Parenting

1 Comment

L is 3 months old. Crazy, right? They say time goes by quickly when you have a child, and they’re not kidding (whoever “they” are). I’ve learned that these past three months, along with some other things.

Parenting is hard. There are long nights with tears (on both ends) and early mornings. You are completely controlled by someone 30 years younger than you (in my case at least). If you had a schedule beforehand, it’s gone now. You have a new one and it revolves around feeding and napping. And even if you’re like me, and don’t let their eating/napping schedule get in the way of your day, you’re still stopping in the middle of a cafe to ensure she gets food, to ensure she falls asleep.

Free time is hard to come by, especially if you’re a working mother like myself. Because when you get home, you just want to be with them. Cleaning takes a backseat (and so do friends, sadly, at least for the first month). You can read when they nap, maybe, but sometimes you just find yourself just staring at them.

You’re tired. A lot. Until they start sleeping the night (which ours has), and then you find yourself celebrating these things with such enthusiasm you’d thinks they graduated college. The first smile. The first giggle. Toys have names that you repeat to friends, and don’t feel weird about at all. They becomes the center of your world.

So, yes, it’s hard. It’s extremely tough and no amount of reading or parenting classes can prepare you for it. But also? It’s the best experience in the world.

Nightmares

Leave a comment

Every now and then, L has nightmares. It’s really sad; she’ll start crying and won’t stop until I wake her up and tell her it’s okay. At three months, I’m not sue what she fears (no food? painful gas? missing mommy? birth?), but whatever it is, it scares her. And I don’t like seeing her scared.

She’s so small, you see, and so new. She hasn’t experienced anything yet, at least anything that can give her real nightmares. The kind you run from, hide under your bed from. Or worse, the kinds you can’t. She’s unmarked, undamaged, just new and clean. And despite wanting to, I know I can’ keep her that way.

Because eventually she’ll start to move more and maybe skin her knee. Or fall and bump her head. And she’ll cry from the pain and I’ll try my best to make it better.

And later she’ll meet kids her own age and while some will be kind, they won’t all be. Some might say things to hurt her feelings, some might be mean to her, and I’ll just be able to tell her it’s okay, they’re wrong, she’s wonderful.

She’ll fall in love one day, and maybe that person won’t reciprocate her feelings. Maybe she’ll have a broken heart, or two, and mommy won’t be able to sew it back together.

Or worse, maybe she’ll get to the stage in her teenage years where she won’t even tell me she’s hurt. Where she’ll carry around her pain and i’ll see it in her face, hear it in her voice, but she won’t share. And all I’ll want is for her to lay it on me, let me make it better.

But all of that is in the future. And perhaps it won’t happen, but it all probably will. Because we all grow up. And the pains and fears that we carry are the ones that shape us to be who we are. And though I want to shelter her from everything that might make her frown, I know she has to experience everything. Good and bad. Large and small. With me and without.

But for now, i’ll take solace in the fact that her nightmares are small. I’ll hold on to the fact that, for at least now, I can make everything better with a hug and a kiss.

Editing Process: Step Four

Leave a comment

Since my book is coming out in a little over 10 months (it seems so far away, and yet so close…), I’m starting to actually DO things for promotion. Such as…create a Facebook page! Make little promotional cards to hand out at events (more on that later)! Talk about the book some more! I guess it’s starting to actually exist, and that’s both exciting and terrifying.

Editorial wise, copyedits came in. I was a bit nervous about these, as i’ve heard horror stories where copyeditors made writers change everything. Thankfully, my copyeditor was fantastic. She had little suggestions here or there, asked for my approval on anything she changed, and really mostly changed things to suit Harper’s style guide. (Shout out to my copyeditor – you’re the best!)

Now i’m working on the dedication and acknowledgements. It’s funny – I’ve imaged what i’d write since the book sold, and now when I can actually put words on paper, i’m drawing a blank. I want to thank everyone. Can I do that? Just…thank you to the world? (Okay, I should probably be more specific.)

TNWSY aside, I had my first public reading! I read for the book launch of FORGET HOW YOU FOUND US last week and it was so much fun. It was a great introductory event for me, because there was only so much pressure. There were four other writers reading, I only contributed one chapter, I did not represent the entire book. I loved meeting/hanging out with the other authors, and just being part of the entire experience. It was such a privilege to be able to contribute to the book, and even more so to read my chapter.

So one reading under my belt. A few more to go?

It’s All In The Details

Leave a comment

There’s a minor character in TNWSY that works at a mini-golf course. He hands people their clubs and oftentimes has to fish discarded balls out of the small lake by hole #9. He has to wear khaki shorts and a green polo shirt everyday, and he sweats through both in the Florida heat. He doesn’t like the job much, but it’s a job.

None of that is in the book.

It’s weird knowing that much about a minor character, right? I brainstormed a scene that included all of that, but never wrote it. It just didn’t fit in the end. So the character’s back story (and related scene) never came to fruition. Readers of the book won’t know about it. And yet, I know about it.

There are so many extra details that go into book that might never be read. Be it scenes never written or moments edited it out, there are always these little bits hanging around the writer’s mind and, possibly. computer. And I have so many of them!

Sometimes I forget what was cut, and just assume a certain part is still in the story because I know it so well. I assume everyone will know a main character’s favorite song because I know his favorite song.

Maybe i’ll reveal some of these things once the book is out – i’d like to, really, because otherwise they’re small details lost.

Or maybe I won’t and I’ll let readers decide where said character works in order to pay for dates with his girlfriend. Who knows. Books belong to their readers, right?

1999

1 Comment

Hello 90s fashion

I write about teens, for teen readers, yet I am definitely not a teen.

But I was once.

A friend posted the above photo on Facebook today, and I had to share. I mean, it’s from my junior year homecoming dance. It’s priceless.

(I’m in the red, in the middle. Fun fact: I wanted that specific dress because it looked like Rose’s in Titanic. I loved Rose’s dress.)

So that’s me and my friends taking pictures before the dance. Some of us had dates, some of us did not (I did not), but we all went as a group, and still found one another when the perfect song was on. And the best part? We’re all still friends. In fact, the girl on the right was not just one of my bridesmaids, but also one of the original readers of TNWSY. (You’ll see her mentioned in the acknowledgements.)

So that’s high school me. I wasn’t gorgeous, I wasn’t popular, I was just…me. And I was completely okay with that.