“Mom, can you get me some of my dark blue paper?” Patch asked
“What dark blue paper?” I answered
“The blue paper in my room.” He meant the stack of multicolored construction paper on a high shelf in his closet. We went to his room and I got down several sheets of blue paper. Then I went on my way, not really paying attention to whatever project that Patch had in mind. Patch went straight to Howard and I overheard his query.
“Dad, can I use your silver pen?”
Howard has some silver sharpie markers that he sometimes uses for signing books. Sharpie markers are not usually turned over to the kids because they’re much more permanent than the washable Crayola markers. Howard and I spent a moment mystified as to why Patch would seek out these particular items. We were soon enlightened when Patch began drawing diagrams of experiments he had seen on Mythbusters. He spent a happy hour drawing pictures and pretending to be a Mythbuster. He quickly moved from the show experiments into imagined experiments of his own. They were evocative little drawings of stick figures meeting all sorts of doom. I particularly liked the one with lightning strikes. I love that he can create his own plans and make them happen even if it is just remembering things we have in our house and knowing how to turn them into a Mythbusters game.

In 2007 I sold a story to a DAW anthology edited by Julie Czerneda and Rob St. Martin. That anthology will finally see print in early March 2009. I’ve already seen and approved galleys and now I have a cover image to share. See the pretty cover:

Edit to add: You can preorder the book through amazon.com click here to go to the ordering page. We’ll also be putting it up in our store for the same price as Amazon, but we have to buy them at full price in order to resell them. This means the only additional profit I will ever see from this short story is if the book earns out its advance and starts paying royalties.

I am waiting for packages. One package is more shipping supplies. I (probably) won’t run out before the supplies arrive, but I’ll be more comfortable once I’m re-stocked. I’m also waiting for two separate shirt re-orders. One was supposed to arrive last Friday. The other won’t arrive until next week. I’m also waiting for at least three packages from Amazon.com. These contain presents. One of them is actually a re-order of an item that I originally ordered used in November. The item never arrived and so I re-ordered a new copy. At least the Netflix movies arrived today on schedule. All those packages clogging the system just for me. No wonder this is the busiest shipping season of the year. It has been so busy that USPS.com has been down sporadically over the last two days. This affects me because stamps.com has to query USPS for cost calculations. It seems even shipping from home requires some waiting at this time of year.

At the same time that I’m doing all this postal waiting, my mind is running. For some reason my subconscious has decided to dredge up a pile of unfinished story ideas and throw them into my conscious thought. This set my brain bubbling with possibilities for possible combinations. It also required me to google Tam Lin and sent me searching through my writers forum in search of advice on how to plot. Characters and feelings come very easily to me, but I keep writing things that are more vignettes than actual stories. So now I’m seeking to fill my brain with some plotting theory in the hopes that some of it will collide with the story fragments to birth new drafts that may grow up to be finished stories some day. Add to that stew, the fact that Howard was doing some thrilling/emotional plotting this morning which I got to read and then talk over with him. His story makes me want to chew my nails even though I know how it ends. What with all the reading and thinking, my brain is now tired. It is tired, but it can not stop. I’m going to have to find something mind numbing to do. Something that allows my brain to follow the train of someone else’s story rather than working hard at creation.

Busy busy all day long, no time to stop and think. Since quiet thinking is the font of good blog entries, I find myself dry when faced with this empty space to fill. If only the things that kept me busy were as intrinsically interesting to others as they are to me. First there was accounting. Then shipping. Then more accounting. Then errands including grocery shopping and a trip to the bank. Then more accounting. Then dinner. And then it is 7:30 pm and I’ve had no leisure time.

I should not complain. Howard almost never works any relaxation times into his days. He tends to be either sleeping or working. It is a good thing that we both enjoy our work so much, otherwise we’d be miserable instead of just being occasionally inclined to gripe.

I’ve stopped buying fancy wrapping paper for gifts. This is not some moral stand about wastefulness. Nor is it some effort at penny pinching. It is simply an acknowledgment that there is no point in buying paper with pictures on it when my children believe that drawing pictures on the package is part of wrapping the present. I think Link was the one who started it. The year he was 8, he carefully wrapped his gifts and then drew a picture of the contents on the outside of the package. He claimed the pictures were hints, but to me they looked like present spoilers. After that all the kids wanted to draw pictures on their packages. This year I just let the kids use my roll of packing paper. They love taking the sharpie marker to the package to draw the pictures. I’m trying to convince them that we could just use regular markers since the paper is not slick, but I guess using the sharpie is extra special. So we’ll be having something of a monochrome present pile.

This year Patch’s gifts are decorated with Legend of Zelda themes. That little stick figure with the pointy hat is Link. (The legend of Zelda Link, not Patch’s brother’s nickname Link.) Zelda Link is having many adventures. On the large package two Zelda Links are facing off against two snowmen with swords. It looks like the Zelda Links are winning because one snowman is down. I’m not sure what is happening on the smaller package, but those might be wolves and I think some of those stickmen are defeated foes. Gleek’s packages run heavily to unicorns and horses. Link’s packages tend to have Kirby or Mario. Kiki doesn’t draw on her packages anymore. Art is too important to her to put effort into a drawing that will be torn off. I looking at the pile of wrapped gifts makes me happy because I know that they’ve put a little of themselves into the wrapping.

Today I was filling orders from our store and I noticed that someone was having some of our books shipped directly to a Toys for Tots coordinator. I loved this thoughtful gesture so much that I threw some extra books into the box. Then I got thinking. This year has been lean for Toys for Tots and similar charitable organizations. So I’ve decided to do what I can to help them out. For every copy of Hold on to Your Horses that is purchase in our store and mailed directly to a charitable organization, I will add a second book at no cost. So if you buy three books and have them mailed to your local battered women’s shelter, I will mail out 6 books.

The website for Toys for Tots lets you look up the addresses of local businesses which accept donations. I would love to see some books go to battered women’s shelters. United Way offices are often collecting points for donations to women’s shelters. Children’s hospitals are another perfect fit for this offer. Books are ideal for helping a child who has to lay in a hospital bed. I will also be happy to consider other worthy charitable causes you think might be benefited by this offer.

Books are what I have to give, but please remember that these organizations benefit greatly from monetary donations made directly to them. They are also in constant need of staple supplies such as diapers. Check with your local United Way offices to see what is needed in your area.

I’m looking for children’s picture books about non-Christian holidays. I want the holidays to be a part of the story, but I’m hoping to find books where the story has more to it than imparting information about the particular holiday. I want to read the books to my kids and I want characters and stories they can identify with as well as learning about holidays. Hannukkah and Kwanzaa are obvious holiday choices, but I want less obvious ones as well. I’d love to find books about Ramadan, the Day of the Dead, Solstice, Mardi Gras, Chinese New Year, Eid Al Fatr, etc.

If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.
Thanks

Edit: It has been pointed out to me that the Day of the Dead is in fact celebrated by Christian people and can therefore be counted as a Christian holiday. This is an excellent point. Another good point is that just because the holiday goes by the same name, the manner of celebration may be very different. So I’m broadening the request. I’ll welcome any holiday book suggestions.

Thanks again.

Gleek plunked her purchase down on the counter and began carefully counting out $4.23. There were pennies involved and so this took a few minutes. Fortunately there was no line behind us and the checker was tolerant. More than tolerant, she was grandmotherly and rather charmed by the scene of a petite seven year old girl carefully counting out change. Money was handed over, then the cashier lifted the item to bag it. Her eye brows lifted as well. Gleek was carefully spending her own money on a wall patch. The cashier put two and two together.
“Doing a repair?” She asked.
“Yup.” Answered Gleek cheerfully. “I kicked a hole in the wall.”
The cashier smiled down at Gleek. “But you’re too little and cute to kick a hole in the wall.”
Gleek smiled back. “I’m cute, but I’m feisty when I’m mad.”

As Gleek skipped out of the store, I pondered whether being smiled and teased by a cashier constituted a reward for the behavior of making holes in walls. Fortunately I think that it is a reward for Gleek spending her own money to repair the damage done. She was sufficiently aghast and repentant earlier.
“I didn’t know walls were so weak mom!” she told me with wide teary eyes. “I’ll never break a wall again!”
I believe her. Gleek is very good at Not Doing That Again. We’re still working on the Not Doing That In The First Place. We’re also working on listening to Mom when she warns you not to pound the wall with your feet no matter how mad you are.

Gleek applied the patch herself. She was fascinated by the process and very pleased with the result. So now we have a patch on the wall going up the stairs. It is obviously a patch, but that is better than being obviously a hole in the wall. And I’m not really one to complain. The patch on Gleek’s hole is smaller and less noticeable than the patch in the front room where I kicked a hole in the wall 8 years ago. Gleek was quite happy to learn that Mom has also been guilty of overestimating the strength of plasterboard walls. And Gleek will now have to save up money again so she can take it to school and buy that pen she wanted. Forgetting to take the money to school was the cause of the tantrum in the first place, which makes it especially appropriate that the money had to be used to repair damage instead.

When Howard came home, Gleek showed him the patched spot. She was extremely pleased with her work. It was a sharp contrast to the red-eyed tearful girl who’d called her Daddy earlier, terrified that he would be mad at her. But she spoke bravely through her tears to tell him what she had done and what she planned to do to make it right. She was so glad to be able to demonstrate that she’d followed through on her commitment.

So the hole is mended and we take a deep breath, ready to move on to whatever comes next.

When I’m chasing a goal or a challenging task I get very focused. I get so focused that it is hard for me to remember to do things like make dinner, pick up kids from school, or change the loads of laundry. Part of the focus is because I want to complete the project before I get distracted. When lose momentum I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get back to work promptly. I’m much better about working steadily than I used to be, but I still have a tendency to marathon work. Part of the reason I’m better is that I’ve trained myself to install triggers in my brain to remind me of the things that I want/need to get done.

A trigger is a sensory reminder of a task that needs done. The classic example of this is the telephone ring. Pavlov must be laughing at all of us every time we drop what we’re doing to answer the phone. The telephone ring is auditory, but triggers can be visual, nasal, or touch based as well. I suppose you could have taste based triggers, but I’m trying to teach myself to eat less, not more, so I don’t use those. I use a timer beeping at 7:15 every night to remind me that I need to start bedtime for the kids. Every quarter the IRS sends me a report to fill out. When that report arrives, I know it is also time for me to fill out state reports and to send royalty checks. The pile of laundry I see at the bottom of the stairs reminds me to change loads in the machines.

Over the years I have accumulated a vast array of triggers. It has taken a lot of time and patience to set them up and teach my brain what they are for. It also takes time to disconnect a trigger once it is no longer needed, but that is easier because the process is aided by the natural tendency to do nothing unless I have to. The key is to connect a specific task with a specific trigger. The bedtime beeper works really well because it is the only beeping trigger I have. It would work less well if I used the beeper for a dozen different reminders all day. I would quickly become confused exactly what the beep was supposed to remind me of and I likely would slowly teach myself to ignore extraneous beeps. This is why I try to closely link to trigger to the task so that one leads naturally to the other. Time of day (as indicated by amount of daylight and general feel in the air) serve as triggers to get me cooking dinner. This trigger gets seriously thrown off twice per year at the daylight savings time switches, then I have to relearn for a couple of weeks. An alarm gets me out of bed. The note in my planner triggers me to prepare for an appointment. The homework paper laying on the counter triggers me to call that teacher. Sometimes I even turn my wedding ring around on my hand so the stone bothers my palm as a short term trigger; to remind me to make a phone call as soon as I’m done switching laundry for example. All of these triggers and many more help me keep track of tasks.

Triggers do not always work perfectly. If multiple triggers go off simultaneously I feel harried and stressed. Ever had the phone ring at the exact moment that someone knocks at both front and back doors while a child is shouting “mom”? I have. My brain froze for a moment while I sorted what to manage first. The more triggers I set in my brain, the more likely I am to have moments like that. Triggers can also create clutter. If I look at a planner page full of reminders, I can feel overwhelmed and not sure where to start. If I leave out a paper to remind me of tasks and then leave out three more papers to remind me of three other tasks, pretty soon my desk is covered in paper and I can’t find anything that I need to do. Also if my day is completely full of triggers, I can spend all day running around like a trained poodle, trying to respond to these commands I’ve set for myself.

Another problem is when a higher priority trigger interrupts a previously triggered task. Then I switch to the new task, but often forget to reset the trigger for the lower priority task. Then the task falls out of my brain completely and is forgotten, usually until it becomes urgent. Of late this has been the fate of laundry. Never done until someone runs out of underwear. This is also how my keys sometimes get lost. Usually walking in the front door triggers me to put my purse and keys in their assigned place (A basket near the front door.) But if something distracts me as I walk in, then the keys end up in one of two or three alternate locations (coat pocket, kitchen counter, telephone counter.) If the distraction is sufficiently unusual or urgent then the keys sometimes end up in very odd places (linen closet, bathroom counter) and it takes me considerable searching to find them.

I’m certain that I haven’t covered all the aspects of setting triggers in my brain. But writing this out has helped me to see where they are, how they work, and why they sometimes fail. Many of the triggers in my head are things to remind me to remind the kids to do stuff. Hopefully I can now apply this greater understanding toward setting some triggers in my kids’ brains so that they can remember to bathe, brush teeth, and pick up toys without me always having to require it. I need to shift some of these triggers from my head to theirs.