It's Done

I wrote a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. 51,340 words, to be exact.

I never could have pushed myself this hard without these wonderful, wonderful souls:

• Erik, I owe this all to you. Thank you for taking care of Abby while I finished just one more sentence, one more paragraph, one more scene. You deserve a whole month of whatever beer your heart desires.
• Abby, Mommy does love you, even if she was looking at the computer screen more than your beautiful face in the last month.
• April, you put the bee in my bonnet to do this in the first place. Thank you.
• Linda, you have no idea how much it helped to know you were amazed at what I was trying to do and rooting for me all along the way.
• NaNoWriMoers of NI, I couldn't make it to any write-ins but knowing that you were all plugging away at the same bizarre, improbable goal was a tremendous motivator.
• Margaret and Johanna, thank you for being the carrots out in front of me, luring me along with your ever-increasing word counts.

So what happens now? I put together a little FAQ that will hopefully answer your post-NaNoWriMo questions.

Can I read it?
Not yet.

Aw, c'mon! Lemme read it!
This first draft is raw, flawed, and vulnerable. The idea of someone besides my husband reading it right now fills me with a sense of dread not unlike that dream where I show up at work without having remembered to put on clothes.

There will very likely come a time when I will be begging each and every one of my friends to read it and give me constructive criticism so I can make it better. But that time is not now.

What happens now? When do you start the revisions?
Whoa, mama! I just finished it today. I need a breather from this writing business right now. And I need some distance from this story before I can go back to it and decide whether I want to work at making it better. Because lemme tell you, it will take a lot of work.

So what's it about?
A 14-year-old girl who lives in Texas. The working title is Church Row. That's all I'm saying for now.

How did you celebrate?
We got pizza from The Parlor for dinner...mmm. Then I baked some homemade brownie bites while Abby directed from her high chair and Erik read the first 3 chapters.

What will you do with all your free time?
Sleep. Play with my baby girl. Also, sleep.

Do you think you'll ever do this again?
Hell yeah!

What was the hardest part?
Getting started every time I sat down at the computer. After I was 15-20 minutes into a writing session, it all came much easier. But those first minutes were PAINFUL.

What was the easiest part?
Eating lots of snacky foods to keep up my energy during the late nights of writing. I will really miss the excuse to pig out.

Are you sad it's over?
I didn't think so, until I left my sleeping family in bed to get up and write this post. I guess I am missing the writing already.

Now, onto that sleep stuff I've heard so much about.

NaNoWriMo Update

I realized today it's been a couple weeks since I've posted. I promise it's for a Very Good Reason.

But I thought I'd give you a quick update on where all my writing energy has been going the last 3.5 weeks.



Today, I broke 40,000 words, and it feels oh so good. 5 days and less than 10,000 words left.

I can taste the end, and it tastes like Uncle Eddie's vegan oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Review: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Title: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Author: E. Lockhart
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 5/5
Summary: A sophomore geek-turned-beauty at an elite boarding school starts dating a gorgeous and popular senior. There's just one problem—her new boyfriend is a member of a secret, all-male society, and she's not invited.

Review: Best novel I've read all year, hands down.

I immediately fell in love with the quirky, gutsy Frankie Landau-Banks. (But in a platonic, you're-a-fictional-character way, I assure you.)

Frankie is the kind of girl I wish I'd had the guts to be in high school. Not that Plano Senior High had a secret society to flout (although, given the money in that town maybe it did). But Frankie is about as self-assured as you can get as a teenage girl nowadays. Plus, she's wicked smart and can debate like the dickens.

Ladies: Read this book, even if you "don't read kids' books." Pshaw. If you have an inner girl who kicks ass, she'll love this book. Don't deny her the joy of reading this.

Guys: I can't pretend to know whether a book like this would strike your fancy, but I'd love to find out. So if you read it, report back here!

Everyone: If you know a girl around Frankie's age, give her this book for Christmas or her next birthday or just because (which is the best kind of present anyway).

8 Easy Ways to Cultivate a Daily Reading Habit

I love making lists. I am a former technical writer, after all! But I realized that this blog doesn't have nearly enough lists. So let's rectify that starting now.

People sometimes ask me how I find the time to read. I usually respond with the sage advice to have a baby. Nursing 8-10 times a day for 10- to 45-minute stretches adds instant reading time to your day where you can't do anything else.

But I started thinking seriously about how, as an adult, you can incorporate more reading into your daily life. As with anything, it's not about finding the time to do it but about making the time. This is a lesson I'm currently trying to learn myself.

I read once that it takes about a month to form a new habit before that activity becomes second nature. A month of conscious habit-forming is a small price to pay for how much smarter you will sound to your friends when you start talking about how many books you've read.

So here are a few easy ways you can cultivate a daily reading habit...

1. Answer this: What are you willing to cut out in order to read more? Or, what are you willing to cut back on?

If you want to create a daily habit of reading, that means that something you're currently doing with your time is going to have to change. Anytime I find myself thinking "I wish I had the time to..." I try to catch that thought and call myself on it. If I really want to do something different with my time, that means I'll have to spend less time on Facebook, less time reading other people's blogs, less time staring blankly at the wall wishing that someone else would do the dishes, vacuum up the dog hair, and take a shower for me while I catch up on sleep.

I think this is one of my lessons to learn in this lifetime. So if you're like me, just try to catch those "I wish..." thoughts and call your bluff as much as possible.

Okay, enough with the psycho-babble stuff and onto more concrete tips...

2. Get a book from the library.

Why? Because deadlines are fabulous motivators. (Such is the beauty of NaNoWriMo, by the way.) Think about the last time you did something that didn't have a deadline. Do you remember when you're due for a dentist appointment, or do you wait until you get that ever-so-helpful postcard in the mail reminding you that if you don't come in for a cleaning in the next 2 weeks you will suffer from spontaneous dental hydroplosion, wherein all your teeth will liquidate and trickle down the back of your throat?

Deadlines work, so get a book from the library to give yourself a built-in deadline for reading the book.

If your library's web site has an email notification feature for due date reminders, use it. And if you're lucky enough that your library system participates in Library Elf (yay for Austin!), you can configure exactly when you want to receive those due date reminders. If you want to get them a full week before the due date or even every single day, Library Elf can help.

I would recommend starting with just one book at a time if you don't already have a daily reading habit established. Then you can work up to having 30 or so library books at a time strewn about your house, all in various states of being read and all with different due dates. It will keep your brain nimble.

3. Read everywhere.

And I do mean everywhere. While I was reading the Harry Potter series for the first time, it was not uncommon for me to bring the book I was reading with me in the car and read at the long stoplights during my commute to and from work every day. Don't worry—I was very safe about it. But I wouldn't recommend that particular technique if you're first in line at the stoplight because getting honked at is no fun. Hold your book slightly above the steering wheel so when you see in your peripheral vision that the car in front of you is moving, you can throw your book down in the passenger seat and follow suit. (You'll also want to use a thin bookmark and keep it stuck in the page you're currently reading so you don't lose your place.)

Fine, fine. If this still seems unsafe to you, try an audiobook. (The library has those too!)

Here are some more reasonable places you might not have considered where you can get some reading done:

• Tote your book along to appointments and show up early so you get a little extra time in the waiting room. Bonus: Your dentist/doctor/hair stylist will appreciate your punctuality.


• When eating meals, eat by yourself as often as possible and keep your nose in a book. Do not socialize. Socializing is for the unread, unwashed masses.
  
  If you must eat with others such as a spouse or children, do not pay attention to them. Instead, read a book. If you get flack from them, see if you can convince them to read too. In the case of your children, this has the added benefit of teaching them that fiction is more interesting than real life, which is the hard truth, so they might as well learn it early on in life.


• Read while waiting in line at the bagel/donut shop. Also, please let me know as soon as you have the bagels/donuts and I will be right over. (It's the least you could do after all this free advice I'm giving away here.)


• Read while you're waiting for the microwave or oven to ding.


• Read during church—this will work best for paperback novellas you can easily fit in front of an open hymn book or bible (just kidding, my church-going friends!).

4. Join a book club.

There's nothing like peer pressure to get you to do something. Book clubs also impose deadlines. Just make sure there's at least one person in the book club who is committed to finishing the book. Because if your book club is made up of a lot of people who probably won't actually read the book, your book club is going to quickly devolve into a wine-and-cheese club or a let's-bitch-about-work club. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not going to get you closer to your goal of a daily reading habit.

5. Choose your books carefully.

Life is too short to read books you don't really want to read. Don't try to read books that you think you should read because they're classics or because you think it will make you look smart.

Read the books you want to read. Read the books whose front cover descriptions get you excited to the point of drooling.

If that just so happens to be Moby Dick, fine. But if what you really want to read is a comic book or a book about Amelia Bedelia's latest adventures, go for it. Moby Dick's not that great anyway, trust me.

6. Give it 50 pages.

If after 50 pages, the book's not floating your boat, move on. This is a lesson I've had to learn, and I still struggle with it. But why waste your time slogging through something that hasn't captivated you? Reading should be fun, not a chore. And in my experience, if it doesn't grab me in the first 50 pages, it's not going to turn around. So give yourself permission to move on to another book.

7. Ask your roommate, spouse, or a friend to hide your TV remote.

Or, alternatively, unplug the TV from the wall so that every time you are tempted to watch it, you'll think "Oh, but I'd have to get up from the couch and plug it back in. But look—here's a book on the end table right next to me!"

8. Make a deal.

Make a deal with yourself that you won't do some essential daily task until you've read for 10 minutes. For example, you are not allowed to brush your teeth until after you read.

Not that reading should feel like a chore, mind you, but you're just trying to establish a daily habit right now. The joy will come right after you start reading, I promise. And the point here is not to go to work without brushing your teeth, either. Please, please, please do that. But surely you have an extra 10 minutes before your dental hygiene routine every morning to do something fun.


Okay, enough of my pontificating.

Your turn: Do you wish you read more? Or if you're happy with how much you read, what advice would you give someone who wants to read more?

Review: Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos

Title: Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos
Author: R.L. LaFevers
Category: Fiction, Children's
Rating: 4/5
Summary: 11-year-old Theodosia Throckmorton spends most of her time in an antiquities museum run by her father, while her mother goes on long archaeological expeditions to obtain artifacts for the museum. But Theo can see something on these artifacts that nobody else seems to—they're infected with ancient Egyptian curses, and they'll hurt her family if she doesn't take matters into her own hands.

Review: I loved this book!

My first clue I was going to love it was the dedication: "To clever girls everywhere who get tired of feeling like no one's listening."

Theo is nothing if not a clever little girl. But she's also deliciously sassy, which kept me chuckling throughout the book.

The book is set in London in the early twentieth century, and I'm a sucker for British language in a children's book (thank you, J.K. Rowling)—lots of "bother" and "boiled cabbage" and "don't give a fig."

I gobbled this book up as fast as I could, and now I have to wait until the library gets copies of the next book in the series, Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris. It just so happens to release today, but the store-release-to-library-shelving interval will keep me waiting for at least a couple weeks. Bother.

Review: American Wife

Title: American Wife
Author: Curtis Sittenfeld
Category: Fiction
Rating: 2.5/5
Summary: The fictional life story of a First Lady.

Review: The author doesn't hide the fact that this story is based on the life of Laura Bush—she even has a note at the beginning to get it out in the open. I found it intriguing to read about a person like Mrs. Bush because I've always wondered how someone so obviously smart and thoughtful ended up married to someone not terribly smart or all that thoughtful. (Sorry to be so blunt, George, but I think even you would agree those aren't your strengths.)

I love historical fiction, but in the end this book's intersections with history were a little too recent for me to truly enjoy the story. At first, at each of those intersections, I found myself thinking "Oh, haha! That's just like Bush, how clever!" But I quickly grew weary of those intersections because each time, they put a wall up between me and the story. A wall that reminded me I was reading a novel based loosely on a real person whom I see in the news on a fairly regular basis. I could never really fall completely into the story and the characters. This was especially the case during the sex scenes between the main character and her husband, of which there were more than I'm used to. (I guess that comes from reading so much children's/young adult fiction.) Anyway, during those scenes, I couldn't not think of Bush and his smirking jauntiness. Shudder.

Overall, this was an entertaining read, but I never really connected to the main character in a meaningful way.

Review: Waiting for Birdy

Title: Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family
Author: Catherine Newman
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 4.5/5
Summary: Memoir of a mom who is pregnant with her second child.

Review: Hi-LAR-ious! I don't often laugh out loud when reading, but this book had me chuckling and giggling at every turn.

I knew this was going to be my kind of book when I got to this part on page 11:

"I once sat up late with a friend, enjoying a shot or two of Jagermeister and imagining a special line of Hallmark cards called 'Womanly Thoughts' or, maybe, 'Gynecological Moments.' These would be designed around moody little watercolors of women with their feet in stirrups, women skulking around ovulation kits at the supermarket, and greetings like 'Sorry to hear about your ovarian cyst. / If I had one, I'd be really pissed.'"

The author tells it like it is, and no topic is taboo. While on the whole it's a very funny account of her life raising a toddler while being pregnant, the author also addresses more serious issues. For example, she talks about losing her patience and then temper with her son Ben and how she feels horrible afterward.

My favorite take-away from the book is that it reminds you to try to live in the moment even when that moment seems unbearable. The author's mantra is "This, Now." I find myself reciting that mantra when I'm bouncing Abby on the exercise ball for the third time after trying to put her down for a nap unsuccessfully two times already. Because one day, she's not going to need me to help her fall asleep, and I'm sure I'm going to miss these days looking back.

The only part I didn't love about this book was frequent assurances from the author that she wasn't kidding before she shared a particularly funny or outrageous tidbit. When someone is constantly saying that they're not kidding, it makes me wonder if all the other things they're saying but not prefacing with "I'm not kidding" are true or not.

So I could have done without that quirk, but I still loved, loved, LOVED this book!

Help Make History: Vote Today!

Turnout in today's election is expected to hit record highs, so vote early! If you're not sure where to vote or who to vote for, visit Vote411. You can also find your polling place on Google Maps.

And if you haven't made up your mind on a Presidential candidate, we're big fans of this guy.

So now that you know who to vote for and how to find your polling place, I've taken away all your excuses for not voting. So you might as well go ahead and vote today!

October Photos Posted

October was a big month. We went to the zoo, a friend's wedding, a pumpkin patch, early voting, and Halloween festivities. 4 more teeth came in—those days were fun lemme tell ya—and she's crawling!

 

Review: How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead

Title: How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead: Your Words in Print and Your Name in Lights
Author: Ariel Gore
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 4/5
Summary: The author of several books presents her advice for launching a literary career.

Review: The advice in this book is by no means earth-shattering. You'll recognize most of it from other writing guides. Example: Want to be a writer? Then write. (Sure sounds simple, but I have yet to develop a habit of writing every day.)

But unlike most other writing guides, this book will keep you laughing while it injects you with a good dose of writing wisdom. This book also has some great ideas for exercises—for example, go through a piece you wrote and remove all adjectives and adverbs, rewriting where necessary.

Gore includes several interviews with literary stars, some more interesting than others. One of my favorite interviews was with Ursula K. Le Guin: "Stories are like feral kittens. You have to be very patient and careful and quiet and put out little bits of chicken on the floor."

The chapters in this book are fairly short and the advice is so fun to read that I'm going to get a copy of this to own.

(By the way, the first day of NaNoWriMo went well. I wrote over 1700 words, which keeps me on track to finish 50,000 by the end. 1 day down, 29 to go.)

Review: Unconditional Parenting

Title: Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason
Author: Alfie Kohn
Category: Nonfiction
Rating: 4.5/5
Summary: The author explores research on the effectiveness of parenting based on rewards and punishments.

Review: The front cover of this book describes it as "A Provocative Challenge to the Conventional Wisdom about Discipline." Uh, YEAH.

This book had me squirming in my chair on a regular basis. Over and over, the author would present compelling research about how parenting with rewards and punishments doesn't necessarily get you a kid who's more compliant. And over and over, I would think to myself: "Well, if you don't use rewards and punishments, what the crap else are you going to do?" The author would dance around alternatives, but he kept referencing Chapter 7 as where he'd be presenting them in detail—which was over halfway through the book.

In the end, I'm not sure if I would have been ready to accept the ideas in that chapter had I not gone through the painful process of being challenged again and again and again in the first part of the book. Maybe the author has to break down a few walls before he can help you start to build up something completely different in their place.

Here are just a handful of the reasons why punishment doesn't work, according to the research covered in this book:

• Punishment makes people mad. I can recall with great clarity the times I was being punished for something that I had done, and I guarantee you I wasn't "reflecting" on my actions. I was getting even more pissed off at whomever was punishing me, and my actions were the furthest thing from my mind.
• Punishment models the use of power. Do we really want to teach our kids that might makes right? As adults, will it be healthy for them to exploit their power over their fellow humans?
• Punishment makes kids more self-centered. If I hit Susie, I'll have to sit in timeout and miss the rest of recess. Notice that I'm thinking about what will happen to me, not how Susie will feel.

What about rewards? If punishing non-compliance isn't effective, what about rewarding compliance?

"...rewards are remarkably ineffective at improving the quality of people's work or learning. A considerable number of studies have found that children and adults alike are less successful at many tasks when they're offered a reward for doing them—or for doing them well."

Or worse, rewards can undermine the very behavior you're trying to encourage:

"...when there's no longer a goody to be gained, [kids are] less likely to help than are kids who weren't given a reward in the first place. They're also less likely to help than they themselves used to be. After all, they've learned that the point of coming to someone's aid is just to get a reward."

These are just a few of the points from the book, but I know what you're thinking right now: "Well, if you don't use rewards and punishments, what the crap else are you going to do?"

Or maybe: "Haha, your kid is going to walk all over you! Sucker!"

To the latter, I say: You could very well be right. But this book resonated with me on a much deeper level than the parenting practices I saw growing up or continue to see on Supernanny. What do you think that kid on the naughty step is thinking about? About how what they did was wrong and they'll never do it again? Or about how Mom is so unfair...or...next time she's not going to catch me...or...I'm going to hit little brother for tattling on me?

Certainly you can remember a time when you were in timeout as a kid. Maybe you were a perfect kid and sat quietly reflecting on your misbehavior and how you will never, ever do that again. But me? Not so much. I sat there thinking of ways to blame someone else. I sat there steaming about the person who was punishing me. I sat there making plans to not talk to anyone for the rest of the day to show how mad I was.

So what if instead when you did something wrong, your parents sat down with you and asked you what happened? What if they had helped you explore why you did what you did? What if they encouraged you to think of other ways you could have expressed your emotions?

Kids are smart. They have good ideas for how to solve problems, including their own. You just need to give them a chance and support the process with your loving guidance.

Do I think that this style of parenting will mean Abby won't ever misbehave or have a tantrum or annoy the crap out of me sometimes? No, not at all. She'll still do all those things, but what will be different is how I react to her.

Kids see rewards as approval and love, and they see punishments as a withdrawal of that approval and love. So on a basic level, will my actions teach Abby that I love her only when she behaves in the exact way that I want her to? Do I really want to raise a daughter who is blindly compliant with whomever has more power than her? (Even if I did want a compliant daughter, research shows that rewards and punishment aren't effective in getting that.)

No. I want to teach Abby that I love her always, not just because she does what I want her to. I want a daughter who can make smart decisions for herself, not just do what the person with more power is telling her to do.

If any of this is resonating with you and if you're wondering what could possibly replace rewards and punishments, I would suggest that you read the book yourself. There's no easy formula for parenting without rewards and punishments, and this book will help you explore what that style of parenting will be for you and your family.