Chip Off the Ol' Quill

My husband and I had a meeting with my kids' teachers yesterday and one of them said something about my son that just had me giddy with proud-mama glee.

She said that she had posted a picture of a fish in the ocean and told the class to write about it, describing what they see in the picture. (This is a first grade reading class, my son is 7). She said my son wrote "I am a fish." And then described the picture from the point of view of a fish.

How awesome is that!? His teacher said she was very impressed with that (so was I!) that he would think of something like that.

I'm already envisioning all the books he'll be writing some day LOL He actually does like to write books. He'll sit next to me while I'm working and write and illustrate his own little book. Just like his mama :)

It made me think about my family...whether or not I got the writing bug from anyone along the family tree. I know my great-grandmother wrote poetry - I have a book of it on one of my shelves. And my grandmother also writes poetry and is an amazing artist. My mother was always an avid reader - I grew up raiding her bookshelves.


What about you? Are you the chip off of anyone's writing block? Are any of your kids following in your footsteps? Or are you the first in your family to develop our strange and wonderful "disease"? :)

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A Writer's Christmas

So my husband and I were sitting at the table the other day discussing what to get the kids, and each other, for Christmas this year. I usually just get my own presents and pretend I'm all surprised :) but this year I'm making him get me something (aren't I mean? Mwahaha) I told him I already had his present picked out. He said he had no idea what to get me.

I'm confused by this.

Aside from the fact that we've been married almost 10 years, I'm a writer. I'm not that hard to figure out. I'd be giddy over a few spiral notebooks and a new pack of pens. Especially if there was a cute stack of designer PostIts on top. (I heart me some stationary!) Sure, there are some "harder to figure out" gifts I'd really enjoy like a few new computer programs or maybe some new CDs for my playlist.

But really, if you are ever in doubt about what to get a writer, you can resort to the always popular gift card to your local bookstore. I go after new books the way our cat goes after cat nip. Want to make me really happy? Get me a huge gift card to the bookstore and a new bookshelf to put all my shiny new pretties on....and a pile of new stationary 'cause like I said, that stuff is ALWAYS fun :)

What is your ideal Christmas gift? What do you think the perfect writer gift would be?

p.s. thanks for all the "warm" wishes :) The heater is still out (we've dropped a few more degrees so I am REALLY hoping the heater parts come in SOON) but we are really doing okay. It's toasty warm upstairs in the bedrooms with the doors closed and the space heaters going full blast, so we've just been hanging out up there. My real whine is because my laptop is dead until my new charger gets here (hopefully today!) so, since the main computer is downstairs and it's too cold to work down there, I'm not getting anything productive done. Except laundry. But, you know, I'd rather be writing LOL

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A Writer's Christmas

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You Mean I'm Not Normal?

Okay, it doesn't look like my word count has changed at all, but I've actually been working quite steadily all week. I just, uh, switched WIPs for a teeny tiny second :D I couldn't help it. One of my finished novels was screaming at me for another revision and I just couldn't ignore it. But, if all goes well, I'll be finished in another week or two and then it's back to work on the new WIP - I pinky promise :D

In the meantime, I have a question for everyone - do you ever wish you WEREN'T a writer?

I've read enough blogs and talked to enough writers that I think I can safely say that most of us don't really feel a choice in the matter. Oh sure, we might have chosen to try and get published. But many of us were writing long before that decision was made and would continue to write even if publication would never be an option.

So, do you ever wish your crazy Muse had just left you the heck alone?

I had a moment yesterday where I did feel this way. It surprised me, to be honest. I've had stressful moments and moments where I've literally been in tears for some reason or the other. But I've never really wished things were any different than they were.

But for a split second, I thought "It would be nice if I wasn't a writer." My house would be clean. I'd spend more time with my kids. My spare moments would be spent relaxing, my nights wouldn't be filled with sleepless hours while my crazy brain spun out a million ideas. I'd just be a normal mom.

LOL It was also the first time I realized I truly don't consider myself "normal." Oh, I've joked about it before. But to really, truly, deep down to the marrow of my soul think I was NOT normal. I think this was the first time.

I have friends who are normal. Their houses are clean, their laundry is always done, their kids never watch more than an hour of t.v. a day, and I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure their minds are occasionally quiet enough for them to just BE. They live life without feeling the compulsion to write about it. They see the dishes as a chore, not a brainstorming session. I see people like this every day and it's a weird concept. Like the idea of a billion dollars. I know that much money exists. But I've never seen it. It's hard to fathom. Being "normal" is hard to fathom.

My moment passed very quickly (shoved away by my MC demanding that I sit and work on her story some more, which I was literally giddy to do). I really wouldn't want to be anything else. I love being a writer. Every crazy, roller coaster second of it. But every now and then.....yeah.....

Do you ever have a "what if" moment?

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Thirty-three Word Thursday

An artist must approach his work consciously, but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist. 
— Anton Chekhov

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Ten Word Tuesday

Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.
— Daphne Du Maurier 


(makes me wonder what she'd think about all the social networking and platform building 
that goes along with being a writer today :D  )

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Ten Word Tuesday - Funny and Oh So True

You shall know the truth, and it will make you odd.
— Flannery O'Connor

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Blog Chain - Worth the Hassle

This round of the ol' chain was started by our awesome Eric, who wants to know:


What do you find to be the most challenging aspect of being a writer? What is your greatest reward from writing?

Fabulous question. There are a lot of things about being a writer that are hard. Juggling writing with kids and family and jobs, dodging queries, revisions, edits, revisions, bleeding-red critiques, more revisions, W.A.I.T.I.N.G., querying, submitting, pressure, and all that other wonderful stuff that comes with the territory.

But for me, the hardest part is actually FINISHING.

I'm great at ideas. Great at starting a project. This is why I have 4 or 5 novels with three or four chapters a piece, two finished novels in various stages of revisions (for the 100th time), two half written non-fiction proposals (one of those accompanying a half written NF book), a barely begun novel in verse, and half a dozen or so picture books.

Christine always tells me I'm spinning. LOL I just have a really hard time sitting down and focusing on one project long enough to finish it. I really don't know why this is. I'll think about my WIP all day long, have tons of ideas I want to implement, scenes shooting through my head that I can't wait to get down...but when I go to actually work on all that, I generally pull up my files and then sit and think....and then check my email....and then peek at Facebook real quick....and then get distracted by my kids or husband or that cute movie on HBO I really wanted to see. Something always comes up.

It's kind of like exercise. I really want to do it. I can visualize the incredible end result if I keep it up. I enjoy it while I'm doing it and feel spectacular when I'm done. It's just getting myself to apply butt to chair and fingers to keys that sometimes evades me.

I think this is why I work so well under a deadline :) I'm literally FORCED to work. I enjoy every second, don't get me wrong. But yeah, I do better with the cattle prod approach :)

My greatest reward? Well, I won't lie - getting a agent and selling my book were pretty awesome rewards. Seeing it on a book shelf will be even more cool, I'm sure. But really, the thing I love more than anything is sending someone something I wrote and having them say, "OMG! I LOVE this! Send me more!" or "I am loving this so much I stayed up until 1am. I couldn't put it down!" or "Hurry up and finish! I can't wait to find out what happens, you're killing me!" or "My professor gave me an A on my paper and said it was the best paper she'd read all year!"

Hands down, nothing beats that. There is nothing more rewarding for me than experiencing the pleasure other people find in reading my work or knowing that I helped someone pass their class or write an awesome paper. Absolutely nothing tops that for me.

How about you? What do you find difficult about being a writer? Anyone out there want to challenge me for the Procrastination Championship? I betcha I'd win :D What do you love about being a writer? What keeps you on this crazy roller coaster?

Don't forget to go back and see what Laura had to say about being a writer and stop by Shaun's tomorrow to see what he both loves and struggles with :)

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Everything I Need to Know About Writing I Learned From My Six Year Old

It’s amazing what you can learn from watching a child. As I watched my children play the other day, I started to realize that even though they are young and are just starting out on life’s journey, they already have what it takes to make it through almost anything they’ll come up against. And when it comes to writing and the whole publishing journey, I would do well to take a page from their book.

1. Just because you haven’t crossed the finish line doesn’t mean you don’t know how to get there.

My kids were racing on their bikes. They picked a starting point, and they picked the finish line. On your mark, get set, GO! They were off. Now, they are just learning how to ride a bike, so getting to that finish line took a while. But they knew how to get there. They just had to work at it.

I’ve sort of made it to the finish line in the NF world. But fiction is my real passion. And I can’t even see the finish line in the fiction world just yet. But I know how to get there. I know how to write. Sure, there’s a lot of things about crafting a story I still need to learn. I don’t think I’ll ever know everything there is to know. But in general, yeah, I know what I need to do. I know I need to write and revise, and revise again, and query, and query some more. I know what I need to do and how to do it, and even though I haven’t yet plowed through the ribbon at the end of my race, I still know exactly what I need to do to get there. I just have to keep focused on my goal and do it.

2. Get up every time you fall down.

My kids fall down…a lot. But they always get back up. Sometimes they are broken or bloody, and they usually need a big hug and kiss from Mom, and occasionally an ER visit, but they always get back up. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the publishing world, you are going to fall and get knocked down…a lot. Some of those critiques or rejections you’ll receive are going to sting like nothing you’ve ever felt before. And having someone (or a group of someones) to run to for comfort when it gets really bad makes the boo-boos sting just a bit less. But you’ll never achieve your goal if you stay on the ground and cry. You gotta get back up and try again.

3. Be a good sport

My kids were playing a Wii game the other day when the miracles of all miracles happened – my four year old daughter beat my six year old son. Now, he could have yelled and cried and thrown down his paddle and quit (as my daughter will often do when she loses). But he didn’t. He was disappointed, sure. And for a second, I didn’t know how he’d react. But then he smiled and screamed “Woohoo! Nanas won!” and laughed and gave her a high-five. (Nana is her nickname, by the way :) I like eccentric names, but I’m not that mean) :)

You aren’t going to win every game you play. You aren’t going to cross the finish line first every time. And it’s okay to be disappointed when someone else gets there before you do. But you’ve gotta be a good sport about it. It would be easy to get bitter and angry in the midst of a pile of rejections, especially when others are flying over their finish line miles ahead of you. But what good will that do you? This is a tough, tough game. Being a bad sport about it just makes it that much harder. It’s okay to be disappointed, but don’t let that disappointment ruin the game for you or anyone else. If you can’t play nice, don’t play at all.

4. If you want dessert, you have to eat dinner first.

My son has a short attention span when it comes to dinner. He wants to get in, get it done, and get to the good stuff. Which means he often takes two bites of dinner and starts asking for dessert. As much as I’d like to chuck my dinner and dive into the chocolate cake with him, that’s not very good for either of us. We need to eat the dinner first. Then we can get our reward.

When it comes to writing, it’s easy to focus on the “good” stuff – getting an agent or publisher, seeing that book on the shelves, attending signings and release parties. Sometimes we get so focused on the “dessert” that we try to skip dinner – ignore vital lessons every writer should know because they take too long to learn and execute well; fly through revisions and call them done because we are so anxious to query and get that agent; skip over that plot hole because fixing it would open a whole can of worms we don’t want to take the time to deal with; sending something out that just isn’t ready because we are too excited and anxious to wait any longer.

But that isn’t the way to grow a strong, healthy writer, any more than it is to grow a strong, healthy child. You have to eat your dinner first – gotta ingest the stuff that’s going to help you grow in your profession, before you can enjoy your reward. Dangit ;-)

What have you learned in your journeys? Ever learn something from an unexpected source?

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Ten Word Tuesday...Times 3...Plus 3 or 4 More :D

I would recommend the cultivation of extreme indifference to both praise and blame because praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.


~ John Berryman

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Interview with Christine Fonseca

 To start off our Emotionally Intense week, I asked Christine if she'd do an interview so we could introduce the topic and get to know her a little better :)



MM: So, what exactly is emotional intensity?

CF: To Quote my upcoming book, Emotionally Intense, emotional intensity can be described as "strong and intense emotional reactions to various situations." This can range from being really happy, almost to to point of being manic, to being sad to the point of depression. More often it means vacilating between the two - feeling consistently off-balance because of the way in which you respond to the world around you. For the women reading this, it's like extreme PMS 24/7!

I'll talk more about this in my guest post on Wednesday, but that gives you a pretty good working definition.


MM: LOL Yep, "feeling consistently off balance" pretty much describes how I feel when it comes to writing, revising, querying, and just about everything else in my writing world :)

In your book, you discuss emotional intensity in regards to gifted children. I know in my experience, most of the “creative type” people I know are pretty emotionally intense. Are creativity and intensity related? In other words, are all emotionally intense people gifted?


CF: Great question (not to mention a great follow-up book - Hmm...think I need to write that!). I do believe all gifted people are emotionally intense. But I do not think all emotionally intense people are gifted.

Creative people are - I think it is related to the way in which emotionally intense (and creative people) interact with the world. A good friend, Danyelle, calls it "painting in bolds while the rest of the world is painting in pastels". On Wednesday, I'll share my favorite poem describing intensity...In both of these examples, creative people fit the mold as easily as gifted people do.

I read something in an interview with Leah Clifford last week that rang very true - and on-point with this topic. She said "It's not easy being friends with a writer..." - Man, that is an understatement! We are a very angsty lot. Or, in other terms, we are very emotionally intense!


MM: As you said, we’ll get a little further into how writing and intensity relate on Wednesday. For now, can you tell us a little about your book?

CF: Love to. Emotionally Intense: Learning to Cope With Your Gifted Child's Outbursts (Prufrock 2011) was written specifically to help parents navigate the often intense world of gifted children. More than a book of parenting theory, it has strategies to de-escalate kids and give them the greatest gift any parent can bestow - the ability to recognize, monitor, and adjust their OWN behavior. I wrote it in a conversational tone with the hopes that it would be the dog-eared, coffee-stained book parents turn to like they would an old friend - something to help them remember how to cope with their kid's outbursts.

MM: What about you? Besides being a very talented writer and one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met…who is Christine Fonseca?

CF: Holy Cow...kinda open-ended, yeah??? I guess I am an emotionally intense writer! Okay I am more than that too....I am the mom of 2 amazingly intense kids, with an equally amazing and intense husband. I work as a school psychologist by day, and spend most evenings writing. When I am not doing those things, I swim, run, surf, ski, hike, and otherwise try to suck the marrow out of life! I write YA to stay in touch with that part of my soul...and I LOVE it more than I can say!!!

MM: Tell us a little about finding your agent and your road to publication

CF: Well, I really owe you and Elana for that...I was never planning on finding an agent for my NF. The world of publication for books related to giftedness is SMALL (they don't call it a niche market for nothing). But the reality is, I didn't think I could do it all on my own, so I wanted to find an agent.

After querying for a relatively short amount of time, I found Krista Goering of the Krista Goering Literary Agency. I was impressed with her knowledge of the niche I was venturing into (she had done her homework before we spoke), as well as her ideas regarding the agent/writer relationship. We landed the book deal pretty quickly after signing. We have other projects in the works as well, so hopefully more books related to giftedness are in my future.

Now, my world of fiction is different all together. I write YA fiction and am currently seeking representation for my completed ms, A BEAUTIFUL MESS.

Thanks for the interview!

MM: Thanks so much for stopping by this week, Christine!

This topic really fascinates me, especially in how it relates to writers. The quote from Leah's interview is so true - it's NOT easy to be friends (or a significant other of) a writer LOL The term "emotionally intense" just hits the nail right on the head :)

Be sure to stop by the rest of the week for more with Christine Fonseca and Emotional Intensity!

LINKS!!

Christine's Blog
Growing Up Gifted Blog
Christine's Website

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Why Do You Blog?

Well, this week is apparently question week...or maybe I just have a lot of musing time on my hands. Unpacking boxes doesn't really require that much brain power :)

I watched Julie & Julia the other day (loved it!) and there was a line in the movie when she's talking about starting a blog. She says something along the lines of "I could write a blog. I have thoughts."

Which got me thinking - why do I blog? I have thoughts, sure. I like to think they are occasionally interesting, funny, helpful and maybe (on a really good day) witty and intelligent :D Though, maybe I just like to hear myself talk (or see it I suppose, as we are talking about blogs) (I do, by the way, as I'm sure most people who know me can attest to. But hey, in my defense, I am home all day with a 4 and 6 year old. If I get within 100 yards of someone with thoughts that revolve around something other than Barbie and Spiderman, I just can't be held responsible for the unstoppable flow of words that shoots from my mouth).

But is that why I did it? To share my thoughts? I don't think so. Maybe partially, but really, I never imagined that anyone would actually be interested in what I had to say. I mean, who was I? Nobody...just an unpublished writer trying to find my way in the big, strange, and scary publishing world. So, why do I blog? Why did I start doing this in the first place?

Honestly, peer pressure, pure and simple. Everyone was doing it, I thought playing with the templates was fun, and I had heard/read/saw somewhere that if you wanted to be a successful writer, you had to have a blog. So, here we are.

But along the road it has evolved into a little something more. I love, LOVE, connecting with other writers. I can't tell you how awesome it is to type up a post that most people would think was nonsense and have people comment saying "I do the same thing! I think the same way!"

Knowing I'm not the only crazy writer out there has really been a wonderful discovery. Seriously, I thought I was completely weird most of my life. I mean, how many people sit there staring off into space while a whole other world of characters plays out in their heads? How many others can't carry on a "normal" conversation because they can't resist going off on weird tangents that suddenly occur to them? Especially when those tangents involve people, places, or situations that don't really exist. :D How many others get dirty looks from complete strangers and suddenly realize they've been staring at said stranger, taking mental notes about their appearance or mannerisms because that stranger's look/actions would be PERFECT for this book you are working on? How many others notice strange, obscure little details about places and people and things and every day life that they squirrel away for future musings, or have conversations with themselves, or scribble weird little notes on anything and everything?

Apparently, quite a few :D I always felt so alone in my weirdness and then I found some forums, and started blogging, and I have had the opportunity to meet so many wonderful, crazy people, people just like me who just laugh and say "Oh yeah, definitely!" when I ask, "Hey, do you ever...?"

So, I suppose the reasons why I started blogging don't matter in the long run. I guess what's important is why I keep doing it, what I get out of it. Yeah, it takes a little extra time out of a day that might not have enough hours to begin with. But it provides a forum for my insane thoughts and it allows me the opportunity to connect with all these incredible people, from all areas and walks of life, who all have the love of writing in common. And really, what could be cooler than that?

So how about you? Why did you start blogging? Why do you keep doing it? Or if you don't, why not?

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