Been Playing Hooky

Happy New Year! I’m starting 2011 with an “Unexcused Absence.” I took the holidays off and gave myself a real holiday from all forms of non-personal communication. For the past month I tried to avoided my computer, phones, mail….and focus on here and now.

And dang if it didn’t feel just like it did when I used to play hooky from school: an intoxicating blend of guilt and pleasure.

It wasn’t easy. E-mail is especially hard for me to ignore. I really had to work at not check in often. Let’s say I sort of managed (only because for much of the holidays I did not have access to the internet.) In the end, I give myself a C-. (I flunked business e-mail). Now I’m getting those where- the-heck-are-you-and-why-haven’t-you-responded-and-did-you-fall-off-the-edge-of-the-world notes.

I ended the holidays at a Creativity Energizer Retreat with my writing bud, Marty. Each January, we sequester ourselves with piles of new books, favorite snacks and libations, and a few problem manuscripts. We set a schedule for the days and stick to it. It’s amazing how revitalizing it is. It was especially so this year as both of us began the retreat feeling as though we hadn’t a fresh idea in our heads and should quit writing all together. We ended refreshed and overflowing with creative promise. Wooooo!

Prior to the retreat, we met with a fellow writer, Kathy Duval to discuss New Year’s Goals (notice I didn’t say resolutions? I resolved not to resolve this year.) “Write It Down, Make it Happen” Kathy said, explaining how every year she and her family write down personal Dreams/Hopes/Desires they have for themselves and put them away. The following New Year’s they pull out the prior year’s notes and see how many they had achieved.

Kathy’s family is not alone in doing this. Google the phrase: “write it down, make it happen and you’ll find scads of stories. There’s even a book detailing the process. If you are so inclined to read it, here’s the Amazon link.

Today, the GGs, my creativity group, are holding our gathering of 2011. To kick off the New Year, we are going to Write it Down/Make it Happen! Why don’t you join us?

Write it Down, Make it Happen!

Supplies:

• 5 small pieces of paper
• colorful pens,
• your personal Dreams/Hopes/Desires (Note: personal—this is for you!,
• a small colorful box, envelope or sachel to use as a Dream Keeper.

Directions:

Close your eyes and take a few minutes to think about what you want, what you really really want to happen in your life. Do not censor yourself. Do not limit yourself. Be honest! Dream big!

Cull your Dreams/Hopes/Desires to a short list of 5.

Do not share them with anyone! Do not talk about them!

Write each of these 5 Dreams/Desires/Hopes on separate pieces of paper.

Reread each, fold it, and put it away in your Dream Keeper.

Secure your Dream Keeper in a safe place (remember where you put it so you can retrieve it next year.)

That’s how you do it! Now get busy

Watch out 2011! We Have Arrived!

MIND YOUR STUFF!

The song goes: It's that time year, when the world falls in love. The words in my version are slightly different: It’s that time of year when...I FALL APART! Seems I’m not the only one. The number of items left behind in airports during the holidays is about 1000 times higher than during the rest of the year. How do I know? Because the gals in the Continental Airlines Lost and Found at the Houston airport (hidden behind baggage carousel #7) told me when I stopped in looking for my laptop.

I don’t usually use my computer on planes, but I was fast approaching an article deadline (it was due that day)  and I needed to make some final revisions before submitting it. So, I took it out of its happy green case, stowed my bag in the overhead and carried the little black, blends-right-in-with-the-floor laptop with me to my seat. It was a bumpy ride from Denver but I pushed through and made the revisions—brilliant ones, if I say so myself—and got the article and photos all ready to send. Tres satisfied, I stowed my trusty laptop it in the back-of –the-seat pouch and pulled out my book.

However, when landing time came around, the flight attendant informed us that back-of-the-seat pouch was not an “FAA approved laptop storage bin….”

Fast forward a day, a zillion frantic phone calls, a lot of hand wringing, head bashing,  and more phone calls to the next night: As I waited at the Continental Baggage Claim desk to see if my laptop was the one found on the flight I had taken, but tagged with Bernard Something or other’s name,  two baggage handlers came in pushing wheelchairs heaped with  more lost and found items.

“How many more days til Christmas?” someone called out. They all laughed and someone else remarked, “We are going to get buried in stuff before the holidays are over.”

Seems the holidays are the major lost item times--and the closer it gets to Christmas and New Years, the more the mounds of lost items grows. Good news: over 90% of lost items are turned in, the Lost and Found folks told me. But not everyone claims them. “You should see all the laptops, Nintendos, cameras, phones, books, coats, we are holding,” the agent said. I was hoping my laptop was among them while trying not to get my hopes up too high. It hadn’t been the best of evenings…

On the way to the airport—my friend, Joy, rode with me—we’d had to pull over to let a fire truck zoom past.  A little ways farther up the highway, something happened and everyone in our lane had to slam on the brakes. You know the squealing, screeching, honking, veering out of the lane kind of forced stops that make you  scrunch your shoulders and listen for the crash? Fortunately, no crash followed, but when we started back up the car was abnormally loud. Just as we reached the exit from I45 to the Beltway 8 the reason for the noise became apparent: we blew a tire. We were riding on the rim. This was 9:30 at night, in not the best part of town (is under an overpass ever good?) I pulled on the emergency flashers and we inched the car to a lighted parking lot ahead.

The parking lot turned out to be that of a way-too-popular- with- the- wild-bunch sports bar in a strip center with a lingerie shop named “Candy’s.” Guys were drag racing motorcycles, burning rubber, blaring bass with trunks vibrating.  In limp two middle-age crazies in a giant, gold, Chrysler “pimp mobile.”

Joy and I are not namby-pamby’s. I’ve changed a tire. I knew how. We knew how to muscle the suitcase out of the trunk, and our bags of holiday shopping, and to tuck our purses in the back seat and lock the doors. “And put our phones in our pockets, just to be sure.” What we didn’t know was how to use the new-fangled jack, or where the heck the lug nut taker-offer was.

But…we were right in front of a tire store (with the garage bays open.) I went in to beg the tire center guys to help us. Reluctantly one followed me out to “see” what was going on. From the way he was barely walking, it was clear he really didn’t want to play “good Samaritan.”

While I was in begging the tire guys, Joy flagged down a young black guy. He was already working at the jack when  tire store reject and I arrived. Soon, the young guy was joined by another (his brother, we found out when we complimented them on their willingness to help.) In less than 15 minutes they had our tire changed, the old one stowed, and our luggage back in the car. "Your Mama would be proud," we told them, "we sure would be if our boys behaved the same." We slipped them a Christmas thank you. (We had to call them back to thank them as they took off as soon as the job was done.) But we noticed later, from their giant smiles, they were happy to have our “thanks.”

But a changed flat and a returned lap top are not necessarily the same thing. Could I get lucky twice? I hoped and waited and hoped. The lost and found handler was smiling as big as I was when I turned on my little black ASUS and the familiar “Kelly B” password square popped up.

Laptop and  flat tire in toe, we zipped over to the rental car office, exchanged our car for another one—and a delightful girl there, with bright eyes and a happy giggle, helped us transfer our stuff to the new, identical gold Chrysler, and away we went.

This was definitely one of those character definers:

One kind of person would dwell on the lost laptop, traffic scare, and flat tire and call it “rotten luck."

Another kind of person would consider the two young guys who stepped up to help a couple of strangers, the returned lap top, that it was a rented car, and  call it “great luck.”

What do you say?

I say: It's that time of year so...MIND YOUR STUFF!

Happy Christmas!

World Premeire of YOUR MOMMY at Caughlin Ranch!

There is nothing, nothing, absolutely, positively nothing as thrilling as sharing a new book with kids! With readers! Thanks to my niece, Grace, I had the chance to do that Friday. Here's Grace--and my brand new book, Your Mommy Was Just Like You (which won't even be in stores until March!)

I'm in Reno visiting my family. My mom and  big brother, Joe, sis-in-law Joanne and my talented, smart and georgeous Grace and her brother Devin (equally talented and smart but more handsome than georgeous) live here. Grace is in the 3rd grade at Caughlin Ranch Elementary. I was thrilled when she invited me to visit her class--and especially happy her teacher, Samantha Fryer, said it was all right!

1st we looked at the globe to see where I had come from to visit!

We talked about writing and illustrating and where story ideas come from--and I shared my famous, never fail trick for thinking of story ideas (Shhhhhh! Don't tell!). Then we read DANCE Y'ALL DANCE and admired Terri Murphy's incredible art!

Next we took a vote on which book to read next. Lots of kids wanted me to read NOT NORMAN, a GOLDFISH STORY, because they were familiar with it. But, in the end they voted for YOUR MOMMY WAS JUST LIKE YOU illustrated by David Walker. And so, for the first time in the history of the world, I read YOUR MOMMY to students!

Afterward, we had had had to read YOUR DADDY WAS JUST LIKE YOU....it was the fair thing to do!

And then, even though we could have gone on reading and talking and asking questions all day, it was time to leave. But, before I left, we had all posed for a group photo! Thank you, Grace, for inviting me to visit your class. Caughlin Ranch is a fantastic school and Mrs. Fryer's 3rd grade class is the best!

Thank you for making me welcome! Write on! Kelly

Yo, Abilene ISD! Vote for Dad and Pop!

Let's hear it for Fathers!!! Dad and Pop is a finalist for the Abilene, Texas, ISD Mockingbird Award!

Tweet your Friends! Sing out loud!

Not Norman Goes E with Nook

Not Norman, A Goldfish Story is moving into the techno world. Our favorite goldfish story has been chosen as one of the first books to be published through Barnes & Noble's NOOK Kids color e-reader. According to the folks at Candlewick Press, “The electronic version will be very true to the physical edition, maintaining the look of the spreads and the feel of the page turns. There won't be any audio, animation, or other enhancements; the only change is that readers will be able to click on the text in order to zoom in and make it easier to read.”

If you’d like to experience Nook books for kids click onto Barnes and Nobles website: Nook Color for Kids. As part of the promotion, for a time NOOK Kids B&N is allowing customers to sample Not Norman, A Goldfish Story "the E-Book" on their computers.

Thanks Giving

I used to think author photographs on book jackets were stony-faced and black and white to make readers think the writers were seriously brilliant, thus implying their work was brilliant and deserved reading. Now, after a few decades spent writing (with varied success) I think those photos are printed in shades of gray because the authors in them are gray—morose—miserable even, because writing is hard. Even humorist, columnist, satirist, Dave Barry, author of more than 30 books and Pulitzer Prize winner in journalism, a guy I imagined spent his days chuckling as he clicked away on his keyboard, finds it hard. The Summer 2010 Author’s Guild Bulletin published a snippet from The New Your Times Magazine interview in which Barry described his writing routine:

“Get Coffee. Stare at screen. Write a bunch of things that aren’t any good. Then comes that moment when I’ll say, ‘That’s still not any good.’”

Am there…do that! Which begs the burning question: If writing is so bloody hard, why do it?

In the same issue of the AG Bulletin, Lisa Grunwald, suspected author of Primary Colors, actual author of The Irresistible Henry House (named the “Best Book of 2010-so far”) answered the question:

“Some days, it’s torture,” she said. “But just that business of writing a good sentence—it’s authentically joyful.”

It’s a joy to devote this day to focusing on what is right in my life, to recognize and give thanks for all I have—including the ability to write, the mind to imagine, the time to dream, and the desire to strive for good sentences, one after another after another…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Life As We Knew It

It’s Friday, Nov 5, 2010. A warm bright day in Jakarta. As I usually do, after waking I called folks back home, made a cup of coffee, and sat down to check e-mail. As it usually does, my e-mail brought some good stuff, and some issues for me to grumble about. Then I read the news:

“Eruptions at Mount Merapi are still continuing and with increasing intensity. And it would seem that the recent earthquake off West Sumatra may have also contributed to increased activity of other volcanoes – with some 19 out of 68 volcanoes in Indonesia having been given yellow status – that is, a heightened level of alert due to escalating activity – including Anak Krakatau. Authorities in response have declared a no-go zone within 2 kilometers of Anak Krakatau. Meanwhile relief efforts have been hindered at the Mentawai Islands, West Sumatra due to bad weather.”

Here I am focusing on my petty issues when a few hundred miles away—the distance from San Diego to LA or New Orleans to Houston—volcanoes, poisonous gas billowing, lava, rock and ash spewing volcanoes are erupting. The caretaker of the mountains spirit is dead, along with at least 92 others.  A friend who lives about 40 km from Merapi said "the ash is falling like snow."

As events  often do, they brought to mind a book: Life As We Knew It by Susan Pfeiffer. This book, with its tsunamis, rising water, erupting volcanoes, storms, devastation and deaths did to me what Orson Wells’ broadcast of War of the Worlds must have done to listeners during its day. It terrified me—and captivated me—and is still haunting me—more with every day’s news. Written as Pennsylvania teen Miranda’s diary, this futuristic-cautionary tale is a real-time account of Miranda and her family’s struggle to survive after an asteroid knocks the moon off course. Pfeiffer’s Miranda makes my bitch, moan, and complaining feel normal. Even after these worlds collide,  Miranda sweats the small stuff, fights with her mom, longs for romance. I like that in her.

News like this, books like this, make it hard for me to go about my business. It might be different if I were a health service provider or provided a service. But I’m not and I don’t. I write. And when I’m not writing I plant flowers, make frivolous hats, organize parties, or go, as I am scheduled to today, for a mani-pedi and cream bath. It’s difficult to carry-on with such blatantly hedonistic pursuits in the midst of so much horror. It makes me feel like Nero.

So, instead of doing what I usually do, I wandered around the house wondering: what should I be doing?

Should we change who we are because what we are isn't noble or necessary? Should a cat stop being a cat?

Then I remembered the 2001 holiday season. Some society maven (maybe the breakfast cereal heiress?) was thrashed by the media for holding her annual holiday fete that year. Popular opinion dictated that in the Wake of the 911 Twin Tower attacks no one should make merry—especially not to the tune of U.S. millions. Her response (I paraphrase): You give your way; I give mine.” She then published an itemized bill for the party and suggested critics consider how many people she is employing and how, by throwing the party, she was doing her part to bolster the suffering economy.

She had a point. Maybe the best thing I can do, especially considering what I do, is follow her example. And, as Sam told the radio talk show host when she asked how he was going to get over the death of his wife, Maggie:

“[I’m going to]get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out all day.

And after a while I won't have to remind myself to do it.

And then after a while I won't remember how perfect things were." -  script from Sleepless In Seattle

Everything I know About Writing I Learned from a Musical

From Gypsy, the musical based on the life of infamous Burlesque stripper, Gypsy Rose Lee, (Styne, Sondheim & Laurent 1962) I learned “You Gotta Have a Gimmick.” Translation: What’s your hook? If you can’t tell me in one sentence what your story is about, then you aren’t sure….and make it sticky (ala The Tipping Point)! From My Fair Lady, based on Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, (Lerner and Lowe 1956) I learned “Now once again, Eliza, where does it rain?/ On the plain! On the plain!/And where’s that soggy plain?/In Spain! In Spain” and “Ay not I, O not Ow, Don't say "Rine," say "Rain.” Translation: Practice makes perfect and grammar counts.

From Mary Poppins (Richard and Robert Sherman 1964) I learned how to deal with critique and rejection letters: “A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down…”

But the most important lesson of all, the life lesson that has helped me focus, direct my energies, and define what I want to achieve through my writing and for my life came from The Music Man (Meridith Willson, 1957). Professor Harold Hill, a smooth-talking, womanizing, flim-flam man cons the “good people” of River City, Iowa,  into buying band instruments and uniforms for their boys under the guise of forming a “town band.” Professor Hill (Robert Preston in the movie)—who can’t read music or play an instrument—instructs the boys using “The Think System,” asserting that music can be learned just by thinking it.

At the climax of the show, a moment that still stops and then warms my heart, the boys, in their ill-fitting uniforms and wielding their shiny new instruments, are assembled in the gym. The tar is hot, a bag of feathers handy....Love interest, Marion the Librarian (Shirley Jones in the movie version) snaps a pointer in half and hands it to the handcuffed Professor. It’s do or be done to time for good old Harold.

Professor Hill raises the pointer, cocks his head, squeezes his eyes closed and implores: “Think, boys, think!”

And they do. Every boy in that room blows, bangs, or beats his instrument with every drop of musicality he  has. And I’ll be danged if they don't make music!  It’s not perfect; the band is far from on key or in time, but those boys play music! Before our eyes the motley crew become a shining, high-stepping brass band—76 Trombones strong. “That’s my Barney!” one dad calls out (our family’s ataboy!)

The current name for it is the  “Art of Abundance” defined as:  “ The secret to getting the goals you set begins with setting an intention -- a powerful tool that generates results because it reprograms your brain to see the truth: That you are easily and effortlessly accomplishing what you desire.”Oprah touts it, preaches it, devotes programs to it. Books like The Secret and The Passion Test teach it. Before all of them, Meridith Willson had it (it may have taken 8 years and 30 revisions, but he proved it with The Music Man.): The Think System.

You can do it! As sure as those boys played those instruments, you can do it--whatever your IT is. You can write that poem, that play, that book! You can achieve everything you want…but first…first….first: You have to Think It.

To paraphrase Professor Harold Hill “Think, Writers. Think!”