Have Laptop, Will Travel

This week we scooped all the kids in the family and headed to Hilton Head. With five children in tow, the minivan was full of things like skateboards, books, fishing poles, a guitar and oodles of doll clothes. You’d think, with all that stuff, the children would be entirely occupied. I imagined we’d arrive at grandma’s house and they would immediately be entirely out of my hair and in the pool. Ha! I hadn’t counted on the fact that we’re a fair skinned bunch of folks and after the second day all the children were so sunburned that indoor activities were called for.

However, we're a family of entrepreneurs which means the house is also packed with six adults, each with their own laptop and cell phone, all trying to run businesses, maintain distant servers, create complicated software help systems, market restaurants, design cabinets and sell real estate. As the writer of the family my work brings in the least amount of income – read nothing – so somehow I get elected to deal with the extraneous details of life. Like feeding and amusing five bored children.

Have laptop. Will travel. Will never get to open laptop. Sigh.

Burning Down the House

I have a deadline, self-imposed, but a deadline nonetheless. So, no more hemming and hawing. My BICHOK. (Butt in chair, hands on keyboard). I produced somewhere around 4k words yesterday. And surprised myself. You see, I burned down The Glenn. I had no idea it was going to happen. I was every bit as startled and devastated as my hero and heroine. The name of this ms is The Glenn for goodness sake - it's practically the main character. So, as I wrote about its demise I felt the wound myself. I've never made myself cry while writing (not counting the poems I wrote in a drunken stupor in college) and it's a pretty unique experience. So, today's challenge is to sift through the ashes. Which gives me plenty of material to help face the Black Moment. And, I made it past the half-way mark. Yeah! I'm going to make my deadline. More than just The Glenn is going to burn, baby, burn this month!

Got My PRO Pin!

At yesterday's GRW meeting I finally received my long-anticipated PRO pin. Yeah! I'll try to post a picture of me wearing it. Today is rainy and dismal in Georgia. I'm trying to crank out Chapter 9. I have a bet going with one of my friends. She's an amazing artist - if she had a web site I'd link to it - and she's been avoiding painting some birds for about six months now. She's got all the heart and talent she needs, maybe the universe has just not been ready. So, if she finishes her birds by March 1st and I finish my rough draft of The Glenn by March 1st, we are taking each other out to a fine, fine dinner. However, if one of us doesn't finish then the loser covers the whole bill. Did I mention we've all developed a taste for fine champagne lately? I'm finishing that ms come hell, high water or lack of chocolate.

You catch your breath and winter starts again.

That's from a Dar Williams song. I set my media player on repeat to cycle through all of her CD's when I'm trying to write. Trying is the operative word today. I felt so fabulous having finished ms #1 way back in July. The agent I met at Nationals did end up rejecting it - however, what she sent back was fully edited and commented on. From what I understand that's extremely exciting. Okay. I'm excited to be rejected yet again.

I started ms #2 as soon as the kids went back to school in August and things were going really well. Then, for some reason, in October I just . . . stopped. Now I find myself 50% of the way through and the path is covered with snow. So, as winter finally arrives in the South I need to really think about how my plotting and planning has let me down. While ice storms threaten it's time for me to tromp on through the snow and rediscover the path I know is there.

Trying to Find Myself

I felt I needed a picture to go with my identity in cyberspace. However, trying to find one of just me by myself was next to impossible. Most of the pictures of me taken in the past eight years are either a) bad, and by that I mean I look fat, or b) include one or both of my children. I have more pictures than one might imagine of myself nursing the number two child. Probably because he was breastfed for, um, two years. And he was an every two hour kinda baby.

So, this is the only one I found. A friend took it while I was trimming my hedges. If you look closely you can see I'm wearing my ubiquitous overalls. And I needed a little touching up on the ol' color. Oh well. When I'm a big name author I'm sure I can afford plenty of professionally retouched photos.

I Feel So Official

I've hit some milestones over the last month and I feel like I should get a pin or something. Wait - I do get a pin! My PRO pin! I chased our chapter president, Maureen Hardegree, down at the RWA conference and then found another board member standing in line and got her signature as well. And what magic thing did I do to get the coveted PRO pin? I finished my &*^% manuscript. And then sent out query letters. And then three months later I finally got a rejection letter. I saw the envelope in the mail the day before I left for RWA and got really excited. This is how it went:

"Honey, I got rejected!" I yelled to hubby.
"Oh. Sorry. How you feeling?" said hubby.
"Fabulous!" I replied. " This is so great!"
"Uh. Do you need to cry? Should I go get some chocolate?"
"No! This is awesome! I can apply for my PRO pin now!"
(picture hubby shaking his head in confusion as he walks away from me) "I just don't get you."

I did feel a little silly being so excited over being rejected. But that nice shiny pin means I've hit a big marker I never thought I'd reach. I have a completed MS! And moreover, I'm actually happy with it. Hubby read it and laughed out loud in some places - and that's not easy to do since he's the funnier part of our equation.

So, the real journey now begins. I'm not waiting around for the path to appear and the fog to clear - I've actually already begun MS #2. And I'm going to wear my pin every day for a month to remind myself that I can, in fact, complete an entire MS because now I'm a PRO. :)