A Little Christmas Adventure

Come on in, cut yourself a slice of fruitcake, dip up a cup of egg nog, and settle down by the fire. What? What do you mean you don't like fruitcake? Of course you don't. No one does. Fear not, we'll serve cookies instead.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It's already getting quite a bit colder here in the Midwest, so I thought you could do with a humorous Christmas adventure from my childhood to warm you up!
A long, long time ago (after the dinosaurs went extinct, but before the invention of the Internet) my cousin and I were left to run wild with the understanding that we wouldn't kill and/or maim each other. I'm older by about 21 months and should therefore be the voice of reason when we planned an escapade. Right? Well, it didn't always happen that way.

The view looked something like this only
with less water and more shag carpeting.

I'm notorious for coming up with harebrained plans. One Christmas Day, riding down the staircase on a cookie sheet seemed like a brilliant plan. We innocently asked for a cookie sheet and were refused. That didn't dampen our enthusiasm for the idea. Lucky for us, there happened to be an unguarded, empty box available for use and no adults in sight. We placed the box at the top of the stairs, which I should add, have no banister. There's a rock mantel a couple of feet from the bottom for stacking wood to put into the fireplace. What could go wrong with this plan?

Due to the differences in our ages and sometimes being forced to share, we often fought over who go to do an activity first. There wasn't enough room in the box for both of us to fit. This time, let's say I was feeling more than a little generous. Christmas spirit and all that. My cousin climbed into the box and I asked if she was ready. She seemed nervous, but agreed that she was. The box tipped toward the edge of the first step. When it was at an angle, I prepared to let go, my scrawny arms straining from the weight. Suddenly, the very real consequences seemed to strike. She wanted out. The staircase is narrow and there wasn't enough room for her to climb out (in retrospect, why not step over the end onto a lower step, but young minds, right?). So we started yelling for help. My grip was slipping, she was struggling to clutch the wall. Finally, when it looked like my arms would be ripped from their sockets, our moms came to find out what the noise was about.

Luckily, we didn't get our butts beaten until we looked like Rudolph on a bad day. We wound up putting a stuffed dog into the box and letting it rip. Neither box nor dog fared so well. However, as an adult, I can solidly reason out that that's because the dog didn't really weigh enough to keep from bouncing everywhere. Say 40 pounds of small child would have handled the descent a little better. Except there's no way she could have navigated that turn and not bashed her head on the mantel. But maybe with some cushioning at the bottom, we could avoid an impromptu trip to the ER. Hmm . . . .

Happy Holidays, y'all. See you next year!

When I'm not here, I'm blogging at Have Novel, Will Edit, hanging out on Facebook, G+, and Twitter.

My son, Oh Wise One

It's cold outside. My husband is at work and the kids are hanging with me while I work on my current WIP.

So my 12 year old son and I are having a
literary discussion. Well, he's talking and I'm trying to edit. The whole time he's rambling, he's swinging the sword he used on Halloween.

Son: What part are you editing?

Mom: I'm working on Chapter 29.

Son: Have you hit the climax yet?

Mom: (Thinking furiously since I do write romance…) Uh, no. Not yet.

Son: So you’re still in the rising action.

Mom: (giggles slip out) Uh, yeah. There’s lots of action going on.

Son: You’re out of the exposition by now though, right?

Mom: Huh? (ducks under swinging sword)

Son: Well there’s five key components to any movie or book.

1. Exposition

2. Rising Action

3. Climax

4. Falling Action

5. Denouement.

Mom: Day old…what?

Son: Here, I’ll draw you a picture. (draws a box split in three sections).

The Exposition is broken into three parts:

1. Setting

2. Characters

3. Conflict

From this start, you build into your Rising Action. (He draws a connecting vertical line up from the box).

Then you hit your Climax (draws a connecting horizontal line). You know in Lord of the Rings when Frodo throws the ring into the lava? That’s the climax.

And it goes into (draws a connecting vertical line down) Falling Action. This is all lthe stuff that happens after the climax.

Mom: Gimme an example (sits straighter, picks up and swings the sword)

Son: Well, after Frodo destroyed the ring, there wasn’t so much gloom in the world. Falling Action. Then there’s dayumah—

Mom: Day-you what?

Son: (grabs pencil again and writes) D-E-N-O-U-M-E-N-T.

Mom: Den-oo-ment?

Son: It’s pronounced day-you-mah. It’s French. It means resolution. You know in old fairy tales when the knight saves the princess locked in a tower? And in the end, it says they live happily
ever after? That’s the Denouement.

Mom: (grabs pencil and writes herself a note) *Contribute more to son’s college education fund*

How many of you have had an ah-ha moment with your kids? Been taught something stunning? Were amazed by young minds? Me...all the time with my boys.

Cheerleaders

The support of my family; another tool in the writer's arsenal.

"Come on honey, publish lots of books so I can retire and we can move to a cabin somewhere. You can write on your laptop by the fire and I can build stuff out in my shop."

This is my husbands mantra. He tells it to all our closest friends. He even told it to all the people in the local bar we went to the night I signed my first writing contract.

We both know statistically speaking the chances are slim that he will ever retire before the age 80, but this is our dream. My writing has become a shared dream of my entire family.

I have been writing with a pad and paper for 10-15 years. It wasn't until last year when my husband bought me my first laptop for Christmas, I got serious about writing, joined a critique group, and started querying on a regular basis.

The difference between having a vague dream in the back of my head along with a compulsive hobby, and reaching out to the writing community to learn what needed to be done was a push from my husband, not to mention mother, mother-in-law (who just wants to flaunt that her daughter-in- law is an author to all she knows). These are the people who pick me up when the agents, reviewers, and writing world in general slap me around.

There have been days when I thought I was crazy. There are millions of aspiring authors out there. Some good, some very good, who am I to think I can stand up in their company? When my head goes there, I need only look around at my three fans, who love and adore me. No matter what crap I write they think it's bloody fantastic. They cheer and tell me how I am their favorite author, and it is enough for me to pick myself up by the boot straps and solider on.

Who is on your side? There is someone who looks to you with adoration in your writing crusade. Someone who smiles when you get your 40th no-thank you letter (or worse, no response to your query at all) and tells you "Who cares what the rest of the world thinks. Keep going! You can do it."
Who is it? Even if it's your dog, or guardian angel, this is your chance to toot their horn.