Happy Anniversary to Us!

I fell in love with Matthew in Camelot. Our Camelot was a little wooded park/area, possibly public, possibly privately owned, right off the freeway near Springville. It was actually called Camelot, so I'm not just making stuff up. An irrigation ditch ran through it with a field on the other side, a log spanning the ditch the only way to get to the field.

I took Matthew there one day, to show him Camelot, and the trees, and how crazy it was that you could be that close to a busy freeway and still feel like you were in the middle of a (very small) forest. I really liked it there.

At this time, Matthew and I were not dating. We were very firmly in the 'friend zone,' with him dating other girls while we were just very good friends, after him making the comment once that his wife "will never touch the checkbook." (That shows you how old we are--checks were how you did the buying of things.) I wasn't interested in that kind of misogynistic control, so I wasn't upset that he was dating other people while still being my really good friend, because other than the checkbook thing, he was a really good, intelligent, handsome guy and we had a lot in common. (To be fair to Matthew, he doesn't remember ever saying that, and when we did get married, that was not his approach to our finances. To this day, we don't know how I heard him say that or why I would make it up if he didn't. But that was the state of affairs at this point in our relationship.)

So, Camelot.

I wanted to explore the field on the other side of the irrigation ditch, but I have a thing about walking on logs over water. I don't like it. I can be in water (I grew up in Oregon swimming in rivers all the time) and I can walk on logs on the ground (there are a lot of logs in Oregon to walk on). But you put a log over water, especially dirty water that I can't see through even though I know it isn't as deep as I am tall, and I will break out in heart palpitations and a queasy stomach.

I wanted to get to the other side, but I couldn't.

Along comes Matthew with this brilliant idea. We could scoot across on our butts. Not only that, but he would go first, facing backwards, so that I could focus on him, looking at his face, instead of the water below.

I was stunned. And touched. And a little bit twitterpated. Not only did he not tell me to get over it, he didn't even tell me I could scoot across while he did the manly thing and walked. Add to that, there was a four-year-old boy in cowboy boots and shorts that had been running full tilt back and forth on this log while we had been standing there, and once we started scooting he stood there and watched us like we were insane. "Are you scared?" "Can't you walk across? I can." "I can run." He wasn't exactly making fun of us, but he wasn't wasn't making fun of us either. And Matthew never acted embarrassed, never told the kid to go away, never really even acknowledged him. Just kept his eyes on me and told me to keep my eyes on him.

And that was when I fell in love with Matthew.

When we got to the other side, I found out that the supposed field was really a gateway straight to mosquito hell. I have never in my life had so many mosquitos land on me at the same time. Ever. I couldn't slap, shake, or scream them off of me fast enough. There were always more right there, doing their darnedest to suck me dry. So as soon as we could get the four-year-old to stop proving to us how easy it was to run across the log in cowboy boots, we scooted back.

The next day I went back to Camelot alone. I didn't tell anyone I was going. This was something I had to do for myself. And I walked across that log. Walked, not scooted. Several times. Somehow, Matthew allowing me to be afraid meant that I didn't have to be. Giving me permission to be flawed made me want to be better.

And that was when I fell in love with Matthew really hard. Which coincided with me no longer being okay with him dating other girls. Which is a whole other story.

There's a reason this experience affected me so much I wound up marrying the guy. Before I met Matthew I had dated someone else. I even thought I was going to marry him. On one of our dates he tried to take me on a tram that would take us to the top of a waterfall. It was a very windy, blustery night and I was terrified (it's possible that I'm also not fond of heights in general, not just logs over irrigation ditches). He cajoled and cajoled and cajoled some more. I refused (I am capable of great stubbornness when needed). When he finally gave up and we left, he was obviously annoyed. When we eventually broke up, that night was one of his issues with me. I didn't trust him enough to go up the tram with him. Or, maybe, he didn't respect me enough to listen when I told him I was terrified? (In justification of my fear, I found out later that there was a gust of wind that night so strong it blew the glass floor up inside the tram and broke it. To be fair, the tram was obviously empty at the time, and there was a metal grating underneath the glass, so nobody would have fallen though anyway. But still.) (Also, for the record, though I am still not terribly fond of heights, I have been on that exact same tram with Matthew on a far less windy night, and with him on a tram up the side of Mount Etna, and another one through the redwoods. Either being in love makes you stupid, or Matthew makes me feel safe.)

When I was in my teens and early twenties, my ideal heroine was a woman who was so strong she didn't need any man. Her ideal man was someone who understood that and waited for her, respecting her strength without quashing it to convince her to come to him. Eventually she chose him, not because she needed him, but because she wanted him. I have learned a lot since my twenties. It is possible to live without a man. It is possible to handle your own checkbook and walk across logs all by yourself. I guess that means I don't 'need' one? But I have done so many countless things in my life because Matthew was there with me. Maybe I would have eventually made it to Wales on my own, but I never would have gone to Sicily, or Amsterdam, or Nassau, or Barcelona. When the car needed a new radiator I would have had to pay a mechanic to replace it instead of Matthew watching videos so he could do it himself (then replay that scenario with a dozen different things around the house and yard and cars...you get the idea).

Sometimes the hero isn't out slaying dragons, but fixing the car with an eraser so he can bring your boys safely home from the middle of the desert. (True story.) And sometimes you aren't the heroine you always wanted to be, but you're getting closer because he believes in you.

I fell in love with my hero in Camelot. It doesn't get better than that.

Happy anniversary, Sweetheart.

Carreg Cennen

 I have to get a few things off my chest.

One, everything in Wales closes at 5:00, except for the things that close at 4:00. As a person who believes 10:00 is plenty early enough for breakfast, this gives me a very narrow window of sigh-seeing to work with, in no small part because of

Two, it takes for freaking ever to get from point A to point B in Wales (I am not at all convinced that it's any different in the rest of the UK (or Britain, or England, Scotland and Ireland, both Northern and not (since I don't think the roads are vastly different between the two)) but since I haven't experienced it for myself, I don't want to speak out of turn.) There is an old movie called The Reluctant Debutante where an American girl dances with an English boy at a ball and he spends the entire dance telling her which roads he took and why.

I thought he was just some weird, nerdy guy in the movie.

He was not. (Well, he was, but I have become him. Or I would if I had any idea what road I was on from one moment to the next. Which brings up point 2.1 where I have to say Google maps hates Wales (again, probably true elsewhere, but I can't speak from experience). When we were there in 2017, we came to a T intersection and Google had us turn left, when our destination was clearly to the right. Not wanting to get lost in the middle of the Welsh countryside, we followed Google, turned left, and then turned right, and then turned right, and then turned left onto the to road we had originally turned left off of and now heading in the direction we would have been going if we had turned right. All according to Google.This proved important later.)

Aside from Google's issues, who puts a round about on a freeway? And then puts a dozen freaking exits on it?!?! I cannot possibly count to eight when driving on the wrong side of the road.

There is also a problem with the width of the roads, which could be compared to the width of a car, but not the width of two cars. In point of fact, Google sent us down a road that said "no large vehicles" but did not say "one way". Even though Matthew and I could stick our hands out the windows and touch the hedges on both sides.

We were driving a Mini. At least it wasn't a 'large vehicle.' But the only other vehicle making it past us on that road would have been a bicycle, and we still would have had folliage in the window for that to happen.

See how I have totally digressed on driving in Wales? Just like nerdy guy at the dance.

Taking point one and point two into account, when we first went to Wales in 2017 we went out to see Carreg Cennen, a castle I had found doing research on places to go while we were there. It's set on a hill, has a cave under it, sounded cool. It wasn't far from where we were staying. 35.4 miles, as a matter of fact. We left in the early afternoon, plenty of time to go less than 36 damn miles (sorry for the swears--my brain does this before it explodes--or remembers exploding).

It. Took. Three. Hours.

That included turning left WHEN WE COULD SEE THE CASTLE TO THE RIGHT (it was on a hill, remember, so even though we weren't 'close' to it at the time, we could SEE it). That included sitting at the mouth of a road THAT WAS NO WIDER THAN OUR CAR WITH OUR ARMS STICKING OUT THE WINDOW and wondering what the hell we would do if we encountered another car coming towards us (sorry, brain exploding).

We got there ten minutes before it closed and they wouldn't let us in, since we had to walk up a hill to get to it and we would have just made it to the top of the hill when they locked the gates.

I was bitter.

A year ago today I finally made it to Carreg Cennen. And cheated on Caerphilly.

Oh my goodness. Who needs a moat when you have a hill?

Who needs a leaning tower when you have this view?

And, forgive me, who needs a family of dragons you can't even touch when you have an honest to goodness cave? Because we all know that cave was once home to a dragon. And the steps and passageway leading down to it? It was this fantasy-loving, fairytale-believing girl's dream come true.

The steps.

The passageway.

So, although Caerphilly will always hold a place in my heart, Carreg Cennen is my soul castle.

Also? It has bunnies.

I know it's impossible to see them, but that's a whole warren right there and there are bunnies in that picture, I promise. It was like Watership Down. I squeed a bit.

Caerphilly Castle

 Caerphilly Castle has been my favorite castle for decades. I don't know if it's the moat, if it's the leaning tower, if it's because it's in the middle of  a city, or if it's the moat (it might be the moat), but I have loved it forever.

When we went the first time, back in 2017, there was a glorious dragon inside the gate that you could stand next to and take pictures with. That was when I knew Caerphilly was my favorite castle because of the dragon.

A year ago today I was at Caerphilly again, my castle. The dragon was still there, but now you can't stand next to him. He has his own little den, because now he has a mate and two hatchlings to protect. Turns out, the best way to make a sexy guy even sexier is to make him a dad. It even works for dragons.

Wales

A year ago today I was on a plane flying to Wales. I may have discussed my love affair with Wales before, but that's irrelevant because I'm doing it again.

My uncle got The Chronicles of Prydain for me the Christmas I was thirteen. At the time I was a little devastated because I thought it was for kids and I was far too mature for that kind of nonsense. I soon realized the error of my ways (since I didn't get any other books and I had to read something) and it has had pride of place next to The Lord of the Rings ever since. I loved the story and the characters (I read it again for the second or third time in high school, and the day I finished the last book I laid on my bed and cried because I was saying goodbye to my friends. Even though I could have picked up the first book and started the whole thing all over again right then.) (Nobody gets out of high school emotionally unscathed.) I loved the lessons I learned. (Even though The High King won the Newberry, Taran Wanderer is my favorite of the series, and one of my favorite books of all time.) And I loved the world Lloyd Alexander had created.

This was back in the day when the internet looked exactly like the Encyclopedia Britannica in my school library (I wrote three papers on JRR Tolkien based on the half page of information about him in the encyclopedia, at which point my teacher informed me I had to pick a different author) so the only thing I had to go on was the little explanation Lloyd Alexander had put in the books saying that Prydain was based on Wales.

That was all it took. From the age of thirteen until...now, I have loved Wales. I love the castles (Wales has more castles per square mile than any other country). I love the language (I studied Welsh in college, though that doesn't mean I can speak it). I love the music and the poetry. I love the place names and the mythology. I love the green, the trees, the coast, the mountains, the rivers. And I love the castles.

So a year ago today I was on a plane heading to this place that I loved so very much. It was my second trip there, the first being seven years earlier. It surpassed all of my expectations. I did not know I would also love the sound of sheep bleating across the valley. Or the different dragons on the signs for the different parts of Wales (seriously, I don't know how Wales is devided up, but when we were at/in the Mumbles, the signs had a sea dragon, but when we were inland they had another dragon). I did not know I could love so many different kinds of sausage. I did not know I would feel bereft when I came home and did not have crumpets every morning for breakfast (and any other time during the day). I did not know that there is a Welsh accent that actually sounds like the people are singing when they are just talking. I didn't hear it all the time, and I could probably look it up if I wanted to, but sometimes the magic is in the mystery, and I am content to know it is out there.

I did not know that when I said I loved castles, that would include castles in store parking lots (looking at you, Neath Castle) and castles that were nothing but three and a half stone walls with a herd of sheep grazing inside (don't know the name of that one). Also, to paraphrase Tolkien, castles make long delays. Because there are so darn many, it is physically impossible to make it to your destination, even if it's a freaking castle, without stopping to look at another freaking castle along the way. Very pesky.

There are so many places in this world I would love to go to, and some I've been to that were never even on my radar (Italy, Amsterdam, Nassau, Barcelona). They were beautiful and unexpected, and I'm sure the bucket list places (Ireland, Scotland, England, Germany) are also beautiful. But they will probably be unexpected also, because if given a choice, I will always go back to Wales.

Ever since The Chronicles of Prydain.

That is the power of story.

PS I would be remiss if I did not include The Dark Is Rising Sequence. I didn't discover it until later, but The Grey King is set in Wales, and it confirmed what I already knew. Wales is the place for me.

A Tiny Wish

 A couple weeks ago I was reading The Tiny Wish, by Lori Evert. I love her books. She combines imaginative storytelling with gorgeous pictures to create truly magical books. This particular book involves an overly friendly goat that keeps ruining Anja's chances of winning hide an seek. Think, Mary Had a Little Lamb. Except with a goat.

Anja, in an attempt to finally win the game, wishes she was small, and her wish is granted. Suddenly, blades of grass are as tall as trees, she rockets down a bank on a pinecone, and she rides the rapids on a bark boat. She meets a squirrel, a duck, and a rabbit along the way, and she sees this amazing stuff called cottongrass. It looks like a truffula tree and a dandelion had an...encounter, and joined forces to make magical fluff.

I had to look it up after storytime, and guess what, it's real. (Cue squee sound!) I don't know why I've never heard of it. Apparently it grows here in the United States and not just in Scandinavia, but it doesn't grow here, here in the United States, because it likes bogs, and I live in an expletive desert. So, as of two weeks ago, I have added seeing cottongrass to my bucket list. Preferably in Scandinavia.

Just look at it. Itty bitty truffula trees.

boys, boys, boys

I like boys. I like stories about boys. Or maybe I should say stories about the relationships between boys (and men). Stories about brothers, either by blood or by choice. Frodo and Sam, Joseph and Hyrum, Morgan and Duncan, Hal and Alan, Jonathan and David, Mike and Fisk, Starsky and Hutch, Holmes and Watson. I just finished reading Clockwork Angel and found two more: Will and Jem. The best stories are about guys who got each other's back.

There is a story my mother told me more than twenty years ago. I was not living at home at the time, so I wasn't around to witness this firsthand, but I promise I'm not making this up. I love this story. The only problem is, I asked my mom about it a few years ago, and she had no idea what I was talking about. She didn't remember it at all, and neither did any of my siblings that I asked about it. But I promise I'm not making it up. I am just related to people with sieves for brains.

One of my brothers did a thing called the 50/20. He had to go fifty miles in twenty hours. One part of me thinks twenty hours sounds like an awfully long time to go only fifty miles. The entire rest of me can't figure out why anyone would walk/run fifty miles in the first place. Whichever brother it was (I have four, but the youngest wasn't even a teenager yet, so I'm taking him out of the running for the moment) was getting close to the end of the fifty miles and was really struggling. He wanted to finish, but he had blisters on his feet, he was beyond exhausted, and was staggering along. One of my other brothers came and went the last few miles with him, literally supporting him to the finish line. I don't even know which two brothers I'm talking about (though I have my suspicions) and I have tears in my eyes. That is one of my favorite stories. It's what Sam did for Frodo, and I cry every time I read that passage. There is something about guys doing things like that for each other that is more touching than any romance.

Seeing as how that is my favorite kind of story, you would think that would be the kind of stories I write. You'd be wrong. I think it's like saying your favorite painting is the Mona Lisa so there's no way you would insult her by making a cheap imitation. However, my understanding is that when you really truly admire something, you can't just let it go (I live next door to an artist who has countless--amazing--renditions of Starry Night all over her home). So, I have a story about two brothers, Tristan and Grey, that I guess I'm going to have to write. I'm working on something else right now (romance, because that isn't a bad thing) but I can't let these boys go. I'm terrified I'll mess it up and won't have another Frodo and Sam at all, but I'm going to do my darnedest to get it right. In the mean time, if you know of any good guys stories, send them my way.

Cutting Off Your Nose...

I have to write a synopsis. And it sucks.

But first, let me say that since March I have written that query letter. And submitted it (once). And was (promptly) rejected. Because the agent doesn't like dragons. So I am not taking it personally, but I am still filled with melancholy because now I have to do it again. (Or I suppose it could be said I should have already done it again several times by now. Whatever.)

Which brings me to this synopsis thing. After I was so very quickly rejected, I was determined to jump right back on the submitting horse and submit again, immediately. There was a place I had been thinking about for a several months, and now (the recently-rejected now) seemed like the perfect time. I had a finished manuscript and a needs-only-personal-alterations query letter, so let's do it! Right?

Not so fast.

I did my research and found that the place that was so perfect in my head wanted snail-mail submissions (I don't know why the thought gives me a rash, but it does) and *gasp* a synopsis (I totally know why that gives me a rash. And boils. And probably fleas.)

I have spent the ensuing months 'looking' for someplace else to submit. I say 'looking' because in all honesty it has been a rather more passive verb taking place. It is somewhat overwhelming to look at the universe of agents and say, "I'll try you." It's kind of like looking at the night sky and naming stars that are not in a constellation. Or shine brighter than all the rest. Or have graffiti on them.

So I have been baby-stepping my way toward finding another place to send a query letter. During my search  I stumbled across http://www.literaryrambles.com/. I'm kind of in love with them over there. (Though I don't visit them nearly as often as I should because I don't do the blog thing nearly as well as I should.) They have a thing called agent spotlight which is freakin' BRILLIANT. I spent my evening scrolling through their list of spotlighted agents and jotted down several names. And then I found THE ONE. The one who will be the next agent I send a query to. And she wants a synopsis. Ugh.

Why, you ask. Why are you sending a query to someone who is going to make you break out in a rash and boils and possibly fleas? Especially since there were other agents who don't want a synopsis at all (one even said they give him hives). I will tell you. She will take non-exclusive submissions, but prefers exclusive submissions for at least one month. And guess what? That whole non-exclusive phraseology in the query letter is another thing that causes me stress. Also, that gives me a legitimate whole month to not have to find somebody else to submit to. Score! And her picture reminds me of my daughter's first grade teacher, whom I like very much. And she says she wants stories about siblings, which mine is. Siblings and dragons.

So it looks like I have to write a synopsis. Better break out the Calamine lotion.

The bear went over the mountain

There's a song I used to sing/listen to when I was a kid that I find depressingly appropriate right now. "The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see. He found another mountain..."

This is me right now. Last night I finished writing my book. Dawson, Cris and Casey and their dragons have arrived at The End, and I must say it is a much better end than it was however many years ago when I finished it the first time. I could hardly sleep last night, I was so excited, and I kind of floated through the day on wings of blissful giddiness. It was a GOOD feeling. Clams have nothing on my happiness this day. And to make it even better, chocolate was added to my joy in the form of a cake with the words "DRAGONS! They Have Arrived" written on top. Yes, I do have the best husband ever. (And sons. My girl was playing with a friend and missed out on the cake-buying expedition, though she's still the best even so.)

So what does that have to do with bears and mountains? I now have to write a query letter, and find somebody to send it to, and possibly even write a synopsis *shudder*. (And assuming I get all of that done, I then have to actually send said query letter to found persons, and that is a whole lot more like jumping off a cliff than climbing a mountain.) I climbed the freakin' mountain (74,000 words, thank you very much) only to find another freakin' mountain on the other side. In fact, I dare say it's a whole entire range, and I'm feeling just a tiny bit deflated. But you know what the bear did? He climbed the other mountain. And so will I.

R is for Robert Frost

(The last two days have been unkind to me as far as posting on my blog is concerned. I wanted to try to play catch-up, but seeing how I have less than an hour left of today, I decided to go forward from where I am and call it good. I'll have to save P and Q for another time.)

I was in junior high when I decided I wanted to be the next Robert Frost. The Road Not Taken was, I am certain, the first of his poems that I was exposed to and fell in love with, but Stopping By Woods On A Snowing Evening was right on its heels. He paints pictures with words, and the pictures he paints include forests and country lanes and old farm houses. Growing up in Oregon, these were images I was familiar with and held very close to my heart. I knew exactly what the places he wrote about looked like, and they were the places I wanted to be. He made me cry with a delicious ache for all of these places he described. More than anything I wanted to be able to paint my own pictures with my own words. I wanted people to see Oregon the way he showed people New England. I wanted to fill people with a longing for my home. I wanted to make people cry.

That's an odd life goal for a thirteen-year-old, but I knew, as Anne Shirley would say, that Robert Frost and I were 'kindred spirits.' When I read his poem Once By The Pacific, I knew it was true. Not only had he seen my ocean (I didn't realize that he born in San Francisco) but he 'got' it:

"The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before."

That is my Oregon coast. Cliffs and rocks and waves and wildness. Exactly how I like it.

Anyway, I set out to become a poet. I saw the world in poems. The words to the poems didn't always come to me right away, and I didn't pursue every poem and commit it to paper, but the feeling of a poem was practically a daily occurrence. Poetry was how the world spoke to me, and when the poetry was silent, I knew something was wrong. (I dated a guy for four months and realized after we broke up that I had not felt a single poem the whole time we were together. That scared the liver out of me, and I knew to pay more attention the next time around. If the next guy I dated quashed the poetry inside of me, then I wasn't going to waste four months on him. It turned out that the next guy I dated not only did not quash my poetry, but he wrote poems to me. We've been happily married for seventeen years.)

I am not going to be the next Robert Frost. Though I took some poetry classes in high school (near disaster) and college (wonderful), I don't even write a poem a year anymore. I took a creative writing class in college that required us to write a short story, and that was the beginning of the end of my poetry-writing days. My 'short' story was easily three to four times longer than any other story in the class (to this day I cannot write a short story) and the ONLY fantasy. It was crap, but once that bug bit, there was no going back. Aside from that, it's not like I actually have Robert Frost's talent.

Recently I read a quote by him that I must have read during the early days of my poetry mania but had since forgotten. The words are so familiar to me, and say so perfectly what I felt:

"A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching out toward expression, an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the word."

That's exactly what I mean when I say I felt poems.

Now I see stories. Everything is a story. I very seldom know what the story is, and I actually have a very hard time coming up with stories (I've never been able to make up bed-time stories for my kids), but every time I turn around I find another thing that wants to be a story. Maybe if Robert Frost was here I could explain it to him and he could paint a picture of my feelings with his words. I bet he could.

O is for Oregon

(Although technically it is now Tuesday, I have not yet gone to bed, so for me it is still Monday, and Monday turned out to be a day when I did not get to write my blog early, which is good because I now have a better idea what I'm going to say. Maybe.)

My name is Michelle and I am from Oregon. I've been from Oregon my whole life. The last time I lived in Oregon was almost 30 years ago. The last time I was in Oregon was seven years ago. In the fall I wear green and gold, even though the university I went to is ten minutes from my house and their colors are blue and white. (I don't really like football all that much to begin with, but I'll cheer for the Ducks over anyone else.) I can be in a canyon in the mountains in less than fifteen minutes, but I still miss mountains with individual peaks that I used to know the names of (Mt Hood will always be my mountain) and glaciers. And trees. And rain. I actually miss rain that stays for days, not the stuff that blows through here in a couple of hours and is gone. And I miss the ocean. Not just any ocean, but the wildness of the Oregon coast, the driftwood and the agates and the tidal pools. And waterfalls. And the color green.

Several years ago I heard a visiting poet from Wales give a presentation at BYU. He read some of his poems, and one in particular had a Welsh word in it that he had to define for us. The word is hiraeth, and he described it as being "how a Welshman feels about Wales." I instantly teared up and started to cry. I know EXACTLY what that word means. That's how I feel about Oregon. (If you google it, you will generally find two things: it does not translate into English, and when they do give a definition, it's homesickness or longing.)

So I'm from Oregon, and I can be pretty snobby about it. It's the prettiest state in the Union, as most Oregonians will tell you (we're all a bit snobby about it).

N is for Networking

True story: When I was about five years old, my mom got locked in the bathroom in our apartment. She asked me if I knew where the manager lived, and I did, so she told me to go down and knock on the manager's door and ask him to come rescue her. I walked down the sidewalk and stood in front of the manager's apartment, sobbing, because I COULD NOT BRING MYSELF TO KNOCK ON HIS DOOR. After several minutes I went back home, still crying. My mom asked me if the manager was coming and I told her no (there was a lot of tears and snot involved). She asked me if I had even talked to him and again I told her no (even more tears and snot). She sent me back down to the manager's apartment, but this time I didn't even bother going the whole way because I KNEW I was not going to talk to the man. It wasn't going to happen, even though I was going to be an orphan and my mom was going to be locked in the bathroom forever.

Those are some pretty high stakes when you're only five, but talking to an actual stranger was an even worse option. So I went back home and sat in front of the bathroom and produced copious amounts of tears and snot until my mom somehow extricated herself from the bathroom on her own.

This is how I feel about networking. I have been to several workshops/conferences. I have met several agents/editors/authors. I read a lot of blogs. And I do not have anything that anybody would consider a 'network'.

Because I am scared to death to talk to people.

Okay, it's not really (quite) that bad. I would totally go get the manager if my mom was locked in the bathroom again. In fact, having been the manager of an apartment building for a few years, I could probably get her out of the bathroom on my own. But it's still hard for me to talk to complete strangers. When I go to these conferences, or read blogs, it's hard for me to believe that I have anything to say worth bothering somebody else about. It's not like I'm on the verge of being orphaned again.

However, sometimes I get worried that my book is. It's so easy to sit and not say anything. But I'm working at it.

M is for Mulligatawny

It's halfway through the month and halfway through the alphabet, so I guess it's appropriate that I find out about this A to Z challenge and get started, since I only halfway know what I'm doing anyway.

I have talked about the naming of my dragons before, and how it all started with the movie The Glass Slipper and the fairy godmother and her pickle-relish. Jambalaya was the first word to present itself as a perfect dragon name, and then came Mulligatawny. At first it wasn't intentional that they were food words (in particular soups), but as the cast of characters grew and I needed more dragon names for the other kids' dragons, sticking with food just seemed easier. There are simply too many cool and fun words to say in the world, and it actually is easier to pick one when you limit your options. Instead of fishing out of ALL the nouns and adjectives and whatnot in the ocean, I toss my net in the relatively smaller lake of 'exotic' food (I can pretty much guarantee that I will never name a dragon Hamburger or Milk). Once I decided to stick with food, it seemed natural to keep naming the boys' dragons after soups and name the girls' dragons after desserts or sweet stuff (Sassafras is another awesome word to say). And I'm really hoping that when I get through with this round of editing (the goal is by this summer!) and start sending it off to agents that they won't think it's too kitschy.

There is no hidden meaning to Jambalaya and Mulligatawny. They are just fun words to say, and since these dragons represent whatever children might imagine a dragon to be, they seemed prefect. (Mulligatawny is camo-colored because my son loves camo. How cool would it be to have a dragon that looked like camo?)

More thoughts on e-books

I am in love with Hilari Bell's Knight and Rogue series. I have a serious, I'm-way-too-old-for-this crush on Mike and Fisk, and it all started MANY years ago when I read Hal and Alan, by Nancy Springer (Hal and Alan isn't the name of books, but the names of the guys in the books). I love stories about guy friends. Buddy stories. I think that's the term I saw when I was looking up Hilari Bell and came across a review for Knight and Rogue. I wasn't completely certain what that meant, but I was hopeful, so I found them at the library and blissfully devoured them. All of my hopes were fulfilled (well, most of them, but more on that in a second). I told my friend Anne that she had to read them, and when I said they were another Hal and Alan, she didn't wait several months (like she did with David Eddings) or years (like she did with Tolkien) but started reading them as soon as I was done. Both of us were hooked.

This is where the problem comes in. I wanted Mike and Fisk in my home all the time, even when I wasn't reading them. I didn't want to have a midnight craving and have to wait until morning when the library opened, only to find them checked out by somebody else. They had to be mine. Anne felt the same way (this is why we are best friends). The obvious solution was to buy them and bring them home (two copies, so Anne and I could remain best friends). That simple task proved remarkably difficult to do as they were not carried in any of the local bookstores (at least not the entire series and multiple copies). It's true they were on Amazon, but not all of the books had made it to paperback, and I wanted a matching set (if at all possible) and I simply couldn't afford to buy six new hardbacks. So I turned to my husband, who is The Finder of All Things on the internet (though not necessarily around the house). He got two complete sets of Mike and Fisk for Anne and me for Christmas because he is awesome and wonderful and We Love Him.

What does this have to do with e-books? I found Mike and Fisk in electronic format for considerably less than the hardback price, and even less than paperback. The problem is, I don't have an e-reader device, and until that point hadn't really wanted one. I like paper. I like holding it, feeling it, smelling it . . . I like it, and I never thought I would convert until Mike and Fisk were so tantalizingly close to being in my grasp. I briefly entertained asking for one for Christmas, but quickly realized that even six new, hardback books would never add up to the price of one Kindle/Nook/i-pad, so I couldn't really argue economy. In the end I got Mike and Fisk, which is what I really wanted, but it got me thinking about e-books in a new way.

Then came January and February and all the storms back east and mid-west (I was born in Oregon and now live in Utah, so I find the term 'mid-west' interesting since it's all east to me). It was not a time to be going to libraries or bookstores. I know that people were dealing with real, actual issues of not freezing to death, but once they weren't dead, you know what I was thinking? How are they getting new things to read? You couldn't go out in that. Then you start dealing with the freezing-to-death stuff all over again. But if you had an e-reader (and electricity), then you could still go online and get books! (I swear this is what was in my head during all of that Chicago-is-a-parking-lot disaster.) There I was, thinking about e-books again.

That's all as a reader. As a writer, I have even more thoughts that I can't begin to sort out. I'll just mention one, and maybe it still qualifies as a reader issue. One of my favorite series of all time is The Phoenix Legacy by M. K. Wren. I love them, easily as much as I love Mike and Fisk (though for different reasons--sort of). I have never bought or seen a new copy of any of the books, though through the years I have bought at least five complete sets of the series from used bookstores. I just looked on Amazon, and there is no electronic version listed there. I hope I am not stepping out of bounds by saying that I think Ms. Wren would rather have people reading her books than not. If they were published electronically, then they wouldn't 'go out of print,' and they wouldn't be so crazy hard to get your hands on. (The various copies of the series that I have acquired over the years were given to a carefully-selected group of people who would appreciate them for the precious commodity that they are. I know there are other intelligent people out there who would realize how great the series is, but there's a limit on the actual, physical copies of the books, and I haven't seen one in years. So many people are missing out on a truly moving story.)

So, there you have it. As a reader, e-books are more accessible in many ways (once you have the whole e-reader thing taken care of--and i-pods don't count because my eyes are too darn old to read entire books in that small a format). As a writer, I want my books to continue to be available, even if they don't hit the New York Times best-seller list and stay in print forever.

(Okay, one more reader pet peeve. There was a series of books I was looking at for a long time. The library didn't have them, I didn't know anyone who had read them, and I'm not made of money, so it took a while for me to finally decide to actually buy the first book. When I went to the store--no first book. The second book was out, and they were carrying that one, but not the first one. I understand about shelf space and all that, but it was very frustrating. I think I wound up ordering it off of Amazon. If I had had an e-reader, it wouldn't have been an issue.)

Very most lastly, after I finished my last post, talking about community, I realized I had completely neglected another community: the internet one. Blogs and Facebook and Twitter and all of this other stuff that I'm really only still dabbling on the edges of (I don't get Twitter at all). A lot of fans feel very connected to each other and their favorite authors because of online communities and that is something I need to pursue. I suppose in many ways they are not just a gathering of strangers that come together one time, but a group of friends that have not necessarily met.

And that's what the other hand thinks.

thoughts on e-books

When my son was four he camped out with his dad to get tickets to the first-night showing of Phantom Menace. It was a huge deal. My son had been raised on Star Wars. The 'bad guys' of his young world were "Troopers," he had seen the original movies countless times, and now there was going to be a new one, with Anakin. Not only that, but he got to sleep in a tent surrounded by a whole bunch of other people who were also REALLY EXCITED. It was a party, and parties are fun.

I did not get to camp out with them because our second son was being impatient and wanted to enter the world a little too early, so I was on bed rest (but not serious bed rest--I didn't get to camp out for tickets, but I was still in the theater the next day). It was a bummer for me, but obviously there were going to be more movies, so I would just do it next time, right? No. By the time Attack of the Clones came out, everyone was buying tickets online weeks before opening night. I never got to camp out for Star Wars tickets (and neither did my second son, who might possibly like Star Wars even more than his brother).

Down the street from our house is the Barnes & Noble where I stood in line to get the last three (four?) Harry Potter books at midnight. There's a surreal sense of community, staying up half the night with a bunch of other people who are REALLY EXCITED. It was a party, and parties are fun.

There were also the midnight-release parties at Borders for the Twilight books, and I know there have been others too, that have made a big splash at bookstores when they came out. But how much longer are those parties going to happen if the book can be downloaded onto your reader at 12:00 on the night in question? By 12:01 you can start reading (and I assure you, I never had my hands on Harry Potter by 12:01). If nothing else, everyone is going to stay home for their internet connection.

I'm going to miss the parties, the sense of community, that we're all coming together because this world that a complete stranger has created has affected all of us, more complete strangers. We have been drawn in and are fellow citizens, but the only time we really get to meet the rest of the population is when a new door is presented to us and we all gather to open it together.

That's what the one hand is thinking today about e-books.

pianos, cellos, and writing

Last Saturday we took our oldest son and my best friend to a Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson concert. (Those of you reading this thinking "I'm your best friend and you didn't take me to any concert on Saturday. What's going on here?" never fear. I am lucky enough to have several best friends, just like I have three favorite kids, and those best friends who didn't go to the concert are still my best friends. Though you may be annoyed that I didn't take you to a concert. I'll make it up to you with a Dr Pepper. Or Red Mango.)

If you don't know who Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson are, check them out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXtVBJDPs6k

It was an amazing evening. Truly a highlight to be remembered forever and not just because of the music. My son doesn't emote a lot, which can be nice in comparison to his brother and sister who hide not their feelings under a bushel. Ever. His 'blow-ups' are so mild compared to his siblings that you have to know him to know that he just blew up. On the other hand, as he said it once himself, "I am excited. It's just that my excited looks like everything else." Saturday night he hugged his dad several times and said how much he liked the concert. That is an unqualified success in my book.

Aside from the music, which was beautiful, and the actual playing of the music, which was unreal, was the joy of creation that filtered through the air and gave me goose bumps. Because of where we were sitting and how the stage was set up, I couldn't see Jon's face very well (unless he was actually looking at the audience) but Steve's face was right there, and there were times while he was playing that it shone with an almost holy bliss. And it made me think about writing, because that is the part of me that is creative. That is the place where I think I share that joy of creation that was so obvious Saturday night. Sometimes, when the words are coming and the plot is falling in place and I realize that all along I have been setting things up for the perfect solution without even realizing it, that is when I feel a little floaty inside, like I have done something magnificent, or maybe something magnificent used me for a lightning rod and this spark of brilliance came to earth in this place and this time because I was there to channel it.

Both of these men played their instruments supreme excellence, but they also didn't just play by the rules. Jon played the piano upside down and with his toes. Steve played the cello with every part of his hand except the back, and once even moved the cello instead of the bow. Undeniably, they were having fun. They knew what they did so well that they could play with it, and that is where a little, tiny ache crept into the concert for me. I have so much to learn about writing. I haven't honed my skills to the point where I can be given a word or a topic and write a story or poem off the top of my head. I still have to stress and think and work and think before I've got anything. I don't even tell my kids bedtime stories because I can't make things up that fast. So I have a lot of practicing to do before I become a writer on the level that they are musicians, and even then I don't know that I'll ever be 'like that.'

Last, but certainly not least for me, was the friendship between them. Many of the goofy mash-ups they played they had come up with at 2:00 in the morning. And that brings me to my friend who was there with us. Writing is often a solitary endeavor, but I never would have made it this far on my own. An extraordinarily close second to that high of being used as a conduit is brainstorming with someone who gets how you think, and that's Anne. She doesn't think exactly like me, but she thinks enough like me that she can take an idea and carry it forward in a direction I would want to go if I was only smart enough to get there myself. Those are some crazy awesome fun times, often at 2:00 in the morning.

So those are my thoughts on writing gleaned from a piano and cello concert. I hope someday to have more skill and fluidity in my writing, but mostly I want to work for more of those moments of bliss, when writing fills up the now to overflowing and I know it's exactly where I'm supposed to be.

huh

So, November, NaNoWriMo, and Kelsi and Joran have all come and gone. Have I mentioned that it had to have been a man who came up with the brilliant idea to put NaNoWriMo in the same month as my birthday, Thanksgiving and Black Friday? Seriously! Who's bright idea was that? Had to have been a man. (I say that even though my husband is the one who does all the Thanksgiving cooking, so it's not like I can claim days of slaving over the stove in preparation. However, there is no way on God's green earth that he is stepping foot in a store on Black Friday, so all the Christmas shopping is left to me, shopping and writing are not compatible.) I know. Excuses, excuses.

Anyway, K&J are out of the dungeon, they have a new start, and they are now kind of cooling their heels waiting for me to get done with the dragons before I go back to them again. We shall not discuss word count, but I can assure one and all that I was never in any danger of hitting the 50,000 word mark. That is what next year is for. Which means that in the next eleven months I have to come up with a really good story idea. I mean, I couldn't even write the book when I'd already written it once and knew it inside and out. Or maybe that's my problem. The last two years I've tried to rewrite something I'd already at least started on once. Maybe what I need to do is wake up November 1st and start writing. I guess we'll find out in eleven months. At least I had a good time getting together with my writing buddies. Who says writing isn't a social activity? (Though not one to be carried out while shopping.)

Nanowrimo

Nanowrimo starts in just over an hour. Am I ready? No! Am I doing it anyway? Yes! Kelsi and Joran are being freed from the dungeon. They are seeing the light of day after six long years. Fresh start, blank page (screen). Better, stronger, faster. The bionic first-book-I-ever-wrote.

day five and four months later

Okay, so I'm not technically writing on day five, which would have made me actually achieve my goal for writing every day of the conference. However, I am writing about day five, which is nearly the same. (And don't give me grief about it being four months later. I came home to two extra, not-completely-rotten-but-far-from-perfect kids living in my house for the summer. And after they left I had other excuses, not the least of which being the focus of this whole little post here today).

On the last morning of the conference we took turns having one on one time with Brandon out in the hallway where we could ask him questions/talk about our writing/have a staring contest. Because of my deep-seated, long-standing need to become invisible in situations where I feel inadequate, when people were writing down which order we were going to talk to Brandon in, I never really raised my hand. Well, not very high, and certainly not with any kind of vocal attention-getting techniques attached. So I was last. I think everyone was supposed to get something like 8 minutes alone with Brandon, but it's not like there was a timer or anything, and it's not like he's going to quit talking mid-sentence if somebody did come out and tell him exactly when time was up. So by the time it was my turn, I think I had maybe two minutes. I may have taken three. Anyway, while others were taking their turn and I was looking at the clock realizing my turn was going to be extremely short, I was trying to think of the most important question I could ask him. I don't know if I came up with the most important question, but by the time I went out in the hallway, I knew which one was bothering me the most (aside from the obvious 'why did I only get two freakin' minutes?')

So what does Michelle ask well-known, accomplished authors when she has their ear all to herself?

How do you know when it's ready?

That's the question I asked. I finished my dragon story several years ago. I gave it to people to read and they said it was good and to send it out. Now, granted, those people were family and friends, but they were family and friends who actually know a bit about the business of writing. My uncle is an actual editor, though an editor of non-fiction, schoolbook stuff. He said that there was nothing glaringly obvious that needed to be fixed and that any corrections would be personal to the editor who got it and couldn't be guessed at ahead of time. I have to say that makes a certain amount of sense. And Ethan, well, Ethan is co-authoring a book with Brandon Sanderson for pity's sake (though he wasn't at the time, it's true). I did send out one query letter to one editor (both Ethan and my sister knew her and said I should) and though she was not interested, she gave me some suggestions that sent me off on the not-quite-major overhaul. A couple of years after that, I started going to a class/writing group. The teacher was CRAZY about my book. Thought it was the best middle grade fantasy he had ever seen from a completely unknown, never-done-this-before person. I had my manuscript critiqued through chapter four and he wanted to start seeing query letters. I couldn't keep taking the class, so I kind of sat and twiddled my thumbs for a while, then last year I went to the writing conference. An actual author of actual children's books looked at my very own first chapter of my story. And told me to change it. (I should probably note that the very original first chapter was in the real world at bed time, which the editor I sent it to didn't like. She wanted it to start in the magical world to capture the kids right off. The children's book author at the conference thought it was too confusing starting in the magical world, that it needed to start in our world so the kids would be grounded in 'reality' before they went off trying to understand some made-up place.) I went from real world to Hiraeth to real world again, all on the suggestion of other people who didn't quite 'get it' the other way. (For the record, I now have a prologue in Hiraeth and the first chapter in the real world.) And at this conference, this year, they wanted yet another first chapter, which turns out to be the ORIGINAL first chapter, but without the kids going to bed (because who wants to read about that, right?). (Also, Anne was completely right about that. She has been telling me FOR YEARS that she wanted the original first chapter back and thought I never should have left it.)

So, Mr Mull, with all of this conflicting input from people who supposedly know what they're talking about and at the very least are intelligent, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to know when to send in my manuscript to somebody? When do I stop listening to other people, and how much weight do I give their comments if I do listen to them? (Quite frankly, of all the people who have actually looked at any part of my actual book, Brandon Mull is the ONLY person who writes/edits/does middle grade fantasy. Nobody else has. Either they do fantasy but not middle grade, so they have no idea what is expected of middle grade books, or they do middle grade but totally don't 'get' fantasy. And it really kind of breaks my heart a little bit that I didn't get any real feedback from Brandon about my manuscript. Just a little.)

And now for his answer, which was crazy short (his 'assistant' was standing a few feet away, waiting to take him to lunch, but even so, the answer is so brilliant it wouldn't have taken more time anyway).

He said, DUM DUM DUM--

Trust yourself.

Seriously. Who'da thought?

When your manuscript is as good as you can make it, when you're only making it worse by fiddling around with it, send it out.

And how, Mr Mull, is one supposed to know when that has happened? Well, that's the tricky part. That's getting to know yourself as a writer and what you are capable of, and it comes with time. He said he certainly didn't know those things when he first started sending things out, but now that he's been doing it a while he has a better feel for when he's at that point. And I would dare say that once you have been through the editing process with an editor (or agent, even) you learn things that you really can't pick up on your own.

That answer fits in nicely with the other voice that's been in my head all these years. It comes most loudly from Dave Wolverton (I subscribe to his Daily Kicks) but I've certainly heard it from countless sources. Send out your best stuff. Polish and polish and polish some more. Don't figure that just because you've typed "The End" that it's ready to go.

So that's where I'm at. I've listened to comments and suggestions, which is good, because I've made improvements to my story because of them. However, this time around I am trying to listen to myself more. Am I saying something the best way possible? Is my plot exciting and clear? Are my characters lovable/hatable? Are they growing? Over confidence has certainly never been my problem, but I'm hoping that I am at least developing self-awareness.

Day four

I am in the midst--THE VERY MIDST--of rewriting chapter one. I am writing this only because I set a goal to post every day this conference, darn it, and I'm not going to drop the pen now (so to speak). (And don't tell me I can't mix/mess-up metaphors. I do it all the time. I am the champion of the mangled metaphor!)

That's all you get today. The new and improved (also known as the old, very-first-but-back-again-completely-different) chapter one awaits.

Come on, Rebecca, be brilliant.

Day three

Okay, so I didn't have to mention Lloyd Alexander at all. Nobody had issues with my names, except for Liosalfar, because it was in the Fianovar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay (which I read, and loved, years ago but had forgotten that name was in it), and Jambalaya. Just wait till they find out about Mulligatawny. And I'm going to rewrite my first chapter (AGAIN) but I can't talk about that right now. It may be the right thing to do, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

I went to a panel on net-working, which I am terrible at, but I'm going to try to be better. Writers have a tendency to be introverts (at least this one is). Introverts are not known for being extroverts.

There was more I was going to say, but my brain is mush. Oh! The comment yesterday about British rights. I certainly don't have such a thing yet, but someday I hope to. Those foreign sales are something to think about, according to Dave Wolverton (and I believe him). I'm just trying to learn from the masters. (I still haven't actually spoken to Dave, or given him a hug or anything. He's always surrounded by people and I don't want interrupt. And I don't think I would dare give him a hug right now anyway. Apparently he was in an accident a while back and he moves like he is in so much pain. I guess I'm afraid just hovering around him will add to his discomfort, so I don't linger.)

Tomorrow is the booksignings. Duncan has asked me to get an autograph from Brandon Mull. He doesn't care what it's on, he just wants his name and Brandon's name on the same piece of paper. I'm taking The Candy Shop Wars to get signed. I think he will enjoy the book.