mother and preschool teacher) and one part time job (guitar lessons). Then add church callings and spouse time on top of those, and trying to write seems pretty selfish. There isn't any time left that I can use: I only have time to write if I take it from somewhere else.

So far I've been stealing time to write from my physical therapy. I'm supposed to do physical therapy for a half an hour every day to keep my blood flowing and my muscles flexible and to fight my aggressive arthritis. Haven't been doing it. Been writing instead. And I can definitely feel a difference in my body, but I've been trying to make up for it by being extra active during preschool. Not the same, but something I can do without giving up writing.

I try to take time to read and study, but that time comes out of something else. Then I don't work out and that makes me feel terrible about myself because one of my new medications has the glorious side effect of me gaining 15 pounds in the last few weeks. My pants don't fit and I feel bloated and awful. Then I escape by writing and feel more myself but my preschool lesson prep didn't get quite finished, so even though the kids love it when I wing it (winging it almost always involves more games and songs and silly dancing) I feel more stressed.

Maybe it isn't worth it. Maybe nothing will come of all this writing and work and all the time I've spent on it will have been merely to prove to myself that I can't make it as an author, so I can let go of the dream and focus on my life here and now. But I don't want to. I don't want all the fight and struggle of getting the manuscript finished to have been just for me. I write because I'm passionate about it, but also because I believe I have something to say.

What are you doing every day for just you? There isn’t always time, and sometimes life goes crazy and every plate you’re trying to keep in the air crashes down. You don’t have time then. But sometimes those are the times when it’s the most important to take time for you. Crazy and stress needs a break from crazy and stress and doing something you love is good for you.

So why is it so freaking hard to find the time? Because we're good people. We want to fulfill our commitments and never let anybody down. We want to help each other and be good spouses and good parents. We have worthy goals. But life these days is so busy and hectic and noisy that there is no extra time. I have often fantasized about being able to split myself into two people from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night so that one of me could live the life I have now and the other could live the life I want. The only problem I can't resolve is if the working out half of my self does counts for both of me, then the aging I do counts for both of me too.

So multiple mes is out. But what do I do? I keep trying. I get up in the morning when my day starts out already behind, and plow through. Because in my mind, there is no other choice. I'm going to do it because it needs to be done, and I am the person there is to do it. I will not give up because this is the life I've chosen for myself, and if I don't have time to live it all, I will spend every day getting done as much as I can.

Small and Simple

            One of my favorite phrases is “by small and simple means are great things brought to pass.” I find great comfort in that, because I feel small and simple much more often than I feel great and powerful. There are days when even small and simple is a stretch. Miniscule and fragile would be closer. But I’ve finally begun to learn to recognize and appreciate small things that go right, especially when everything else is going wrong.

            Last night I had the opportunity to spend some time with kids that I love that weren’t mine. These three children are special to me, because the oldest was in my very first preschool class, the middle is currently in my preschool, and the youngest will be someday. I’ve spent time helping them and teaching them in my home, so it was fun for me to spend time playing with them in theirs. Their mom is a good friend of mine and one of my favorite mothers, and I know it’s especially hard for her to leave her kids with other people. I wanted to share some thoughts with her and with all mothers about how last night went.

            Our small children are the biggest things in our world. They take up the most space in our minds and hearts because they need us the most. Whether you’re a stay at home dad or mom, these little lives we’ve been given charge of fill our thoughts and prey on our fears and we can’t imagine life without them. That’s good. That’s healthy. We’re hardwired to care that much about our kids by evolution and design. But it’s a fine line we have to walk between nurturing our kids for them and nurturing them for us.

            Last night we read books, played hide and seek, sorted toys by shape, then color, then size, and had lots of cuddles and hugs. I’m not mommy or daddy to them, and that was a good thing. Our kids need time away from us with people we trust. It gives them more confidence in themselves and in the world around them, because it broadens their experiences and teaches them that yes, sometimes mom and dad leave, but then they come back. That base level of confidence does wonders for their self esteem- look at all the fun I had on my own! I can have fun on my own and be safe!- and increases their appreciation for you. I missed you mommy and daddy, I’m so glad you’re back. And I’m learning that you always come back.

            It’s good for you, too. You spent decades as your own person, learning about yourself and developing talents and tastes. Then you met, dated, and fell in love with a person who was also a complete individual. It’s easy to get caught up in the role of mommy and daddy, or in your role as worker at your job whatever your title there may be. Don’t let yourself get so immersed in that title of “parent” or “employee” that you lose “me,” that person you spent all those decades developing. The small and simple thing you need to remember is to take time to be you. Take time to be with that person you fell in love with and give yourself permission to be the person they fell in love with. That person was and is you. Not mommy/daddy, not co-worker, just you.

            Because you doesn’t want to be forgotten. Your children are made up of you and your spouse, whether biologically or by culture and love, and they deserve to know you. Your spouse wants to spend time with the person they love. And sometimes you need to step away from every other role, including the one as spouse, and be you.

To all parents, I hereby order you and grant you permission to STOP FEELING GUILTY. If you feel guilty, that means you care. Good! Well done! Now knock it off and recognize that you’re doing your best. Call your best friend or an adult you trust and get them to watch your kids for a few hours. Then call another friend and make plans to go to lunch, go shopping, go see that movie you thought looked good, buy a new outfit, look for shoes, go paintballing, go rock climbing, get out in the world and do something that interests you as a person. You will be a better parent for getting away from parenting once in a while.

And your kids will be happier, more confident, and more well adjusted for surviving without you sometimes. Sometimes your kids have unusual issues or health problems. I know several children with speech impediments, slower development, or other handicaps. It’s harder to leave these, both logistically and emotionally. That’s good. It should be harder. Again, that means you care about your children and you’re doing it right. But you need the break more. Your child needs and deserves your patience and understanding, but these virtues aren’t limitless and need time to recharge and reset. Even if the best you can do is go out and leave them with your spouse, do it. You need the break.

Or find a responsible teenager, preferably an older teenager, and pay them to babysit while you are there. Train them. Let your child grow comfortable with them while you’re still there to supervise. Then get out of the house for a half hour. Go for a walk. Run to the store. And come back. You were close, the time was short, and everything is fine. Next time leave for an hour. There will be challenges and hiccups, but remember that this is something good for them and good for you, both while you’re separated and once you get back.

I know I’m going over to that house to sit again in a few months. The second time will be a little harder, because the novelty will be gone and the tension will be slightly higher. The second time is always like that. The second week of teaching is the hardest. The second day of working out is the hardest. The second time is harder because you’ve done it once and it was fine, great, even fun, and so you’re expecting that same newness and excitement again but it’s just the same. Know that going in. And because I know that, I know how to combat it when I go back. I’ll bring some new games from my house. I’ll bring new kids music for us to dance and learn along with. And my good friend who is a great mom gets a break. And after her kids go to bed, I get time to write! Wins all around.

I mentioned the book “Outliers” in my last post (I think I’m going to skip blogging on Wednesdays pretty consistently, that worked well for me).  I’m going to mention it again. In the book the author, Malcolm Gladwell, postulated that people who are successful at something are the ones who are given the best opportunity for success at the beginning. His first example is about hockey players. He was watching a jr league finals game and looking through the program. He noted that most of the players on both teams had birthdays in the first half of the year. Now Gladwell knew that where he lived, hockey leagues were determined by year of birth and the kids started playing the year they turn five.

The kids who turned five in January were playing against kids who turned five in December. Who do you think was better at it? Those who were better, bigger, and faster were given more attention by the coaches. Parents saw their child being better and more coordinated than the children they played against gave their child more time on the rink and more support in the game. Those kids got more practice time and parents paid for better equipment. They were more likely to stick with it. And they were the kids who were chosen to participate in these all star teams.

Were those January babies actually more coordinated than their December peers? Yes. By 11 months. Were they naturally more talented? Likely not. But because of the way the hockey system was set up, it was weighted in heavy favor of older, larger kids.

What about school? The criteria is largely the same- eligibility is determined by birth date. Once in school, kids are expected to interact with other children of various ages and backgrounds and follow directions by people who aren’t their parents. Not just their classroom teacher, but PE coaches, librarians, computer lab teachers, lunch ladies, principals, and other school staff. Now you can do nothing about your child’s birth date, but you can do everything about their readiness for school.

Last year I had a girl in my preschool whose parents decided she wasn’t ready for kindergarten, even though she was old enough. After meeting her, I agreed with their assessment. Socially she was awesome; friendly, outgoing, and kind. Intellectually she was great too, already knowing her letters and sounds and being able to write her name. But she had a difficult time with self control. Sitting down and being quiet were especially hard. In kindergarten she would have been an issue for the teacher, who would have twenty other students to worry about and teach. In preschool, she was just like all the others, learning to sit down and hold still.

What is the downside of waiting? Your child will be older than the other students and will be more physically and emotionally prepared. So they will receive more attention and more opportunities from their teacher. Not a bad thing. They will be able to make friends more easily than some of the others. Again, bonus. There may be an underlying assumption of the “held back” stigma- they weren’t smart enough or had problems- but by being older, more coordinated, and being given more and better opportunities for education, those silent assumptions will vanish. Let them start school when it will give them the best opportunity to shine, not just because they’ve passed an arbitrary deadline.

Life is harder than I expected. I never assumed it would be easy or simple, but I did expect that there would be peaks and valleys, times of plenty and times of hardship. Instead it seems that those always happen- there are always good things and bad things going on and the trick is to focus on the good while fixing the bad. I’m not capable of that all the time yet, but I’m learning how to cope. My health issues are measured by “how bad is today,” and the goal is to get me back to a semblance of normal. I don’t get to be “better,” I fight for “good enough.” But small happinesses abound, and even if I have 3 huge things wrong in a day I’ll have twenty little good ones. Some days those little good things are the preschool kids. Some days less so.

Your children are the small and simple things in your life that will bring great things. It’s your job as a parent to make sure they have the best chance at success in life and success, remember, doesn’t mean money. It means happiness. Your children will be happier if you are happier. Take a break and be yourself. Give them the chance to grow on their own. Trust your children and rely on the people around you to help. We’re not in this alone, and you are never only one thing.

In your life, you are everything. Including the hero. Give yourself the chance to win, and the permission to take the time you need to be the best person you can be. I’m rooting for you.

Children Armed with Science!

            I think I’m going to need to change up the format of these blog posts a little; I don’t have time to write a new post every day in addition to preschool, guitar lessons, taekwondo, my own writing goals, and all the mom/wife/ homemaker responsibilities. We’ll have to see how it goes over the next few days.

            Today is Tuesday, which means I’m going to talk about teaching and kids. I love science. Always have. I’m fascinated by biology and physics, chemistry and astronomy in particular. So I talk about those things with my preschoolers. Last summer I even taught a week long science camp. It was originally for kids ages 5-8, but it ended up being 3-8. We had a great time. The camp was five days long, and we spent one day on each of Newton’s 3 laws of motion, one day on natural science, and one day on space and aeronautics.

            By the end of that camp, every child knew that force divided by mass equaled acceleration and that meant how hard divided by how heavy equaled how fast or slow. They knew that a light ball pushed hard would go much further than a heavy ball pushed gently. They dug up dinosaurs with actual paleontology tools. They learned that a small child pushing a larger one on a skateboard (wearing a helmet and pads, of course) goes more slowly than a large child pushing a small one on a skateboard (again, with helmet and pads).

            We talk about mixing colors with food coloring in vinegar and more food coloring wrapped in a packet with baking soda. That way we learn blue and yellow make green while also learning that mixing an acid and a base makes a gaseous chemical reaction. Trust me, they don’t forget it. When acid monsters do battle for base candy, it’s memorable.

One of my favorite quotes from the Kids Quotes page is the little girl singing about photosyphilis and how plants are doing it. She only sang it like that once, and then got it right every other time as photosynthesis and knew that meant when plants take sunlight and turn it into food. We have probably 30 silly songs about all different aspects of life and science. And since I have a degree in theater, I have no shame in letting loose and being a goof. And the kids remember it.

Why do I spend so much time telling you all this? Because our children are smarter than we think. They understand far more than we give them credit for, and at this tender age their minds are still expanding rapidly. Not all of them excel in the same ways, but they are more willing to learn and be engaged right now than they ever will be again. And I love to exploit that. They can’t always articulate back to me what we’re talking about, especially if there are a lot of science words, but they can demonstrate the concept when given the chance. We play games all the time, sometimes only actually finishing one or two of the four printed worksheets I’ve prepared because we’re so busy with the fun.

Today, for example, we were talking about our sense of hearing. I love going through the five senses with the kids because there’s almost no limit to how you can demonstrate the power of each sense. The first game we played, I stood behind a wall and made sounds, and they would have to guess what I was using. Acoustic guitar was first, which they got right away, and then we sang the alphabet song while I played along. Then I played the flute. It took a few guesses extra, but they recognized it. I really ham it up when they’re right, asking “How did you know that? Could you see me?” in my most exaggerated voice. They laugh. Then we did electric bass, xylophone, doorbell, telephone, and I brought my dogs in to bark. They got it every time.

Then I blindfolded each child and stood somewhere in the room. I told them to point to me, and asked how they knew where I was when they couldn’t see me. “With our ears!” one little boy shouted, waving his arms. “My ears talked to my brain and told me where your words were standing!” Yep. That’s exactly right.

Don’t underestimate your children. The world is big and wide, with an abundance of sensory input. Some of it is scary, some wonderful, and some inexplicable to them when for us it becomes so much background noise. Children need us to talk to them about the world around us. They also need us to listen. The third game we played had one child blindfolded and all the others talking while I tried to give the blindfolded child directions. “Can you hear me?” I asked. No response. After I quieted all the children, I asked them, “Why didn’t he take three steps towards me?”

“He couldn’t hear you. We was too loud,” came the answer.

The point of the lesson was, for them, that if they were talking while I was teaching that the other kids couldn’t hear me. The point of the lesson for me was if I can’t quiet the background noise in my life once in a while, I’ll never hear the voices trying to give me, or ask me for, help. We are busy. Trust me, I know what busy feels like. If you ever want to feel better about your day or your life, ask me about my schedule. I need to be better about taking time to shut down the noise of the world and talk to my kids about what’s going on in their lives. What they feel. What they think. Find out more about things they’re interested in and give them opportunities to work on those.

Have you ever read the book “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell? Great book. It isn’t about parenting, it’s about people who grew up to be hugely successful. And it postulates that the reason they are so successful in a specific area is because of how they took advantage of the opportunities they had. Great book, very interesting read. I think every parent should read it. “Outliers” made me think about how I was teaching and lead me to expand my lesson plans. We don’t stop after triangle, circle, square, and rectangle. We go on past rhombus, trapezoid, and parallelogram. If you need a dose of adorable, get your three year old to say parallelogram.

Rock paper scissors is a great way to teach cause and effect. Rock paper scissors lizard Spock is even more fun. Play the alphabet game when you’re in the car, but play it for candy. Sing silly songs. Tell your kids strange but true facts. You will be amazed at all the random things you remember from school once you start dredging it up. Enjoy your children. They are awesome.
But put boundaries up for them. After my sons designed an inertia experiment which involved them crashing into each other headlong on their bikes, I taught them the hard and fast rule of "no human experimentation." Be specific.

And whoever put this sign up near Yellowstone, WY, is my hero. Even though J is harder to find than X, thanks to every EXIT sign.

Practicing one Paragraph at a time

 I had an interesting experience while writing my manuscript with my alpha readers. We were having a picnic outside on a beautiful June day, eating sandwiches and talking about my first ten chapters. My alpha readers are people I select carefully, whose opinions I trust. They are all intelligent people. And they each gave me completely different feedback.

“The beginning is too long,” said one. “You need to cut it down, rearrange it so your characters get to training earlier.”

“I like the beginning,” said another. “I think the characterization of some specific team members needs to be fixed.”

“I like the team members,” the third said. “I want to see more interaction between the two main characters. More dialogue.”

“I think there's too much dialogue. The main character talks more than he should. Guys aren't like that,” said the last.

Holy cow. The only thing they all agreed on was that the prologue needed a point of view character and more description. How do I sort through all this input?

We hear all the time in our writing classes and seminars the phrase, “Show, don't tell.” So we try. Instead of Janice running, we say Janice rapidly made her way down the narrow hallway. The dark blue tapestries loomed menacingly along both walls. She clenched her fists angrily. She was going to kill him as soon as she found him.

Then those same teachers tell us “Cut the adverbs. Get rid of all those 'ly' words. Show me more. Be descriptive” So we take them out, and now Janice made her way down the narrow hallway, the balls of her feet slapping against the hard concrete floor. The old carpet was a deep red with a confusing paisley pattern. The dark blue tapestries seemed to absorb the light and made the darkness thicker and more threatening. There were only small windows that flashed light on her tear stained face, although her sorrow was long over. Her fists and jaw were clenched, her eyes were narrow and she breathed rapidly through her nose. When she reached the room at the end of this long hallway, she was going to kill him. Her only hope was that no one else had done it yet.

Then our writing is turned it again to our teachers and editors. It comes back with red marks everywhere. “Too wordy. Try to cut it back.” And we tear our hair out because the rules seem so contradictory and no one explains what they mean, and no matter how hard we're trying it is always wrong. Too many words. Not enough words. Too descriptive. Not descriptive enough. Get rid of adverbs. Show me, don't tell me. It's enough to make any writer want to lock their work away and never show it to anyone.

Breathe. You're doing all right. There are a lot of rules, and they are all important, but they aren't all important all the time. Let's rework this paragraph with Janice now that we've done the most important part- we wrote it.

“Janice made her way down the narrow hallway, the balls of her feet slapping against the hard concrete floor.” Let's cut it back. Instead of “made her way” we can say “went.” Does it matter to the story what part of her feet hit the floor first when she's running? If it isn't, we can cut that. And do we need to call concrete hard? Isn't it hard by definition? Writers have a tendency to repeat themselves because they are trying so hard to show the reader what's going on. So now, “Janice went down the narrow hallway, her feet slapping against the concrete floor.”

Now let's see if we can combine the next two sentences. “The old carpet was a deep red with a confusing paisley pattern. The dark blue tapestries seemed to absorb the light and made the darkness thicker and more threatening.” These are about the same length and are both descriptions of the hallway. We can make one longer sentence. “The confusing paisley pattern on the carpet and the dark blue tapestries lining the walls absorbed the light, making the darkness thicker and more threatening.” We could work it more, because saying that the darkness is threatening is not as strong as showing how the darkness was affecting Janice. “making the darkness thicker. Janice tried to ignore the shadows that twitched and nudged the corners of her vision and her heart beating in her chest so hard it was painful.” Wordy is only wordy when you're repeating yourself or adding useless information. We don't need to know the color of the walls or how many windows there are in the hall. We need to know where Janice is and how she feels so clearly that we feel it ourselves.

“There were only small windows that flashed light on her tear stained face, although her sorrow was long over. Her fists and jaw were clenched, her eyes were narrow and she breathed rapidly through her nose.” Again, these sentences are the same length. Varying your sentence lengths makes your writing sound more smooth in the reader's head, and allows them to lose themselves in your story. “Small windows flashed light on the tear stains of an old sorrow. Her fists and jaw were clenched now, eyes narrowed, lips twisted in a feral snarl.” Are you seeing it? Does this paint a better picture than “angrily?”

“When she reached the room at the end of this long hallway, she was going to kill him. Her only hope was that no one else had done it yet.” These are all right on their own, but we can make them stronger. When writing you can usually remove “that” or “very” any time you type it. And we can give more information about the room at the end, depending on how we want the next scene to go. How does it feel if we know she's running to the kitchen? What if the room at the end of the hall is a bedroom? “When she reached their bedroom at the end of the hall, she was going to kill him. She only hoped no one else had done it yet.”

So here's our paragraph: “Janice went down the narrow hallway, her feet slapping against the concrete floor. The confusing paisley pattern on the carpet and the dark blue tapestries lining the walls absorbed the light, making the darkness thicker. Janice tried to ignore the shadows that twitched and nudged the corners of her vision and her heart beating in her chest so hard it was painful. Small windows flashed light on the tear stains of an old sorrow. Her fists and jaw were clenched now, eyes narrowed, lips twisted in a feral snarl. When she reached their bedroom at the end of the hall, she was going to kill him. She only hoped no one else had done it yet.”

If you give this to an editor or a teacher, they're still going to make red marks. That's fine, that's their job. My alpha readers still all have different opinions of what's good and what they love about my book and things they wish I'd added more about. Do edit. Go through your words carefully after you've gotten them down. Keep the rules in the back of your mind. But don't ever let them stop you from writing. If you do, what will they have to critique?

No Monsters in the Closet

            It’s Sunday, so it’s time for a “whatever I’m thinking about” post. I admit that I’m nervous about this one, not because I haven’t thought about it much, but because I’ve thought about it a lot over the course of years and I know it is a very divisive topic. I want to stress right now that the views and ideas expressed in this blog are my own and are not representative of any other person or group to which I may belong. This is just me, talking about what I think and how I feel.

            Why all the disclaimers? Because I want to talk about something that has been bothering me for a long time. Something close to my heart. I want to share with all of you my personal views and beliefs regarding homosexuality, or same-sex attraction. But first let me give you some background about me, where I come from, and my experiences with homosexuality.

            I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We call ourselves LDS, but because of our belief in The Book of Mormon as a companion scripture to the Holy Bible we’re also called Mormons. Mormons hold many of the same beliefs that Christian churches have, Jesus Christ is our Savior and the Only Begotten of the Father, and only through him can we be saved in the kingdom of heaven, but we also believe that there are prophets on the earth today who continue to guide us as the prophets in the scriptures did. If you want more information about the LDS church and our beliefs, you can visit mormon.org.

            I was born and raised in Utah Valley, Utah County, Utah. Yep, happy valley Utah. But from a very young age I was exposed to cultures and people from all around the world. My parents stressed tolerance and love. We were encouraged to be understanding of everyone, and to seek for peace and friendship. My best friend my junior year in high school was a boy who confessed to me over the phone one night that he was gay, and was so afraid. He thought he was a monster. He thought his parents would disown him. I spent most of the night on the phone with him reassuring him that we were still best friends and that he wasn’t a monster or evil or anything, and that I loved him. We lived in a small town and he was afraid of getting bullied or beat up, so I was his beard until he graduated. I was fine with that, although I wished he didn’t have to worry about how people would accept him.

            Since high school I’ve had several friends who’ve been attracted to people of the same gender. I love them all very much. I don't believe being homosexual is something you choose. It's something you're born as and wired to be, just as much as anyone else. Second, being a homosexual or being attracted to someone of the same sex does not make you evil, bad, or condemned to hell. It doesn't make you anything, it's just a part of who you are. Third, I do believe in an afterlife and in a just and merciful Father in Heaven. And none of those things in my mind are contradictory.

Before I go on, I'd like you to read this blog post. If you've read it before, just skip through it as a refresher because I want to refer to specific things in it. http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html

Okay, so here's what I believe. This life is supposed to be a test, and it's supposed to be a test that's difficult enough to put us through a refiner's fire. And we're supposed to go through a refiner's fire because the life after this one is filled with such endless possibilities and eternities that we need to be prepared to handle bigger consequences and receive bigger blessings. Being homosexual is hard, because no matter what lifestyle you choose, you're sacrificing something huge. If you decide to follow your passion and marry someone of your same gender, you're giving up the possibility of having a biological child that's made of both of you. That's enormous. And tragic. In many ways I'm still mourning my inability to have more children, and that's only a shadow of what it would feel like to not be able to have any.

If you decide to follow religious or societal conventions and marry someone of the opposite sex, you're giving up an integral part of the romantic relationship. Again, that's something that's such a huge sacrifice it's hard to contemplate. And whatever any individual decides to choose for themselves is their own business and I will give them nothing but love. They're already giving up enough. They don’t need me giving them a hard time about it and it wouldn’t be my place to judge them anyway. They live their lives as best they can. Who am I to think I would know better?

From a larger perspective, though, it isn't more than some other people are expected to give up. Not everyone's trials, not even half everyone's trials will be as difficult or as visible. But some people are born without the ability to have children. Some people are born, like me, with a myriad of genetic and autoimmune problems that will make life progressively harder. Some people, like other friends of mine, are born fine but then through circumstances beyond their control become incapable of having romantic relationships because of abuse and the betrayal of trust. Are we broken or evil for the way we were born, just because it’s different that the norm and will limit our choices?

From an eternal perspective, the perspective that The Book of Mormon is true and everything that goes along with that, there is the strong knowledge that families can be sealed in the temple to be together forever. My worst fear is losing one of my sons. Imagine how much more tightly then I hold that forever families belief now that I have children.  

And as part of the gospel, there is the Second Coming and the Resurrection when everyone who dies gets to live again and all the pain and afflictions we've suffered are past. I'll be able to walk and run and write and play with my sons and my husband forever, never have to say goodbye again. If that's real and that's available for everyone, how can I encourage people to make choices that will jeopardize that? Now this is an important distinction I want to be clear about- I will never judge or condemn someone for choices that they make. I will assume that everyone is trying to do the best they can with what they have been given and love them as individuals. If I overheard someone disparaging or demeaning homosexual individuals for their choices I would step in and make it stop. And I have before, even gotten punched in the face once doing it. But when what I believe, personally, for me, is that gay marriage can jeopardize the happiness and eternal progression of each individual, from a religious standpoint, how can I vote for it?

If the government steps in and mandates legal marriage between same sex partners, that's fine. I would not oppose it and I would openly welcome any life partners and their children to our neighborhood and our community. Personally I think they wouldn't make any better or worse parents than any other, and possibly be a lot more understanding to their children. I think they have the right to make their own choices and live their lives any way they want without anything from me but friendship, love, and understanding. And not passively. We would have them over for dinner, have play dates with their kids, and make sure they felt welcome.

But if the government says, "You vote what you believe to be right," then they are asking me to directly and personally take a stand for or against a principle. I wish they wouldn't. I think the question of marriage is a religious question, and I wish that those who choose that lifestyle would pull it under that umbrella, because then the government couldn't intervene. They would have to support religious freedom, and that doesn't mean they have to believe in God, they just have to believe in something. The first amendment would protect their right and they (the government) would stop harassing me about standing for or against something that makes me mix my church and state.

And maybe that makes me a coward, but I am tired of the catch 22 we’re being placed in. We are asked, as a people, to vote for or against legalizing same gender marriage, and then when we vote, we are made into villains for doing exactly what they asked us to do. Come out and vote for what you think would be best. And if you don’t agree with what we want, then you’re evil and narrow minded and we hate you.

I’ve heard of Mormons who vote for changing the definition of marriage, who march in gay rights parades, and who speak out about civil rights infringement. On the one hand, I totally get that. I think it’s unfair that the government would ever inhibit the rights of one group and not another. And I hate, I HATE seeing those who have committed no crime but existing as themselves being put down or shunted aside or being made to feel somehow lesser. That should not happen. But on the other hand I think that these Latter-Day Saints are being hypocritical. We have the promise that if we follow the commandments and believe in the words of the prophets, both in ancient and in latter days, that we can receive eternal blessings. And that everyone will be judged fairly.

And not by me. It is my job in this world to live my life as best I can. When I encounter someone who is suffering, I try to make it better. When I meet someone living a different lifestyle than mine, I love it. I enjoy meeting new people and making new friends who challenge me and help me to see the world in a broader way. The only things I will not stand are deliberate ignorance or violence.

Does this make sense? Am I rambling? All I want you to understand is that I think being homosexual means having to sacrifice something huge no matter which way you choose and I have a lot of sympathy and respect for that, and that since I believe in the Second Coming and in Jesus Christ I believe that the fire and trials and pains of this world are worth it. For me, I have to. I can't stand the thought of losing my boys or my husband, and the days when my autoimmune stuff is so bad that it's painfully hard to even get out of bed I have to believe there's a reason for all the suffering. But I also can't stand the thought of people believing that I'm stupid or bigoted or blindly following the path someone else laid out for me. I am not a villain and I am not a victim.

I am a person with problems who is doing my best to get through life the best way I can, and trying to help others along the way. Judge me for who I am, not who you think I am. Because the rhetoric of bigotry and hate has to end between us. We have politicians for that.