Liz Michalski's Blog, page 22

Halfway There

I've been working under deadlines, professionally speaking, since I was around 20.  (If you count deadlines I didn't get paid for, like school newspapers and internships, you can bring the age down to about 12.)  My first editor scared the bejesus out of me at a young age, and made it clear that short of catastrophic, unexpected death, (which would happen to me anyways if I missed one of her deadlines) there was no excuse for turning a story in late.

Since those days, I've rarely missed a deadline or needed an extension. I mostly like laboring under deadline, too.  Sure, there's the pressure to get it done, but there's also comfort in having a finish line in sight, in knowing that, once I've passed off the job, I can breathe a sigh of relief because my work is completed. It's someone else's responsibility now.

This weekend, I took my daughter and six of her friends to the American Girl Doll store for her birthday party.  A mom with a big car agreed to drive so all the girls could go together on the trip, and we listened to them chattering in the back, and smiled at how funny they sounded.  And then I turned around, and instead of seeing a clutch of cute baby girls, like I'd been hearing, I saw a carful of nine-year-olds, and it hit me: I'm halfway there.

In just nine short years, my daughter will be eighteen.  If we've done our job right as parents, she'll be on her way to the next stage of her life, the stage where our work is (mostly) done and her choices are her own responsibility.

Already, I can see that next stage in her face and the faces of her friends — the round, chubby cheeks are mostly gone, their elbows are no longer deliciously creased with fat, their legs are sturdy and muscular, not plump and soft.  Glimpses of the babies they were are hard to come by.  Glimpses of the teens they'll become — in a toss of the head, a  challenging tone, a bid for independence — are more frequent.

When I turned 18, I left for college and never looked back.  Oh, I came home for summer breaks, for holidays and the occasional long weekends, but never again to live.  I'd landed a job and an apartment before graduation and was set to show whoever needed showing that I was all set, thanks.  I could do this on my own. I know how it will be with my daughter.  Already, she's twice as independent as I ever was.

It's  not enough time, I want to say.  I need an extension on that deadline. But there are no extensions, no excuses, no second chances to get my words right.  There's only now, this minute and the next and the one after that, all of them hurtling us toward the future, toward her independence and my obsolescence.  There is no rewrite.  There is no do-over.

Halfway there.

That Comforting Feeling

In the small Connecticut town where my family spends part of the summer, there is an amazing used bookstore.  It has a dog named Sailor, and a comfy rocking chair, and you can buy a whole bag of gently loved children's books for the cost of a movie and popcorn — perfect for a damp beach house.  The last time we were visiting, my daughter picked out several hardcovers, and had the bag dangling from her wrist.  My husband noticed and offered to carry it for her.  She refused, whispering to me, "It's a comforting feeling."

It made me laugh, because it's exactly what I say when my husband 'offers' to clear the bed of the three or four books that strewn on his side.  There's just something comforting about having a book, or four, nearby, in case the first one turns out to be not what you were expecting.

Driving home from ballet class in the dark the other night, I realized that fall was here to stay.  No more long, lazy summer afternoons. No more beach days. No more shorts and flip-flops.  I'm desperately in need of some comforting, and so I'm blatantly stealing an idea from Katherine Center (check out her books, if you haven't already, particularly Everyone is Beautiful) and creating a Comfort List.  Here goes:

My Comfort List for November

Clean, warm sheets, fresh from the dryer

My bedside table

A stack of books on the bedside table that I can't wait to read

A hot pot of tea on a Sunday morning when it's raining

Coming in from the cold to smell potatoes roasting with olive oil and rosemary

A large brown dog asleep at my feet

Snuggling in bed with the family on Saturday morning

Learning that  my favorite authors have new books coming out soon (looking forward to Bartimaeus  and The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud and The Other Life by Ellen Meister, one of the nicest authors I know)

Hearing the next chapter of my book in my head and knowing it will be there for me when I have time to write it

Home-made chocolate pudding

The weight of my five-year-old in my arms

Watching 'Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day' with my daughter, eating hot buttered popcorn and snuggling under the blankets.

What's on your list?

I Have Seen The Future…And It Is Good!

All week, I've been reviewing versions of my web site.  Can I tell you how much I love it?  It's created by this talented designer, and I can't wait to share it with you.  It captures the best parts of my book, it's beautiful,  and did I mention I love it? (Plus it will have secret pages for readers — more on that later.)

But…a new website means that the blog header above will be going away.  And that makes me a little bit sad.  The picture is the view from my children's preschool parking lot — every morning when they were little I'd look up, take a deep breath, and think how lucky we all were to go to a school with a view like that. I snapped this picture on one of my son's last days at the preschool.  I wanted a reminder of how that view made me feel every morning, grateful and happy, and I wanted to remember the people who worked there, who spent just as much time teaching my kids to be good people as they did teaching them their abcs. And even though my children are growing up and the picture is coming down, I think I always will.

Borders, Books, and Pirates

Yo Ho Heave Ho!  Posting's been light this week because — wait for it — I've been in the land of mermaid and princesses. And survived to tell the tale.  (Ariel survived my eye-rolling, too.)

Before our arrival and departure, I spent some time in the airport bookstores searching for my "plane book" — a book so good it makes me forget I'm flying. Both times, I was seriously impressed by the staff at the stores.  The Orlando store, in particular, had a fabulous clerk who hand-sold me a book that got me through a three-hour delay and turbulence.  (Meaning I looked longingly at the book for the three hours that I played with the small fry.) It's called The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield, and it's the first book I've read in a very long time that I can't put down but don't want to have end. Check it out if you get the chance.

The vacation was a blast from start to finish (well, maybe not the three-hour flight delay) but one of the highlights was stumbling across The Magic Kingdom's League of Pirates, where small children can be transformed into blood-thirsty scoundrels and parents can have their wallets plundered.  But it was just so much fun, we didn't much care.

 

Bess Wavewrecker, pirate empress

A special shout-out to pirates Lonnie and James who transformed my reserved girl into a crazy, kick-butt pirate empress heroine all her own, complete with new name.  If you ever get to go, give them a pirate high-five for me.

 

And speaking of heroines, I've closed comments for the contest, and the winner is Elizabeth Loupas!  Congrats, and thanks to everyone for playing.

I'm All About Strong Heroines (Unless They Have Fins, Not Feet)

Here's a secret — my daughter, at the age of nine, has yet to see The Little Mermaid. And it's not because I forgot, or couldn't find it in my movie queue, or happened to overlook it at the dvd store. It's on porpoise. (Cue the bad pun/mean mother music here.)

When I was pregnant, I might have been just a teensy bit hepped up. I saw the movie shortly before she was born, and for some reason it really ticked me off.  No daughter of mine was going to give up her kingdom for a boy!  She was going to take kick-boxing, not ballet, wear jeans instead of dresses, and never, ever, trade in her fins for feet just for some dude with nice hair.

Ahem. Has anyone seen my daughter?

I'm thrilled, of course, that she loves ballet, that she's graceful and delicate and beautiful.  I'm impressed by her very girly sense of style.  But the moral of the story is, watch what you say in the delivery room when you are on drugs, because it will come back to bite you.

Nope, no subtext here

Despite this, I'm not budging on the mermaid business. I don't know why Ariel bothers me so much more than the other Disney heroines.  At the heart of it, I suspect, is her willingness to actually alter her body for love, and the way that body is rejected/overlooked by the prince, despite what those changes cost the poor little princess.  (I know, I'm reading too much into it, but it's a subtext that makes me crazy.)

So, when she brings up Ariel, I counter with Nancy Drew, with Laura Ingalls, with Kitty Jones, with any one of a hundred of fictional heroines who can help her find her way along the path to a confident adulthood, a path that's slippery enough on its own without some little mermaid adding to it.

I'm all about the strong heroines.  When she's older, I can't wait to introduce her to Harriet Vane, to Jane Whitfield, to Elizabeth Bennet and Claire Beauchamp and perhaps even my own strong Evenfall heroine, Gert Murphy.

Of course, she's already met my very favorite, because I have a life-sized cut out of her in my office.

Buffy

(It counts!!!!! I own Joss Whedon comic books and they totally count as literature!)

Don't forget, post your favorite heroine in the comments before Thursday for a chance to win an autographed copy of The Heroine's Bookshelf!

I'm All About Strong Heroines (Unless They Have Fins, Not Feet)

Here's a secret — my daughter, at the age of nine, has yet to see The Little Mermaid. And it's not because I forgot, or couldn't find it in my movie queue, or happened to overlook it at the dvd store. It's on porpoise. (Cue the bad pun/mean mother music here.)

When I was pregnant, I might have been just a teensy bit hepped up. I saw the movie shortly before she was born, and for some reason it really ticked me off.  No daughter of mine was going to give up her kingdom for a boy!  She was going to take kick-boxing, not ballet, wear jeans instead of dresses, and never, ever, trade in her fins for feet just for some dude with nice hair.

Ahem. Has anyone seen my daughter?

I'm thrilled, of course, that she loves ballet, that she's graceful and delicate and beautiful.  I'm impressed by her very girly sense of style.  But the moral of the story is, watch what you say in the delivery room when you are on drugs, because it will come back to bite you.

Nope, no subtext here

Despite this, I'm not budging on the mermaid business. I don't know why Ariel bothers me so much more than the other Disney heroines.  At the heart of it, I suspect, is her willingness to actually alter her body for love, and the way that body is rejected/overlooked by the prince, despite what those changes cost the poor little princess.  (I know, I'm reading too much into it, but it's a subtext that makes me crazy.)

So, when she brings up Ariel, I counter with Nancy Drew, with Laura Ingalls, with Kitty Jones, with any one of a hundred of fictional heroines who can help her find her way along the path to a confident adulthood, a path that's slippery enough on its own without some little mermaid adding to it.

I'm all about the strong heroines.  When she's older, I can't wait to introduce her to Harriet Vane, to Jane Whitfield, to Elizabeth Bennet and Claire Beauchamp and perhaps even my own strong Evenfall heroine, Gert Murphy.

Of course, she's already met my very favorite, because I have a life-sized cut out of her in my office.

Buffy

(It counts!!!!! I own Joss Whedon comic books and they totally count as literature!)

Don't forget, post your favorite heroine in the comments before Thursday for a chance to win an autographed copy of The Heroine's Bookshelf!

Five Bad Things About Heroines

The fabulous Erin Blakemore

So.  Today's post is brought to you by author Erin Blakemore.  Erin lives in Colorado,  is a (former) roller derby queen, and has a debut book out this week.  Titled The Heroine's Bookshelf, it's an inspiring look at literature's greatest and most enduring female characters, ranging from Laura Ingalls to Lizzie Bennet.  Learn more and find book club questions about her favorite heroines at http://theheroinesbookshelf.com.

Five Bad Things About Heroines

by Erin Blakemore

1.  They occupy your thoughts.  What is a blanc mange, anyway?

2.  They create arguments with friends.  Who can resist sorting herself out by which March sister or Jane Austen heroine she would rather be?  And who can resist putting someone who makes the wrong choice in her place?

3.  They suck up your time.  Lots and lots of time…dinner burning, kids crying, heart being restored to itself.

4.  They don't talk back.  Well, unless you do the talking for them.  This is terrible when you have vital questions to ask.

5.  They aren't real.  Not really.  Like it or not, I will never sit down to tea with Lizzie Bennet or a Coca-Cola with Scout.  They're only on my bookshelf.  Sometime's that's enough…most of the time it's not.

The Heroine's Bookshelf

Despite these terrible things, I spend quite a bit of time in the presence of literature's greatest women (and the women who created them).  I do it despite all sanity, time constraints, and pleas for reason.  I do it because they've wormed their way into my heart, my brain, and my own rituals of self-care.  Who are your literary heroines?

****

Liz here again. Answer Erin's question in a comment before next Thursday, and you'll be entered to win a signed copy of her book, plus an Evenfall bookmark.  I'll put my thoughts up before then, too. And for those folks who would like to remain anonymous (Hi Barb! Hi Lori! Hi Leslie!) because they are too shy to post, whoops!  Sorry about that.  See you in the comments!

Also,  if you are in Boston and have time on October 28th, Erin's reading at a special event that examines all kinds of heroines and what their roles are in today's society.  Check it out, and tell her I said hello.

Five Bad Things About Heroines

The fabulous Erin Blakemore

So.  Today's post is brought to you by author Erin Blakemore.  Erin lives in Colorado,  is a (former) roller derby queen, and has a debut book out this week.  Titled The Heroine's Bookshelf, it's an inspiring look at literature's greatest and most enduring female characters, ranging from Laura Ingalls to Lizzie Bennet.  Learn more and find book club questions about her favorite heroines at http://theheroinesbookshelf.com.

Five Bad Things About Heroines

by Erin Blakemore

1.  They occupy your thoughts.  What is a blanc mange, anyway?

2.  They create arguments with friends.  Who can resist sorting herself out by which March sister or Jane Austen heroine she would rather be?  And who can resist putting someone who makes the wrong choice in her place?

3.  They suck up your time.  Lots and lots of time…dinner burning, kids crying, heart being restored to itself.

4.  They don't talk back.  Well, unless you do the talking for them.  This is terrible when you have vital questions to ask.

5.  They aren't real.  Not really.  Like it or not, I will never sit down to tea with Lizzie Bennet or a Coca-Cola with Scout.  They're only on my bookshelf.  Sometime's that's enough…most of the time it's not.

The Heroine's Bookshelf

Despite these terrible things, I spend quite a bit of time in the presence of literature's greatest women (and the women who created them).  I do it despite all sanity, time constraints, and pleas for reason.  I do it because they've wormed their way into my heart, my brain, and my own rituals of self-care.  Who are your literary heroines?

****

Liz here again. Answer Erin's question in a comment before next Thursday, and you'll be entered to win a signed copy of her book, plus an Evenfall bookmark.  I'll put my thoughts up before then, too. And for those folks who would like to remain anonymous (Hi Barb! Hi Lori! Hi Leslie!) because they are too shy to post, whoops!  Sorry about that.  See you in the comments!

Also,  if you are in Boston and have time on October 28th, Erin's reading at a special event that examines all kinds of heroines and what their roles are in today's society.  Check it out, and tell her I said hello.

Who's Your Heroine?

As a kid, I learned how to read relatively late — I think it was the end of first grade — but once I started, I couldn't stop.  I read everything that would hold still — cereal boxes, billboards, even The Thornbirds in fifth grade (I loaned that one  to my teacher, Sister Mary Rose.  Good times in the Catholic school world.)

My daughter has turned out just like me, which I'm sure amuses my parents to no end. I get no sympathy when my daughter gets busted reading during math class, when I have to remind her to put down her book when she walks down the stairs, or when I have to resort to draconian punishments.  ("Do that one more time and I'll … I'll take away your book!")

Baby Bookworm with ancient copy of Nancy Drew

But the flip side to having a baby bookworm  is one of my greatest pleasures — I get to introduce her to some of my favorite characters, the girls and women I loved when I was her age.  And unlike me, they show no signs of wear and tear.  Nancy Drew is just as perky in her blue convertible, Ann Shirley just as brave and generous, Laura Ingalls just as feisty and independent as the first time I opened a book and went inside their worlds.

And my daughter has returned the favor.  Because of her, we've plowed through books I might not have ever read, and discovered some fabulous new characters along the way. Kitty Jones in the Bartimaeus Trilogy is as strong a role model as they come.  Ella Enchanted is brave and independent (even if she's cursed to be obedient — not as good a plan as a parent might think).  And what little girl – or mother, for that matter -  wouldn't want to be Hermione Granger?

Who is your literary heroine, and what have you learned from her?  Start thinking now, because later this week I'll have a surprise guest posting here, and you'll have a chance to win a book all about fabulous fictional heroines.  See you then!

Hello in Five Words

This week I'm obsessing about two things: plot and State of Play.

As a writer, plot is where I work the hardest.  I have a hard time saying hello in less than five words.  Writing query letters killed me (if I could tell the story in one page, why bother with a 320 page novel?).

Now that I'm working on my second book, I'm paying particular attention to plot — I want to make mine as tight and compelling as I can right from the beginning.  I'm always looking for ways to do it better.

That brings me to this week's second obsession –the BBC mini-series State of Play. Oh. My. God.  If you haven't seen this, stop what you are doing and rent it, now.  (I'll wait. I'm still just getting to hello, remember?)

I don't watch much television, and when I do it's usually with half an eye while I read or edit or something else.  Not with this show.  It's so tightly written, so action-packed, that I can't do anything but sit on the edge of the sofa and bite my nails.  It doesn't hurt that it stars Bill Nighy doing his best malevolent long-legged spider impression (he alternates between that and sprawling hound dog) and cute little nibble James McAvoy from Atonement. (James, did you hear I wrote a book? The role of Cort is wide open — call me!)

Each show has heart-stopping action and twists, but it also has compelling characters (some of whom don't make it through), whip-smart dialogue, and cliff-hanger endings.  I've seen the first three episodes and ordered the final three.  All in the name of research, of course. If you watch it, leave me a comment and let me  know what you think.

Oh, and hello.