~H.A.P.P.Y D.A.N.C.E~

7:10 a.m., and the house is quiet.  And it isn't because the children are snug in their beds, dreaming of carefree summer bliss.

The beds are already made.

Any dreaming of carefree summer bliss is happening on the school bus.

That's right, the children have gone back to school...and now my vacation begins.  Just kidding!  Sorry if I sound a bit giddy.  And please don't misunderstand.  It isn't that I haven't enjoyed my children immensely this summer.  I have!  It's been one of the best on record.  But, this schedule-oriented, deadline-loving, early-to-bed-early-to-rise, muggy weather-hating, I-need-silence-to-work writer is doing the happy dance today!

Back to business as usual.  And the first step is:

Re-evaluate my goals for 2010.

I approach the year in two five-month blocks.  Think about it.  On January first, it's easy to look the year to come straight on, as a twelve month entity.  But summer derails all my best-intended goals.

In reality, I'm on-track in all aspects of my life (my writing, the housework, my health and fitness routine, etc.) from January through May.  Then, school lets out -- and all hell breaks loose -- for summer break.

We sleep in, sometimes staying in our jammies until it's time to put the swim suits on and head for the pool.  We eat Cheez-Its and Diet Coke for lunch.  I put baskets of clean, badly-wrinkled laundry back in the dryer, because I never get around to folding the clothes the same day I wash them. Every evening I remember I didn't take meat out of the freezer, so I dash to the store to buy steaks for dinner.  We start a feature-length movie at 8:30 at night, eat dinner on the living room coffee table in front of the TV, finish the dishes at 11:30, shoo the kids off to bed by midnight, and finally fall into bed in the wee hours -- only to get up late the next morning and do it all over again.

And my WiP gathers dust in the binder where I put it, back when I was preparing for the trip to France.

But today begins the second five-month block of 2010.  August through December sees the return to normalcy around here.  My beloved daily schedule resumes!  (*fist pump*)

So, re-evaluation time.  I took pages of notes in France, for a new story floating around the edges of my mind.  But I won't turn my attention there just yet.  First things first.  I'm sticking to my original deadline of finishing the first draft of Overcome by November first.  I want to attend the Georgia Writers Association's Red Clay Writer's Conference on November 6th with a completed manuscript in hand.  So I need to write, on the WiP, e.v.e.r.y.d.a.y.

Also, I need to get my @ss back in the gym.  I've managed to maintain my weight, more or less, this summer, but my muscle tone is disappearing.  I can't wait to get my sweat on.

This week, I'm easing into things.  Organizing my desk, mopping a sticky floor here and there, actually planning a couple meals.  Tomorrow I hit the gym with Lorri.  (But afterwards, we're heading over to a friend's pool where she's hosting a "Our Kids Are Back In School Let's Drink Margaritas and Celebrate Party.")

And I'm going to write.  At least 500 words.  E.V.E.R.Y.D.A.Y.

By next week, I should be completely transitioned back to my regularly scheduled life.

What are your goals this week?  Please share -- it'll help me to feed off your motivation energies!

Don't Do It -- Evah!

Other distracting activities include:

• Using a cell phone
• Eating and drinking
• Talking to passengers
• Grooming
• Reading, including maps
• Using a PDA or navigation system
• Watching a video
• Changing the radio station, CD, or Mp3 player.

Did You Know?

Research on distracted driving reveals some surprising facts:

• In 2008, slightly more than almost 20 percent of all crashes in the year involved some type of distraction. (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - NHTSA).
• Nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes involving a distracted driver, and more than half a million were injured. (NHTSA)
• The younger, inexperienced drivers under 20 years old have the highest proportion of distraction-related fatal crashes.
• Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves. (Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
• Using a cell phone use while driving, whether it’s hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent. (Source: University of Utah)

(The above facts were copied from the Official US Government Website For Distracted Driving.

Please visit the site today: DISTRACTION.gov)

I have a steadfast rule in my car:  NO CELL PHONE USAGE.  I won't answer a call, not even with a blue tooth accessory.  I won't read or respond to a text message.  If my kids are in the car with me, and if it's appropriate, I ask them to type a text I dictate, or answer the phone.  Otherwise, I wait until I'm parked, engine off, to use my phone.

My cell phone voice mail message is:  "Hello!  I'm either away from my phone or driving the car, but I'll call you back as soon as possible.  Until then, have a great day!"  Of course, I worry that someone may take me for a snooty Oprah-wannabe.  But if that message-leaver is a friend or family member I love, making the call from her car, and she is reminded not to risk her life or the lives of others by driving distractedly, then I don't care if labels are cast on me.

Some things are worth that climb atop the soap box :D

Have a wonderful and safe weekend! 

Box-O-Juicy Words

The countdown is on, and in just five short days my upbeat children will enter again the hallowed halls of elementary and middle schools.  Summer swept us into her sunny whirlpool, leaving us giddy, light-headed, and incredulous that it could possibly be over, already.

And the promise of a quiet house, paramount for writers like me, is tucked in a box on the next page of my week-at-a-glance calendar, waiting like a gift to be opened on the 2nd.

My muse is having a hard time waiting.

To soothe her unsettled soul, I pulled out my Word Box this morning.

This is one of my favorite possessions.  The box itself was made by my mother in her small, basement stained glass studio.  The glass is clear with what looks like embedded scraps in various tints of rose-colored tissue paper and threadlike ribbons of black ink.  The hinged top is inlaid with opaque glass and beveled mirrored.  Mom did a great job soldering the pieces together.  I was heartbroken when one of the kids accidentally knocked it off the coffee table last year, but now I think the crack you see along the front facing side, and the fact that the lid now closes off-centered, adds to the box's life story and charm. 

Inside this box are juicy words.

Last year, I cut narrow strips of colored card stock, and over the course of several weeks I wrote upon them delicious-sounding, descriptive words.  The box stays in a prominent place (but no longer on the dangerous coffee table) where I add to it whenever I hear a vivid or picturesque word.

When Sidney and I cook together, we take turns swishing around the words and pulling two scraps of paper out.  Those words become our names for the evening.  Once I was Pristine Flabbergast, and Sidney was Polite Lovely-Green.

Since Muse is chomping at the bit to write, but I have a three-boy sleepover party ready to awaken at any moment and demand breakfast -- (...did I just hear a toilet flush downstairs?...) -- I decided to share with you my little early morning exercise.

I stirred up the words, infusing the papers with my creative energy, and pulled my hand away.  I wrote a list of all the words I could read without moving the papers:

Treasure

Disturb

Maple rose

Extinguish

Vibrant

Breathe

Loneliness

Frantic

Torch

Filter

Write

Silliness

Wander

Aura

Shoe

Remember

And from the words, I gave myself five minutes to compose a poem.  My rules for this game are it's okay to add short connector words (the, its, than, etc.), and if a word is better used as a different part of speech (silliness [noun] becomes silly [adjective]), change away!  With only five minutes, you really have to muzzle your inner editor and embrace the whimsical results.  Here were mine:

Remember

Filter not the silliness you write

Better to let its vibrant aura breathe

Than extinguish the treasure torch.

And...

...always wear your wander shoes.

I wasn't able to use disturb, frantic, or loneliness.  I guess my energy rejected them.  And Maple Rose missed the creative cut, too.

Feel inspired?  What funky word combinations can you come up with from this list?  (Ex. Frantic Torch)  Can you write a line of poetry using some of these words?  Please share your inspired results in the comments!

I've Gone Green -- Come Along!

Things that Smell Like the Color GREEN

Cut grass

Limes

Chopped parsley

Paper money

The living room the first day you bring in the fresh cut Christmas tree

Spearmint chewing gum

Last summer’s canvas camping tent, this summer

Sprite soda

Tomato vines growing in a garden

An indoor swimming pool

Hot tea

New clothes from the mall

Crayola Crayons

A rainstorm on a hot, muggy day

The first day you open the windows and know Spring is here

Fingernail polish remover

Granny Smith apple peels

Cooking cabbage

Sliced watermelon....

And you awesome commenters added:

"Because I live in Mexico, salsa smells the most green (Yes, it's made from small green tomatoes so it's green.) and I love it!"  -- Clarissa Draper from Listen to the Voices

"Fresh veggies whether they're green or not. Dirt smells green to me...or the promise of green." -- Palindrome from Musings of a Palindrome

"Our hut. The walk to it and the bush round it. Just thinking bout it makes me feel homesick." -- Nicole MacDonald of Damsel in a Dirty Dress

"...dirt smells green to me too. So do apples and apple pie." -- Holly (Southpaw) at Holly Ruggiero

"...grasshoppers
mango skin
green bananas
marsh grass
lizards
tree leaves
fresh cut grass
fried green tomatos..." -- Lenny from Lenny's World

"Chorta! A kind of bitter spinach, silver beet veggie, eaten here in Greece, boiled, and smothered in olive oil and lemon juice. But be careful of the furry roots, they can sometimes catch you off guard! In Australia, the Greeks go searching the edges of public football fields for it :o) And they find it too!" -- Jessica from The Alliterative Allomorph

"Limes, but not just limes, limes in an ice cold corona, in a hammock, lying on the wonderful white sandy beach listening to the waves crash as I remain in heaven. Who wouldn't love the smell of green?" -- Jen at Unedited

"...I'd have to say a summer breeze coming through an open window." -- Karen Gowen from Coming Down the Mountain

"The smell of the ocean during an east wind..." -- Liza from Middle Passages

"Brussel sprouts and broccoli - 2 of my favourite veggies! Really :)" -- Jemi Frazer at Just Jemi

"Freshly laundered money and the saps who don't take the time to notice." -- Elaine Smith at WordSmithing

"did anybody say a really fresh salad? My husband is the salad master, and he makes the freshedst salads with celery and bell pepper... There are other colors, but celery and bell pepper are major green smells... :D" -- Leigh at That's Write

"Lettuce and spinach smell of green to me. :)" -- Lindsay (a.k.a. Isabella) of Adventures In Writing

"To me, green is freshly cut grass." -- Talli Roland.

"Green to me is the tall pines on a mountain." -- Patti Nielson

"I'd have to add the ocean, at least where I live. There's a subtle algae, marine life, humid scent that smells more green to me than blue (which is fresh laundry...for some reason, that's blue)." -- Wendy Ramer from On 'n On 'n On

"The smell of the Aussie bush after rain." -- Al from Publish or Perish

"Guacamole, Burning Sage although not exactly technically green, Green Apples, Clover, Anything that says it has a Rainforest scent, Pine, Fresh sprigs of spearmint or wintergreen, Parsley, Green Tea Leaves." -- Indigo at Shattered Prose

"Citrus groves. They smell intoxicatingly sweet in spring and fall, which is actually early winter in Florida. We have no fall. But the rest of the year they smell green." -- Terry Stonecrop of Gardner West, Private Eye

"Fresh basil and cilantro." -- Susan Fields

"For me, green apple gummies and summer :)" -- WritingNut from Writing in a Nutshell

"I guess I'd have to say, chardonnay, peppermints, and pine needles all smell green to me." -- Dominique of En Violet

"Mmmm...did somebody say fried green tomatoes...I loves them. :)  Spring smells green to me; new grass, tender plant shoots, damp earth." -- Lola from Sharp Pen/Dull Sword

"My faves from the list are cut grass and unripe bananas." -- Kelly Polark

"There are so many great things that smell green, but I think most of herbs and nature." -- Cherie at Surrounded by Books

"The smell of Fenway Park on a summer night watching a Sox game." -- Gardner West, Private Eye at The Hanky-Panky Season (I love this one! ~ Nicole)

"Turtle shells, empty, that you find on the shore of the lake...

Envy. I thought you all were WRITERS! ;) Envy smells green, the green-eyed monster, come on!

...Green pine cones. I'm not talking about the brown dried cones you find in wreaths, I'm talking about the tight-packed green suckers that are the WMDs of an East Texas Pine Cone War...

You get stung with a green pine cone, you know you've been hit...

...Moss, the kind you find in the lake up near the shore, that snags your hooks and covers your legs and your dogs when you go swimming, the kind you put on your head just for fun, and throw at your friend Amos who beaned you earlier with a green pine cone." -- Eric W. Trent from Digging With Worms (AWESOME answers, Eric! ~ Nicole)

"I especially agree with: rain and cilantro. Herbs smell green to me too. I've got a large green spearmint by my side door that's so bright right now." -- Michelle Teacress

"Green is my daughter's favorite color. Nature knew what she was doing, says Jen, when she made so much green!" -- Ann Best of Long Journey Home

"Green smells like an apple taken right off the tree." -- Amanda Sablan from All That Good Jazz

What smells like the color green to you?  Leave it in a comment and I'll add it to my list!

Our Visit to Le Pont du Gard

This magnificent structure is the Pont du Gard, part of an aqueduct constructed by the Roman Empire in the first century A.D. to carry water 50 kms through the south of France, from Uzès to Nîmes.  Le Pont du Gard was added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1985, and is today one of France's top five tourist attractions.

The Pont du Gard, literally the Bridge of the Gard, spans the river Gard, or Gardon.  Its three levels reach a height of 49 meters and is 275 meters long.  The lower level carries a road, which is now only open to pedestrian traffic.  The third level is the water conduit, which was in use until the 9th century.

This bridge, built in just fifteen years, was constructed entirely without the use of mortar.  Each of its massive stones, many weighing up to six tons, was cut with precision to fit perfectly, eliminating the need for mortar.

A scaffolding system was employed to aid the workers and support the bridge during construction, and remnants of the scaffolding protrude from the bridge's face to this day.  As the bridge rose, workers hoisted the heavy stones using a rudimentary block and tackle system:  

(To give you an idea...)

Me and the kids, on the first level of the Pont du Gard

View of the Gard below, from the bridge.

Sidney, Cody and me next to the gnarled trunk of an enormous olive tree, near the Pont du Gard. 

Cody, in his typical "I'm okay!"gesture, after taking a spill.  Ah, the grace of adolescence!

Sidney, me and my beautiful belle-mere (mother-in-law), Yvonne

To read more about Le Pont du Gard, visit the official website HERE.

Have a wonderful day!

My Muse is not a Method Actress

I took an acting class in college.  I don't know what possessed me, or why I thought I'd enjoy it.  I didn't.  The idea of being an actress was a glimmering pool of water enticing me, and I was the cat that plunged in, only to realize milliseconds later, with claws splayed and ears flat against my head, that it wasn't in my nature to be wet.  Life experiences teach us about ourselves.  That semester I learned I have too many inhibitions to stand on a stage and howl at an imaginary moon at the top of my voice, or hop around pretending I'm a rabbit and then morphing into a human who embodies the physical and emotional characteristics of the rabbit.  Method acting, improv, vocalization -- just not in my nature to explore.


Maybe that's why writing is so appealing to me.  I conjure the character in my mind, and explore her through written words.  I read once on a writer's blog that she liked to get up in her writing studio and physically act out the scene she was crafting, capturing a realistic account of her characters' movements and gestures.  Somehow, I can't even picture myself doing that.  Not from fear of being seen or looking ridiculous.  It just wouldn't feel natural to me.


I prefer to observe people in everyday life.  Always having a notebook handy helps me record what I later use in my writing, but when it isn't polite to spontaneously scribble in public, I store slice-of-life moments in mental files, to be journaled later.


Last week, we adopted a baby kitten -- and yet another opportunity for characterization ideas presented itself.  Getting to know a new pet is surprisingly similar to getting to know a new character.  At first glance, the physical characteristics are noted.  (This kitten looks black, but upon closer examination you see much of her fur is gray with black tips.)  As she becomes more comfortable here and we gain her trust, her true personality begins to shine through.  And, as she is confronted with new challenges (locating her litter box; processing noise from the vacuum cleaner; figuring out what lies beyond the hallway entrance), we see her inner conflicts come into play (she was only a couple weeks old when she was abandoned by her owner, and was later rescued from a drain pipe -- her first instinct when frightened is to hide).


Characters are everywhere, around us and inside us.  To truly capture them is to be a writer.


Here are some pics of Lily-poo, newest princess of our castle:

Too cute for words!

Ooh, scary claws!

Take me to your leader.

Have you ever been inspired for a character by a pet?

Almost eleven...that's five pm in France...

I can't seem to get back into the swing of non-vacation life.  Is jet lag supposed to last a week??  Hindering my return to day-to-day life is the arrival of our newest family member, Lily-poo.  She's a shy, rescued 10-week old kitten who's needed lots of love as she adjusts to our lively home.  Wait until you see her.  She's a real beauty!  (Pics to come...)

Also, my friend and next door neighbor went into premature labor at 34 weeks, and gave birth by c-section to sweet baby boy.  I'm helping her out, watching her two older girls and anything else I can do, while baby and mama are gaining their strength.

But the real problem is my head and heart are still in France. *sigh*  Here are a couple pics of the Eiffel Tower, taken the night before our flight home.  It was the Sunday of the World Cup Finals between Spain and The Netherlands. (Bravo l'España!!)  


These pics were shot at about 9:30 at night.  It doesn't begin to get dark in France in the summertime until well after 10 pm.  

Each of the four anchor towers house an elevator to this first level, as well as staircases for those brave enough to climb, or too reluctant to stand in the long lines for the lifts.  Other elevators can be taken from this first level to the second observation deck, and a single elevator from there takes you to the very top.  In the early years, the top of the tower was the location of Mr. Gustave Eiffel's personal office.  Today it is a restaurant.

We didn't go up, and the growing crowds of World Cup enthusiasts awaiting the match on the giant screens erected on the lawns around the Tower shortened our stay.

Cody, me, and Sidney, beneath the Eiffel Tower

I've only made it to a couple blogs, but I'm looking forward to visiting yours SOON!!!  Have a fab day!