A Cause for Celebration

Today I'm joining in the weekly Celebrating the Small Things bloghop for the first time. It's simple: just sign up on the linky list, post some celebrations, and hop around to share the celebrations of others. This week I feel like celebrating so here goes.

First, something that none of you will get but I have to mention it anyway because it makes me so happy. Last month, the player music system in the MMORPG I play, The Lord of the Rings Online, was broken beyond use. Now, this is my absolute favorite part of the game and one of my favorite things in life period. So I've been pretty sad about it. But on Wednesday, it was finally fixed! I spent yesterday afternoon playing music in game with friends and it was wonderful.

Second, and more important, yesterday was also my son's Kindergarten graduation. Now to understand why this is so special to us, you have to understand that my son was put in a special school program for children with autism. He's been getting therapy for his speech and motor skills because when he started the school year in September, he could barely communicate with anything other than movie quotes and he wasn't even potty trained. But his teachers are the most wonderful set of women in the world because throughout the year he has seen steady improvement. He's potty trained (though he still sometimes goes through periods of regression), he actually talks to us and understands us, he's progressing so well in math, reading and writing that he was able later in the year to join in a regular kindergarten class for those lessons. His improvement is remarkable and we are so proud of him. (Though I imagine he's still going to drive us crazy after his classes end on the 19th. Summer is the bane of all parents.)

Third, and most important of all, last weekend my brother was in a dangerous car crash after falling asleep at the wheel in the middle of the night. It was a head on collision and the two victims (my brother and the woman in the other car) were both injured. My bother had several broken bones and was believed to be in danger for a day after being taken to the hospital. However, he pulled through quickly and though he looked pretty banged up when I visited him on Monday, he's recovering well and should be able to go home this weekend. (Though he probably will seriously miss the little button he gets to push to administer pain meds.) It reminds me of the car crash I was in many years ago after I fell asleep at the wheel in the middle of the day and rear ended someone. It could have been much worse (no injuries) and I was so lucky. But at least for my brother there isn't any permanent damage and maybe he'll learn a lesson about driving tired.

Nothing new on the writing front because with doctor appointments and end of school year activities this has been one busy and exhausting week. And tomorrow we are driving out of town with 5 kids (!) to attend a family high school graduation part. Wish me luck. 

Well, those are the things I'm celebrating this week. How about you?

New Baby, A to Z and Turning 31, Oh My!

I'm starting this post at 3 am because there's a hungry newborn baby in my arms. Severian Wolfe, born March 20th, continues mine and my husband's insane tradition of naming our kids after literary characters. Our first two are named after Elves from Tolkien's Middle-earth. The two after that are named after a prince and princess from Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles. Severian, number 5, is named after the main character from Gene Wolfe's (you see what we did there) The Book of the New Sun series. (Wolfe is also a reference to the lupine character from The 10th Kingdom movie.)

Who's the precious? You are!

Needless to say, this had made daily life rather busy lately. Hence my relative silence. And yet here I am signed up for the A to Z on Monday. I've been trying to come up with a good theme for the past month or so. I've tried several out and sat down to work out what to use for each letter and hit upon about 5 or 6 dead letters each time. Anyone who thinks blogging by the alphabet is easy should be shot. So in the end I've decided to fall back on the theme I picked for last year. The year when I signed up for the A to Z, put out 6 posts and then abruptly failed to do anything for the rest of the month. I guess this will be my opportunity to finish what I started since I had a lot of positive feedback on A through F. (Of course, I'll be using different words for those letters this year.)

The A to Z Fantastic will examine 26 qualities of fantasy literature that I think make it unique and wonderful. And I promise I'll finish it this time.

If all this weren't enough, today is my 31st birthday. Which means that I've been 30 for a whole year. I can remember when the thought of being 30 was horrifying, but the truth is it's been a surprisingly good experience. I've learned a lot more about myself in the last year than I have in a long time. I've noticed many changes from my younger days and I think that it's fair to say they were universally good changes. It's almost shocking, but I'm enjoying getting older. I feel like a better person than I've ever been before.

So all in all I am looking forward to April. I've always loved the Spring with its feeling of growth and potential permeating the air. This year I feel particularly hopeful about the coming months. I feel like I'm in a good place to really accomplish some things this year. Now how do you keep the evil spirit of procrastination away?

Writing: Not so Solitary

I've come to the conclusion that I'm the luckiest writer in the world. Why's that?

Because of my wonderful husband.

You see, he is my target audience, critique group, first reader, and editor (in the grammar and spelling sense) all rolled into one. We think alike, we communicate (rather) well together, and I can trust him implicitly. The truth is I couldn't write without him. I know because I've tried.

 "Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking." ~Jessamyn West

Everywhere I go in the writing blogosphere, all the authors and those who give writing advice to new writers seem to agree on one thing. You shouldn't share your WIP with anyone. You should wait until it's done and even then you probably shouldn't share it with friends or family. What could I do in the face of such unanimity?

I have at times tried to go for weeks without talking to my husband about my WIP. I usually start out well. I'll get quite a bit of wordage under my belt and start feeling confident in my abilities... and then I always hit a wall. ALWAYS.

On the other hand, when my husband and I sit down together and talk about my ideas and the direction I want to go with my stories... then everything just seems to flow together. The ideas pour forth and everything becomes clear. Suddenly I figure out everything that's been troubling me.

Which is what happened last night. I've been feeling lost lately. Not just because I've been too sick for several days to do any writing and I don't have any momentum going. (Head colds: the bane of the writer.) Though that doesn't help. But also because there is a constant conflict within me between the worldbuilding aspect of the sub-creation I aim for and the actual narrative writing. I'm the sort of person that feel an intense need to fully understand the world I am writing about and how it works before I can write stories about it. (And not just cultural aspects of where the story is actually taking place, I'm talking the metaphysics of the whole universe. I feel the need to understand it as thoroughly as possible.) And yet I know that spending all my time worldbuilding isn't going to get my work published. This is a constant struggle for me. And it's often enough that it causes me to become paralyzed. (Because I wouldn't be a fantasy writer if I was an emotionally stable person.)

So after I'd sat there staring at my notebook without actually writing any words in it for about an hour I finally told my husband what was bothering me. And then we spent another hour discussing the metaphysical properties of air, earth and water, delving into the workings of the afterlife and exploring ideas about order and chaos, form and substance, and many other things.

As a result, I think I have a clearer idea of the overall story arc of my entire fantasy world than I ever have before. I know more about the timeline of the world (and where various stories will fit into it) and understand better the sources of conflict that exist there. All in all, I feel better prepared to write.


I won't make the mistake of trying to do this alone again. For me, writing is not, cannot be, a solitary occupation. And I'm so lucky to have someone that I can share this process with intimately. I wouldn't want to do it any other way.

An Example for Insecure Writers

Today I'm posting for the Insecure Writer's Support Group, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. If you're feeling a little insecure and need a place to commiserate this is the time to do it. If you have been there, done that and now think you can offer some encouragement to your fellow writers this is also the time to do it. To be honest, I thought I would be squarely in the first camp. After all, I'm probably the world's most insecure person. However, I have been inspired by something in real life lately, and I want to share it with you.


My eldest daughter, Luthien Tinuviel, has always been very advanced with her verbal skills. She learned to use complete sentences very early and has just about been driving us crazy ever since. In addition, she has a strong artistic streak. We have large boxes full of all the art she's made over the past few years. Then about 4 years ago with grandma's help she made us a picture book for Christmas. It was all about Dora the Explorer. Luthien dictated and grandma wrote everything down, word for word. Where it lacked coherency it more than made up for it on the "About the Author" page. It goes like this:

My name is "who is the bear?" I read about the three bears book. My real name is Luthien McCabe. I'm 4. I like food, waterfalls, and streams. I like to play a game. I like to build a snowman in wintertime. I like to go to Grandma's house. My family was eaten by really ugly polar bears. They were black and ugly. I tricked you. My family was saved by a beautiful angel with a magic wand. I love you Daddy, Mommy and Maedhros. 

Over the next few years there were a few more books. A book all about princesses. A book called "Me in the Mirror" where her creativity really began to shine. Then she discovered Narnia and became a little obsessed. Her next book was all about her journey to the real Narnia where she played games with Prince Rillian. She wanted to publish it. "You can't publish it, sweetie," I told her. "It's copyrighted. No one else can publish books about Narnia except the C.S. Lewis estate." She had a hard time accepting this since she firmly believed that Narnia is a real place. Why couldn't she write books about a real place? No matter, she moved on.

Luthien and Maedhros drawing together.

The last year has been marked by different attempts to write something she could publish. It was easy while she was writing fanfiction, but eventually she moved on to original works. I struggled with how I could tell her that her childish, barely legible picture books drawn in spiral notebooks were not publishable. But I'm nothing if not straightforward so I just told her. "They're not really good enough to publish." And I fervently prayed that I wasn't discouraging her from writing stories altogether. She kept trying. "Is this one good enough to publish yet?" "Not yet." Eventually she stopped asking, but when I would tell her how much I liked her story she would ruefully comment, "But not good enough to publish." At some point I explained to her that 8 year-olds don't generally get to publish books, especially when they are so sloppy about spelling and punctuation. Even that did not discourage her.

This entire summer she's been filling notebooks with stories. Mostly episodes of the Thundercats with the new Thundercat Leperda and she recently started a He-Man/Thundercats crossover. She doesn't talk about publishing them. She knows she needs to learn and practice. It hasn't dimmed her creative fire. Yesterday she started a new one. She hasn't let me see it yet. She's worried I won't like it because it's too "boyish". I told her I can't wait to see it.

Her determination and her sheer output are putting me to shame. At this point, I'm going to have to get my act together if I want to publish before she does. But like her, I'm not going to let it discourage me. I'm going to take up this challenge and I'm going to keep working and practicing until I have something I can publish. I will be an author!