school’s out!

June 30, 2009 Leave a Comment

Or it certainly feels like that.

I met the last of my writing deadlines Sunday evening.

I finally finished my month-long marathon through David Copperfield last night (just in time to add it to my June reading roundup).

I feel incredibly free. And I came up with a silly celebratory short-short yesterday (creativity in thirty minutes or less!):

“I found the water of life,” the adventurer said. A flask hung at his belt.

“It’s mine!” His aristocratic patron lunged for the flask, tore it off the belt. He downed the contents in two gulps. “Ugh. Tastes horrible!”

“I was going to say that the water of life is safe in my luggage,” said the adventurer, as his patron began to writhe and retch. “That was concentrated bug poison.”

*giggle*

See, sometimes I do come up with workable ideas while lying cross and awake and very tired in the wee hours of the morning.

Filed Under: inspiration, short stories

30-minute creativity

June 28, 2009 2 Comments

I have a hard time working on a big creative project during the summer.  Maybe it’s because I’ve spent more of my life in school than out of it, and summer whispers vacation to me. Or maybe because summer is such a short season where I live and we’re eager to cram in as much pool, park and yard time as we can. Summer fills up with camps and cookouts, gardening and berry-picking and hiking. It’s time for play, not for marathons.

I doubt I’ll get a novel written in the next two months, but I do have some creative projects planned. I want writing to be fun again, so I’ll be experimenting with new ideas and new forms. Sir I. and I will (hopefully) start taking piano lessons. The kids and I will draw, color and paint. Then there’s that easy-to-make skirt I want to sew for Miss M.

So I put together a list of low-prep creative ideas for the busy person, things to do in thirty minutes or less:

  1. Play a musical instrument. Our piano lives in the hub of the house, it’s always available (no taking it out of its case), with my lesson book open on the music rack.
  2. Doodle, either using a book of drawing prompts or a pen and a sheet of paper.
  3. Freewrite. I do ten-minute sessions on a theme of my choice.
  4. Journal.
  5. Do an art or craft project with a kid. Don’t have a kid available? Do it on your own. Kid projects are unintimidating and simple, perfect for beginners and those with little time or few supplies. Check here and here and here for ideas.
  6. Journal in visual images for a change. Draw or make a collage. Here are some tips to get you started.
  7. Go on a walk with camera in hand and take pictures that interest you. You get to be creative and exercise.
  8. Sit out in your yard, the woods, or a park and sketch. I like to draw leaves. My kids like to bring me leaves to draw. Win-win.
  9. Do some mind-mapping.
  10. Write flash fiction.

Any other suggestions?

Filed Under: creativity, drawing, inspiration, journaling

linkatopia

June 27, 2009 Leave a Comment

The Publishing and Promotion Edition

Paperback Writer’s ten widgets to help you find a title (yes, I consider coming up with a title part of the getting-published process. I wouldn’t bother otherwise. *grin*).

So you wrote a book. Now what?

Via Holly Lisle: Can an artist make a living with a base of 1,000 True Fans?

More on promotion: Building a platform.

And, why are debut novelists so long in the tooth?, or Publishing is for Old Fogeys ;) . (Gives me hope. I’m only 29!). Hat tip: Jo

Filed Under: linktopia

oh, ew, ew, ew. slugs.

June 24, 2009 Leave a Comment

Slugs. In my lettuce. I never realized how many there were until I went picking this evening. *shudder* And they’ve already made raids on the tomatos I transplanted several days ago.

Okay, no more Ms. Nice Squeamish Gal. This means war.

Filed Under: gardening

art camp

June 22, 2009 Leave a Comment

This is what my back hallway looked like for three days during an art camp I hosted for my kids and those of two other families. The participants were six kids ranging from almost-three to five-and-a-half, with two other moms assisting and three younger siblings running/scooting/lying underfoot. We did a variety of projects from blow-painting to stringing dyed pasta necklaces to stamping broccoli forests to watercoloring caterpillars to printing cards. The kids produced an impressive amount of artwork and a good time was had by all.

Things I learned:

1. For my first time putting together something like this, I think I did a pretty good job picking the projects, gathering the supplies, and facilitating the process. Sir I. was very jealous of my status as Art Camp Director and was often overheard telling people, “Only Mommy is the instructor.” Heh.

2. When you get five girls together to create art, a lot of pink and purple gets used. By the end of art camp, even Sir I., the only boy, had succumbed to peer pressure and automatically asked for purple.

3. Three days is a bit much for the age group I was working with. On the last day, we lost Sir I. and another little girl to a vacuuming truck outside our house. The collage butterflies could not compete with the massive machinery.

4. Try using watercolor paper for watercolor painting projects. Maybe there is less chance of destroying the paper by overpainting it, like Miss M. almost did. Oops.

5. When picking pasta for pasta necklaces, don’t pick the large tubes because they slide over the rest of the pasta and the knot you made to keep things from falling off one end. Double oops.

6. If you need to wait for paint to dry before you can finish a project, it’s probably a good idea to do the painting a day before. Those egg carton bugs sure would’ve been cute, but we just didn’t get around to them.

7. Kid art is really cute! I mean, I knew this from before, but it’s fun and dynamic and utterly charming

8. We should do art camp again! Once the memory of the chaotic three days has faded, that is. Which it should by the end of summer.

Filed Under: creativity, kids at play

mid-june garden update

June 17, 2009 2 Comments

My peas are flowering!

Here are my pea plants. They’re in rather a sad tangle. I planted a variety that supposedly didn’t need support, but I should’ve run chicken wire on stakes between the rows. I did put in sticks here and there to try to support this mass of vegetation, but it was too little, too late, I think. I’ll know better next year.

My beans sprouted. Here are the best-looking specimens. One of my rows was attacked by slugs and overbearing pea plants and looks rather sad. I replanted a few seeds in that one today.

My holey lettuce. It’s been raining a lot and the slugs have been out in full force. I have been able to harvest a lot of lettuce in spite of the sluggish depradations. More than enough for our admittedly small needs. The kidlings are not especially fond of salad, but lettuce is nice and easy and very gratifying to grow.

One of the very few carrots to survive, in spite of repeated seedings. I have horrible luck with carrots. Any tips?

My one complete and utter failure. This barren patch of earth is supposed to be growing pumpkins. I’ve seeded this area twice and the pumpkins are a no-show. I thought pumpkins were easy kid-friendly plants to grow? Sir I. is taking the disappointment with fortitude.

Today, I transplanted four tomato plants that my friend Emily gave to me. I have two more that ought to be put in the ground soon, but I’ve run out of garden space (unless I give up on the pumpkins). I’m going to buy some containers for them tomorrow. They really are running out of room, poor things.

How are things growing in your gardens?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

hope cemetery

June 16, 2009 Leave a Comment

On Memorial Day (and yes I realize that was almost a month ago–this is how bad I am about getting pictures off the camera), D. and I packed up the kids and went to a locally famous cemetery to gawk at the headstones and monuments. We saw the traditional angels:

and crosses:

as well as some less conventional choices:

We also found what might be very very very distant cousins:

I was greatly interested in what people chose to put on their grave markers. One was sculpted to look like the deceased couple sitting up in bed, another was shaped like a car. There were the Verbose Self-Referencing Evangelistic Pyramids and one that I specially liked that simply said, “Only to Thee, Lord, do we our well-beloved resign”.

It made me think a bit about what I’d choose to put on my gravestone (if I cared enough about it to have D. and the kids dip that much into the life insurance money, hee). I’ve always liked John Donne’s Death Be Not Proud but I suspect I’d need to come up with something pithier. Maybe, “Buy My Books” with an Amazon link??

Just kidding!

(okay, maybe just in fine print at the back of the marker…)

It was a lovely day and it was quite restful being in the cemetery. If we didn’t have two squirrely children to keep under tabs, I’d have sat in the sun and sketched and journalled. I took paper, but didn’t feel brave enough to take rubbings. I’m not sure what the etiquette of taking rubbings is?

I’d like to go again some time, just to ramble.

Filed Under: personal, random

reading roundup

June 12, 2009 Leave a Comment

My May reads:

Graceling and Eon were similar in many ways–long YA fantasy with female protagonists in traditionally male roles, dealing with the double-edged sword of their own powers. I’m hard-pressed to say which one I liked better–and I liked them both. Didn’t love ‘em, though. I found both Katsa and Eona irksome at times. Katsa was hard to identify with–her physicality, her lack of empathy (more so in the beginning), her complete rejection of marriage and childbearing were so different from my character and my choices. I was able to fully enter into her character a good way through the book, when she becomes the protector of a little girl.She grew on me and I got used to her.

On the non-fiction side, the homeschooling book was an easy fun read, full of anecdotes and gentle advice. I didn’t take away anything that I hadn’t heard before but it’s a reassuring cheerleading book, especially since Sir I. will be doing K-level work at home with me this next school year.

The Trouble with Boys is author Peg Tyre’s exploration of the factors behind the growing gap between boys’ and girls’ academic achievement, even accounting for race and socioeconomics. Boys in large numbers are tuning out at school. There are fewer qualified male applicants for college and growing gender gaps on campuses. Tyre trots out the usual suspects–video games, Ritalin, boy-unfriendly teaching methods, earlier and earlier standardized testing–as well as a bunch of solutions, but is careful not to subscribe to any one as the cure-all. I’m glad to see that the issue of boy underachievement is being addressed but I’m a little annoyed at how Tyre feels the need to constantly emphasize that she is not trying to drag girls down. Well, I’m less annoyed with Tyre and more annoyed with people who think that education is a zero-sum game and that paying any attention to the problem of our sons hating school means we want to drag our daughters back into home ec classes and secretarial school. I’d like all my kids–boys and girl–to love learning, and love it for life. Tyre’s focus on academic achievement statistics does not take into account that boys in large numbers might have found healthy passions outside of school. It would’ve been an interesting rabbit trail to follow, but outside the scope of Tyre’s book.

What interesting books have you read recently? I’m currently working my way through David Copperfield and I just picked up book one of The Spiderwick Chronicles from the library. I still have almost an entire row of never-been-read books on my shelf. I wish I had a self-cleaning house. *grin*

Filed Under: reading, reviews, Uncategorized

a conspiracy of kings

June 7, 2009 1 Comment

Eek!

The next book in Megan Whalen’s Turner’s Thief series is scheduled to come out next year. It has a name and cover art and backcover blurb, which you can find here. Scroll down to page 9 in the catalogue.

*squee squee SQUEE*

No, it’s not like I’ve been waiting anxiously for the next book the moment I finished book 3. Of course not! No, not at all. Really.

*SQUEAK*

Filed Under: book promotion, reading

a light repast

June 5, 2009 6 Comments

In honor of the publication of A Plague of Chicken, my upcoming blog anniversary (give or take a month), and because I’ve been plain wanting to do this for a while, I give you A Light Repast–an e-book with two humorous fantasy short stories that were written around the same time as A Plague of Chicken.

Despite the title, there is no food in either of the stories. I settled on A Light Repast because D. gave me the eyebrow when I told him that I wanted to call it Eggs Cooked Light and Fluffy. No eggs in the stories either, but they are light and fluffy, with dragons and barbarians and singing swords and unconventional princesses. And Dark Lords, but not the truly scary type.

Enjoy! As always, I love feedback of the positive kind (*wink*), so do drop me a line if you found yourself amused by these light and fluffy offerings.

Filed Under: e-books, short stories
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