I'm Trying Not to Read Too Deeply Into These

N's been practicing his cursive this summer by writing little stories, completely unprompted. Here are two he handed me just the other day.

I like to call this first one "Em's vocation"

My family is the best family in the whole earth. I love them so much. My uncles and my mommy and daddy does writing, my sister does playing with her friends, and I play golf. The end.

And Baroy likes to call this one "Oedipus Lives"

Mommy you are the best mommy ever. I love you sososososososo much. You are the best mommy ever. I love you. I hate when you and daddy do kissing and sex. The end.

(Just so you don't labor under the impression that we have constant public orgies in my house, N first asked me, "Mommy, do you and daddy do s-e-x?" before writing this. Glad to know he understands the importance of research in writing nonfiction.)

An Elephant Wearing Tap Shoes

Em's 7th grade Language Arts class is doing a segment on poetry. Today they were each asked to write a poem of sorts--a series of similes and metaphors about a particular person.

Em chose to write about N.

He plays golf like a professional.
He is as quirky as an elephant wearing tap shoes.
He is as handsome as a male model ready for a photo shoot.
He can be as annoying as a dog begging for food.
But overall, my brother is a treasure that is special to me.

In Which Anne Lamott Justifies My Blogging

Anne Lamott did a book-signing and -reading on the campus where I work last night. Here's how much of a fan I am: I went. By myself. I don't do those sorts of things, ever. Especially midweek, when it means more time away from my kids.

But it was Anne, so it was different.

(And yes, I know she's one of those writers who many people love to hate. But the criticisms--of self-absorption and indulgence--well...let's just say that I can't imagine too many bloggers who have the right to level that particular accusation at any one else with a straight face.)

She was reading from her new novel, Imperfect Birds. But I was there for the non-fiction. I was there for Anne. And she did not disappoint. She made me laugh out loud several times, made me nod my head in agreement several more. And then, in one simple sentence--a response to a question from the audience--she made me pull out my notepad and write down her words, right then and there.

The question was about how you might use writing--the teaching of writing--as a way to reach the sorts of at-risk kids that her new book is about. She stopped for a moment, told the man who'd spoken that it was the first time she'd been asked that question, then spent more time answering it than she had reading from the book.

She rambled a bit; she probably does that anyway, but she was clearly tired, at the end of a very long book tour, almost home. At one point, though, she talked about where kids--where we all--find our material. She talked about giving kids permission to write about whatever is inside them, and whatever is outside them as well. And then she said, "You own what happens to you. And if people don't want you to write about it? Well," and here she smiled slightly and shrugged, "they should have behaved better."

If people don't want you to write about it, they should have behaved better. If that isn't the blogger's motto*, I don't know what is.

*Here's the ironic part: Earlier in the day, I'd read an interview with Anne in Salon that came out on Monday. In it, she speaks somewhat deprecatingly of blogging, saying she doesn't think she would have been a blogger, that she's too much of a perfectionist. [It's near the end of the piece, if you're interested.] While she was signing the copy of Grace (Eventually) I'd just bought, I thought of that--and of how she'd basically just summarized and justified blogging for me during her speech. Suddenly, I heard myself talking. "I know you said in Salon that you wouldn't be a blogger," I said. "But I just wanted to let you know that you...your books...they're a big part of why I blog." She looked up at me then, curiously, and said, "And do people read your blog?" And I grinned. "Some," I said. "Enough."

A Haiku, by Em

Em is a writer. At 12, she has a much more mature 'voice' than I did at her age. It's in the vocabulary and--I think more interestingly--in the innate sense of humor, of irony, of sarcasm that she's developed.

(Her spelling and grammar, on the other hand, are atrocious. She gets that--along with a good amount of her talent--from her dad, whose ability to write dialogue is astonishing, but who, for instance, puts arbitrary questions marks at the end of statements. Drives me insane.)

Last night, as just a small part of her English homework, she had to write a poem. It wasn't five minutes between the time she told me she was going to do a haiku and when she came out, grinning, to read me what she'd come up with:

I enjoy talking.
I probably talk too much.
Just ask my teachers.

Self-awareness. It's a key writerly trait, don't you think?

A Public Service Message from N

Dear Family,

You know the heater near the bathroom? I accidentally dropped some H2O on the heater by accident. It smells bad. Don't go in the hallway!

P.S. It smells bad!

You know, I had written a whole post about this note, which I found on the white board in the kitchen the other night, right before N went to bed. It talked about the challenges he's had in writing, and why this one note is a real breakthrough.

But you know what? It took all the fun out of it. (H2O! He slays me!) And so, instead, I'm going to say only this:

It really did smell bad.

Writing What You Don't Understand

I've been putting off this press release for days. The researcher's asked me twice about where it is; I've given him vague, half-true responses about overwork and other releases and other deadlines. Here's what's whole-true: I've been putting off writing it because I don't understand it.

I write about high-level science at one of the top universities in the world. No, seriously. The world. I never really understand the science I write about, because it's the state of the art in its field; it's stuff that the scientists themselves are only just beginning to understand after spending their entire careers looking at this one small set of questions. If I could really, truly understand what I was writing about every time, I'd be...too smart. Not-real smart. Impossibly smart.

I am not that smart. I am not even close.

But that's not the kind of "don't understand" I mean here. For every ten releases I write, I am seriously, significantly in the dark on one or two. This time? I wish I could find my way through the vacuum of my complete not-understandingness back to just seriously, significantly in the dark.

It's a little scary, and it's more than a little embarrassing. Because while I'm not impossibly smart, I don't like to admit that I'm stupid. And when it comes to this research, this release...I'm stupid, all right.

The thing is, I've been here before in this job; this is the second, maybe the third, time I've been this lost on a press release. And yet, in the end, I will write the release, and it will, with some work on my part and help from the researcher, make sense. I'll define terms, and look things up, and try to weave the words around in such a way that it makes a comprehensible whole, without drowning my reader in jargon and explanation and just a flood, a verbose avalanche, of words. It'll make sense...and yet, I still won't have a clue what this research is about. I still won't understand it. At all.

It struck me, as I stared at the blank page that should be this release just moments before clicking over here to write this (oh, please...if you didn't realize this post is little more than a procrastination tool by now, you don't know me very well...), that this is a feeling that a lot of us blogging parents have, especially those of you (us? me?) with kids who have special needs. And especially those of you (us? me?) whose kids' needs aren't so easily discerned.

So many of the posts I read--and oh, so many of the posts I write--are exactly this: Descriptions of stuff that's happening, of complex thought and sensory processes playing out before our still-ignorant eyes. In my case, I realize, so often I see what's going on, I watch oh-so-carefully, and I try and try and try to digest it and make sense of it so that I can report on it. And I do...but I don't understand. So often, my child--like many of your children, I know--gets sucked up by that vacuum of my complete not-understandingness.

And yet, in the end, I will write these blog posts, and they will make sense...and yet I still won't have a clue what is going on, what my child is all about. I still won't understand him. At all.

But I'll keep trying. And maybe, after defining my terms and looking things up and weaving my words, I'll make some progress. One can only hope.

Be Good

I've decided I need to stop trying to do everything, and actually BE GOOD at one thing. Or maybe two.

It's the first day back in the office. It's too soon. Or maybe it's been too long. Somewhere, I've lost the thread of gratefulness--for a job, for a regular paycheck, for something interesting to do--and all I can see is where I'm not. Home. With my kids.

I spent entirely too much time this vacation on a freelance project for which I apparently underbid; it turned out to take up much more of my time than I'd assumed. It's because I can't do things halfway, which is a good thing, I know. Or at least I believe that to be the case. Or at least I need to believe that to be the case. But sitting here this morning, realizing how much of my vacation was consumed by that not-doing-things-halfway deal, I began to get a little sad. Which of course began to snowball into a lot of sad, since that's what sadness does. My little I-wasted-time sad became why-aren't-I-using-that-time-to-do-things-I-really-WANT-to-do sad (answer: because the things I want to do don't pay, or at least don't pay in time for the mortgage this month or next). Which quickly branched off into why-isn't-my-blog-what-I-want-it-to-be sad (answer: because I don't put enough time into it), and why-haven't-I-written-a-novel-yet sad (answer: see previous). Which sprouted a few even smaller branches of sadness, involving things I'd like to read, and crafts I'd like to do, and ways I'd like to be there for my children but am not. Each of them with their own version of sad.

And so I tweeted: I've decided I need to stop trying to do everything, and actually BE GOOD at one thing. Or maybe two.

Which is all well and good, especially at this time of year. Sure, it's a few days late for resolutions and goals, but I'm well within the overall time frame. I could take this one on, make it my own, try to get rid of the sad by pursuing ways to be Not Sad.

Except even in my resolution, I'm wavering. One thing...or two. Truth is, I don't even know which one I want to do. And if I did, I'm not sure I have a clue as to how to do it. How DO you take a five-year-old blog (or at least a five-plus-year history of blogging) and make it stand out, make it work for you? How DO you find the time for a novel when all the other immediate needs crowd out any time you might be able to make for it? How DO you call yourself on your bullshit, knowing full well that plenty of people do what you can't seem to do?

Of course, all that negativity is the sad talking, methinks. I'll settle back into my new old routine in a week or two, and the sad will go away, and I'll figure it out. Or I'll keep on keeping on, but it won't make me sad.

But for now, I wallow. And try to figure out how to be good. At one thing. Or maybe two.

Let Go

I've been doing this for well over 20 years now, this writing for money thing. And yet, the moment of letting go remains terrifying for me.

It happens every single time. I finish an article, a book, a press release. I put it into an email for an editor to look at, or a scientist to review; I post it on a website for the world to read. And then, with almost as much inevitability as my next breath, comes the panic.

Sometimes it's brief--a blip, an extra heartbeat, maybe a catch in my throat. Sometimes, though, it nips at me for hours, on and off. Today's was a true nipper. I sent off a press release to the scientists about whom I was writing, asking for their changes and comments. It was a good release, I was sure of it. Well, not sure. Fairly sure. As sure as I ever am.

But then, half an hour or so passed, and the doubt started creeping in. I rarely hear back quickly; scientists are busy doing science, most of the time, and it often takes hours for them to be in a place where they're ready and able to review a document. But surely--my brain hissed at me--one time, the delay will mean more than that. One time, my brain said, it will be because they hate what you've written, think you're an idiot. One time, it will be because you got it all wrong, misunderstood the entire study. Who do you think you are, anyway? Like you couldn't get it wrong? Like you're so smart?

And just like that, the panic set in. It followed me on a walk to a restaurant to meet with a writer; it jabbed at me while we ate, then followed me back to my office. Where there were no emails in my inbox from the scientists in question. And so it jabbed away some more while I tried to do some other tasks...jab, jab, jab...until I finally gave in and contrived an excuse to email them again, asking if they'd received my initial mail, you know how these campus email servers are, just wanted to check, no pressure, no rush.

And received a response within an hour telling me what a great job I'd done on the release, how there were only a couple of very small changes, thanks for all your work.

So dumb. So unnecessary. So classic me.

Last night was the worst, though. I'd posted a press release online--a release already approved by several scientists, as well as gone over by some copy editors. It was after midnight--I'd needed to get it up on the site asap for reasons that are too boring and complicated to go into--and I was working on my laptop, in bed, ready to roll over and go to sleep once this task was done. All I did was copy, paste, fill in a form, and push a 'submit' button.

But as soon as that was done, the terror swooped in. As planned, I'd put the laptop on the night table, turned off the light, and slid under the covers. And then my heart started to pound. What if I'd pushed the wrong button, posted it in the wrong place? Surely, somewhere in that release was a mistake, a big mistake, a life-altering error, something I was bound to regret. In a release. A press release. About subduction zones. (No, it's not only you. The panic made no sense to me either. But, of course, that defines panic, that non sense.)

I timed it. It took more than 45 minutes for my heart to stop thudding, for my finger and cheeks to stop tingling, for my chest to loosen up. I was asleep within minutes, after that.

This is what I love doing, mind you. I love writing. I love learning about all sorts of really cool scientific findings and then telling other people why they're really cool. I'm good at it. I know it in my heart, my gut.

Now someone just needs to convince my brain.

It's Up

My new piece for Time, I mean! [Insert visual of me doing a little "oh yeah, oh yeah, it's my birthday, it's my birthday" dance. Or not.]

You can read it here. If you want to, I mean. No pressure. (Read it, read it, read it, read it.) For the record, this one was much less-heavily edited. Almost as if I'm starting to get the hang of this whole writing thing!

If you like your magazines in solid form--like I do--it'll be on newsstands possibly starting as early as today, but certainly starting on Monday, when the last issue leaves the stands.

This has been a Private Service Announcement. We now return you to the previously scheduled ranting and angst.

Did I Mention...?

...that I've been working on my next piece for Time? It'll be on newsstands sometime in the middle of the month; the cover date will be June 23, but as I found out last time, that's the date the issue goes OFF the stands, not the date it goes on. I'm up to my neck right now in edits (much lighter this time, which really pleases me) and fact-checking queries, which is why the last time you heard from me was Friday, despite the fact that much has happened since then. FWIW, the piece is on kids and obesity, and what parents can (and can't) do. It's part of another one of those special sections, this time on kids and fitness. And here's the best part: It only made me about half as crazy as the last one did! I didn't once write a post here about how I'm a fraud, after all. I may have laid on my bed moaning that I'd never work in this or any other town again, but I kept it all to myself. PROGRESS!

...that I'm going to have to bend over and take it up the...um...you-know-what regarding the whole Issue of the Stairs? Hard to understand, when I was just in full-on I'm-going-to-take-them-down-and-they'll-never-know-what-hit-them mode. But, see, late last week I took a break from re-reading my scathing letter to the principal, the school district and its lawyers right before sending it, and set it aside for a minute so that I could start composing my letter asking the principal and the school district to consider retesting N based on comments from his teacher and his OT and an observer in the classroom, all of whom think he needs more services than he's getting. And then, all of I sudden, I thought...What are you, INSANE? "Dear Everyone: I know I just threatened you with lawsuits and a public relations nightmare that I'm personally going to engineer, but would you please help me help my kid? I need you to bend some rules for me to do it. I'm sure you'll be happy to do that, since I'm sure you're feeling very generous towards me right now. Love, TC" Yeah. That shuffling sound you hear? That would be me, backing away from that particular fight. (Now, if one of my kids so much as scrapes his or her shin on those stairs, that will be another story entirely. I will eviscerate every one of the people involved in this catastrophe of a decision. But until then...Someone else is going to have to take on The Man. Or noone will. Which is much more likely. And really sad.)

...that the kids had their end-of-the-year "event" at their religious school on Sunday? They each did a collage of photos entitled "My Jewish Life," and they were all adorable. The older kids, including Em, also made up a list of their own "commandments." Em's cracked me up, ranging from things like "You shall not kill" to "You shall not eat in front of the television." But the part that had me clutching my chest from the cuteness was N's. He had apparently had a lot of help in putting his together from his little friends Zach and Lex. And so, at the bottom of N's poster, Zach had written, "By N, Zach, and Lex...The Three Dudes!" And when someone asked to take a photo of them, N got right in between Zach and Lex, and the three of them linked their arms together and grinned identical wide, happy, grins. From behind me, one of the older members of the synagogue commented, "Look at them. Those three are going to run this temple some day. And probably sooner than we think." The best part? This is the kid who hasn't had a single playdate at school, who got invited to one birthday party all year--and that of a kid who invited the entire class--and about whom everyone at school is 'concerned'--a concern expressed with serious faces and frowns and obvious questions about his future. But there in the social hall of his synagogue, my boy doesn't just shine, he leads. He may not be able to put together his own collage, but he has friends who will help him. And for now, that will do. That will more than do.

...that Em was in a recital at school the other day? She's been learning to play the clarinet this year, after a less-than-stellar year on the flute, and she's So Much Better at the clarinet. It's really fun to listen to her. So we went to the orchestra and band recital a week or so back, and then Em told me I should come listen to her do just one song for the third and fourth graders. She told me that the point of this particular recital was to convince the third graders to join orchestra next year (they're not eligible until fourth grade) and to convince any fourth graders who hadn't joined this year to join next year. What she DIDN'T TELL ME when she nonchalantly mentioned that I might like to come hear her, was that this was NOT the whole orchestra. It was a select group of kids, some playing solos, some playing in duos or trios, and Em as part of the clarinet "ensemble," which consisted of just five kids and the band teacher. I didn't even bring a video camera...I just thought it would be more of the same of what we'd seen the week before. But there she was, her first year on clarinet, being singled out to play in an ensemble! That kid is so cool, and so laid back. I hope I grow up to be just like her.

Proof that I am very much on the wrong side of the generation gap

What I wrote (about exercise during pregnancy, for ParentsConnect): If you’ve been hitting the treadmill already, however, feel free to keep on truckin’.

What my editor changed it to: If you’ve been hitting the treadmill already, however, feel free to continue working out (with your bad self!).

What I thought when I saw that change: Oooooohhhhhh, so you mean for this to be read by parents who are UNDER the age of 75! I get it now!

My life in just six words

So I just wrote a memoir in six words. So much easier than the book I've been struggling with for close to four years now.

My memoir (under my real name, not TC): I began when I became Mom.

What's yours?

(The Smith site is totally worth checking out the site even if you don't to write one; some of the entries are hysterical, others poignant, others distrubing. And there was apparently a New York Times blog piece on the book that came out of these entries that has a bunch of 'celebrity' six-word memoirs. My personal favorite is Stephen Colbert's. But that's true in general.)

The Link

It's up, it's up! No, not the stock market (badumbum). My article for Time!

Not that you shouldn't go to the supermarket and buy a copy of your very own. Because not only does the print version have my article, but it also has a version of the publisher's letter that includes an only-slightly-better-than-the-one-I-posted-yesterday photo of me. The one online, sadly, is photo-less.

Still, did you see that byline? And that mention of me in the pub letter as an 'author'? Yeah, I could definitely be in a worse mood.

(I'm sure I'll be returning to angst and depression--and acting like I really care about keeping this blog pseudonymous--soon, soon, soon. It's just that after what may have been my Worst December Ever, I'm really enjoying January. I figure I earned it.)

Articles and Invitations

Invitations first, because I know Green is waiting with bated breath. (No, that's not a typo; baited breath, though often used, is wrong. Yes, yes I am a word geek. And proud of it.)

All was well in Party Planning Land; I'd decided to take the advice given here and just go with N's flow, and was feeling just fine about it. Until they went back to school on Wednesday. Because Wednesday afternoon, he came home and said, "I want to invite Luke to my party. He's funny."

So now we're in negotiations over who else from his class to invite. Because I'm not going to invite Luke and no other kid from the class--especially because I've never, not once, seen him and Luke even LOOK at each other, much less pal around, and also because if there is nobody else from the class here, who will Luke get to hang with? We'll see where this goes from here.

Funny thing is, as I was saying to Kristen the other day (a conversation during which we came to realize that my parents live near her, and hers live really, really near me--which is irrelevant but oh-so-cool): It hadn't occurred to me that one of the reasons he didn't want to invite the kids from his class might have been the simple fact that he hadn't seen any of them for two weeks when we had the initial invite conversation, and that the whole out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing, plus the feeling-shy-when-you-haven't-seen-someone-in-a-while thing (which he has in spades, being N) might be playing a part. I feel dumb now, actually.

As for the article: No, no word yet. I do appreciate the words of support, though I could tell you all the reasons why just being a good writer sometimes isn't enough. Oh, and to make things a little clearer...If you read my comments, you've probably realized that among the people I talked to for this piece were some of my friends (who are also some of my blog readers, obviously). It's true, and it's fine; they were perfect for it, and fabulously helpful. Not to mention that I got to interview them with a strong drink in my hand...and, OK, several in my belly, along with some truly delicious crab dip...on New Year's Eve. Yep; it's a hard-knock life for me.

[Since you guys asked for a scorecard: Paula and her hubby unfortunately didn't make it out of my first round of cuts; Ambre the Spotlight Hogger and her very interesting comments did, but are on a list of possible cuts that I gave to my editor, since the piece is still a bit long. Time will (hopefully soon) tell.]

High Anxiety

When I was in college, I drove people absolutely batty with my personal insecurities. "I'm going to fail, I'm going to fail," I'd wail incessantly before each and every exam, only to sheepishly return, days later, saying, "OK, I know I got an A, but I really did think I was going to fail."

I've been trying to keep that in mind these past few days as I've worked on a not-so-top-secret article for a Very Impressive Magazine Title under somewhat unusual circumstances. (My editor is someone I know very, very well. Working for him combines not only my usual somewhat-suckup-y and clearly daddy-related/this-woman-needs-therapy-badly need to please my editor, whoever he may be, but my much more specific need-to-please-this-specific-person-because-if-his-opinion-of-my-writing-really-really-really-matters-to-me issues.) I've been failing miserably. This morning (well, late last night) I handed in the piece with much, much trepidation. It just felt like so much less than what I'm capable of; it felt like something I'd overthought and overresearched and had way too little fun with, and I'm certain the writing reflects that. It's been so long since I've done a piece of 'real' science writing for any place even resembling the Very Impressive Magazine Title. I felt rusty and awkward, as if I couldn't trust my instincts.

My editor says he won't be able to read the piece for a few days, and that is only increasing my anxiety. I want him to read it NOW. I can't wait days to hear that it sucks, that I've let him down, that I need to do about seven days' worth of work on it in an hour and a half so that it can be published. I definitely can't wait days to hear that they won't be paying me for it; that they're scrapping it. Nor can anyone around my house wait days for me to just shut the fuck up about my insecurities and move on.

I'm going to fail. I'm definitely going to fail.

[If this sounds at all familiar to you--not just this particular type of angst, but the way in which I presented it--it is. I felt oddly deja-vu-ish while writing it, and so checked to see if I'd written it before. Yup. Everything old is old again. I will, however, point out that while the meeting I talked about for that particular day didn't go as badly as I'd thought, I did get fired from that job--well, laid off--just a couple of months later. I don't always get an A in the end.]

High

I'm working on a really cool article for a really major magazine, which I am superstitiously not talking about too much, since I'm sort of convinced I'm going to screw it up and then you'd all be asking me about it and looking for it in the magazine, and I'd just want to kill myself.

But I did just have to say this: It's been a long time since I've done any real science reporting, and I had forgotten just how big of a kick it is to do a really great interview. Don't get me wrong; I hate having to do interviews, because I am insanely phone phobic with people I don't know, and it is almost physically painful to have to dial the number of a relative stranger, even if he or she has agreed to the interview and is waiting patiently for my call. But once the call is underway--and once I determine whether the person on the other end is friendly or aggressive, helpful or annoyed at the interruption, down-to-earth or convinced he's the Medical Messiah--then I can relax and start to enjoy the familiar-after-more-than-20-years-in-this-business feeling of learning something from a master...and learning it before almost anyone else has learned it. (I never said I wasn't competitive.) This isn't investigative reporting; I don't do that, and I wouldn't be any good at it. This is barely reporting at all. Really, what it is is education. And I have always loved learning, especially when that learning involves connecting rather arcane bits of information with a much larger and more relevant subject, and the person I'm talking to helps me to make those connections for myself.

In other words, I'm still just an eighth-grader at heart, waiting for my biology teacher to put a hand on my shoulder and say, "Yes, TC! Exactly! Good work!"

The boost from this morning's interview won't take me very far--especially after the call this morning from the mechanic working on Baroy's car, detailing another $500-plus in repairs he thinks needs to be done but we won't approve because we just don't have it--but it's something. And, right now, I needed something.

Writerly

"How's this sound for the first line of my book report?" Em asks, reading aloud. "A Dog's Life is a heartwarming story about a dog named Squirrel and her adventures through her life as a stray and a companion."

"Nice," I say. "You didn't copy that off the back of the book, though, did you?"

"No!" Em exclaims, affronted. "I don't even have it in front of me! Why would you think that?"

"It's actually a good thing," I see, feeling badly that I brought it up at all. "See, it sounds like the sort of thing they might have written on the back of the book. You just have a very mature style of writing. I just hope that your teacher realizes that that's all you when you hand it in, that's all."

The truth is, Em writes the way she speaks--with a voice that is, often, mature beyond its just-turned-10 years. And sometimes just a little...quirky. I love reading her stories and her essays for her fifth grade class, but sometimes I think I ought to say something to her teacher, to ask him not to focus on her horrendous spelling and her unusual grammar, and to ask him not to question her ability to have thought of and written what she writes. (You know, the way I did in the example above. Because I'm an idiot mother--or, rather, just a plain idiot, whose editor side beats the snot out of her mom side every time she reads something her kid hands to her--and I want the teacher to be better and more nurturing than I.) I think sometimes that I should do this because I feel like maybe this is where her real gifts lie (and no, I don't mean that as in "my child is the smartest and best writer EVAH" but as in "there are ways in which she is special, like most kids; this is probably primary among them"). And, more importantly, I feel like those gifts are fragile. And if she's told to spend too much time focusing on whether she spelled "organisms" correctly or whether the sentence she's written is a fragment or not, the spirit of her writing will shrivel up and die. And I don't want that to happen. For her, but also for me. Because, best I can figure it, reading a story that my child wrote engenders in me a sense of pride that will probably only be beaten by watching her raise my grandchildren. Indeed, for a writer--like myself, like my kid--creating a work of fiction (or even nonfiction, for that matter) is very much like creating new life.

Really, though. It's not her teacher I need to speak with on this topic. It's me, and that damned bully of an internal editor. The fact that I just figured that out in the process of writing this blog entry pretty much reinforces everything I just said above about the importance of writing. It also pretty much defines the word irony.

Our Celebrity Judge Makes Good!

My brother-in-law--the one who judged the "give TC a new name" contest--has a book coming out soon, real soon, like in four days soon. It's a young adult book, which I read way back when it was a novel aimed at adults, and it was really good even then. Word has it it's only gotten better...and if Publisher's Weekly's starred review of it, which just came out, is any indication, word is right.

Check it out: His review is the twelfth one down, the only starred review of the bunch; the book is called Nacky Patcher and the Curse of the Dry-Land Boats, in case you didn't already click on the Amazon link above.

Yay, J! Now we just have to wait for the review copies of my OTHER brother-in-law's young-adult book, which is coming out next spring. And let's not even get into what all four of these boys have written and published in the past...Let's just say it's no wonder I feel just the teensiest bit underaccomplished in this family, what with just two measly not-selling-like-hotcakes nonfiction titles to my name.

(Phew. I thought for a second there I was going to write this whole post sounding all chipper and supportive and proud of J; thank goodness the real, bitter, self-centered me came through at the last minute, huh?)