Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 131

50 miles on LAWKI month

It's a little tricky carb loading when you're trying not to buy food. In fact, I broke down Friday and got some Thai noodles, although partly because I had a school visit and then had promised to take the kids to the corn maze and literally had no time to stop at home for food all day.

The race was pretty difficult. It wasn't really a race for me. I focused on making sure that I could help my husband finish the race, not on my own time. And he struggled from about mile 4. I don't know if ...

SERVANT OF A DARK GOD

I really enjoyed this debut novel by friend John Brown . I don't read a ton of epic fantasy. I have a few favorites, Robin Hobb, George R.R. Martin, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Guy Gavriel Kay. I wonder if this is partly because I have a short attention span and I just want a novel that can be consumed a little faster. Also partly because I find things interesting in fantasy that not all readers do. I am not interested in "cool" magic just for the sake of cool. I'm only interested in it i...

author's best books

15 asked me recently when I was going to get a particular manuscript published. I told her I had no idea if it would ever be published. She made a pouty face and said that wasn't fair, that it was the best book I ever wrote and everyone would love it and it should be published RIGHT NOW! She was very insistent. I tried to calm her by telling her that another book I was working on that she liked might be published. But she told me that one, while number 2, was way far down on her list.

I k...

Am I too young for a midlife crisis?

I remember when my boyfriend's (now husband) father bought a sports car. I think he was about 45. I just shook my head and thought that was what you did when you got old to make yourself feel better about being on the other side of life (the downside). (I was 17--what do you expect?) Later, my father started buying old family property that had been lost, so as to give us an inheritance. And a very red, very large pickup. So maybe it just happened later for him (he was about 60).

I didn't...

Michelangelo and Plato

Sometimes when my editor gets back to me in a letter about how the manuscript needs to be fixed, I think, but isn't that what I already wrote? Then I look back in the manuscript and realize that it is not, in fact, what I already wrote. It is what I thought I wrote, but what is in my head as the manuscript is not, strangely, what is always on the page.

I do not understand how this can actually be the case. I am one of those people who thinks it is very silly when authors talk about their ...

LAWKI fears

14 and I had a discussion this morning about why she hates LAWKI month. It isn't that she hates eating the food. It's that she becomes increasingly anxious about not having it. Even though she knows this is just a game. Maybe I am a terrible mother for continuing to do this, but I find it to be an interesting and building experience.

We talked a lot about how it feels to be truly poor. Our church has a regular monthly fast for 24 hours to give people an idea of how it feels. But of cours...

poopy algebra and writing

So last week at Camp Lipizzan I was taught a lesson by Sherwood Smith on how much the details matter in editing. Sherwood did a line by line critique of a manuscript for a number of pages to show how different it would sound if all she did was take out repetition and work at making the narrative move forward more quickly. I was amazed at the change. I tend to think of editing as larger scale concerns. Of course, I am happy to do smaller scale editing because it is much easier, but I ten...

working backwards

I had a long talk with a friend yesterday, mostly on writing topics. I have a project that I love the idea of, but so far the execution hasn't gone all that well. My kids (who are very honest) read it and tell me that they like parts of it, but the ending is all wrong. I know this, since I've reworked the ending about five times completely. But talking to my friend made me think about how to fix the problem.

I tend to work at books chapter by chapter. I don't say that as a piece of advice...

SYTYCD limitations

So, we have been watching the new fall season of SYTYCD and I must say I have been really disappointed at the people who didn't get through Las Vegas week. Mostly they are people who are outstanding in one discipline but who struggle to do the others. After seeing the "best of" show for the last 5 years, did any of the judges learn anything? It seems not. Evan's brother Ryan will not be in the top 20. Neither will some of the really great breakers, the Memphis bouncer and the girl with p...

LAWKI month

This is our second annual LAWKI month. For those of you new to the idea, at our house we will not be going shopping for food for the next month. We will live on the food we already have in the house, to give us a feel for what it might be like to be living in a book like LIFE AS WE KNEW IT by Susan Beth Pfeffer.

When I read the book out loud to my kids a couple of years ago, it made a very strong impression. My kids suddenly were wandering around the house looking at the food we had store...