L.V. Gaudet's Blog, page 38

Some Worthy Tweeters

I haven't had time these last months for anything writing – blogging, schmoozing, writing – with the whole family adjusting to my return to the working life after six years as a stay at home mom.

I haven't had the time for things like Twitter's #FF (Follow Friday)

Making up for lost time, here is a list of worthy tweeters that I follow on Twitter.  (Now let's see if I can manage to write that 1st ever book review I've been meaning to write.)

CarinaPress Carina Press

PWreviews PW Reviews

WriterResource The Ivory Tower

HarperCollinsCa HarperCollinsCa

unbridledbooks Unbridled Books

torbooks Tor Books

nytimesbooks nytimesbooks

GraywolfPress Graywolf Press

NewYorker The New Yorker

penguinusa Penguin Group (USA)

thebookmaven Bethanne Patrick

PublishersLunch PublishersLunch

LibraryJournal Library Journal

scriptfrenzy Script Frenzy

randomhousekids Random House Kids

googlebooks Google Books

simonschuster Simon & Schuster

RoomtoRead Room to Read

publishingtalk Publishing Talk

ApexBookCompany Apex Publications

addthis AddThis

randomhouse randomhouse

WritingSpirit Julie Isaac, Author

womenonwriting WOW! WomenOnWriting

BDCWB Best Damn

sljournal SchoolLibraryJournal

littlebrown Little, Brown and Co

Kid_Lit Mary Kole

NaNoWordSprints NaNoWordSprints

NaNoWriMoYWP NaNoWriMo's YWP

NaNoWriMo NaNoWriMo

AlgonquinBooks AlgonquinBooks

americaspress America's Press

Patchworkinfo Doug Burchill

eBookNewser ebookNewser

LATimesbooks LA Times Books

GuardianBooks Guardian Books

ShadowCastAudio Jason Warden-Editor

mbwriters MB Writers' Guild

pubperspectives PubPerspectives

AccentPress Hazel Cushion

WebbWeavers WebbWeaver

Horror_World Horror World

bookbench The Book Bench

MacKidsBooks Macmillan Kids

shortyawards Shorty Awards

DigiBookWorld Digital Book World

writers2follow Follow That Writer

Quotes4Writers Quotes4Writers

VirtualWriters Virtual Writers Inc.

PublishersWkly Publishers Weekly

WritersDigest Writer's Digest

Gather_Inc Gather_Inc

Writers_Cafe Writers Cafe

harperteen HarperTeen

PenguinTeen PenguinTeen

Scholastic Scholastic

StoryCasting Jeff Reid

twitrbackground David Fairley

redroomdotcom Red Room

wefollow wefollow

toricarrington toricarrington

KreelanWarrior Michael R. Hicks

allgreatquotes Tom

MargaretAtwood Margaret E. Atwood

jakonrath JA Konrath

ScottWesterfeld Scott Westerfeld

moonrat moonrat

mcbourque Marie-Claude Bourque

candiwall Candi Wall

UWannabeawriter Jane WJ

Hereallalong Lori

indiepridejenna Jenna

Nicole_Odell Nicole O'Dell

sherikayehoff Sheri Kaye Hoff

hollyhardin Holly Hardin

ccmalandrinos ccmalandrinos

susieqtpies Susie QT pies

LindaThieman Linda Thieman

cafeofdreams April

djledford Deborah J Ledford

bonnietoews Bonnie Toews

GalleyCat GalleyCat

Ginger_Clark Ginger Clark

MichaelBourret Michael Bourret

ColleenLindsay Colleen Lindsay

literaticat jennifer laughran

BostonBookGirl Lauren E. MacLeod

DeidreKnight DeidreKnight

RachelleGardner Rachelle Gardner

JeremyCShipp Jeremy C. Shipp

webook Brian

PatBertram Pat Bertram

Donna_Carrick Donna Carrick

NathanBransford Nathan Bransford

10MinuteWriter K Grubb

Filed under: Random Ramblings, Random Thoughts Tagged: #FF, follow friday, tweeters, Twitter, Words on Writing, working, working parent

Week One – Returning To Working Life

Well, we all survived my first week in my new life as a working mom.  Ok, more or less survived maybe is a better way of putting it.  It has been a week of adjusting in a big way for all of us.

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I have gone from getting up at around 6:30-7ish to 5:30 and am unbelievably and completely exhausted with my body balking at the rudeness of getting up that early.  And I think I need to change that to 5am.  By the time I'm driving home at the end of the work day all I want to do is crawl into bed and go to sleep.  Hopefully my internal clock will have adjusted by the time this term job is over and I can sleep in until 6:30 or so again.  Of course, then I'll be waking up at five out of habit and cursing myself because I can finally sleep later again – at least for a few months or so until we (fingers crossed, and toes tied, wiggle your nose and hope hope hope) get the kids into permanent daycare and I find a permanent job.

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So far it's taking me an hour and a half each way to get to work and back home – that's three whole hours I could have spent writing!  But that's what comes from working in the middle of a city.  At the start of the day, half the city grudgingly makes their way to the heart of the city all at the same time, which of course inevitably causes traffic chaos.  When the day is done and all the little ants are desperate to escape the crushing overpopulation of downtown on a work day, there is no escape.  I think the city planners planned it that way, a way of trying to centralize the population and try to make everyone live and work in their little downtown cubicles.

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The kids are getting up earlier, have no time to play, and are being rushed out the door an hour earlier than they're used to.  Then it's to the babysitter where they have an hour to play before the school bus and a couple hours again after school.  Of course, with mom rushing off in the morning and not coming home until supper, they don't have that morning and afternoon mom time any more.  The girls are definitely feeling that loss.

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And for this first week of working, my husband has been the wife.  Yep, that's right; it has been a complete role reversal for this first week.

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This week, he has had to get the kids fed, dressed, and brushed.  He has had to get all their stuff together, which is typically all over the house despite your best efforts to keep it in their backpacks, and off to the babysitter.  And then he's rushing home after work to pick up the kids.

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Say, did I mention that he even starts work a half hour before me and finishes a half hour later?  But he doesn't work downtown, so he doesn't have that extra hour travelling time needed each way to ease excruciatingly slowly through the slow crawl dance of the rush hour traffic that is trying to get in and out of downtown.

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Then, he has been making supper while supervising the kids activities and breaking up their fights, trying to get them into the bath on bath days, washing the dishes, and doing their reading (while I'm sitting with the engine idling and hoping to creep up another car length before the light turns red yet again).

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And then I'm the one who finally straggles into the house tired and grumpy to kids who are eagerly waiting and a husband-wife who is frazzled.

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And, as my day finishes off, it's supper, kids ready for bed, and then I have time to do household chores until bed.  Of course, I should also be getting all my stuff together for the morning – my housecoat ready for the shower, clothes pulled out and put where I can find them in the dark, lunch made, and shoes and whatnots packed and ready to go.  Yeah, but that's planning ahead.

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And now for the part that everyone likes – the highlights!

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The highlights of my first work week:

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Day 1 – Let it Snow

Snow came late this year, but when it did it came with a whollop.  By Thursday before the start of the new job 42.6 CM of snow had been dumped on the area (37 CM between Nov ember 18th's first snowfall of the year and November 26th, and the rest after that).  That sure beat the November average of 21 centimeters for the whole month.  By my first day of work, the city crews were still cleaning up the mess.

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For my first day of work it snowed again, and with the snow came very slippery roads, treacherous highways, and impassible glops of snow marking the edges of lanes that made lane changing difficult or sometimes impossible, and even slower than normal traffic and an extraordinary amount of traffic congestion.

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After almost seven years as an unemployed bum (a.k.a. stay-at-home mother) I felt like I was fresh out of high school and taking my first job ever.  In other words, I felt like a bumbling idiot and was sure everyone else was thinking the same thing.  On the plus side, I'm neither fresh out of high school nor completely inexperienced.  I had all those years of work experience, although it really doesn't do much for you when you are learning new software and procedures because every workplace has a different way of doing things.  And, with all those years of life experience behind me I was not the shy and downright terrified nineteen year old that started that very first job.

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The parking I managed to find is a bit of a trek from work, and I had the fortune of passing through impassible sidewalks.  I got to the end of one sidewalk to discover that I was trapped with not enough time to make the journey all the way back to the start to cross somewhere else.  With a low wall on one side topped by high banks of snow, a filthy guard rail and heavy traffic on the other, and the end blocked by a dirty snow Mount Everest dumped there by the snow plows.  There was nothing to be done but to hike up my skirts, hope I don't get too dirty, and make the climb.

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By the time I got to work I was tired and my legs were sore.

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I left my lunch at home, sitting (I believe) conveniently beside the coffee machine and had the added pleasure of having to wear broken eyeglasses.  Naturally, my glasses broke and I hadn't gotten them replaced yet before starting a new job.

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By the end of that first day I was exhausted and not looking forward to the hike over impassible and slippery sidewalks back to my car.

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 I had also forgotten some of the unwritten rules about getting around downtown.  Specifically about which corners pedestrians do not cross in certain directions regardless of what signs the city has put up.  Perhaps some city planner was snickering when they planned out the downtown intersections.  Or maybe it is a means towards population control.

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Regardless, without thinking I waited for the light to change and that walk sign to show it is safe to cross, waited for the cars packing the intersection to clear it on their red light, shoulder checked for turning cars, and proceeded to swiftly cross the road oblivious to the unwritten rule against crossing in this direction on this side of this particular intersection.

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One woman motorist, who was turning, was kind enough to remind me of my error by trying to run me over with her car.  I'm convinced it was on purpose.  Either that or I grabbed the wrong coat and was wearing my cloak of invisibility.  There was no possible way the woman did not at some point notice the large bulk of a heavily coated person directly in front of her car, unless of course I was invisible.

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It was dark when I left home and dusk had well descended when I was heading home.  I can get glimpses of daylight through the window, which looks onto another window that gives a dirty glimpse of outside.  Total sunlight experienced – zero.

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Day 2 – Let it Snow Some More

Despite promises of clear skies, it snowed again (or maybe it never stopped) and once again the roads were slippery and virtually un-passable in some places.  The highways were icy and the winds and blowing snow left visibility even worse than the first day.  It was a long slow ride both ways.

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I took a different sidewalk route on my hike between work and parking, but with the drifting snow it meant plowing my way through deep snow down the entire long length of one stretch of sidewalk.

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By the time I got home my legs were painful even to touch them.  Man, am I out of shape!

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I had learned from the blinding migraine I got home with on the first day, and had ibuprofen with me, which I popped before I started the drive home, having once again left work with a headache already building.

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I managed to write about a hundred and some words on my NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) novel for the last day of NaNo month.

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Day 3 – Now That's a Bad Santa Suit

The day started just like day 2, I got up and showered, and cursed myself for forgetting to put out clothes the night before.  I'm not good at stumbling around in the dark looking for clothes, so I had to wait for the hubby to get up before I could get dressed again.

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The roads were still slippery but not as bad and traffic moved a little better.  My legs cried and threatened to run away from home when I told them they had to make the hike between parking and work again.  They hurt, but I convinced them to make the walk anyway.

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I felt a little less useless at work and got through the day.

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I was surprised it took until day 3 to see my first panhandler.  I don't know how I missed him, but I didn't see him until it was too late.

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I crossed the street only feet away, hoping to not be seen.  Luckily he was focused on the cars and left me alone.  I had spent my sidewalk toll money on lunch that first day and wasn't about to hand over twenties out of the grocery money I had on me.

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The man wore a rather bad version of a Santa suit, minus the beard.  He had a sad little half tree strapped to his back as part of the costume, its ornaments waving cheerily as he moved.  I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the other half.  Did he buy it that way?  Or was another bad Santa suit guy harassing motorists somewhere else and wearing it as part of his costume too?  I didn't catch what words were crudely drawn in dark marker on the cardboard sign he waved around.  Bad Santa suit guy was going from car to car, gesturing and waving his sign, and going right up to the drivers windows in an aggressive in-your-face attitude.

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Those ones are the worst, the aggressive in-your-face ones.  Those are the ones that seem to think you owe it to give them your money simply by right of who they are.  Those are the bullies.  They are the ones you see robbing people of their bus fare or lunch money, or even of their lunch.  These are the ones that you see threatening or assault people with no provocation, if you aren`t the victim yourself.  Not all of them do of course, but it's almost always one of these ones.

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We needed groceries in a bad way, so I made the first of three stops for groceries – getting everything I can at the cheapest place to get it.  I got home in time to tuck the kids into bed and eat a late supper alone.

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The laundry and house cleaning is piling up.

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Day 4 – Happy Birthday to Me!

Yeah, it's my birthday.

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My body is in revolt and refusing to get used to the new routine of getting up at 5:30.  I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my whole life.

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Things were improving but at the same time it would be a day of big guilt.

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The pain in the legs is lessening, and I now feel like any other schmuck starting a new job and learning the ropes, rules, new computer program, and procedures of the new place.  It's not feeling so much like I've been out of work for almost seven long years.

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I spent the day feeling guilty because the kids were trying so hard to get attention from me in the morning.  It's clear they're badly missing their mom time, but there just isn't any time in the mornings.

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On the slow drive home it occurred to me just how much my body is rebelling at the stress of that first week back to work after so long.  It seems to have shut down certain bodily functions.  I haven't even felt the need to have a bowel movement since before I started the new job.

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I came home to the seven year old crying in her bedroom and refusing to come out.  Apparently she was practicing a special birthday dance as a special surprise for me and it was ruined by daddy and her sister.  Daddy could only take so much of her angrily whining "Robyn, stop it" at her sister, and only so much of the younger one trying to torment her sister and put them for a time out.  Daddy put them both for a time out after about a dozen warnings and she couldn't finish practicing.  And about three minutes later I came staggering through the door wanting nothing but to put on my pajamas and go to bed.

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My husband was scrambling to make a special dinner for me.  The kids had set the table with a birthday balloon in a vase, candles, and the going-on six year olds special folded napkins.

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The seven year old finally came out of her room after refusing to come out for supper and cried through dinner, too upset to calm down.  My husband ate hurriedly, produced a small and wonderfully delicious chocolate caramel cake, a quick rendition of happy birthday by him and the girls, and he was rushing off out the door to play hockey.  I managed to get the kids to eat a reasonable amount of supper while they kept begging off dinner to eat cake and finally gave up on trying to eat my own.  They both loved the cake, even though it was more of an adult type of cake.  The seven year old even had a piece of leftover birthday cake from her sister's birthday too.

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And then the crying started.  My younger daughter came to me, crying her heart out, for a cuddle.  She tearfully begged and begged me to quit my job and stay at home to be with them.  She told me how she misses her mom time and even forgot what the cat looks like.  Almost in tears, the seven year old came and said the same thing while I was consoling her sister.  I felt like crying myself seeing how upset they were.

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I finally got the kids to bed and the phone started ringing.  I missed most of my Thursday night writers chat and got absolutely no household chores done.  I was still getting off the phone when my husband returned from hockey at 11:30.

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The chores are going to need an intervention soon.

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Day 5 – Friday!  At Last!

Driving has gotten better.  I'm getting used to it again after years of only having to drive a few times a month, in daylight, no rush hour traffic, and having the option to stay home if the roads are bad.  Everyone else seems to be starting to get used to snow driving too.

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The pain in the legs is still improving.

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I barely feel like I was out of work at all and am getting my work confidence back.

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But the body will find new ways to revolt to change.  Beginning at about 3:00am and roughly every fifteen to thirty minutes after that, my body woke me up to tell me the alarm was about to go off.  I'd look at the clock and swear.  Then it was trying to get back to sleep only to repeat it all over again.

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Now I really was more exhausted than I have ever been in my life, even when I was up feeding babies every four hours twenty-four hours a day.  I was burned out before noon.

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Leaving work, there was Trapping People Trying To Cross The Street guy, and of course he was of the in-your-face aggressively panhandling group.  I managed to avoid Bad Santa Suit guy.  I had the rest of the grocery money on me and managed to avoid having to give away any of the bills on the way to my car.

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I made the slow drive home, making three of four needed stops for gas, groceries, and stuff, getting home in time for the kids to put on their pajamas and get ready for bed.

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I hauled in loads of groceries to the seven year old bragging about her sister being bad and a stressed out husband telling her to mind her own business.

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Uh oh.

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Long talk with the almost-six year old about what bad thing she did at the babysitter's house, kids finally pj-ed and off to bed (late), and a phone call to the babysitter later and it was too late to bother with supper.  But that's all right, I wasn't hungry anyway.

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But hey, it's payday!  I came in halfway through the pay period and got paid for my first week.  After filling the tank with gas, paying the pre-paid parking for the month, the babysitter for the week, and putting aside gas money for next Friday, I'm left with roughly a hundred dollars to put in the joint account for household expenses.  Yep, all this and I earned roughly a hundred dollars for that first week.  This is why we all love working so much.

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At last, my first week is done.  I'm exhausted and the house needs disaster relief with the laundry and chores piling up.   The kids are moody with adjusting to the new routine and losing those hours of time normally spent with me.  I want nothing more than to spend the weekend relaxing and recuperating, but need to play catch-up on all the household chores.  And the kids need their mom time too.

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I have to try to find time to start decorating and buying present for Christmas.  I have doubts that I'll manage any Christmas baking this year.

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I have had zero sunlight exposure this week, sucked enough gas fumes in traffic to kill a roost of chickens, and lost fifteen hours to commuting – ten of those just because traffic doesn't move at rush hour.

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My kids miss me, my cat misses me, and my husband seems like he might not survive another day rushing the kids, dinner, and dishes.

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We have a Saturday night Christmas party for my husband's work to go to that I feel too tired to go to, and really should stay home to get that laundry and those chores done.

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I have managed to write a measly hundred and a bit words one the one evening I managed a small bit of time, but was too tired for writing.

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I also lost about five pounds after five days of no time for breakfast, hiking impassible sidewalks, and little interest in supper.

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Monday is a new week, and I expect nothing but improvement while we get into the groove of the routine of our new lives.

Filed under: Random Ramblings Tagged: Blog, job, life, life as a parent, life as a working mom, life stuff, new job, Random Ramblings, working, working parent

'Tis The Day Before Employment

Today is the last day of my life as an unemployed bum (a.k.a. stay-at-home-mom).

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'Tis the day before employment, when all through the house

Every creature is stirring, somewhere I'm sure is even a mouse.

The clothes are hung in the closet with care,

In the hopes that quickly out the door I will be on my way there.

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The kids are laying out their Barbies and Bratz in their little doll beds,

While visions of snacks and games at the new babysitter dance in their heads.

And mama bear in her apron and some ken doll chap,

Had settled with their pet Pinky and his friend Brain for a long days nap.

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When out on the street there was such a clatter,

I sprang from the laptop to see what was the matter.

Away to the window to see what I was certain,

There I pulled open the long blinds curtain.

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The grey cloud-dulled sun on the fresh powdery snow

Didn't blind me with too bright glinting off the objects below.

When, what to my sleep deprived eyes should appear,

But a throng of gas powered sleds roaring by much too near.

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With the drivers pushing their sleds much too quick,

Undoubtedly they thought they are pretty slick.

They were gone as quick as they came,

I'm sure later more will do the same.

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Now, WordPress!  Now, Facebook! Now, Goodreads and Twitter!

On, MySpace!  On, HorrorWorld, on Redroom and Gather!

To the top of the postings!  To the top of them all!

Now blog away!  Schmooze away!  Network away ALL!

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As snow flurries before the snowploughs will fly,

From the grey and windswept cloudy sky.

So up to the screen-top the mouse curser had flew,

With the keyboard keys clattering and working away too.

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Soon I will be lying sleepless on my pillow,

Watching the warm air from the vent make the curtain gently billow.

Too soon from my bedside will come an alarming sound,

And from my bed I will leap with a bound.

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Quick!  Shower and dressed all in a blur, from my head to my foot,

And my clothes all nicely pressed with a neat and tidy look.

A sandwich and ice pack tossed into a sack,

And oh please don't tell me my kid just put syrup on my back!

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This last day will be spent in a mix of anticipation and dread,

Thoughts of "How will I do it?" rambling around in my head.

Doubts, and worries, and too many oh dears,

After all, I haven't done this in almost seven whole years!

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But alas it's only a short three-month term,

It's an experience from which how much I remember I expect to learn.

As I make my way through traffic and downtown one ways,

In search of illusive parking and walking icy walkways.

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And don't forget the change to pay for the sidewalk tolls,

The toll takers standing forlornly and often looking more like trolls.

Each coffee shop I will pass with a tempting look,

Imagining myself stopping with laptop to work on my book.

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I sit here on my last day and try to blog, Facebook and tweet before the day is done,

Blowing out words on my NaNo novel with three days left 'til the challenge is gone.

The kids are all excited, hyper, and in a titter,

I know I'll likely never make it to my novel or my Twitter.

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Tomorrow dawns that bright new day,

And life will begin working in a whole new way.

At the end of the day I will sigh and exclaim, "I did it!"

While all day long hoping the kids won't make the babysitter quit.

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* Adapted from the famous poem "Twas The Night Before Christmas"

Filed under: Random Ramblings Tagged: Blog, employment, job, life as a working mom, new job, working, working parent

Yes, I Am Technologically Challenged

I am technologically challenged.  There, I said it and its out in the open.  Pop the geek soda and call in tech support – I am not with the times.

Yes even in this day and age, when technology has not only surrounded us, but has buried us under a mountain of useless information, Tweeterings, endless status updates, IMs, text messages (Did you know my cell can text?  I don't even know how that works on it.  I barely even use it as anything more than a paperweight.), and endless piles of brand new increasingly fancier outdated electronics.

When something goes wrong I'm more lost than a GPS without a signal.

I find it slightly offensive that my computer has something called cookies and I can't eat them.  And then, it must be a conspiracy to drive us all mad, every time there is an internet related problem the first part of the fix always seems to be instructions to clear the cookies.

My first thought is always, "Are they chocolate chip?"

Then, if you've hopefully solved the problem, you have to post away (yup, baking up a new batch of cookies that you still can't eat) to see if the problem is fixed.

So you write some silly blog post about cookies you can't eat and how the world wide web is just a big cruel bully for waving them under your nose.

And then you hope you don't have to do it all over again, clearing those cookies you can't even eat.

Ok Internet, let's do the dance.  I cleared my cookies and posted a blog post, now lets see where it goes.  Will it vanish down the mysterious dark roads on the way to some ethereal internet cities?  Are there cyber cookie monsters laying in wait to strike?  Or will the update actually get posted everywhere it is supposed to?

Perhaps only that great big horrific hairy eight-legged monster residing in the world wide web will know.

Filed under: Random Ramblings Tagged: cookies, Random Ramblings, tech support, technology

The New Job

I am going back to work soon after being an unemployed bum (a.k.a. stay at home mom) for close to seven years, that's since December 1, 2004.

I am optimistically terrified.  That's another way of saying I am positively positive that I am scared to death.  It's a big change after all; a life-altering change.  Seriously, I haven't worked in seven years.  What if I suck?  What if I have no idea what to do?  What if I come across as a bumbling stumbling fool?

The number crunching alone to figure out what it will cost to work and how much money I'll need to earn to almost make going to work worthwhile was worse than doing taxes.  Ok, so I never had a nervous problem with doing taxes, but if I did this would have still been worse.  Seriously, I needed one heck of a raise over what I left my job at seven years ago just to break even on the costs to work with two kids needing child care.

One thing in my favor is the simple fact that the minimum wage employers have to pay has also increased drastically in the past seven years.  A salary that was higher than the minimum seven years ago is now just barely scraping over the new minimum wage.

Going back to work is a big upheaval of course, not just for me but for my entire family.  The search for before and after school child care was ridiculously difficult.  In fact, further up heaving the kids' lives by pulling them out of their school and away from their friends to put them in a new school just to find child care still isn't out of the question.  If you think it's hard to find child care in the city, you should try doing it in a rural area.  I'd be tempted to move if it wasn't such a nice little town and such great neighbors.

Our whole schedule has to change.  The main focus our lives will now revolve around getting the kids to and from daycare.  Everything else is secondary.  But that's nothing new to the seasoned daycare parents.  As newbies, it's a bit of an adjustment for us.

Mornings are expected at first to be a frantic frazzled stress-filled scramble to get the kids up and ready (and ourselves ready too) to leave an hour earlier than they had to be out the door before.  No more throwing sweats on and a jacket to hide my pajama top to walk the kids to the bus, and no more leisurely picking away at eating their breakfasts for the kids.

And only time will tell how our evening schedule will change with getting supper done, homework and reading, baths, and kids to bed.

I'm almost afraid to see what the house will look like.  On the one hand, the kids will have a lot less time at home to spend trashing the place.  But on the other hand, all those household chores, laundry and cleaning and grocery shopping and stuff, will all have to get crammed into a few too short evening hours and the weekends now.  Yikes.

The one thing I do regret is that the kids will never be able to enjoy those lazy day school breaks I had as a kid.  You know the kind, the ones kind of like a weekend day where you have nothing planned, nowhere to rush off to, and kids actually have to think for themselves and use their imaginations to entertain themselves – an amazing thing happens when not every moment is pre-planned for them, their imaginations come alive.

My second regret isn't really a regret at this point, but more of an unknown.  Will I be able to find the time for writing?  I'm keeping my toes crossed – I'm using my toes to keep those fingers free for typing, after all I do have writing to do.

Filed under: Blog About Nothing Tagged: job, life as a parent, life as a working mom, life stuff, new job, working, working parent

Three-Quarters of the Way to Not There – A NaNo Experiment in Madness

Tomorrow is November 23rd – exactly three-quarters of the way through November and the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge.

With time running down into the last week of four, I am roughly half-way there to the 50,000 word count.

I'd say it's pretty safe to say that my NaNo challenge is a complete and utter failure.  With at best six writing days before November 30th, including today, I have given up all hope of making the 50,000 words.

This was my only best chance of meeting the challenge.  After all, how can you be a stay at home mom with kids in school and NOT find enough time?

I have realized a few things along the way.

First of all, I did not have nearly as much time for writing as I had imagined.  Let's start with the number crunching.

One rambunctious attention needy five year old plus one "leave me alone" seven year equals zero chances of concentration.  So let's take out the weekends and other days the school is closed in November.  That's twelve days lost to writing the NaNo novel.

Add one complete day lost to going for a single job interview.  Yep, it really did take pretty much a whole day.  Once the kids were off on the bus, showered and spiffed up, and close to a two hour drive each way – because Mother Nature naturally picked that day to wallop us with the first snow of the year and it was a doozy.  By the time I got home it was almost time to meet the school bus.

Now let's tally up the partial days – days for grocery shopping, appointments, and volunteering.  Including a visit to the walk-in with my little spotted elf to discover she had hives and is allergic to – yes its true – the liquid chemicals inside a glo-stick (curiosity didn't kill this little kid-cat, but it sure did make her itchy), that's another five days where my block of writing time was taken up by other demands.

This gives us eighteen lost days.

Out of 30 days, I really had twelve to write 50,000 words.  Twelve days of trying to keep the distractions to a minimum, concentrate on writing, and not let worries about meeting word goals and other things in life steal away my imagination.  That's about 4167 words a day.  Ok, that's harder than the 1667 words per day someone who has the full thirty days to write, but it's still doable right?  After all I AM a stay at home mom still.

And yes, I can hear you over there in the peanut gallery.  I'm a stay at home mom for petes sake, how could I possibly NOT have unlimited time for this?

But this is me you're talking about.  Being a stay at home mom is not all watching Judge Judy reruns and eating bonbons, and I have been granted what I am convinced is the messiest family in the history of families.  Laundry does not sort, wash, fold, and put itself away, and I'm pretty sure this four body family easily goes through enough laundry to clothe an entire twenty-three kid kindergarten class on a messy day.  As hard as I've tried, I just can't get those toilets to clean themselves.  And I can't do like Mickey Mouse and summon a spell to make my broom and mop come alive to clean the floors themselves.

The bulk of my day is normally spent on another failed challenge – having a clean house.  Of course, this is an effort that goes largely unnoticed since two hours after the kids get off the bus they have reduced the house to the condition that only a marauding army of crazed baboons could leave it in.  It will take a large part of my next day to clean up the mess in addition to the other household chores.

So the household chores have suffered largely from neglect during my NaNo efforts and I unfortunately have to play catch-up every now and then.

And I have utterly failed in the challenge of writing 50,000 words in thirty days – make that twelve days really.

I can't help but wonder how the people with jobs or school can do it.  And, even worse, those who have kids on top of jobs or school and take the NaNo challenge.

While I know there is no chance I can meet the challenge now, it did serve as a good reminder just how easy it is to get behind on something, and once behind how daunting and difficult it can become to catch up.

But it's not a complete loss.  I did get a novel in progress out of it, and one with a decent amount of work done on it.  While I've abandoned all hope of making the 50,000 words by November 30th, I won't be abandoning the novel.  Taste is relative of course, but it doesn't seem like a bad story to me.  And I might continue to post my word count every now and then.  We'll see.

Perhaps the saying is true, that there just is never enough time.  Or maybe my problem is having too much time.

Filed under: NaNoWriMo Tagged: inanity, insanity, madness, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month

2010 NaNoWriMo Challenge – Chapter One

For your amusement and mine, here is a sneak peek – chapter one of my NaNoWriMo 2010 novel.

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One

 

      The woods behind my house are disappearing.

     All those beautifully twisted old oak trees that fill our little suburb with their mangled skeletal fingers, clacking in the winds of the dark winter nights.

     We live in one of those cozy little bedroom communities only a short drive outside the city, the communities that city people love to hate; one of those communities that continue to grow and multiply because city people, like me, grow up and move out to those cozy safe little communities.  Somehow they feel more friendly and safer than identical communities in the suburbs within the city do.

     The evil of crime and overcrowding is confined within the city limits.  Or is it?

     Sometimes, in those sleepy little communities, evil just sleeps a little deeper.

     "Beep Beep Beep."

     The incessant beeping and growling of construction equipment relentlessly permeates the air, driving all the sleep deprived stay at home moms to distraction.  And there are few things that are scarier than a marauding pack of grumpy housewives.

     Last night was Halloween, the kids are all over-tired and cranky, and so are the mom's, many of which were up dealing with sick achy stomachs from kids scarfing down piles of sweet candy bliss.

     Deer jog across the road in single file.  First one, who looks back to show its safe, then another, and finally after a pause in the road the last one brings up the rear.

     They are unusually alert.

     The chill frost in the air seems to be making them uneasy.

     Their usual winter trail has been irrevocably changed and the crispness in the air has urged them to turn to their winter habits despite the lack of snow on the ground.

     Trees have been ripped ruthlessly from the ground, the topsoil scraped away and carted off to be sold back to the homeowners, and roads for new houses are being roughed in by the hulking metal monsters that roam back and forth growling and beeping.

     Canada geese fly overhead, their flight patterns seeming to make no sense while they make their practice runs in preparation for the great migration.

     They seem confused, or perhaps they are just agitated.

     Somewhere, in the blinding morning light of a kitchen, a group of mothers hunch over their hot coffees after sending their kids off on the school bus, plotting how they can shut up those infernal construction tractors that are taking away the woods, desecrating the adjoining farm fields, and have destroyed the tranquility of the quiet community to build a new housing development.

     On the edge of an untouched part of the woods a lone figure stands silently, hunched against the cold in a thin worn jacket, watching the construction.

     The old man shakes his head sadly; his leathery face is scarred with the lines of spending many years in the sun working the land.  He turns and slowly shambles away on arthritic knees, muttering to himself.

     The hulking front end loader chugged weakly, coughed, and let out a final death rattle before lapsing into silence.

     With a tired grunt, the driver climbed down out of the machine to the man waiting below, the foreman Stanley Rutthers.

     "The old bitch is dead again," the driver mumbled.

     "Vandals again?" Stan asked.

     "Pretty sure."

     "Damn, that's the third one this week."

     "She's going to be out for a while this time to get fixed."

     "Hmph," Stan grunted.  "This job is getting expensive."

     He took off his hard hat, ran a stressed hand through his hair, realized and put the hat back on his head, giving it a meaty slap with his palm.

     "I gotta go check out the rest of the site, see what else the vandals have been up to."

     Stan stalked away in a foul mood.

     A group of men in rough dirty clothes, heavy gloves, and hard hats stood milling around, staring at a rocky pile of mud half spilled out of a large Cat front loader.

     Stanley Rutthers approached the group, stopping to stand beside one of his most seasoned workers, Dave McCormack.  The weather-lined look of their faces and over-worn clothes made them look almost like brothers.

     "You check the plans?" Dave asked without turning to look at the foreman.

     "Yeah," Stan said.  "They don't match up.  Somehow our plans are different from what's at the office."

     Dave looked at him in surprise.  He wasn't really surprised, but you're supposed to look like it when these things happen.  This whole job has been a bigger carnival of mistakes and screw-ups than usual.

     He dutifully made shocked noises.

     "Which one was altered?" Dave asked.  "No surprise they forgot to send the changes somewhere again."

     "That's what's weird," Stanley said.  "None of the copies look revised.  It's like the engineers drew up new plans, each one a little different, instead of just making copies of the new revised plans."

     "I don't think anyone's finding that joke funny."

     "No joke.  They all insist they only drew up one new version and made copies of it.  The chief engineer is right pissed about it."

     "I bet he is," Dave said, almost amused.

     "The inspector is coming down on our asses because the work doesn't match the plans that he has too, threatening to shut down the whole job site."

     That changed Dave's expression.  He needed that money.  Shutting down the jobsite means sending all the guys home, and sitting on your butt in front of the television with a beer doesn't earn a pay check in this line of work.

     "They're trying to figure out how this could have happened and which set of plans are the right ones," Stan said.  "The boss is threatening to fire whoever's behind the prank."

     If it was a prank, it was pretty well played out.  The engineers seemed genuinely confused how this could have happened, and no one else had the skills to forge the blueprints.

     "So, what's with the bucket?" Stan asked; referring to why everyone was standing around staring at the Cat's bucket.

     "Some old bones turned up," Dave said.

     "Damn."

     Finding bones was dreaded by anyone running a job site, and all the workers too.  They were almost always just some kind of animal, usually cow, but every once in a while they turned out to be human.  When that happened they all prayed to the construction gods that they were fresh.  The remains of a murder or accident victim could shut down the job site for weeks, but old bones possibly from some ancient native ancestor could shut down the site for months, or even indefinitely.

     Usually they just covered up the bones, crushing them beneath the huge tires of the Cat without reporting them.  But boys will be boys and they usually all wanted to take a look with eager morbid fascination.

     And every now and then they'd get a green guy on the crew with too many morals who thought they should report the find just in case.  This was one of those times.

     "It's just some animal," one of the workers argued.

     "I dunno," the young worker with a higher sense of morals hesitated.  "Seems kind of big for an animal."

     "It's a farmer's field.  We're going to find cow bones.  This is the eighth cow bone we've found so far.  They're scattered all over the place."

     "Hey, we could make soup!" a jester from the crowd tossed in.

     The young worker looked around.

     "Looks like a wheat field to me."

     "Barley actually," one of the men said.

     "Whatever."  One of the men was getting annoyed.  "There used to be more dairy and beef farms around here.  It's just a cow leg bone."

     "We probably still should-," the young worker was interrupted.

     A Cat some distance off lurched to a stop, the driver jumping out and running around to dig in the mud turned over by the bucket.

     He whistled shrilly to get the groups attention, proudly holding up his prize with a big grin.

     "Looks like we've got more'n cows!" he yelled to the crew.

     Like a bunch of school boys trying to look too cool to be overly eager over someone else's gruesome find, the men shuffled and ambled their way over to check out the new treasure.

     Stan didn't have to see what it was; he had a pretty good hunch.

     "Damn," he muttered.

     The worker beamed as he showed off the yellowed scarred skull, a human skull.  He hadn't decided yet if he would add it to his trophies of weird construction discoveries or crush and bury it like the usual bones.

     He was genuinely dismayed and disappointed when that decision was taken out of his hands.

     The young worker with a perhaps overactive sense of morals was determined this bone had to be reported.

     A few hours later the bulldozers and Cats slumbered, the workers stood around sipping old thermos coffee and complaining about lost wages, and the job site was closed.

     Yellow police tape fluttered in the wind, police cars sitting idly by while a few uniformed men wandered around the job site.  The rest stood around in clumps talking amongst themselves.

     The crews coming to investigate the scene and excavate in search of more human remains should be arriving soon.

Filed under: NaNoWriMo, Teasers Tagged: NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, novel, Teasers

It's Hump Day!

Yes, I know it isn't Wednesday.

But today, Monday November the 15th marks the middle of November.

More importantly, it marks the halfway point for us nutty writers who have taken up the NaNoWriMo challenge.  Yes, we really and truly seriously are trying to write 50,000 words in only 30 days.

Coffee has become a staple food in our diets.

Our fingers have permanent pencil or keyboard marks dented into them from long hours spent penning that brilliantly bad manuscript that will probably be rejected by a four year old looking for any kind of paper to color on.

We won't be able to use the excuse, "My dog ate my novel," because even the dog would likely blanch at the improbable story jotted down in a month long frenzied rush of noveling.

And yes, I am behind.  But, somehow I don't feel alone sitting here lost on the side of the road to the NaNo finish line.

School was closed for two days, with the weekend following, and I was already a bit behind.  I made quite a valiant effort to catch up, and almost made it before the extra long weekend.  But four days of the kids at home leaves me four days worth of writing to play catch up on.

I've already made a dent in those four days with a frenzied attack at the keyboard today and I still have time for writing before bed.

Unfortunately the housework is feeling a bit neglected, my laptop threatened to strike, and I've had to start tying the mouse down to keep it from running away.

Fifteen more days to complete 50,000 words.

Write on.

Filed under: NaNoWriMo Tagged: Blog, NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month, Words on Writing

Remembering to Remember (Remembrance Day)

Remembering to Remember (Remembrance Day)

Yesterday, November 11th, was Remembrance Day in Canada, the day we are supposed to take a moment to think about and remember our veterans of war.  They even give us a full day off from school and selected jobs (if it falls on a week day) just so we can take a brief moment out of our day to do this.

Many take this as just another woohoo day, as in "Woohoo, I don't have to go to work (or school)!"

The drive to remember and think about the veterans and why they suffered to protect others seems to have been pushed further and further to the back of the closet over the years – at least as far as what I remember there used to be for advertising, teaching, and word of mouth.  And that comes from before the current age of over-communication and everyone having their own technological grip on the whole world in their pants pocket.

The honored veterans seem to get older and older, fewer and fewer, as they age and die off.

Does that mean the end is coming soon for the last of our veterans and for Veterans Day?  (Read on before you make judgments)

Like many others, I have a Grandfather who was a veteran.  He still is a veteran; he just isn't with us anymore.  I never knew him, or had a chance to meet him, and I know very little about him.  He passed away as a young man while my own father was still a boy.  The war didn't kill him, but it certainly did change him.

When we see pictures and advertising for Remembrance Day, we always see the famous red poppy and a picture of an elderly man in an old uniform from decades ago.

By the visions of what we see today as being our honored veterans, my grandfather probably would have passed by many people in those last years of his life without ever being considered or recognized as a veteran.  After all, he didn't die while fighting and he never grew old.  He never made appearances at events to honor veterans, wearing the usual outdated looking uniform, his hands twisted, face lined, and hair whitened by age.  He was just like the veterans coming home today.

No, he was a young man with a young family.  A young man who somewhat fell apart because of the great trauma he survived fighting to save others.  And when his term serving in World War II was done he likely didn't know how to come back to the life and family he left behind.  He re-enlisted to go back to what was likely the only life he now knew how to live.

My grandfather earned a few low level medals.  And although he may not have ceremoniously been given any of what was considered the big important medals, he earned the most important honor of all – the respect due every man, woman, and child like him from those he fought with, against, and for.  And that includes all those who continue to come after the people of that day, those fighting the wars that still rage around our globe.

On Remembrance Day we should remember to think about not just the soldiers who died, suffered, and those who came back irrevocably changed.  We should also remember to think about the innocent lives, the victims of war who had no choice and were never soldiers.  We should also remember to think about ourselves and how our world and our lives would be different if these men and women never went to fight for anyone.

And we should remember that new veterans of war are being made every single day.

I am not proud to say I have a Grandfather who was a war veteran.  There is no pride to be found in the horror and atrocities of war.  But I do honor and respect him for all that he sacrificed, as all veterans should be honored and respected, no matter what war they fought in or how old or youthful their faces may be.

Filed under: Holidays, Random Ramblings Tagged: Blog, Random Ramblings, remembrance day, veterans, war

The Woods – Random Ramblings

When I look out my back window and stare at those beautifully twisted, scraggly, and wretchedly ugly knobby old oak trees – I pretend they just go on and on forever.  Then I consider what kinds of wonderfully sinister things those old trees might be up to out there, deep in the woods where brave souls dare not tread.

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And that, my friends, is where some of my story ideas come from.

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If I can see houses past the trees, what's left of them after they're done tearing my beautifully wicked looking old oaks out, that will all be ruined for me.  I'll have to find a new muse.

Filed under: Random Thoughts Tagged: Random Ramblings, Random Thoughts, spooky woods, Words on Writing