They Do Grow Up

My youngest son has a loose tooth. At first I started to protest, "He's too young!" And then my oldest (10 1/2) reminded me that he was the same age when he lost his first tooth. I have never been the type of mother to cry over milestones. It makes me proud to watch my sons grow and it is the most exciting thing to me, not only as a mother, but as a human. Each life has locked within it so much potential and mystery. That is the fun of raising children, watching them become whoever they will be. It is most likely the idea that I am done with early childhood milestones that is causing me this grief. It is a position I am not ready to be in. 
You see I always wanted a large family. I am the youngest of four. Not a particularly large family, but my extended family was always nearby. There were ten of us cousins growing. I loved the chaos of it all, the huge meals, the endless row of beach towels on the clothes line in the summer. This romantic notion of large families is also probably due to my father's cousin's large brood. She lived twenty minutes away in an old, rambling brick home with a wide porch and dogs sleeping on the lawn. There were children everywhere. Biological, foster, adopted. As a child I would go home and draw not selfishly imagined mansions, but homes big enough to welcome all the adopted children in the world. Or, so my small 8 year old mind assumed. 
When we got to the point of seriously considering marriage I asked (both my husbands) if they would consider adopting, if they would like a large family. It was a requirement of mine. 
But here I am. 32 and living in my parents' home with my three children from my first marriage and my husband. Although he doesn't really count because he works so much. :) The plan is to eventually buy their property and build our own house back in the woods. This is what my mother wants. She knows without our presence she will have to move into town eventually. But she's quite comfortable where she is, thank you very much. My husband has no children of his own and would like to have a few, when we can afford it. In about 50 years. 
And then there is that ever-present yearning that won't go away, to give homes and hope and love to those without. This is, of course, at odds with my dream of traveling around the world and living like a hermit. But that seems a very selfish dream when you consider that a child could have a home and a family. I pray almost daily that God would see fit to let my books be widely successful. Not so I can buy a Jaguar (tho I wouldn't mind a reliable car) or a fancy schmancy home, but so I can afford to build a home here, where I can take care of my mother. So I can afford to build a home large enough for our children and several more who would become ours. It breaks my heart, the waiting. It tears me to pieces to think it may never come to fruition. My children don't have much in the way of material things or weekends and vacays spent at expensive hotels or amusement parks, but they have full and vibrant lives and I ache to share that with those who would otherwise never experience that. 
Sorry, I ramble. But the older I get the more it gnaws at me. And I just wanted to share it. 

Laundry Impedes Paperback Progress

Okay, the chickens and ducks and children who have to play baseball and go to scouts (only the children are playing baseball and going to scouts, the chickens and ducks aren’t old enough yet) are seriously impeding my progress. My husband’s new work schedule isn’t helping either…or my sinus infection. Sigh. My desk and desk chair have been overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of laundry we generate each day. Typically I keep laundry in a basket, and not for very long. I fold it, hang it up, put it away. Not this past week. I took to dumping it on the bed (except for the things that need to be hanged, they have gotten an unfair amount of attention considering the neglect shown to socks and skivvies and undershirts and such). The only problem was, by the time I actually got back to my room I was exhausted. So I tossed the laundry on the chair. Back to the bed the next day. Back to the chair. Back to the bed. Back to the chair AND the desk. But now I am tired of sifting through the pile to find matching socks for the children each morning. So. Today, after editing and football and finishing the articles for my internship, I will fold the blasted laundry. Even the socks. I HATE the socks.

Writing YA Christian lit or Not.

I did not grow up in a Christian home. My parents weren't druggies or alcoholics or abusive. We were just a typical lower middle class family struggling to make it work. My mother stayed at home with us until I was in first or second grade. She then took a job with a maid service. For the first time my sisters and I were given an allowance. As the youngest, I was paid the least for my labor which included dusting and vacuuming. It was $5. And it was enough. A new bookstore had opened in the recently developed strip mall across the street that ran behind our home. The bookstore was the only thing that made the destruction of the farmland acceptable in my mind. I was maybe 8 or 9 at the beginning. Each Friday I would take my $5 and walk to the bookstore. Back then $5 was just enough to buy two paperbacks. This was when I fell in love with Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike. No, there were no Sweet Valley High books for me. My friends were all reading them, but not me, never a one. I was a Nancy Drew girl, a mystery and thriller girl. When I was 10 I discovered what I consider to be the original Twilight series, The Vampire Diaries, LJ Smith. And by the way, the WB series does the book series a great injustice. I read all of Duncan and Smith and Pike and usually read book more than once. When I became a Christian at the age of 15 I was reading Dean Koontz and my Bible and occasionally Stephen King. Seem like a conflict of interest? Indeed. But what else was I supposed to read? Christian fiction at the time left much to be desired. It was poorly written and cheesy to say the least. Recently when I started writing my own YA novel I struggled with this. I wanted to write something Christian parents would approve of and Christian and non-Christian terms would enjoy. Oh but we have Twilight, you say. Um no. While Edward insisting on waiting until marriage to have sex is great and my favorite thing about the entire series, it doesn't override the fact that Bella's entire existence, she thought, hinged on Edward. That's stupid. And unhealthy. While most of my characters are not Christians, they struggle with their morals and with the morals of their Christian friends. But that isn't the focus of the story. It is a thriller after all. And honestly I didn't write it with any moral in mind. My goal was to write a romantic thriller for teens that didn't involve vampires or zombies or werewolves or this ridiculous notion that a girl's life should revolve around a boy. Injecting my Christian faith into the story was tricky. I didn't want to lay it on too thick but I didn't want to ignore it. I'm the end I think a happy balance was found but you would have to be the judge of that. Look for my ebooks Filter at amazon.com or smashwords.com.

Mamas Raise Your Boys Right

Before ever having children I told my fiance I hoped to have several boys and we would raise them to be gentlemen cowboys. Men who are rough and know how to fix things and who also know how to properly treat a woman. The man who entered the library before me this morning, clearly knew I was behind him and didn't bother to stand aside and hold the door for me. Do I think I'm a princess? Absolutely not. But I do believe in kindness and humility. My mama raised me and my siblings right. We hold doors for anyone, puck up something someone has dropped, stop and ask if someone needs help if they seem to be lost or hurting. How did she teach us these things? She modeled them. And though I do these things now, my sons seem completely oblivious. Maybe they are too young, all being ten and younger. Maybe like most of society they are too caught up in their own lives to notice there are people all around them just trying to get by, just like they are. Whatever the reasoning is, I constantly remind them, "hold the door for your mother," and we pray each night they will help when given the opportunity. Why do I want so badly to raise good strong men? Because I've been hurt too many times by men who were not raised well. And my children have suffered some of that as well. Though we can't always blame it on the parents, I know. I know men who have had wonderfully loving but strict parents with good morals and yet their sons grew up to be selfish oats. And vice versa. the only thing we can do as parents is lead by example and pray it soak in, eventually!

A PG-15 Read

Some recent discussion I've participated in on Amazon have led me to rethink the marketing of my book. Calling it a teen read is too broad. While there aren't any scenes with sex, there are some darker matters the story eludes to. It's essential to the plot. There is also some sensuality, but it's Rocky's first kiss...not her first "time." It's an innocent enough read but because of the tragedy and the sexual tension I don't know if I would want my 13 year old reading it. 14 maybe. 15 and up would be best. Which is why I have started marketing Filter more as a YA novel. It's just the books that I've read recently...Evermore and A Great and Terrible Beauty had some content that was mild as black pepper for adults but I wouldn't want my 13 year old reading them. So, Filter is a YA suspense/romance/family saga and more of  mystery than you know! (And I sold another book on Amazon! Yea!) 

Fried With Ketchup

My brain feels like it's been cooked and left in the warmer too long. Now it's all pliable and chewy.
It's probably the getting up so early what's doing it....
The big event of the day?
Piano lessons for my son went well....
I unfollowed Roger Ebert because he wants to play journalist or something instead of sticking to film reviews.
I don't take kindly to whiner baby articles about the military. It goes against my genetic makeup. Maybe it's coincidence but two of the few followers I had stopped following me at that point. It's all right, I doubt they were going to buy my YA romance novel or contribute anything to my overfed brain worth repeating or storing.
How did I get hornswaddled into another semester...HOW!!!!
If it even counts. It will just be my internship and Applied Journalism. Easy Peasy. (She says knowing they're going to rope her into doing so much more because they think she's cooler than she actually is.) Although the other day I was driving down the highway and this huge semi had plumes of white-blue smoke spewing from its muffler and I thought, "Oh no, I hope he isn't on fire! Dang, I don't have my camera!"
There's something morally inept with me....something that would have made me a great journalist way back in the day before I had children. And a class schedule. And an ex-husband.
Brain waves failing....
I'm reading Meg Cabot's Insatiable. It's the first book of hers I've read and so far we're best friends!

Evermore~The Immortals

I judge a book's worthiness by how aggravated I get when real life interrupts my reading.
Until the end, I got pretty aggravated each time life pulled me away from Alyson Noel's angsty Evermore. Of the YA Paranormal Romance genre, it's probably the best I've read in a long while. It was something like a mix of the Sookie Stackhouse novels mixed with Twilight mixed with Harry Potter (the point at which I almost stopped reading), mixed with the Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith...with a little bit of the Gemma Doyle series mixed in. And I swear if one more book takes me to a magical meadow, I'm gonna hurl. THIS BOOK WAS SO COOL...until the end. It got so preachy and new agey and preachy (I know I typed it twice). Blech. It was like reading a sneaky promo for The Secret. Just think things and they are. Whatevs! (I have little nieces, can't help it. I also say OMG now, because it sounds so ridiculous I just have to say it.) The ending was a sappy, preachy letdown. For me. This is why I stressed over writing the ending of my own novel, Filter. If the ending sucks you may as well just toss the whole thing out the window. I think there are lot of things in there that teens don't need to be encouraged in but then again, I'm a strict Christian mom. It's not horrible in what it eludes to, but....still. If I had a daughter, she wouldn't read it until she was 16 or 17. Especially with the part about glass blowing. Seriously? I will buy the next book but only because Noel has a good way with words and storytelling. I just hope the next book doesn't preach it's Secret Message at me. I don't need your philosophies. I just want a good story.