The police are involved!

Oh my... I haven't worked on my current work-in-progress for six weeks... YES! Really! Six weeks. I've been super busy starting a new job and finishing up girls' camp and just getting used to the summer schedule with kids home and kids at volleyball and kids on youth trips and kids in summer programs. OH MY. {deep breath}

So, I knew I had today to get back at it. But... I had trouble deciding if I should just flat out pick up where I left off and continue writing, or if I should read through (not revise, just read) what I've alread written. Due to the fact that I have a compulsive personality, I had to read from the beginning.

Well... I just finished reading all 167 pages and I'm astonished that I could walk away from the writing at such a crucial moment in the story! The police are involved, the main character is in BIG trouble, the bad guy is lurking, and the mom is TICKED OFF!

I feel a little wound up now! Like I was reading an interesting story, it just got to the good part, and someone yanked the book out of my hands!

HA! I want to know what's going to happen next. What will the police do? What will my main character do? And what will the bad guy do? EEK!

But, I can't just turn the page and find out. I need to write the page first.

So, I'm back to work.

I hope you will enjoy "The Education of Thia" (when you can buy it off a book shelf at your favorite book store!!!) as much as I have.

Teenagers vs. Adults

Throughout my life, I've heard adults make the comment, "Just wait until they're teenagers." And to this day, so many adults make negative comments about kids being in those teenage years. Why is it such a dreaded time period?

Yeah, yeah, I know... teenagers are going through hormonal changes, body changes, social changes, and trying to figure out who they are... So? This still doesn't explain to me why so many adults fear this time period and why so many teenagers resent adults at the same time.

I have three teenagers and I think they're great. I work with teenagers at church... and I think they're great.

But maybe the real problem rests with the communication skills between the two groups. Maybe.

Last week at Girls' Camp I heard one young lady tell a friend, "I hate all adults. They can't be trusted. They say one thing to us and then turn around and lie about it to someone else."  I've been thinking about that comment and wondering how can I influence her to know that not all adults behave this way? Is it possible to even convince her of this? Are her own thoughts clouding her judgement or does she have factual experience that has led her to this belief?

Then my sixteen-year-old son came home to visit for a few hours yesterday (he's spending seven weeks in the local college dorms participating in a summer work program). He was frustrated because despite his attempts to communicate intelligently with the adult in charge of the program, the adult keeps shutting him down saying things like, "This is not open for discussion." and/or "The door is closed on this topic, don't bring it up again."

So, based on these two examples, I think adults are to blame. Yup. At least with these two instances. With the young woman, clearly her trust in adults has been violated. Whether only in her perception or in reality, her trust has been violated. With my son, the adult in charge is treating him like a small child. He is not. He is intelligent and will be moving out of the house in less than two years.

As adults, we need to impower these teenagers to be able to function and live responsibly on their own.

I think adults need to take more responsibility here and stop blaming it on the teenagers.

"Education...is a painful, continual and difficult work to be done in kindness, by watching, by warning,... by praise, but above all -- by example." — John Ruskin

Listening to teenagers

So... you think you want to write a book for young adults, huh?  Many agents say when they receive sample pages, they skip ahead to the first lines of dialogue. Many writers struggle with realistic dialogue - especially teenage dialogue.

To make things more challenging, teenage boys converse much differently than teenage girls. Truth! ha.

Girls are SO dramatic, in actions and in words.  Boys, on the other hand, can be very flat. Ah, yes... both are the stereotypes, but stereotypes exist for a reason.

Here's a conversation that occured between my son and another teenage boy yesterday. We were moving Mitchell into the dorms of a local university for a summer work program sponsored by the Idaho Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

Mitchell leaned against the wall while he balanced a paper plate in one hand and a potato chip in the other.  He surveyed the group of boys and girls mingling and eating. Mitchell popped the potato chip into his mouth as a guy about his own age, maybe a year or two older, approached him and asked, "So what's your vision problem?"

Mitchell finished chewing and answered, "I can't see out of this eye." He used his thumb to indicate his right eye.

"Oh," the other boy nodded his head and squinted. "Cool." Then he shook his head and corrected, "I don't mean cool you're blind. I mean cool."

"Yah," Mitchell smiled. Both boys laughed. "How 'bout you?" Mitchell asked.  The other boy went on to explain how his right eye didn't work at all and he had no peripheal vision with his left eye.

... Could you imagine two bubbly outgoing girls having this same conversation? Maybe. Maybe not.

Lucky me, I get to spend this entire week observing and listening to girls aged twelve to eighteen. I'm in charge of thirty girls at girls' camp. YAY. (exclamation point intentionally left off... jk)  I plan to listen carefully and observe their interactions. I may even take a couple of notes. Then I plan to write lots when I get back into town.

I do have a book to finish.

Back to work!

Oh, by the way, have you heard any great dialogue between teens lately? Do share.

What does the setting say about your character?

I remember watching an episode of Oprah many years ago. An idea was suggested that I've never forgotten. The guest on the show told everyone to picture the room in their house that embarrassed them the most - the room that if anyone walked in to it unexpectedly, would cause you to be mortified. Well, to be honest, I pictured my master bathroom. It's the last room of my house to ever get cleaned. (TMI?)

Anyway, the guest went on to suggest that this one room says a lot about you. The feelings you have about this room say a lot about you. And, the fact that this room is the way it is, says a lot about you. Why is that room a disaster? Or why does that room cause you stress? These ideas have made me think and analyze myself.

Today in my writing, I plan to take ideas from a chapter in "The Fire in the Fiction" by Donald Maass and apply it to some revisions. The chapter from his book happens to be "The World of the Novel" - - which discusses the setting in your book.  As I re-read highlighted passages, I was reminded of the Oprah episode.

Maass writes, "The trick ... is to discover in your setting what is unique for your characters. ...make them grapple with it as surely as they grapple with the main problem and their enemies. ...it is the combination of setting details and the emotions attached to them that, together, make a place a living thing" (pages 82-83).

So... I'm off to discover which room of the house embarrasses my characters the most and why. I can't guarantee these passages will make it into the final draft, but who knows? Maybe this revision will be part of a new masterpiece! ha.

Oh my gosh!

Okay, a huge shout-out to moms who work jobs outside the home. I don't know how you do it in addition to all the other responsibilities required of moms!

I was offered a job selling Bernina sewing machines - and I said, "Sure!"

Last week was my first week... now granted I'm not working full-time, because I want to write full-time. However, to get trained, I need to work more hours. So, Thursday of last week was my first day. I had either the flu or serious food poisoning on Wednesday and was down for the count. Great. Couldn't call in sick to my first day of work... so I sucked it up and went in to work eight hours Thursday. Did great. Came home and crashed. Worked eight hours Friday. Came home and prepped a Stampin' Up! class, and then taught a SU! class Saturday. Came home and crashed.

Writing? Who has time to be a writer? Oh my gosh.

So, I thought I'd get up early, get chores done, and get 2000 words written before heading out to work today. Well... I need to leave in twenty minutes. Do you think I can get 2000 words written in twenty minutes?

This job thing is interferring with my writing thing.