Rose Green

Caldicott! Sort of...

2009-12-30T05:15:12Z

Kevin Crossley-Holland's author's note says that Caldicott is based on the real Stokesay Castle (not really a castle, more of a fortified manor house). I looked it up, and found this very cool site! It's got Stokesay, but also other Welsh (and Welsh border) castles on it--fantastic pictures!

Writing romantic tension

2009-12-29T22:22:02Z

Every once in a while I'll read something where a particular element of the story really sticks out as well done. This holiday, I've been rereading Kevin Crossley-Holland's Arthur series. (The Seeing Stone, At the Crossing Places, King of the Middle March, and Crossing to Paradise) Among other things, there is lovely romantic tension. It's not overstated, it's not the major focus of the book (there are other things Crossley-Holland does well, too), but he just really, really nails it.

Sometimes I read a book where the characters just like each other because the author wants them to, but there's no chemistry. Sometimes the reason is because the MC is actually attracted to the danger the love interest represents. I'm not sure how much sticking power that has. Surely it makes for a tense plot, but will it last the lifetime of the characters? Maybe, if they face danger together, or work out the issues. But maybe not. Sometimes the reason for liking each other is brute physical attraction. I suppose that's realistic for some people, but it was never enough for me. So when I read a book where the connection--which is more than just attraction--goes deeper, it catches something in my insides. It doesn't take dates to the prom or tons of snogging or whatever. If you can convince me that the characters belong to each other, I'm sold.

So, here are five reasons why Arthur and Gatty have, IMO, such great chemistry:

1. Crossley-Holland pits Arthur and Gatty doing something right when the rest of the world isn't. They're united on the same side, against the world.

2. He uses really ordinary details and settings to do this, which makes it feel all the more grounded. (There is some magical realism in the series, but the relationships and the choices are all grounded in reality.)

3. Arthur takes some flack for stepping out to help Gatty--it’s not just that he’s doing the right thing, or that he and Gatty are on the same side. It’s that, without a fuss, he defends her, both to himself, and to others. That alone wins him some pretty undying loyalty--if I were Gatty, there is no way I could keep from feeling something for him!

4. Everyone else around them is doing wrong. But they have the two qualities I admire most—loyalty and integrity. Yes, this is a personal preference for this reader! But I think it sets them apart--you cheer for them because despite their weaknesses they are basically good people, and deserve each other in a world of injustice.

5. They understand each other’s most important feelings, despite the worlds between them.

Any other elements of romantic tension you'd add to this?

Ice and books

2009-12-26T23:43:00Z

Eek, I took DH up to campus today so he could go over some last minute things for his upcoming interviews and I could drop off some library material that was due today. I made it all the way up the hill to his office and even dropped him off--and then managed to slide off the road. His building is on top of a hill, and as I tried to--very carefully-negotiate a turn over the road that hello, nobody bothered to plow or salt!--I ended up sliding down the path of least resistance, over solid ice, toward a light pole. I managed to stop the car about six feet in front of it, but there was nothing I could do to get out of there. Plus, I had PMB in the car. I called DH to come back out, and right then a police car saw me and stopped, and together they pushed on the car while I drove forwards, and then we were able to slide down the obstacle-free ice until reaching a spot with traction. I was breaking out in a sweat that I'd not only hit the light pole, but crush my husband and the cop in the process, though. Next time, DH is walking if he wants to go up there when the roads are bad, and I'm just going to take the library fine. I just hope the roads are clear tomorrow--I have to do a lot of driving.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas! We did. The kids said a lot of thank yous, which is always nice, and we all just hung out together, built a fire in the wood stove, ate chocolate and turkey (not together), read books, did legos, repaired pocket doors (that was DH), etc. The kids went out to play in the snow in the afternoon. It was a great day!

Some books I've read over the holiday:

The Seeing Stone, by Kevin Crossley-Holland. This is a reread. I found a used copy half off, and bought it. I love how Kevin Crossley-Holland puts you in the middle ages and makes you feel what the characters are feeling. DH says he recognizes his name from scholarly works as well. This is a great Christmas read, not that it's about Christmas, but it's the kind of book to read when it's snowing outside and you can hole up with a blanket and chocolate. The fourth book of this series, Gatty's Tale/Crossing to Paradise, is one of my favorite medieval novels ever.

Vergiftete Muffins, by Renate Ahrens. I'm reading this aloud to my 8-year-old daughter. Sometimes you buy books off the internet sight-unseen and are disappointed, but we quite like this one. It's bilingual--not side by side, but switching back and forth through the story between English and German. The main characters are a brother and sister from Germany, and the narration and their dialogue is in German. But they have friends who are South African and speak English, so their dialogue is English. Plus, they are all spending the summer in London, where they encounter a mystery, and so all the Brits speak English as well. I have no idea how pedagogically sound this is (it's for German kids learning English), but it's very accurate as far as what kids of varying nationalities do when they get together. Plus, it's a good way to refresh German without cramming it down a person's throat.

The Dark Divine, by Bree Despain. This is the book that magically turned up on my doorstep the day before my birthday. It was an ARC send directly from the publisher. How did they find me? A mystery, but a very nice one! I'm still not sure what the cover has to do with the book, although it's very eye-catching. The book itself is an urban fantasy couched within a pastor's family and friends, mixed with a prodigal son story. Bree did an especially nice job of showing the rigid, unforgiving older son. While a complete story, I'm guessing there's a sequel to this in the works, as the ending opened several new questions.

And today, this showed up, courtesy of my sister (thank you! :):

I first read this before Jackie even had an agent, so I was dying to see how it turned out post-editor. Lovely! One of the things I love about Jackie's writing is the sense of relationship between characters (not just romantic--she does friends and groups of friends very well also). The ending seems more open-ended than in the version I read; does this mean some day there will be a sequel?

Up next: Hinter Verzauberten Fenster, by Cornelia Funke, Ring of Fire, by PD Baccalario (DH pointed out how extremely difficult it is to find a book I haven't read yet! I agree, but I actually haven't read this one, although I think I remember seeing it in Publishers Marketplace), and the third Alcatraz book by Brandon Sanderson.

Silent night

2009-12-25T06:00:59Z

Just a hint: if you are going to sing Silent Night in German, please learn how to say "ch" in German. It's like kh--not a hard k, more like you're blowing through it. Like you're scratching your throat. I know, it doesn't sound very nice. But if you think ch = k, you will be making the error someone did at my son's school last week. My son was a little disconcerted when the lady started singing about "stille Nackt, heilige Nackt..." Nackt (hard k) means naked. NaCHt, people. NaCHt.

I know it's fuzzy, but I took this picture tonight in the dark. We are getting snow for Christmas! I don't think we ever got real snow last year--just that horrible ice storm. Tonight, the snow started once all the stores closed and everybody was able to get home. It looks like Narnia. We made a fire in the wood stove and my husband made this amazing chocolate candy called prayer bars (chocolately graham crackery crushed nutty crust, butterscotch middle layer, and thin layer of straight chocolate on top) and we ate that and Stollen while reading the Christmas story. I think the kids are finally all asleep (I've been playing King's College Christmas music for PMB but now that it's nearly midnight, hello! he's finally got his eyes closed. Good thing, because Santa's reindeer here are getting tired...)

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

2009-12-23T22:22:34Z

I might be back, but from about now on, the holidays have sort of taken over everyone's lives. Consider this your official Merry Christmas greeting from me (only I hope it's warmer where you are than where this picture is). Have a lovely holiday!

Happy solstice!

2009-12-21T23:30:16Z

Celebrating the darkest day of the year seems odd at first thought. Why should anyone want to mark the darkness, the disappearance of the sun, the hard times? Why mark the hard times?

Because without the hard times, you can never really understand the good ones. Because next to the dark, the light glows ever brighter. Because struggling through the dark gives you strength.

Because, while this night may be the darkest of all, tomorrow--tomorrow--things will change. Tomorrow the light begins to grow.

So, let's celebrate with some poems!

When I was a Russian major (er, that became a minor), we read Doctor Zhivago (in translation). Here is a poem I always liked from it:

Wind

I have died, but you are still among the living.
And the wind, keening and complaining,
Makes the country house and the forest rock--
Not each pine by itself
But all the trees as one,
Together with the illimitable distance;
It makes them rock as the hulls of sailboats
Rock on the mirrorous waters of a boat-basin.
And this the wind does not out of bravado
Or in a senseless rage,
But so that in its desolation
It may find words to fashion a lullaby for you.

I discovered John Donne through Dorothy L. Sayers, and was delighted to find while doing genealogy that the brother of one of my ancestors and his wife were personal friends with him. They both left him things in their respective wills. Here is the first stanza of Donne's poem for this day (the rest can be found here):

A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day

'Tis the year's midnight, and it is the day's,
Lucy's, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks ;
The sun is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rays ;
The world's whole sap is sunk ;
The general balm th' hydroptic earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the bed's-feet, life is shrunk,
Dead and interr'd ; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compared with me, who am their epitaph.

Shakespeare's funny ditty entitled Winter, from Love's Labour's Lost. Poor Greasy Joan. I mean, who wants to be memorialized like that??

Winter

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marion’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Happy Solstice! And now I'm off, because I still have Christmas stuff to finish...

Undone

2009-12-21T04:49:09Z

My Illustration Friday post this week. The theme is Undone, which is just what it's like when you have a toddler at Christmas! (Not to mention when you're trying to paint--he upended the water twice, and kept trying to dump the paints out. Fun. At least he knows to clean up spills.

It's so nice to be on school vacation! The kids might stay up later, but the ones who want to are also able to sleep in a bit, so people are more rested. One of the things I wanted for my birthday was to wake up when my body was naturally done sleeping, and I'm so glad the kids complied this morning! The rest of the day was nice, too. One last blast of Christmas music on the organ (sneaking in some songs nobody knows here but which are popular in Germany, like Tochter Zion, the music of which is by Handel--fun to play!), a crock pot dinner made by my husband (he gave me the crock pot as a gift last year, but the bigger gift is that I've never personally used it--he is the crock pot meister), and Black Forest cake. My kids were very excited about giving me presents, which mostly consisted of some of their favorite toys. I think we are sharing them now.

Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying your holidays!

castle!

2009-12-20T01:56:21Z

Son 2 was in the spelling bee this week (and ended up 3rd), and the girls have come across his list of study words while they were all cleaning. Little Sweetie (who is only 4 and can't read very much) is holding the list and making up words for her sister (8). Words like car, sit, sun. Then she says, "perpetual motion."

I think someone's reading my blog.

I listen to the radio in the car and do a lot of channel surfing because let's face it, this is Arkansas, so nearly all the stations are religious talk radio, country, or the top 40 of 1945. There are a few modern popular stations (that play the same five songs over and over, it seems), and I find myself changing the channel during certain songs. They don't have bad words and musically they are not offensive--but they irritate me because they seem to celebrate one person dominating another in a relationship, and the other unable to function without the first. Ie, utterly dysfunctional. So Little Sweetie and I have these conversations about music in the car. I guess it's sinking in. Yesterday she said, "Mama, I know what kind of songs you hate: ones with screaming (I get enough tantrums in real life, thanks), and ones with unhealthy relationships." Like I said, she's listening!

The point of this post, though--you HAVE to take a look at this. Cool--and it's close to us! If we can't go to Europe, maybe Europe can come to us... Too bad our kids will be in college before it's done.

Santa deliveries

2009-12-19T04:18:26Z

Daughter age 8 came home from school with a swollen finger. She accidentally hit her hand against the playground equipment as she was chasing boys. She was afraid to tell her teacher in case shots were involved in dealing with a broken finger. We got to drive two towns away to get to a pediatrics branch with an x-ray machine before they closed. In the end, they didn't do an x-ray, just recommended taping it (which they would have said to do even if an x-ray had shown a fracture.) So we got in, school's out for two weeks and she won't have to write, and as long as she stops chasing boys on the playground, she'll be okay.

Santa came in a Sears sleigh today and brought the new dryer! The nice thing about getting new appliances that belong to someone else's house is that you don't actually have to pay for them (aside from rent, I mean), and yet you can still enjoy them. Not that I love laundry, but it is sure easier to do with the proper tools.

Also by Santa express, an ARC from Random House/Egmont arrived today. The preprinted label is addressed to me, from Random House. Inside was the book. They don't have my address and I didn't win a contest anywhere, but it is a book that I was looking forward to reading. Mysterious! So--if it originated from anyone around here, thank you!

Wednesday

2009-12-17T00:04:05Z

Okay, when I was feeling sorry for myself and missing Germany (which happens strongly at Christmastime), I didn't mean I was missing my old way of doing laundry. And the American clothes racks? Hello, who makes something to hang WET CLOTHES on out of WOOD? DH and son 1 are going out tonight to look at dryers before going to an event for said son. In the meantime, I have this pathetic clothes rack set up in my room right under the heating vent, which should be good, only PMB thinks it's the coolest thing EVAH, and is pulling the wet clothes off and hurling them at me as fast as he can. I could hang them in the garage, but it's cold out there. And I don't want my clothes to smell like garage. Argh.

Also. If you owe money on a student loan and have changed your phone number, PLEASE TELL THE COLLECTION AGENCY. I am very tired of telling them that no, I don't know this Owen fellow, no, I don't have another phone number for him, no, I moved here FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY and I have no idea who owned my phone number prior to getting it from the phone company. I don't know what is so hard to understand there.

In good stuff, son 2 placed third in his school spelling bee. I'm pleased to see that all of the kids who write are turning out to be good spellers. It just makes life easier. Son 2 has also started branching out in his reading. Usually it's Anthony Horowitz and NF a la Dangerous Book for Boys. Yesterday, he read (of his own choosing) Superfudge (Judy Blume) and Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (Wendy Mass). He's also been doing independent research on Russia, just out of interest. He remarked to DH the other day that "maybe communism (pronounced com-MUN-ism) wasn't such a bad idea." Uh, yeah. Except for that whole market-falling-apart, no-civil-liberties thing. But hey, what fourth grader reads this stuff? If only we could get him to you know, sit down and do his homework. His teachers say he is really smart and knows a lot, but that it's hard to get him to write anything down. Don't we know it.

Daughter 1 is hovering, wanting me to read more Harry Potter, so I'd better book it. The smaller kids are having a lot of fun hanging and unhanging the clothes. Well, they are getting more um, air that way, right?

Hope you are all having a nice Wednesday evening.

Good things today.

2009-12-16T04:02:23Z

1.Knocked about a thousand words off the manuscript, only it will be more, because I took an entire scene that comes up later and reduced it to one sentence. Yay!

2. The dryer motor didn't stop working until AFTER the sixteen thousand loads of laundry I got to do this weekend after the incident of creepy crawlies in one child's hair. Unfortunately, there is still all the regular laundry that needs to be done, and I don't even have a German clothes rack anymore...

Olden Days of Yore

2009-12-09T19:09:07Z

I'm looking up "how to wear a wimple" to see if it gives me any ideas on the simplest way to put a headscarf on my kid playing Mary.

Little Sweetie looks over my shoulder at the Renaissance page I'm reading. (Think Rembrandt and van Rijn and the guys with the ruffs.) "Mama! That looks JUST like the 1980s!"

Sigh.

Brrrrr!!

2009-12-09T16:48:47Z

Okay, it's 19 degrees. This is the sunny South, people!! That's -7 Celcius. Tonight it's supposed to get down to 10F/-12C. Little Sweetie has finally agreed that it is cold enough to wear a coat. Son 1 is still leaving his in the car when we drop him off. He claims that he has no room in his locker for his coat, and that he doesn't go outside anyhow, so why drag it around? See, this is the reason why Americans don't wear six layers of clothes, something which HORRIFIES Germans. It is a) too cold to play outside at -12C, and b) all you're doing is running from your heated car to a hot building, and where are you going to stash all those extra clothes, hm? Yes, you are outside longer in Germany, but the coldest I ever remember it down where we lived was -6C. It was freezing, and nobody went outside any more than they had to.

Up to do today: make a sheep costume (Little Sweetie is in the nativity play. All of them minus PMB are, but apart from ropes to tie it all together and a cloth for Mary's head, I think I've got that covered. Thank goodness for thrift store sheets and tablecloths is all I can say.) If I get a chance I need to run through the interlude I'm supposed to be inventing for this music I'm accompanying this weekend. And I should brave the boys' room to find yet another lost library book. Scary.

At the moment, though, I've got to go replace a thingamajig on in the inside of the front doorknob because it's sticking or broken or something, and the last thing I want to do is get shut out of my own house at this temperature. I haz mad skillz, see. But--brrr. That means opening the door. If you see my hands frozen to the door jamb a la the kid stuck to the flagpole in A Christmas Story, thaw me out, okay?

ETA: The mad skillz have to do with handling the help, not the hardware.

Christmas music

2009-12-07T02:47:18Z

One of the things I like best about the Christmas season is the music. As I'm one of the few people at church currently who play a keyboard instrument, that means I get to be involved in a lot of it. (There are people who play other instruments very, very well, but there aren't many places where say, a trombone really fits the atmosphere.) For the Christmas dinner this weekend, every group (men, women, youth, children) are doing a musical number. The Relief Society (women's organization) is singing What Child is This, accompanied the piano, as well as the violin. Musical talent is equally dispersed throughout the world, but not everyone reads music, so we got to teach people the harmony and then add the instrumentation. I'm lucky in that the violinist has been standing right next to me. It is a lovely song (esp. the version where the chorus has three different sets of lyrics, instead of repeating the first one). But that violin! I just want to crawl inside it! There was a cello playing with the choir at stake conference a couple months ago, and because I was playing organ I got to be near it, too, and I had the same reaction. That resinous wood sound--I just want to dive inside it and feel it all around me! I think there was a character in a Madeleine L'Engle book like that, who wanted to lie under the piano or organ or something, and feel the vibrations--The Young Unicorns, maybe? It's been a while since I read that one...

Then last night my girls and I (and PMB, whose life's mission is to play the organ--watch for him at a pipe organ near you in 20 years!) got out The Oxford Book of Carols, one of the best things anyone ever gave me for Christmas. Since everyone got the swine flu, it's taken a while to get our voices back, but finally we could sing! It was so nice. The best songs to me are the old traditional English ones (The First Nowell, What Child is This), and also the German ones (Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen). Oh, but the Latin ones are good, too, as are the macaronic ones (isn't that a lovely word? It means half in one language, half in another), like In Dulci Jubilo/Good Christian Men Rejoice. We tried the Czech ones for the sake of heritage, but I confess I can't read Polish or French very well. The letters don't say what I think they should say. But it was fun. I hope my kids keep liking music because I've always wanted to play the piano for my family and have them all get into singing. Not to go perform or anything, just to get into it for the sake of enjoyment. I just like to be in the middle of it, not just watching. Messiah sing-a-longs, for example = fantastic.

Big book contest!

2009-12-04T13:29:08Z

Win prizes from the Inkies (MG/YA fantasy): see here.

Revolving around the moon

2009-12-04T05:51:59Z

I should be in bed.

Instead, I've been calculating how I can spend the least amount of money on books and still buy everything I want to for Christmas. Each kid needs a book, right? But how to cut down the list...so hard.

Also, I've revised through chapter 4. I have my original word count at the top so I can compare. I'm less about 3000 words. Yay! Alas, tomorrow I'll be too tired to write anything but gibberish.

Ooh--it looks like DH has an article coming out in the Journal of the History of Astronomy sometime in the future. He works with early printed books and occasionally finds rare manuscripts that people chopped up to use in bookbinding. His most recent find is a hitherto-unknown work relating to Copernicus. Cool, huh?

Tribes and triangles

2009-12-02T23:36:17Z

I've got two chapters nearly done. So far so good. Now I'm going to take several chapters/scenes and crunch them into one. Hopefully that will remove a lot of nonessentials and excess wordage. (The professional commentary I've gotten says that it isn't necessarily wordy, but apparently the pacing is slow. So, I'm getting out the big pruning shears.) Wish me luck!

I've been thinking about tribes lately, and how I seem to belong to a number of them. I get people here like my husband doesn't because they ARE my tribe. I probably attended sports and band events they were present at (representing different sides, of course. :) DH can't quite reconcile that with the NJ tribe--which involved going on vacation to places like Martha's Vinyard (and no, we didn't see anyone famous--but we did see a rabbit and Plymouth Rock, eat clam chowder and act up while visiting church on the island, which resulted in my mom getting her wallet stolen...Those are the important things when you're five. :) The tribes I share with DH are the LDS culture/intermountain west one (my mom and both his parents are from Idaho--we said we're Idahoans born in exile) and the expatriate one. And I guess the grad school/academia one. And of course I'm part of the children's writing tribe. What tribe(s) are you a part of?

And sort of, but not really, tribes-related, I've realized that a lot of love triangles in books don't work for me. It's not that I can't believe someone would end up in that situation--I've known people who have--but it's hard for me to sympathize. You might get entangled if you like someone and someone close to them likes you, and you don't want to hurt any feelings but everyone is sewn up in an unhappy circle of unrequited love. But I can't sympathize with a character who honestly thinks they're wildly in love with more than one person at the same time. I mean, hello? I want to shake them--if you are in that deep, sweetie, you should have figured things out by now. But then, I was not the girl who liked a different boy every week. I rather suspect that I'd be in Hufflepuff because loyalty is rather important to me. (But not at the expense of integrity, I add. "My country, right or wrong," as I once saw on a billboard, is not my motto, for example.) Anyway, I was trying to think of ways that a character could be in a triangle without making me want to throttle them, and I thought that maybe they could have been in two different tribes, each time not thinking they would be anywhere else ever again, and then the two worlds collide, and now they have a problem. I do find Facebook confusing for that very reason--too many worlds in which I was very submerged, and now they appear all at once and I don't even know what language to post in, let alone anything else. The same topics are not equally interesting to all tribes.

Thoughts on tribes, triangles, and tossing useless scenes welcome!

various random December 1 things

2009-12-01T19:15:18Z

Okay, so November was good and bad for writing. I got halfway through NaNo and sort of outran my headlights. The effort wasn't wasted exactly, but it's not a novel yet, either. I'll let that one simmer and see if I come back to it. In the meantime, it was a good distraction from the book I am querying, as well as a mental break from the book I'm revising. I spent the second half of the month (when I wasn't holidaying) working on an outline in which I dig deep into this revision. I think I've made some progress. If I can set the beginning right, I think I'll be much better off as far as focusing the rest of the novel's core. I've been thinking a lot about the characters and the relationships between them and what they really want. I've worked with the first two pages and I'm pleased with how it's going. Um, that's only the first two out of 350? So, a lot of work to do still...

Today Little Sweetie had her playgroup at the house that is on the other side of the next town, down (or up, I should say) a dirt road, on the top of a hill that has a funny name like Frizzly Mountain or something equally odd. Which meant I spent most of the morning driving, but I always like that drive because it's a chance to just take in nature. That's where the buffalo are, and wide green fields, and tree-covered hills with hawks soaring overhead, and forks of the White River that are not white, but the color of green-tinted copper. Now that the leaves are off, you can see that they were only covering the scars of last year's ice storm. It's kind of like the economy--you can do some emergency measures, but true healing is going to take time.

This weekend was DD1's birthday, as well as baptism (she is 8). My parents came, which made the kids happy. PMB even remembered them and went to them, which isn't something you can always count on with a one-year-old. That on top of Thanksgiving sort of made for a food-intensive week, even with my parents' nonfat diet. I think we'll be doing carrot sticks for a while...
What else? Oh, my kids are all in the nativity play. DD1 is Mary, the boys are shepherds, and Little Sweetie is her choice of barn animal (she wants to be a sheep). They are all looking forward to it. Several times a day they tell me they need costumes. Um, first I need to take care of the Christmas shopping and deal with PMB the resident orangutang. And see if I can come up with a violin descant to What Child is This.
Okay, off to stuff kids with macaroni (every 4-year-old's dream cuisine, right?) and make some phone calls, and then if there's any time left, sneak in a bit more revising. I realize full well that agents are either reading over the holidays, or hiding from their tottering pile of hopeful material, and no matter how much I might hope otherwise, there are no radio signals in December. Which means that I am going to dig in on the revision and get it right this time.

Happy December!

Thanksgiving deer

2009-11-28T00:24:24Z

Yesterday we were relaxing and looked out the front window to see a deer on the front lawn. I went out with the camera and found there were actually two of them. They spooked when my feet crackled on the gravel, and this is them running off across the street into the woods.

Brrr!

2009-11-27T04:30:04Z

It's a lot colder today than it was supposed to be! But at least it was sunny, which made for nice driving conditions when we went to see my parents for Thanksgiving. We drive through quite a good stretch of basically uninhabited, very rural land on the way, and even without leaves on the trees, it's lovely in nice weather--so green, with either forested areas or hilltops that are mostly grassy but with sparse trees that make it look like a park. It reminds me a lot of specific places in Germany around where we used to live. It was nice to be able to visit with my parents, and the kids had fun wandering around in "Grandpa's Woods," which is the part of my parents' acreage which was clear-cut when we first moved there, only now the cedars have totally grown up and really made woods. They used to be small enough to cut down for Christmas trees when I was living there. Not anymore! We also saw a LOT of deer--on the roadside (living and dead), as well as in my parents' front yard. Apparently they LOVE the salad bar my mom runs every summer. So do the squirrels. And the rabbits. My mom doesn't believe in guns, but if she did--it'd be game stew every night.

The weather really helps it feel like the season it is supposed to be. Which is good, since I like this season! We listened to Christmas music on the way and back (Tallis Scholars, Cambridge Singers, and David Lanz--DH always calls that album "Kevorkian Christmas," but the rest of us like it). And I thought about things I'm thankful for, and despite the precarious academic job search and my yet-unrealized writing dreams, I'm so, so thankful that those are my challenges instead of other ones that I mercifully don't have to deal with right now. I'm thankful for an awesome husband who is my friend, who respects my mind, who has a weird sense of humor, who I feel equal to and complementary with. I'm thankful for smart, funny kids and the chance to have five of them. I'm thankful for all the interesting experiences I've gotten to have as a result of um, constantly looking for a permanent academic job. Some people would hate having to move all over, especially to other countries, but I love it. (Well. I don't love the moving itself. Or the constant change of jobs. But I do love the expatriate travel!) I'm thankful for a great family and awesome in-laws. I'm thankful for the on line writing community, because without you, this whole academic nomad thing would be a LOT harder!

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!

weekend

2009-11-22T02:50:01Z

When I was a kid we never got the whole week off for Thanksgiving. Even in grad school, we had to go up through Wednesday. One of my professors--who had a class at noon--would always schedule an exam for that day so you couldn't skip. My kids get the whole week off, though. Today wasn't too bad--we just played happy contented slugs. I considered taking people to the Christmas lighting event (complete with pony rides), but er, this isn't the season to go around dumping money on the ground, so we didn't. We still had a nice time, though. And the girls even cleaned their room!

The NaNo book is simmering for some future, unknown moment to pick it up again because despite all the words, I wasn't hitting the heart of the story, and I don't have time to purposely write something I know I'll have to throw away. So I've been working on a revisionary outline. It's not done, but it's developing, and I like it so far. I just need a few moments of uninterrupted time (read: NOT this week) to work with it. But it's also the sort of thing that can sit nicely in my mind as I'm walking around doing other things, so just because I'm not writing this week doesn't mean I'm not writing, if that makes sense.

And speaking of simmering. I have another story (not the NaNo book) that has been slowly developing in my mind for the past couple years. I have a setting and a set of characters and know the interactions between them. But the plot has been somewhat of a blank. Last night after getting PMB to bed finally (he is getting molars and didn't get to sleep until 11), when I was drifting to sleep, the pieces came together. There are some other things I need to figure out, but the big parts were just there. So now I have something to work with (or maybe even two somethings) once I'm done with this revision.

In the meantime, though (ie, this week), I think I will be doing a lot of reading. It takes faaaaaaaaar less mental energy to read, and I can do that while holding Mr. Squirming PMB. I know I'll also be reading a lot of Harry Potter aloud because daughter 1, who was too small (and too loud) to hear most of the series the last time we read it, has gotten bitten by Harry and is really interested. We're in the middle of The Goblet of Fire right now. (What I'm trying to keep her from being bitten by is Edward, which means I really should move that book, as she keeps looking at it with great interest--I really liked Twilight, but I am simply not ready to live it 24/7, especially as DD1 is only almost 8.)

Happy weekend, everyone!

olmue @ 2009-11-19T21:05:00

2009-11-20T03:05:45Z

Know what's better than your kids all talking to you at the same time in different languages?

Your kids talking to you in Ubbi Dubbi--but in German.

All I can say is, they'd better figure out fast that if they want an answer, they have to pick a language I can process. English--check. German--check. English/German at the same time--check. Ubbi Dubbi, any language--no check.

Smells of the season

2009-11-19T03:54:53Z

Today it smells like this:

Neuhaus an der Pegnitz

This after a week and a half in the 70s. But the neighbors' wood stoves are going and the sky is this color and it's cold (wellll--cold enough to feel a chill as you run from the house to the car--the kids can't understand why we want them to take their coats to school, especially the oldest. They have no recess in 6th grade, so he is literally not outside at all.)

I woke up with great thoughts about revising this ms that needs help. Like, I could almost taste the solution. But then I spent the entire day running errands (not once, but TWICE to the next town over to the scout store--and I don't even have a scout responsibility! I just hope the parties on both ends understand the lists I'm ferrying back and forth...). PMB is being very cute (and knowing it), climbing, dancing, showing his knowledge of body parts like "button" (which involves tickling his belly button), and standing on the pot he swiped from the cupboard and applauding himself. I wonder...is there a hidden battery compartment somewhere? Will he ever run down? Is there an off button? Better yet, can I get me some of those batteries that never run out??

Palace Beautiful contest

2009-11-16T05:04:04Z

Here's a chance to win an ARC of Sarah Williams's (pixiechick_sw ) midgrade novel Palace Beautiful. Just hop on over and follow the directions!

Goodbye spring, hello winter?

2009-11-16T00:27:26Z

Our week or two of sun is gone. :( It was cloudy this morning, and then when I was following PMB through the halls at church (he is just a few months too young for the nursery, and he can't sit still in class with me), we stopped at the glass doors to watch the rain. Wow. It was raining so hard it was bouncing off the pavement, and going on in waves. Now it's dark and while not particularly cold (that comes on Thursday), it looks like mid-November. So we ate off our Christmas dishes for dinner. Gotta use them sometime, right?

We gave PMB a haircut. I only meant to trim the back and take some off the sides, but he wouldn't sit still for the scissors so we used the clippers. Um. It's a bit...short. Too much off the front. He looks like a convict now, poor guy! And it's lighter underneath. This happened with Oldest Son at this same age--we were visiting Grandma and Grandpa and his uncle gave him a quick buzz with the clippers. I'm fairly certain that if you took the background away, the two would now be indistinguishable in photos. Well, hair grows back, right?