Babies of All Shapes and Sizes

Yesterday I got a special delivery - four of the pages from my picture book that will come out (hopefully) sometime next year. It feels like I've been pregnant for years with this book, but when I pulled the pages out of the envelope, I had an unexpected reaction. I was happy and giddy and excited and then....I freaked out a little and had to put them away. I've taken them out to look at them several times today and I really do like the art a lot and the pages are soooo beautiful. It was more the shock of seeing ideas that have up until now only existed in my head down in full color on a piece of paper. It is so much more real now, it's almost scary. My artist is Randy DuBurke and you can tell he's put so much thought, research and craft into every painting. Holding the entire book in my hands will probably put me into a catatonic state.

In other birthday news...eight years ago tomorrow my youngest was born (he missed being a February 29th baby by mere hours). It was one of those not-even-a-Tylenol kind of births (not by choice) and one thing I remember vividly is wanting an apple fritter more than anything else when it was all over. Now, it's not like I eat these things all the time. Up until then, I'd probably only had a couple in my whole life, but apple fritters it was, and apple fritters is what I got. T must have figured this out somehow, because now every birthday he wants me to bring donuts for his class. And, every year when I go and get donuts, I buy an apple fritter for myself and eat the whole thing, thinking about that day eight years ago when a little blonde bombshell came into this world.

Today was donut day at school, and eight years have gone by so fast that I'm feeling a little melancholy. And a little bloated.

On this date: In 1972, Hank Aaron signed a record-breaking deal with the Atlanta Braves.

Question of the Day

Q: If you didn't have any butt cheeks, would your farts be silent?

Apparently, this is what keeps the seven year-old mind up at night.

On this date: In 2003, Mr. Rogers died.

Are You Smarter Than A Second Grader?

So there I am, sitting in Ms. Smith's second grade classroom today on my volunteer time. She is talking about "a" and "an". I'm smiling.

"So, if you have the words 'excited chipmunk', would you use 'a' or 'an'.?" Still smiling. I knew the answer.
One boy raises his hand. "You would use 'an'."
Ms. Smith: "That's right. Do you know why?"
Little boy: "Because it sounds good." Everyone laughs. My smile is starting to slip, because that is my answer too.
Ms. Smith: "That's true, but it is 'an' because the first letter of the next word is a vowel. If it were a consonant it would be 'a'." If you look closely, my smile is still there, but it looks just a little plastered-on at this point.

I did not know that. Seriously. Probably every other writer out there knows that rule, but I must have missed that week in second grade because I swear that this is the first time I have heard this interesting piece of information. I hate it when my kids' teachers ask me a grammar or spelling question for the simple reason that I probably don't know the answer.

I'm thinking that this doesn't completely doom my career as a writer. I view myself as more of a conduit for ideas than a putter-together-of-words. My spelling stinks and my grammar is worse. I only learned to spell grammar correctly recently. I do try to pick up things as I go, but I apologize in advance to anyone who has to work with me. Thank God for spellcheck, hands-on agents, critiquers with an English background and editors.

On this date: In 1919 the Grand Canyon was designated as a National Park.

The Difference Between A Writer's Retreat and Disneyland

Both are fun and both are better when attended with friends but there is one major difference:

Apparently, most writers run on caffeine so there was an ample supply of coffee at every venue (unlike Disneyland). God bless juiced up writers.

Yes, I finally got to go to the writer's retreat at Asilomar in Monterey this weekend. It rocked. The retreat center is right on the beach with different "houses" complete with Julia Morgan designs, wood paneling and fireplaces.


The weather on Friday was okay, but by Saturday, the rain was pelting, the wind was blowing and the sea was roiling - perfect weather for sitting up half the night talking to Cassandra, Linda Joy, Meg, Pam and all the rest of the amazing writers who came for the weekend.
Paul Fleischman was there and he gave a wonderful talk about using your childhood (and lots of clippings from the newspaper) for story ideas. I've found a new way to get my kids to behave. "If you don't XX right now, I'm not bringing you a signed copy of Weslandia!"


If you ever get to hear Patricia Polacco speak, don't go without an ample supply of kleenex or nice soft sleeves. Sniff. She had the whole room laughing and crying at the same time. She walked us through this book:


...and when she was done toying with our emotions, she says "So, would you guys like to see the actual quilt?" Um, yeah. She brought it out from a little bag and showed it to everyone in the room. It was like seeing the Shroud of Turin - you could have heard a pin drop.

David Schwartz gave a talk that made math exciting (still not sure how he did that) and uber agent Andrea Brown gave it to us straight about thinking commercially when we're writing our books. Patricia got up after her and said, "Now, I like that woman. She knows what she's talking about."

Except for the whole lack of sleep thing (for which I blame Cassandra entirely), it was a perfect weekend. I'm already on board for next year.

On this date: In 1964, Cassius Clay knocked out Sonny Liston.

Leaf Gatherers Anonymous

My name is Fat Stanley and I have a leaf problem.

See, there's this loquat tree in my backyard.

Every night while my people are sleeping, I go to the tree and get the big leaves that fall down underneath and bring them to the same spot in the dining room. Sometimes I just get one or two....


Some nights I get seven or eight.

You see, these leaves are so much easier to catch than pesky mice or lizards, and my people seem to appreciate them because they pick them up and save them in a big round bin. Every night I bring them more.

And then I go to sleep.




On this date: In 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated.

Oh What A Night

I bought the CD of Jersey Boys when my dad and I went to see the play a few months back. It has stayed in the car ever since, and now both boys know the entire thing by heart. They even know the snippets of dialogue that are between the tracks. As my seven year old was belting out the words to Oh What A Night yesterday in the car on the way to gym I started wondering if it was entirely healthy. Not only are they singing (loudly) about a guy losing his virginity, but they know most of Frankie Valli and the Four Season's hits. Will that damage their street cred if word gets around?

On this date: In 1962, John Glenn orbits the earth.

Tricked By Find And Replace

Some of you may remember my struggles with MS Word's "find and replace" feature in the past. Did I learn? Nooooo.

Sometimes my characters rebel against their given names and I am forced to change them in the manuscript. It happened again last night - apparently Matt wanted to be called Josh, and who am I to argue with him (particularly since he has those dreamy brown eyes)? I went to "Find: Matt" and" Replace with Josh". It did occur to me that there were a lot more replacements than I thought there would be, but I wasn't sure why until I came to the following sentence: "It doesn't Josher," I said, looking at my watch. Yeah, I know. ANY word with "matt" in it got replaced. It took me over an hour to fix it (and I'm still not sure I got them all).

On this date: In 1847, the Donner Party was rescued.