When Authors Are Awesome pt II

Well, I told you in the last “awesome authors” post how Cressida Cowell wrote back but I couldn’t talk about it – she asked for Ezra’s address to send him a surprise letter! So we made this to remember the experience! Enjoy!

 

Avert Your Eyes, Children

Well, darn it. I really thought I wasn’t going to care about Valentine’s Day. I mean, I’ve been married to the same guy for the past nine and a half years and he does something for me literally every day so why is today supposed to be any more special? Plus we’re not gonna see each other until late this evening. And Valentine’s Day is so [insert cynicism].

And then he gave me a card before he left this morning. (I can actually show you which one since it’s an Elena Original – that is not the name of her company, I should mention.)

And then I read his note – written in orange pen… methinks the blue pen he started my name with ran out? – and then I watched this video I made for him a couple years ago, after he dedicated this song to me. Which I’m now gonna share with you and Valentine’s Day is my excuse because you’re suPPOSED to care about other people’s love today! (That’s how this works, right?)

 

This Is The Story Of A Girl

If you were born before the 90s, God bless you. I mean, that title has you singing a really annoying song. If you weren’t…here:

And now we get to ponder why that video has a picture of the wrong band in it… hmm. Sidebar (totally used incorrectly) – I seem to recall frolicking down the Santa Cruz boardwalk beach singing this really loudly. Because I was an annoying teenager once, too.

That is not *even* where this was supposed to go. Let’s start again.

This is Ana.

Ana’s real name is Anastasia and Anastasia is my sister. Anastasia has a son six weeks younger than mine, whom I sometimes call Cabbage. Cabbage is blessed to be alive. Why, you ask? Because my dear sister is a Bake-A-Baby. You know how it is. Sometimes new mothers express love through bundling the baby in an unnecessary swelter-fest of clothing. Forget that our kids were born in sunny California. And hers in beautiful September, coming off the hottest summer of our LIVES. Suffice it to say, there’s never a time in that state for this:

Really. Never.

Not only did Anastasia have the Bake-A-Baby gene – taking the bun in the oven metaphor far postpartum – she has a debilitating case of jumping to infuriated and indignant conclusions about any woman she sees, anywhere, who is wearing more clothing than the child by whom said woman is accompanied. Once again, she lives in California. But still, the offending woman who has the audacity to wear a light jacket while her child wears a t-shirt, regardless of the weather, is an awful excuse for a bag of bones. O_O That’s why yesterday was such a good day.

So I get a call from Ana yesterday evening and she is upset. I can tell she’s already preparing for my response and there’s a slight amusement in her voice but it’s outweighed by her repeated use of the words “panic attack”. So apparently, Cabbage had refused to wear his jacket into Costco and she had elected to wear hers. (Do you see where this is going?) Along comes a LOVELY old woman who is my undisputed HERO and she is not only indignant at the sight, but not silently! She approaches Ana and demands why *she* is wearing a jacket and her *beautiful* little boy is *not*! (I like to assume she slapped Ana across the face with the back of her hand.) And only because of Ana’s history of being on this woman’s side, I’m sure, did she attempt to explain that her son had been asked to bring his jacket and had not done so…but the woman did not believe her. {Break for laughter} In short, Ana. Got. Told. BAM. That woman was not HAVING IT. Horrible, senseless mother!

I’m laughing my head off over this story, of course, particularly the part where Ana goes rushing from Costco – guess Cabbage don’t get no food neither! – and hyperventilates before calling me. I ask her, “So what have we learned?” in my sweetest, most syrupy voice ever.

There’s a long pause in which I can hear the wind in the hollow of her gaping mouth. Finally, and as though she’s actually racked her brain for the answer, Ana says, “Nothing!”

Bravo, my love. Bravo.

 

When Authors Are Awesome

The Autograph Is Awesomesauce

The title of that picture should be Verklemption.Which also sounds like a fragrance now.

So this is what happened when author Brandon Sanderson wrote the awesomest message before signing the book. I guess Andy deserves some credit, since he’s the one who actually went to the book signing and told Mr. Sanderson (wait, that makes him sound like an 8th grade social studies teacher…no, that was Mr. Mothersole. Carry on.) about the “big shelf”. Oh, I guess you’ll wanna know what it said and why it was awesome.

Josh – Hope I make it to the big shelf…

^.^ This was hilarious because he either had to just write whatever Andy told him to (which he does, which is already awesome) or he had to let Andy tell him how we brought one bookshelf to Montreal. And how we therefore had to decide who got to go on the big shelf. Seeing as I’m a pretty discriminating purchaser of books, all mine are good. Aside from our books from university, which of COURSE go on the big shelf, Josh reads pulp science fiction and also the Left Behind series so… there was a chicken coop-esque smaller book holder (that’s as classy a name as it gets) that was more like a literary lean-to.

Brandon Sanderson is cooler yet because we felt we had to email him to say thanks, since we didn’t actually get to meet him. And he wrote back! Seriously, he’s one of our favorites for life. I follow him on Twitter and Facebook so I get to hear how he makes other people’s day all the time, too. You rock, sir.

I don’t think it can be overstated how amazing experiences like that are.

So, number two:

Ezra and his How To Train Your Dragon Series. So you know how his grandma gave him the first book when he was six because he we are rightfully obsessed with the masterpiece that is the movie? And you know how he looks smacktacular when he’s reading? Okay, but anyway so he’s now on the sixth book in the series and he has never loved one of the books this much. Which is saying a lot. He has been so excited about this book that he is tearing through it and instead of restricting himself to a chapter a day (which he used to do unless the chapter was really short), he’s been reading three. So he’s sitting next to me and every couple minutes he asked if he could go. When I realized he’d been asking to go on to the next chapter (he makes rules and then tricks himself into thinking I made them…), I was like. I have to write this woman. So I did.

While he was breathing really quickly next to me and saying aloud how the Hairy Scary Librarian is without. mercy! I wrote Cressida Cowell and told her all about it. (I misspoke at one point and accidentally said he finished the first book on his sixth birthday instead of his seventh – FORGIVE ME, CRESSIDA!! Tell me why I’ve been freaking out about that.)

The next day – the next morning – she’d written back. This is how I looked.

So now I had to be giddy all day waiting for Ezra to get home from school so he could read the email. To which he responded with the biggest, most painful looking grin ever. It was awesome.

Cressida Cowell is even more awesome because that same day she emailed again. Only I can’t talk about it or Ezra will find out. O_O Because you guys talk so often. And also because he reads over my shoulder so I could never come back to my blog. O_O Seriously, it’s killing me.

BUT it’s time for the verdict.

BOOK PEOPLE ARE AWESOME.

 

 

I’ve Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts

Sometimes I think writers have all the fun. Take last night for instance. My current WIP is a previous novel, which is to say it’s a rewrite. (Yes, we do that. Okay, not all of us. … Does hive-mind exist for *any* group?) So anyway. It’s something. By which I mean, I can’t translate what I mean and I don’t know if you’d care anyway. But it’s legitimately a rewrite and I had the most fun idea ever, which turned out to be as much fun in execution as I expected – and how often does *that* happen? Two words: Compare. Documents.

Seriously, it’s consuming, and I’m only 29k in. It also confirms that it’s not just me – it really is different. You’ve either already experienced this because you’re a writer or you’re not a writer so you don’t care to do this. (Two options. That’s it. I’ve decided.) But this is how I geek out so I shared anyway, WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

You know what Word *should* have? A word-count-to-this-point function, as in one where you right click after a word and it tells you the word count up to that point. ‘Cause that’d be sweet. … I should sell that.

And then someday I’ll talk to you about the two Sams of Being Human (except I’ll refer to them by their character names of Aidan and Josh, which is less confusing and also I’m referring to the “American” version and it’s SO not Boston so as my Jen-the-twin says, let’s give up that ghost ::snort::) and how everything’s more fun when you and your sister who live in different countries watch it at different times and then have cryptic Facebook conversation threads about it. Oh my job, we should totally do a vlog together somehow if that’s technologically possible. But for now, let me close with this: sleepiness is the new drunk. That or I’m legit dying. Like sooper close to death right now and I should probably *not* try to go back to writing. Can you imagine me just writing pages and pages of nonsense?

*crickets*

 

CALIFORNIAAAAAA, no seriously I hate that song

It’s been almost two weeks since our trip “home” to California… during which I did absolutely no writing, that I can recall. And that trip was three weeks long so. Yeah. But the point is that I realize my presence has been spotty. It’s not like I don’t have anything to say… but I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, somewhere on this blog. The same ridiculousness elicits at least a similar level of indignation from me, as you can tell from the previous entry. So instead, let’s talk about California!

(1) I do not appreciate not being able to tell what month it is. I understand that my Montreal people thought it sounded awesome to be 70 degrees F in January but… like the Christmas we spent on Oahu, it made little to no sense. Where is my snow?! ::weeping, gnashing of teeth::

(2) I *fully* appreciated eating. Everything. Everywhere. @_@ Before we left, my son and I made a list of places we needed to go. When I got there, though, I was – shall we say – a bit obsessed with Mexican. [It is at this point that I want to make a general announcement to my Montrealers, particularly those who have never been to the west coast OR Mexico and yet somehow have decided that Mexican food is gross. YOU'VE.NEVER.HAD.IT. Promise. Don't eat it in Montreal and then proclaim it disgusting, silly rabbit.] AND we’re back. So, for fast food that I’d been craving something fierce, we hit:

- Panda Express

- Chipotle

- Adalberto’s

- Jalisco

- Jimboy’s

….yeah, with the exception of Panda’s. Once I had some, I couldn’t stop. Oh and there was that taco bar in Portland. NOM-tastic. And then speaking of Portland – SKYLINE!!!!!!!!!!! *I’ll always love you, Skyline*

And then, you know, I had a bunch of junk food, starting with Garrett’s in the Chicago airport.

I’ve posted this picture like everywhere. Because I am PROUD.

(3) I had a college reunion! Well, a Porter reunion! Okay, more like a B3N reunion! Well, two of us were B3N – WHATEVER. Basically, this:

Katie and Sasha drove up with their significant others – evidenced by the next pic which proves once and for all that we are a dangerous group of finger-snapping ne’er-do-wells.

Don’t cross us in a dark alley, people. Oh and – chucklesnort – in that first picture?! ::muffles dork laughter:: Katie and I swapped boots!

(4) I can’t even post all the pictures I want to force upon you because they involve other people’s children. Biological, I should say. In truth, they are really mine. My nephews, my goddaughter. TOO.MUCH.KISSUMS. Seriously. Wish I could show you all the delight. Did I already tell you I spent a week with five boys between the ages of 3 months and 7 years? And that it was GLORIOUS?

(5) And we took family portraits – since we haven’t done that altogether since Ezra was three months old..and he’s now the 7yo to whom I was just referring. So, naturally, said portraits look like this:

And that about wraps it up.

 

Annoyed Doesn’t Even Begin

Be proud of yourselves, parents who “finally revealed child’s gender after five years”. Be as proud of yourselves as you obviously are and don’t worry about the implications of using a CHILD to make your statements. So they didn’t want little boy Sasha to know he was a little boy. No stereotypes. No “slotting people into boxes”. So they did this.

“The big no-no’s are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts. In one photo, sent to friends and family, Sasha’s dressed in a shiny pink girl’s swimsuit.”

My first concern, of course, is where they got the impression there was something wrong with gender. Please keep all anecdotes at bay, lest we come to the conclusion that all relationships are disastrous and collectively drink the koo-laid.

My second concern is how bad of a job we do at being God. So, THEY of course knew Sasha was a boy and therefore keeping away stereotypes meant keeping away MASCULINE stereotypes. Which resulted in encouraging and embellishing FEMININE stereotypes as a show that being the opposite of what people say you are is empowerment as opposed to futile defiance? And explain to me how this keeps the child from experiencing all those horrible, horrible things that occur in childhood “because of gender”. Can I even pretend they would understand a sociological discussion of what occurs when you introduce someone into an agency of socialization such as public education schooling but whose culture has been purposely marred beforehand so that he is traumatically leaving his home AND being introduced as an alien only he doesn’t know he’s an alien because you acted like this was normal and WHAT PURPOSE DOES THIS SERVE FOR A FIVE YEAR OLD?! If you wanted to make a statement, why didn’t YOU make it?! Sending him to a school with a mixed uniform of a girl’s top and boy bottoms?!

This did not stop the boy from having a gender. Much of gendered behavior is established outside the home, but that’s beside the point. This is basically like my speaking only gibberish to my child for the first five years of his life and then sending him to school. I’m not even able to express all the ways this is unacceptable right now. Absolute foolishness and no amount of smug progessiveness is going to change that. Cheers.

 

The Future’s So Bright

No, I’m kidding – this post will not be about resolutions or 2012 in pretty much any way. As a matter of fact, without the characteristics of winter I’ve come to know and love, my body/brain isn’t even really willing to accept that *Christmas* has come, let alone New Year’s. I’ll keep you posted as this geographical/denial-of-time-passage unfolds. (Watches you hold your breath.)

But there are things. … >.>

And those things (above) were written right after the New Year, if that gives you some indication of how I totally meant to call you but then I lost my phone and it had all my contacts in it! Now I’ve waited so long to tell you about the great pilgrimage to California (with a stop off in Portland) that I was actually a little scared to come back here. I thought of just leaving the stove on and tossing a lit match in the vicinity, believe me. And then I watched a little ditty called Real Steel on one of the flights home and thought, this ish writes itself. (Not the movie. Nobody wrote that.) And then I felt kinda guilty for trying to regain your love with movie reviews – but let’s be real, what’s better than a review of something that bad? Really? (Please remind me to ask Hugh Jackman what the devil is WRONG with him. His other bad taste isn’t his fault, he’s Australian, but really? The level of corn and lameness he’s willing to spew. It was as bad as the “computer hacking” scene in Swordfish.)

And then, you know, real things happened, family things, personal things, spiritual things – all of which are the same things, just different levels. And instead of those things, here’s a list.

(1) Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes – everything I hoped for. Everything I need. Brought the movie home (thanks, Christmas!) but watched it five or so times in our three week vacation. And if that doesn’t seem like a lot…we also watched Book of Eli as many times. And Napoleon Dynamite.

(2) This. (Remember, that’s that thing we say when there’s no need to try and introduce or paraphrase what was already perfectly stated.) A Salon article on the unacknowledged offensiveness of “not seeing race”- LINK IT UP.

(3) Powell Books – You don’t seem to know dystopian is too saturated. I’m not writing this in defense of anything, just as an observation that an extremely popular bookstore (to understate it) does this:

Which I love.

(4) My speculative concept/literary style novella, Keepsake, is finished. And I love it hard. I was gonna say hardly but that sounded like the opposite of what I’m saying.

(5) At one point – for several days – I was in a house with five little boys between the ages of 7 years and 3 months. And it was lovely. And in that same timeframe I was with my Jen-the-Twin!

Totally the most complementary picture I can find of us.

(6) I came home to a snow globe. <3

 

Happy Joyous Christmas Time Family Fun Show!

Preparing for the holidays – actually the little one just opened his first present. Gotta love his reactions. We had to have a family hug after. Presh. But since I’m basically gonna be less present than I already am – and I know, you’re all, Is that even possible?! – I thought I should let you become obsessed with a group I’m very nearly hurting myself on. The following song has been played seven times today. In between I sang it myself, if you’re wondering how I exercised such a remarkable display of self-restraint.

AND THE WIP IS COMPLETE. And I love it. Hard. Gah.

What’s that? You want more Page CXVI? Mkay.

 

On. My. Mind.

Oh Soul 4 Real and Heavy D.

In Thoughts That Just Occurred To Me: I have an embarrassingly hard time remembering how to spell “occurred” and “occasion” properly. Stupid r’s and s’s.

In No, Really This Time – Thoughts That Just Occurred To Me: December is the fastest month of the year and this is the week before Christmas. O_O How the H did that HAPPEN?

In Thoughts From Last Night: I don’t ever want to forget the derelict, possibly inebriated gentleman who greeted metro entrants by sing-yelling “Solid As A Rock”. I was thisclose to breaking into dance. This is why Josh and I should be together at all. times.

Secondly, no matter how long of a streak I develop writing in any particular way (by which I mean, writing and revising solely on the screen, for example), I will inevitably reach a point where I *must* revert to the previous method (in this case, printing recent pages and editing/expanding in the margins and the trance taking over and then, mercy of mercies, typing the new ink into font and *why* does that feel so good?!)… Last night. So good.

In Thoughts I’ve Been Gumming For A While: Marching Band is awesome. No, we already know that.

But recently – and surprisingly, for the first time – it occurred to me (how often I use that word to have such stupid brain-farts every time I do)… how it reflects my relationship with God. That might sound strange, depending on one’s beliefs, but it makes sense – my spiritual life is more relevant than my physical life and the latter is constantly used to enrich the former. Not every example is appropriate for outsider consumption, but this one is.

The gist of competitive marching band protocol is that you come onto the field (if field show; usually the street, if parade competition) knowing exactly what is required of you. You have memorized the music; you have memorized your positions/steps; you are aware of the routines of those surrounding you; you ostensibly have an internal metronome and are “capable” of keeping time. All things considered, it’s understandable that sometimes you neglect to look at the drum major.

Now the drum major is an awesome girl with a beautiful singing talent, a striking matador-themed skirt and cape – not sure the boots or hat were exactly accurate but they looked great on her – and an impeccably precise demonstration of keeping time. (Shout out to Lindsay and while I am being quite specific because I actually had the pleasure of being in marching band, this really does relate.) Other drum majors have a mace; she doesn’t. Other drum majors are tall and imposing; she’s not especially so. But she’s standing at the “front” of the field, on her podium, giving direction. And if you take your eyes off of her… you’re screwed.

Not because you don’t know what to do. Or think you know. Not because you can’t keep time. Or think you can. But because when you’re not looking at the drum major, you’re phasing before you know it. And that’s the thing – without looking back, you might not know it – but the drum major does. The drum major sees where you are, where you were and where you’re going – but you can’t. You’re flush with the field. And if it’s practice and the only noise is coming from your group, you’ll hear when the drum major calls out, “Look at me!” If you’re competing? You’re out of luck – and so are the people around you, the people depending on you.

My religion is the part I know before I get on the field, what let me know how to prepare, if that makes sense. It cannot and is not meant to take the place of a personal relationship with the Lord. He stands at the front telling me to keep my eyes on Him, lest I make a mess of this.

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ~ Hebrews 12:1