Cece Meng's Blog, page 5

I'm a Handy Girl

If you're familiar with my book TOUGH CHICKS, then it shouldn't come as a surprise to you that I like to build things. I'm better at destroying things, but building comes in at a close second. My latest project - a retaining wall! The hard part was not the wall itself, laying and leveling bricks is easy cakes. Re-grading this section of my yard and putting in drainage was the hard part. It was a lot of digging. Of the three chick characters in my book, we have Penny, Polly and Molly. I'm Molly -

Boring, boring, broken toe

I broke my toe AGAIN. I know I promised to document some of my injuries here, but a broken toe just isn't very spectacular.  To make this up to you, here's a few more interesting injuries from my past:
* I once stepped on a pencil and had about an inch of it break off into the bottom of my foot. This required surgery five months later to remove a big piece of lead that was left deep in my arch.* I walked into a door in the middle of the night, giving myself a black eye and my poor husband a bad r

Another Dead Cat

My close friend Christian is always suggesting that I write about some of my unusual life experiences. My life is not unusual. My life is quite boring. Weird things just "happen" around me. Disturbing things that I find inappropriately funny. Christian finds them funny, too. Our spouses never find them funny. Usually it's just the two of us, two funny girls, laughing at not funny weird happenings. 
The year was 1998. I had a three month old newborn baby. The cat was named Theo, a stray that "foun

Whuh?

I found this note on the floor of my eight-year-old son's room. At first I thought my poor child was suffering from extreme self-esteem issues. It turns out, my darling was just writing a little something to tape to the back of some unsuspecting person (his dad was the target, according to his sister) as a joke. 

Aside from my initial panic, my next instinct was to correct the misspellings. Idiot has an i in it, geek is spelled with a K, not a C. All day is not one word. I curbed that impulse. My

Don't Mess With Granny

Granny is not happy with me. My mom is a fiercely loyal and supportive grandparent to her seven grandkids. I'm not sure what I was thinking when I went and publicly complained about her perfect little firstborn granddaughter. I think I called her a nightmare baby in my last post. Granny was not amused. Granny is worried that I may damage my poor child by telling her what a difficult baby she was.
I do tell my daughter - now 11 - the truth, because I don't want her to be as shocked as I was if and

Depressed Moms and Babies

Some researcher out there has a bone to pick with mom. It's the week before Mother's Day and have you read the headlines? The article sent out over Reuters? It reads: Babies sleep poorly when mothers are depressed.
I think they have it backwards. If I remember correctly from my own experiences, babies that don't sleep are the cause of depression. At least with this mother. I had horrible babies and horrible depression. My daughter in particular - nightmare baby. She came out screaming and didn't

The Dead Cat - How I Found My Voice

Voice in writing is a big deal, yet when you read descriptions of voice in instructional books or hear an editor speak at length about it at a conference, its actual meaning and purpose is slightly vague and elusive.
I found my voice at age eighteen while writing about a dead cat and I didn't even know it at the time. It was a class assignment. Actually, the assignment had nothing to do with a dead cat. We were asked to write a descriptive essay. I had already done that exact assignment at least

I've been stabbed!

News alert: After suffering a possible career-complicating injury to her right hand, writer Cece Meng is on the mend and can move her fingers and type again. This news was received with mixed emotions from friends, family, and readers of all ages...
As I mention in my blog description, I am prone to unusual injuries and I plan on documenting some of them here. My latest: While doing yard work a few days ago, a very thick, rusty, dirty piece of wire poked into my hand right between my fingers. It

I've Been Out-Named

I'm a big fan of children's book writers Mem Fox and Mo Williams. Cool names, way cool names. Great books, too, by the way. Really great books. Sigh. I want a cool name, too. 
Cece seems a little bit cool at first until you find out that it stands for Cecelia June and that I'm named after my sweet Hungarian grandmother. Significantly less cool.

Here are some ideas -Cece BoBeecieC.J. MagooCece Rabbithouser
I think I'll stick to writing books and worry about the name later.


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A review that made me cry

Oh gosh. Some of you may have seen it. A nice lady posted a review of Tough Chicks on Amazon that actually made me cry. Well, sniffle a bit. She called Tough Chicks a blessing in disguise and commented on how it reminded her that she does have good kids.
I just about fall over when I see a parent, turning deep red in the face, try and force an apology out of their two-year-old for grabbing a toy. Ha ha. Good luck. I'm reminded of a saying a preschool teacher used to tell us parents - to honor the