Erika Mitchell's Blog, page 12

Little, Itty Bitty, Teeny Tiny Victories

For those of you who don’t know my husband, here’s what you need to know about him to understand this post:

He’s very tall. I’m tall for a woman, and he’s about five inches taller than I am.
He’s smart as a whip, but he’s quiet about it. He’s not the flashy smart person in the room, he’s the quietly brilliant smart person who’s having an entirely different conversation in his head that’s somehow tangential to the one that’s happening in the real world. Regardless, he’s still able to keep one ear on the conversation at hand so he can interject a funny movie quote at precisely the right moment.
He’s talented. At just about everything. Guitar, software, people, cooking, driving, fatherhood, growing facial hair, he’s adept at it all. He was also great at helping me through having two babies, though I doubt that skill would be helpful to any of you unless you’re nine months pregnant and get trapped on an elevator with him and then go into labor. That’s super unlikely, though.

I could talk about Wes for hours, but the last bullet point is the most germane to the subject of this post, which is that I beat Wes at something. This is pretty big deal for me, and I’ll tell you why.

Yep, you guessed it. He’s even a better shot than me.

Wes can be counted on to learn quickly. Even if he isn’t initially good at something, he figures it out pretty quick. Take cribbage, for example. I’ve been playing cribbage since I was in elementary school. I love it. I taught Wes to play it back in 2012 and at first I was able to beat him with no problem at all.

Ten games or so spaced out over the course of two years later and I’ve got myself a serious competitor who makes it a lot harder to win. He even beat me in a nailbiter game last week. Dang it.

Bowling is another good example. I may beat him the first game, but by the time we’re three games in he’s winning handsomely and my thumb hurts too much to keep going. Double dang it.

Okay, now that you’re familiar with the territory, here’s what happened Friday night. We were playing with our kids when I decided to do a time trial assembling a toy plane. This plane is one of our son’s toys and it breaks down into various nuts, bolts, and pieces and it’s a lot of fun to break it down and reassemble it.

I challenged Wes and then we did timed trials to see who was fastest. The first round, Wes beat me by thirty seconds. Abysmal, right?

Second round, though? The second round was after the kids went to bed and I’d had a generous glass of wine. We put on “Eye of the Tiger” and threw down. Wes went first and beat his first round time. I went next and beat his best time by fifteen whole seconds.

It was amazing. I was in this zone where I felt this kind of superhuman focus take over and before I knew it, BAM! VICTORY!

It just goes to show you, give a stay at home mother some wine and a kick ass song and she can do just about anything.

Thanks for sharing!

One-Track Christmas Content Train

Welcome back, my post-feast friends! I hope your Thanksgiving was full of good food, fun times, and warm pie and/or cake, if you’re into that sort of thing. As for me and my house, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I baked three dozen rolls, I battled my daughter for the last of my sister-in-law’s Jello/cream cheese confection, and watched the Seahawks spank the 49ers. What could be better?

Now that we’re square in December and Christmas decorations are up everywhere and 2015 is less than a month away, I can’t help but sit back and reflect on…

Edits. Edits as far as the eye can see!

OH MY GOSH EDITS AND REVISIONS.

Ha! Weird transition, right? Sorry, I have to find some way to spice up the perpetual one-track content train my blog has been lately. How tired are you of reading about deadlines and revisions? Probably about half as tired as I am living with them. And yet? There’s no choice for me but to be glad to have them, because the alternative would be not to have them because no one cares about my writing and that? That would be sad.

Even still, I’m boring. Edit, revise, edit, revise, dream of the day I’ll be caught up on sleep, exercise, housework, and writing. Take my word for it, though: when Bai Tide comes out, it’s going to be AWESOME. This is the best book I’ve ever written. It’ll definitely give you at least, oh, I don’t know, five hours of quality entertainment, give or take a few hours depending on how fast you read.

In other news, Wes and I are scheduled to leave for Las Vegas in less than two weeks, I’m helping throw a baby shower for my best friend in eleven days, and Christmas is in twenty two days. But other than that, life is so mellow! Ha!

Welcome to the holiday season, everyone. Spike the egg nog and raid your chocolate stashes, winter ain’t coming. It’s here. And it’s BUSY.

Thanks for sharing!

Pie for Absolutely No Reason

Usually, we’re a two Thanksgiving dinner family. We host a big Thanksgiving dinner at our house for my side of the family, and then have dinner with Wes’s family on Thanksgiving day. We’ve always been quite fortunate that my family is not particular when it comes to which exact date we get together to feast. So long as I save my mom a turkey leg and my step dad brings sweet potato pie, we all get along just fine regardless of what day of the week it is.

This year, however, my mom and step dad are on an RV trip until next May so no pre-Thanksgiving feast for us this year. That means I have a curious excess of holiday energy prior to the big day. Normally, I’m so tired from grocery shopping, meal planning, house cleaning, cooking, baking, hosting, cleaning dishes, and cleaning the house again I have very little to put into Thanksgiving day proper. Not a big deal, usually, because my mother in law cooks most everything and I just have to show up and wash dishes. Easy peasy.

So here we are, the day before Thanksgiving 2014 and I’m not sick of my kitchen yet. So what do I do? Bake a pie from scratch for absolutely no reason at all. Pumpkin pie, in case you’re curious. Why for no reason? Well, my mother in law, the inarguable Queen of Perfect Pies, is baking a pumpkin pie for dessert tomorrow. My pie is GUARANTEED to be less delicious than hers, and yet? I felt like baking pie while I baked rolls today so I threw a pie together for no reason.

But then, because no Erika Tries to Cook story would be complete without some kind of failure, this happened:

The last ingredient, by the way? Was sour cream. The pie crust turned out okay in texture, I think, but was extra sticky and difficult to wrestle into the pie tin. And who knows how it’ll taste? But, you know, the pie looks like a pie and I’m sure it’ll taste like a pie. Maybe just a sort of Russian-y hybrid pie because of all the extra sour cream.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Here’s wishing you hot food, sober relatives, and non-weird pie!

Thanks for sharing!

Youth, Change, and Other Impossible Things

Being young is hard. I know I’m not that young anymore (hello, 29! Who’s your friend there? Oh, it’s 30? No, no, I don’t think I’m quite ready to follow you guys into that coat closet over by the bathroom. Thanks, though. Trot along now, 30. I’ll deal with you next year), but I still feel like I’m young enough to be able to state, categorically, that being young is hard.

There’s a literal world of stuff you don’t know. Youth is change. Constant change, both in yourself and in the people around you, and yet throughout the change you’re somehow supposed to cobble together a sense of self and purpose all while avoiding crippling debt, baffling loneliness, and the kinds of cautionary tale mistakes you see at the backs of those teen magazines you used to read when you were younger.

For many people, their twenties is a whirlwind. Most people graduate college, start a career, change jobs, date, date some more, find a spouse, maybe have a kid or two, maybe buy a house, maybe take a trip, probably change jobs again, and possibly even have another kid. It’s a jam-packed decade full of massive life changes, and it’s the kind of singular, important epoch nothing but experience can prepare you for. The very experience you are, sadly, lacking, because you are in your twenties and when have you had time to gather experience?

Enter mentors. I have been blessed by solid female mentors most of my adult life and I can say emphatically that I’m a better person for it. These are women I look up to who’ve come out of the crucible of ages 20-40 with intact marriages, well-adjusted children, and strong faiths. I’m blessed to have two, both of whom I lean on when life throws me into the dunk tank.

If, when you look at me, you see anything admirable or wiser than my years, you can probably thank either one or both of these two women for that. Without them, I’m fairly certain I’d be less than half as awesome.

Not to be forgotten, I have a writing mentor, too, because apparently I suck at independence and need help with everything? Still, what good is it to walk the road alone when you could be walking it with awesome friends who know where all the potholes are?

Thanks for sharing!

In the Trenches

Something amazing has happened: After much searching and shopping and futility, I finally found…The perfect trench coat! This is it, it’s The One. If my life were The Matrix (and who’s to say it isn’t?), this trench coat would be Neo. Or, rather, the trench coat Neo wears in The Matrix, which would mean it’s all ones and zeroes and not actually a trench coat at all, which brings us full circle in kind of a disappointing way.

Bummer.

Anyway, I’m thrilled. Thrilled, I tell you. And what’s even better is, my mother in law is going to work her seamstress magic and poof! Make the sleeves longer because one truism that will always be true no matter what happens is this: When you’re tall, sleeves are almost never long enough.

Until I can show you a picture of how incredible I look in this coat, here’s a picture of it on a strangely concussed-looking model:

Glorious, no? I assure you, it looks fabulous on me. So let it rain, I say! No wind or rain in the ‘verse can stop me, for I have a coat, and lo, it is trench-y.

Thanks for sharing!

A Busy Author is a Happy Author

I’ve been a slackersaurus about updating my blog this week, many apologies! I’m sure the ten of you who read my blog regularly are terribly disappointed by the radio silence. What have I been doing? you ask. Where have I been? Well, I’ll tell you:

Revising. I sent first round revisions of Bai Tide (book #1 of the series) off to my editor a week or so ago and I’ve been working as fast as I can to whip Take the Bai Road (book #2 of the series) into shape well enough to send it to my beta readers. I’ve been promising to send book #2 to them for months at this point but there just isn’t enough time to get everything done so it gets shunted to the back burner more often than not. Revision is not a fast process. You have to sit with each sentence, each word, really, tearing it apart and putting it back together until it lands against your ears the way it should.
Planning. My best friend is having her first baby in January and I’m throwing her a massive baby shower next month. I’ve been planning, coordinating with other people, and getting invitations and ideas together. We’re having a blast but it’s a time-consuming labor of love. It’s going to be a…Wait for it…MURDER MYSTERY BABY SHOWER, with a roaring 20’s theme where guests get to solve the murder of the stork to win an awesome prize. I’m so excited. Trust me, this is the perfect shower theme for my friend. It’s going to be a hoot.
Hiring. I finally, after much searching and follow-up, found and hired a book publicist to help me spread the word about Bai Tide. Book promotion is a tiring, relentless, time-consuming process. If you can find someone fantastic to help you with it, you’ll be much happier for it. I hired Authors, Large and Small to help me out and so far I’m thrilled. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of magic they can work for me.
Podcasting. My friend A.C. Fuller has asked me to put together some short segments to put into his podcast, Writer 2.0. I’ve been working on putting those segments together and it’s going well but is, as you may have guessed, time-consuming (noticing a theme, here?). They’re one-to-two minute segments I’m calling Amuse Bouche Inspiration, and each segment explains how a famous writer got his or her start, and what we can learn from them. I like how they’ve turned out and can’t wait to hear them on air, so to speak.

As you can see, I’ve been busy, just not busy blogging. If you’re an author and you can say you’re busy, you’re lucky. I should be getting round two revisions from my editor for Bai Tide this week, which will mean no more revisions for book #2 and I’ll be under deadline again.

By the time I’m done revising Bai Tide and Take the Bai Road, I’m pretty sure I will have completely forgotten how to write new material. When the time comes to write book #4, I’m going to feel like a newb again!

Thanks for sharing!

Pick Two

Look how skinny I was! Makes me so proudsad.

Once upon a time, there was a woman named Erika. Erika had one child, writing novels was a hobby, and her husband definitely did not own his own company. In short, Erika was busy, but not too busy.

She was also overweight, so she decided to take a stand and do the whole weight loss thing right. Twice a week personal training sessions, fastidious calorie counting, and six workouts a week and five months later she was the skinniest she’d ever been. She kept that weight off for two whole months before breaking a bone in her foot and then getting knocked up again.

Now, Erika is a very busy mother of two. She’s right back to being overweight again, though now she has twice as many tiny humans to care for, a busy writing career that is very nearly thriving, and an entrepreneurial husband with his own busy work life. Don’t feel too sorry for her, though. Erika is chubby but she’s happy.

Though, sadly, way more woman than she’d like to be. Alas. And this concludes my tale of weight loss woe.

I’ve been thinking about juggling lately, and I’ve developed this theory about how parenthood gives us just enough room to do two things well. Like, there’s this whole spectrum of options out there, and when you have kids, you can pick two things to do well and that’s it. You can half ass a few things at a time, I suppose, but that’s never been something I’ve been good at and besides, it goes against Ron Swanson’s advice. I try to never go against Ron Swanson’s advice.

Here’s a list of things I came up with that you can choose from to do really, really well when you’re a stay at home parent:

Keeping a clean, organized house. A place for everything, everything in its place. Kids well dressed and presentable, laundry always folded and put away, dishwasher emptied promptly, clear counters, clean floors, sparkling toilets, handy lists in strategic places, etc.
Friends. Being a really involved, thoughtful, caring friend who intentionally makes room and time for important people. Throwing amazing parties for people, going out for regular coffee dates to keep in touch, dinners/drinks out on the town together, remembering birthdays and important anniversaries, etc. (Think Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec)
Fitness. Getting in shape, staying in shape, setting and attaining fitness goals, running races, training for triathlons, doing boot camps, cooking and eating healthy, balanced meals, sticking to calorie goals, no junk food, etc.
Hobby. Putting in the time and effort to hone your craft, perfect your technique, attend workshops, practice, showcase your work at local events, network with other people who like doing what you do, making a name for yourself, etc.
Kids. Reading stacks of books every day, regular trips to the library, planning out fun activities and play dates, being involved in school activities, researching child development and amending parenting techniques to reflect what you learn, intentional conversations, socializing your kids with other kids in a similar developmental stage, etc.

I’m sure you can probably come up with more, but for me these are the big five. I constantly feel like I should be excelling at all five, and yet, I don’t think it’s possible without either burning out, developing a Ritalin addiction, or half-assing some of them.

Every time I feel like I should be doing more, better, I’m reminded of that scene from The Office where Angela and Phyllis are trying to plan the launch party and Phyllis holds up her fingers with Post-It Notes on them and tells Angela to pick two, because she can’t do them all. And then, when Angela is a huge jerk about it, Phyllis wads the whole lot of Post-Its up and throws it in Angela’s face. Just like this:

Click for the .gif.

And so that’s where I’ve landed. I know I’m capable of being super skinny again. I loved it, and would be delighted to go back there again. I just know how much work and focus that takes, and it’s not possible right now. Not with my kids being the age they are and my writing career being where it is right now. And so, I’m chubby. I’m chubby, but my kids are thriving and my writing is improving and my husband likes hanging out with me. I have occasional coffee with my friends, I workout two-to-three times a week but still eat junk food when I’m stressed, and my house is occasionally a little messy.

I’m whole-assing my kids and my writing career, and everything else gets shoved in wherever there’s room. It’s not ideal, but it’s tenable. How about you? What are you whole-assing vs. half-assing?

Thanks for sharing!

Somebodies Helping Nobodies

Me and Wes talking to Robert at the signing. For those of you who don’t know me well, this is a quintessential Erika face. I was probably cracking a lame joke. I do that sometimes.

I had the pleasure of attending Robert Dugoni’s book signing last night at Parkplace Books in Kirkland. For those of you who haven’t heard of Robert, here’s what you need to know:

He’s smart. You can just tell by the way he speaks and explains things that he’s got a lot going on upstairs.
He’s an excellent writer. He read us a passage out of his new book, My Sister’s Grave, and it’s an undeniable fact that he has an ear for dialogue.
He’s a kind, interesting person. I met him at the ITW ThrillerFest in July and, when I sent him an email afterward asking him whether he might consider writing a blurb for my new book, Bai Tide, he didn’t hesitate. He was in super crunch mode writing a sequel to My Sister’s Grave and doing promotional stuff, but he made time to read my book and then wrote a glowing blurb of it for me.

When I got to the front of the line to have him sign my copy of his book, he remembered me and told me HE liked MY book. Isn’t that a kick? I mean, that was totally MY line!

Robert’s kindness only reinforces to me the prevailing truth I’ve seen confirmed again and again since the start of my writing journey and that is, authors take care of each other. I’ve yet to meet a snobby author who refused to talk to a nobody like me, and almost all the big authors I’ve met have either offered to help however they can or given me a kind word to keep me going.

I’m sure there are snobby authors out there, but I’m lucky in that I haven’t met any yet. It’s a singular experience to have someone like Jon Land or Robert Dugoni read your work (both of them provided blurbs for my book!), I imagine it’d be similar to having Picasso or Matisse take a look at your painting and tell you you’re onto something.

There’s absolutely no impetus for these successful authors to help nobodies like me. There are SO MANY underling authors who are happy with a small handful of reviews and will almost certainly never amount to household names. It’s not like a strategic alliance thing, wherein they’re guaranteed future success by aligning with the right people at the right time.

No, they do it because they’re kind. Because they want to help. Because they remember what it was like to be the little guy, and they haven’t let themselves forget it.

If you want to thank these wonderful people for being wonderful to me, you can do so by buying their new books! They’re both fantastic, entertaining reads and by buying them you’ll be supporting nice people who do nice things for nobodies like me. You can find My Sister’s Grave at the link above, or Strong Darkness by Jon Land here.

Thanks for sharing!

Writer 2.0 Interview is LIVE, Baby!

My interview with A.C. Fuller on his podcast Writer 2.0 is live this morning! You can find it in a couple different places:

His website
iTunes

We talk about how my Dad entertained himself by teaching me sleight of hand and pickpocketing, and how the search for an agent can only be described as soul-crushing. It makes for fun listening, even if you’re not as much of a writing nerd as I am.

Please support my friend, who was kind enough to have me on his show, by downloading the podcast and then listening to it. He’s a great interviewer and it’s a fantastic show. He interviews me first so you won’t have to wait long for my hyper-fast chattering to fill up your speakers/earbuds/what-have-you.

Thanks for listening! Happy Monday!

Thanks for sharing!

Appley and Crambler

Those of you who know me in person know that I love to laugh. A lot. It takes very, very little to make me laugh out loud, to the extent that wearing a shirt reading, “LOL” would be redundant because, dude, just listen.

In addition to bad puns, people falling down, and Nathan Lane, there are some more specialized things that make me laugh. Certain words, for example, just crack me right up. It’s involuntary. As you can imagine, Wes knows all these words, and discovers more each year. One of his favorite things is making me laugh, so he’ll deploy them casually in conversation and then watch me lose it.

I imagine this is what Appley and Crambler would look like. Appley would be the smaller of the two, Crambler would be blockish and a little grumpy.

The other day I was washing dishes and we were talking about something super sexy like yard work, and Wes totally nonchalantly just leans against the counter and mentions that maybe we should bring Appley Smathers in to help us. I almost fell down laughing.

Appley Smathers is the name of the pygmy goat we’re going to get someday. We made this plan early on in our marriage, back when we had tons of prolific grass to mow every weekend. We decided we’d get a pygmy goat instead of a lawn service, and then decided to name it Appley Smathers because those two words are, for some unknowable reason, freaking hilarious to me.

The reason I’m telling you about my weirdo plan to get a pygmy goat someday is, today we came across another name that would make an EXCELLENT companion name to Appley Smathers. And that name is…

Crambler Chadhouse.

I kid you not, I’m typing this in a Starbucks and shaking with silent laughter just typing this. What is wrong with me?

So if you ever come over to our eventual house at some point in the distant future and see two pygmy goats gamboling about the property, be prepared for quite a lot of uncontrollable giggling when you ask me what the goats’ names are. Because I’ll tell you, as soon as I’m done laughing so hard I cry.

Thanks for sharing!