A belated Memorial Day message, blogging + more

MY BROTHER IS HOME!

He redeployed (which means, in non-Army-speak, returned home) from Afghanistan last Sunday, May 29. A very cool date, considering he redeployed from Iraq the day after Veteran's Day in 2008, and this time he redeployed the day before Memorial Day.

I cannot tell you the relief that flooded my body when the plane's tires touched down. It was like a giant weight lifted from my shoulders. I know it was even more intense and exciting for my mom and my sister-in-law!

Since I was traveling home on Memorial Day and didn't get a chance to write a blog, I thought I'd do it now. I wanted to say belated Happy (and I say this bittersweetly, because is a day set aside in remembrance of our fallen really happy?) Memorial Day to the US military, current and retired. I wish there was more I could do for our military, especially our combat veterans. They hold a special place in my heart. I keep a book of newspaper clippings—the kids who toted around a cardboard cutout of their dads for a whole year, the new mother whose husband never got to see his child, the Gold Star moms, the double-amputations of once able-bodied men, the soldier  who deployed to Iraq with his bomb-tech wife and returned home a widower—to remind myself of the sacrifice those men and women make for us. I hope that all Americans, whether in favor of the war or not, keep this in mind all year round.



Me and my brother after the redeployment ceremony

I also wanted to mention a new non-profit I've started volunteering with called Operation Paperback, a group which allows volunteers to mail gently used books to service members overseas. Even if you don't have any books in your personal collection to donate (because let's be honest, as awesome as our military is, most of them probably don't prefer YA) , you could always pick up a few books from the thrift store to mail a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine. War is basically working yourself to the bone interspersed with periods of hurry up and wait, so a few good books could make a big difference in someone's life. 

I have a few announcements regarding blogging, but I think this post's long enough already, so keep an eye out for that blog later this afternoon or tomorrow.

At the airfield waiting for my brother's plane.
It was a loooong trip and a long wait, but so worth it.

The Great Wikipedia Blogfest

Today is Rachel Bateman's Great Wikipedia Blogfest. If you'd like to join the fun, or would like to read all of the entries, click here.

The rules are:
1. Go to Wikipedia
2. In the left-hand sidebar, click the 'Random Article' link.
3. Read the article…or skim if it’s super long.
4. Write a scene or piece of flash fiction involving whatever the article is about.
5. On June 3rd, post your scene to your blog, making sure to link the Wikipedia article.

Then see what everyone else wrote!

Fun, easy, unique. My kind of blogfest. Thank you, Rachel!

Now, I bent the rules a little. My first attempt was Pembroke Pines Charter High School, but I'm not in the business of getting sued, so I skipped that once since it's a tad too specific. Then I got spiders of Australia, but that was a stub, not an article. Next was John of Jandun. I drew a complete blank on that one. And next?

Next I got something I could work with:

Virginia Brown Faire

Virginia's eyes drooped. Her mom, Terri, looked over, set the popcorn on the couch, and sighed. She pressed pause, the VCR tracking fuzzing over the still shot of a glowing, dark-lipped woman onscreen.

"C'mon, Ginny. It's only 9 o'clock."

Virginia's neck snapped up. She breathed deeply, almost snorting. "What?" She rubbed her head. "Sorry, Mom.  I'm just..." Her eyes drifted closed again. She reopened them slowly, as if each eyelash weighed a pound. "Between work and school, I'm just not getting enough sleep."

Terri picked popcorn salt from beneath her neon blue acrylic nails.  "I know you're busy, baby, but is it really so hard to give your old mom two teensy hours for a mother-daughter night? All you do is study study study."

Virginia scooted to the edge of the couch and stretched her legs. "Well, I have to study study study if I want to get into UCLA next year."

Virginia Brown Faire as Tinkerbell
Peter Pan, 1924
Source

Terri's face hardened. "You mean, next year when you abandon me?"

It was Virginia's turn to sigh. "I'm not abandoning you. I'm going to college. Living my dream? Like you always told me to do?" Virginia gestured to the screen.

Terri pulled a turquoise spaghetti strap further up her freckled, too-tan shoulder.  "Well, I was wrong, wasn't I? That town chewed me up and spit me out. You see where my big Hollywood dream got me, don't you?  Here in Nowhereville," she flapped her hand toward the ceiling, making her bracelets clang, "living in my mother's basement. Do you want to end up like that?"

Virginia repressed the urge to tell her she had already ended up like that, by simple default of being Terri O'Flynn, wannabe theatre actress's unplanned daughter. Instead, she scratched the back of her neck and made her way the short distance across the basement to her bed. "Mom, the SATs are tomorrow. I've got to beat my previous score or I won't have a chance." She yawned. "Deep down, I know you understand. Goodnight."

Terri huffed, turned back to the TV, and pressed play. Virginia shook her head at her mother's back, wishing there was a way to make things better.

Too bad the only way Terri'd be happy is if Virginia stayed in Centreville, waitressing at Applebee's until her carpal tunnel put her on disability somewhere around fifty, living in the windowless basement watching the silent film version of Peter Pan every night, oohing and aahing over Virginia Brown Faire, an obscure old-Hollywood actress who was the triple whammy of Tinkerbell, Terri's inspiration, and Virginia's namesake.

Virginia clicked the light off, trying to doze despite the equations and analogies running through her brain, despite the flicker of the old television set and Terri's crunching and sniffling.

Virginia loved her mom, really. But one more year was almost more than she could bear.

Misadventures of a day without power

Yesterday a thunderstorm blew through, bringing quarter-sized hail and 80+ mph wind gusts. While the storm wasn't serious compared to what's going on in Joplin, MO, Tuscaloosa, AL, and countless other towns ravaged by tornadoes recently—it mostly caused downed trees and power lines—190,000 homes in my metro area lost power last night.

I didn't sleep well. Besides the fact it was hot and still, I kept waking up thinking about the food in the fridge. Thankfully, our fridge is fairly empty since we're coming up on grocery day, but still... I kept adding up the cost of the things that might spoil. Chicken, turkey, salmon, round steak, bacon, frozen fruit, cheeses, vegetables, condiments... Two half-gallons of organic milk and chocolate milk were barely cool this morning—that's $8.00 down the drain right there.

Thankfully, my mom has power. This morning Bear and I loaded 6 or 7 Wal-Mart bags and took them to her house. The only casualties of the outage were our creamy dressings, like Ranch and mayo, a few yogurts, a freezer-burnt carton of vanilla ice cream, and a some popsicles. Not too bad, I say.

Twice now, our cats have torn out all the window screens (they're so sure they want to be outdoor kitties—I'm confident they'd feel differently if I actually let them spend a 95 degree day outside) and we haven't replaced the screens yet, so we couldn't open the windows all the way last night. Instead, we cracked the windows in our bedroom a few inches to let the breeze in. Sometime during the night, I got freaked out and closed the one directly above our bed.

This morning, I noticed one of the cats sniffing a couple-inch-long blackish thing on the floor. Having learned the hard way not to grab unknown things without my glasses on (I once mistook a thumbnail-sized spider for a piece of fuzz and nearly got myself bit), I put my glasses on and investigated. And what was this odd thing on my carpet? 

A SLUG!

I am insanely afraid of slugs. Seriously, they terrify me. Even the cats were scared!

Bear went outside, and what did he find? About 35 slugs on the siding near our bedroom window. If I hadn't closed the window above our bed last night, one (or MORE!) slugs might've crawled in on me while I was sleeping.

And then I wouldn't have been able to write this blog because I would be in an insane asylum.

The power company estimates our electric will be back on between 5-11pm tomorrow night. Back in 2003, a hurricane knocked our power out for 2 weeks, so this isn't, by far, the longest I've gone without electric. However, it's a pain, so here's hoping the electric's back on sooner rather than later!

Credit

RTW: Rewarding yourself

Each week, YA Highway hosts Road Trip Wednesday, a blog carnival in which YA Highwayers discuss a topic on their blogs and invite readers to do the same. This week's RTW topic is:

How do you reward yourself when you meet your writing goals?

For small goals, I don't really reward myself. I don't like counting my chickens before they hatch, so I feel like I'm not done until I'm done, you know?
For bigger goals, such as finishing a draft or a particularly difficult scene, I reward myself with time off from writing. I find that taking some time off allows me to return more appreciative and clear-headed.

After I sent MAGGIE out to betas last November, I took all of December and January off, and I loved it. It gave me time to enjoy the holidays, take care of some household projects that had been piling up, watch a little TV, and have fun with some of my hobbies (I paint, draw, scrapbook, bake, and do a few other creative things when the mood strikes me).

As far as rewards for if I get published... I've always wanted to get my teeth professionally whitened. Then again, the dentist says I don't need it, and I have very sensitive teeth, so it might not be good for my enamel, cold sensitivity, etc. Realistically, I probably wouldn't actually have it done. Maybe I'll just invest in the more expensive Crest White Strips. I've used the cheaper ones before, and they do work!

Another thing I'd do if I had the pleasure of receiving a publishing advance is to buy personalized Honor and Remember flags for the families of the men who died in action while serving with my brother. It's very important that our military families, especially those who've lost loved ones in service, know their sacrifices and their pain are not forgotten.

If I received a big fat advance, I'd love to take a monthlong backpacking tour across Europe with Bear. That, or take my whole family on vacation somewhere fun.

How do you reward your writing successes? How would you reward yourself if your book sold? Play along and tell us!

Help Write Now is back up (and a POSSESSION winner)

Blogger Failapalooza has been (mostly) worked out, with blog posts and (some) comments restored, which means Help Write Now is back up and running. So if you intended to bid on mine and my friend and fellow author, Sarah Enni's auction, which includes a full YA manuscript critique from each of us, plus 3 ARCs from BEA/ALA, click here.

PLUS, Sarah will chat with the winner of our auction to find out which upcoming releases they are most excited about so she can try to secure those ARCs.

Sarah's feedback on PRODIGAL MAGGIE was detailed, thorough, and thoughtful, and she also made a point of telling me what she loved about Maggie's story. I like to think I am a very thorough beta reader (fast, too!), so between those prizes, and the fact the money supports the victims of the deadly storms that gripped the South last month, it's an auction worth bidding on!

Our auction now runs through Wednesday, May 18th at 10pm CST.

Alllllllso,

The winner of an ARC of Elana Johnson's debut YA novel, POSSESSION, is Valerie, who recommended I read CLOCKWORK PRINCE.

Valerie, I certainly will be! I devoured an ARC of CLOCKWORK ANGEL last year, and you can bet I'll be reading CLOCKWORK PRINCE and CLOCKWORK PRINCESS.

On another note, I know posts have been a little light lately. They will continue to be light for another week or two as I take care of MAGGIE stuff. :( but also :)

Happy Monday, don't forget to bid, and hope y'all have an awesome week!

Help Write Now - bid to win a full MS critique from me & Sarah Enni!

This is my 200th (!!!) post, and what better way to celebrate #200 with THE TABBY CATT than to announce that, for the next 3 days, you can bid on a full YA manuscript critique (up to 90k words) from me and fellow YA author Sarah Enni on Help Write Now, a writing community auction to raise money for the victims of last month's record storms across the South.

To sweeten the deal, the highest bidder will also receive 3 ARCs from BEA/ALA (and we will even work with you to *try* to snag ARCs you are especially excited about!).

If you'd like to bid, HEAD ON OVER!

Bidding starts at $10, and all donations go to the Red Cross' disaster relief fund!

[EDIT: because of the Blogger fiasco, bids have been suspended until Monday morning. But if you didn't have a chance to bid, be sure to head on over on Monday!]

Go with your gut. Or not.

Besides an overhaul of the last 3 chapters (my current ending is unsatisfying, but I was unsure how to fix it. Thanks to beta input and much thought, [I think] I do now.), pretty much the only thing standing in my way of finishing MAGGIE is about 20 items on my final polish checklist.

Unfortunately, I've left these things to the end because I can't make my mind up about them. They are beta suggestions I like, but don't necessarily like for this novel. I can't find fault with them, except... in my gut, I don't feel like they fit my vision of PRODIGAL MAGGIE.

I know I can only overanalyze for so long before it becomes ridiculous. I want to discard the last beta suggestions because I feel they don't fit my vision of the book, but I'm worried about doing so because... what if my gut is tricking me and I really just don't want to make the intricate changes the suggestions call for?

I don't think that's the case, but... I'm confused. And the more I think about it, the more I confuse myself.

Suggestions, bloggy friends? Writing wisdom says go with your gut, but how do you know if your gut is telling the truth?