Category writing

Dog days

caravanofcomposition 2 Comments

Happy summer everyone!!

Back in my teaching days, the end of June meant two months of sleeping in, but now that I work over the summer, it’s more about the shifting of routines. Instead of heading off to school, the boys head off to camp. We still have to get up, make lunches, and get out the door on time. No lounging about. Weeknights and weekends are packed with soccer, soccer, soccer. Summer often feels more relentless than the – dare I say it – lazy days of winter. Nevertheless, I look forward to spending time outdoors. Enjoying a good book at the pool, taking a long evening bike ride with the family, watching the sun rise and set at our cottage. There are things to be thankful for with each passing season. And it presents another opportunity to reflect and set new goals.

Our local writers/illustrators group, BNCWI (click on the super cute Buffalo on my homepage for more info), met earlier this week to discuss some of our favorite lines from kidlit. It was a great way to get some new reading suggestions and talk about what grabs a reader’s attention. After the sharing, someone asked what everyone’s writings goals were for the summer. One of my friends mentioned setting what she called “micro-goals” or small, manageable goals that keep you motivated and feeling successful. For example, saying you’ll write 1k a day may be too daunting, but 500 words? Or even 250? An hour in the chair is not always feasible, but what about 10 minutes? Is your house a disaster due to weeks of backpack regurgitation? (It can’t just be my house, please tell me other people experience the onslaught of desk/locker clean outs!) Tackle one pile a day. My friend pointed out that sometimes the micro-goals are what you need to get moving, and once you start you accomplish even more than you set out to do – and who doesn’t like busting through the bottom of a to-do list?

If you write, and need a little extra encouragement and cheer leading to keep you motivated, check out the monthly writing challenges on Twitter. It is a wonderfully supportive community. Or try Camp NaNoWriMo, which runs next month. Even though my July looks like this:Capture

I plan to participate. I know what you’re thinking, if she has enough time to make a visual representation of her life as a soccer/scout mom, she has enough time to write. And I do. We all have time for what fuels us, if we make it a priority.

Before starting this post, I looked back on my Spring intentions to reflect on how things have gone these past few months. I’ve been writing regularly, perhaps not as much in my WIP as I’d hoped, but I published a weekly blog post and recently began to work on a new verse novel. I’m also super proud of the fact that I got my website up and running despite the small meltdowns along the way. My health is good, and I continue to look for moments where I can simply be present. One of the things I look most forward to in late June is the arrival of sugar snap peas in our farm share box. It sounds silly, but they are so incredibly delicious that I usually eat half the bag on the drive home. Add in my favorite hummus and a good book, and you have the makings of a perfect moment.

So what’s on my to-do list for summer?

  • Read
  • Write
  • Laugh
  • Eat from the Earth
  • Soak up the sun

How about you?

Why I simultaneously love and fear small creatures

caravanofcomposition 4 Comments

I love nature and animals and have been known to carry on many a one-sided conversation with the creatures who visit our backyard. But if they try to come into the house, I freak out. And if they end up dead anywhere on the property, I freak out even harder. Which occasionally happens out here in the suburbs and which inspired me to write a piece called “Carcass”. I entered “Carcass” into the Pennwriters In Other Words contest, an annual contest with three different categories: non-fiction, fiction, and poetry. Pieces must fit on one single sheet of paper and are posted on the wall for participants to vote on during the conference. My first year in attendance (2015), I took third place in both the fiction and poetry categories but haven’t had success since then.

Until this year. My friend/traveling companion and I both entered, and we wanted to stick around for the results but decided to leave early so that we could be back with our families by dinnertime. We asked the coordinator if we won. She looked at our name tags and shook her head. Disappointed but still full of positive energy from the weekend, we returned home.

Later that day, someone posted on Twitter that her friends had won. I sent a message of congratulations, and she said, “heard you won one yourself”. Say what? Turns out I earned second place in the non-fiction category, and my friend won second in fiction. We were thrilled, but a little sad we missed the excitement of receiving the award. Thankfully, the coordinator contacted us and sent us our certificates in the mail.

cert

I’m pleased to have placed in all three categories, and will keep writing and aiming for that first place spot!

Without further ado, here is my piece:

CARCASS

 There’s a dead mouse in the basement.

I walked down there to look in my high school memory box for my not-quite Rubix Cube because the youngest spent all afternoon trying to solve the actual Rubix Cube. I went down to the basement and there it was.

Dead.

All sad and mouse-like on the freshly vacuumed carpet. Carpet, I might add, that until last week was covered in piles of boxes, tissue paper, unwanted toys, and tons of other crap. We spent the afternoon cleaning everything out and uncovered scattered mouse poop who knows how old. My 40th birthday cards were in that pile. I turned 41 three months ago.

Now the space is clean, the rug mouse-poop free. But not mouse free. Because as soon as I saw it my heart started to pound in the way it does when I come across dead things, and I did an immediate about face. Headed back upstairs and pretended I had never gone down there in the first place.

Hubby comes home late tonight. He’ll come across the mouse. Eventually. He’ll take care of it. The question is, do I wait for him to notice it or tell him I saw it and didn’t feel it was within my realm as chief house cleaner to do anything about it? When he sees it will he clean it up without saying anything?

I think back to the last mouse, the one that squirreled away cat food in a rolled-up rug and caused Mia to pee all over the house in anger. We put out poison but never found a body. The tiny green pellets housed in innocent looking cardboard triangles remained scattered throughout the basement. Leftover poison. We killed this mouse. And it took the liberty of dying right there in the newly cleaned room.

Sadness weighs on me, like steel.

Is it sadness I feel, or something else? And why do dead animals bring trauma to my soul? I remember the suicidal crow that landed in our back porch back in Corning. Hubby was away; I had to carry it into the woods by myself. Scooped up its body with a shovel and carried it back there on our rickety wheel barrow. When I think back to that day I can still feel my pounding heart.

And the bees I found when I unscrewed the switch plate in my parent’s living room. Oh Lord the bees. Vacuuming them out from across the room after a panic attack that lasted much longer than one should panic over a pile of dead, harmless bees.

I think there might be something wrong with me.

Accept the Mission

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Monday after my favorite annual conference:
I AM EXTREMELY PUMPED TO DO ALL THE WRITERLY THINGS!!
Also: SO MUCH LAUNDRY!!

This year’s Pennwriters Conference theme was Mission Possible. I drove down with one of my writer friends and we had an amazing weekend. We hung out with other writer friends, made new connections, and learned about craft, the industry, and how to cope with rejection. We slept very little and laughed a lot.

Some highlights: I was able to spend twenty minutes in a one on one session with agent Louise Fury. I pitched her last year and used her advice to rework my title and complete a round of revisions on my manuscript. She remembered me and agreed that my previous title was terrible. (She thought the new one sounded much better–phew!) She read through my query, synopsis, and first pages and gave me solid, helpful advice. I’ve been dipping my toe into querying this project and feel confident to jump in with both feet.

I also got great advice from other industry professionals about where my story fits in the world. This is somewhat of a mystery as it is historical fiction with teenage protagonists and have always thought it should be YA. But I’m reconsidering whether or not that is the best place. While I love writing for teens, this particular book may be best suited for a different audience.

I took a course on branding; we had to sign up in advance and the instructor googled us ahead of time to identify what she saw as our current brand. I use my “pen name” (which is just a shortened version of my last name) when I write, and she googled my full name, which leads to links of my life as a teacher and my old blog. No surprise, my brand label was “PROCRASTINATOR”. I had a good laugh over that one, and so did hubby. But times are changing (YES, YES THEY ARE), and I plan to launch a shiny new website in the next month or so. Once I figure out what I want my brand to be.

One of the best things about the conference is connecting with other people. I know, I know, that sounds strange coming from a self-proclaimed introvert. But the people of Pennwriters are a friendly, caring bunch. Two years ago I drove down to Lancaster alone and was terrified of making small talk with strangers. But I discovered that SO WERE A LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE. I’ve learned to recognize that particular fear on someone else’s face. That, HOLY CRAP I DON’T KNOW ANYONE HERE, NO ONE WILL WANT TO TALK TO ME/SIT WITH ME/BE MY FRIEND. The moment you realize you aren’t alone in your fear is a sort of freeing experience. One of the things I learned is that it’s okay to have those feelings, and if you keep pushing forward you will figure out how to work through them.

It’s true for a lot of things, really. I attended a session on rejection and the speaker talked about the physical and psychological effects of rejection and how we need to keep moving forward. The thing we want is in the distance–it may be right in front of us or far out of reach, but every step we take is a step closer to that goal. If we stop, if we let fear or hurt or self-doubt creep in and take over, then we’ll never get there. We have to accept the mission and know it is possible.

The board above my writing desk is decorated with things that inspire me. Pictures of my family. Pins I’ve collected. Encouraging words that lift my spirits. Here are a few of my favorite sayings, one from a bookmark, one from a fortune cookie, and one from my hairdresser:

It’s not being without fear, it’s having the determination to go on in spite of it.

It is better to attempt something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed.

Success is available to everyone.

I am already counting down the days until next year’s conference. In the meantime, I have a lot to do. Apply the notes from Louise, send out my next batch of query letters, and work on launching my website. Stay tuned.

Week four of camp: What really counts

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My stats for Camp NaNoWriMo are embarrassing. However, I am proud of the fact that I blogged every week, which is a goal I set for myself in late March. And while writing often slips down to the bottom of my to-do list, it has not fallen off completely, even if my desk is a mess of all things not related to writing, and I spend far to much time wandering around my house completely overwhelmed by the stuff that seems to multiple while I sleep.

Data is great. It helps with identifying a problem and measuring the success of implemented strategies (wow, I totally sounded like an administrator right there). Data can also make you feel worthless, like when I look at my project statistics and the bulls-eye that barely made it through the second outer ring.

I taught special education in middle school for four years. During my second year, our building was in danger of a massive restructuring and forced to focus a ridiculous amount of time and energy on improving test scores. My small group of students were reading below grade level. Way below grade level. To go from a 1 to a 3 (out of 4) on their state tests was not reasonable despite the desperate pleas of my administration, and I struggled to find ways to help them feel successful. In the weeks leading up to the tests, I set individual, attainable goals for each student, worked on skills that would help them do better — and here’s the most important part — taught them how to be calm and confident during a testing situation. Not focus on what they couldn’t accomplish, but rather what they could. I’m happy to say that many of my students improved on their previous scores, and we celebrated the success — even though their scores were still below the “acceptable” level.

I am a bit ashamed by the lack of overall progress during camp but happy to say that my percentage accomplished went from 27.6% in July to 36.9% in April. An improvement. And while my final day of working on the camp project was spent deleting more words than adding new ones, I decided that what really counts is forward momentum. Not giving up. I will continue to write, continue to work on my WIP, continue to participate in the monthly writing challenges.

What really counts is attitude. Confidence. Belief in yourself no matter the obstacle. My students were told they were the lowest performers in the school, but they refused to let a number dictate what they were capable of accomplishing. In my current job, I see adults return to school after years of working, raising a family, overcoming illness — they sit in my office and tell me they are finally ready to earn their degree and will do whatever it takes.

What really counts is determination.