Yonder grass is looking greenly

Yes I love revisions, yes. I do.

But.

BUT.



NEXT, PLEASE.

I'm kinda ready to be done now! See, sometimes revisions are all cozy futz-futz, tinker-tinker, and other times, the need to write a new scene falls out of the sky, and my brain does not want to write a new scene. My brain is nonplussed. It's like, "I thought all that writing malarkey was over. I thought we were revising here." Yeah. Dirty secret: revising involves writing. It's like when you just mopped and somebody runs over your floor with muddy feet. You clap your hands to your cheeks and scream, "NOOOOOOOO!"

At least, that's my reaction to muddy feet.



Who am I kidding? I rarely mop. And the scene-writing is fine. It's just that as one nears the end, one gets so ready to be DONE. But it is hugely satisfying to take the almost-book and polish it to a high gloss. Just, sometimes, a deep breath must be taken. A whole new scene. So you go write a blog post instead. At least, that is what I do. Ha ha.

Really think about the term "revision." Re-vision. This is your chance to see if you've got everything running at full awesome. Don't be afraid to make drastic changes. I am not making drastic changes. Not now, but over the course of writing this book, there was much drastickness. Drasticity.

BE BRAVE!

On a happier note, a couple of things. First, Lips Touch is an honor book for the Oregon Spirit Book Award! This is awesome; it's an award given by the Oregon Council of Teachers of English, and I love English teachers!

Secondly, Lips Touch is up as the October title for Readergirlz! Thank you, Readergirlz! This is so cool. Check it out. There are guidelines for a book party, if you are inclined, including discussion questions, a play list, and recommendations for what kind of food to make, invitations, and even what movies to watch. This was SO FUN. The live chat will be October 20, if you want to put together a little gathering for that night. I'll be blogging more about it, of course. But go check it out :)

Let's Colour!

Thanks to Steph for this awesome link in her comment to my last post. It was inspired by a combination of Morocco color + me having mentioned that I was revising to the music of Jonsi -- check out THIS:
Oh wow. This is SO my cup of tea! It is GLORIOUS. This project--the Let's Colour Project--paints neighborhoods around the world in vibrant color.

BRILLIANT!

After having seen the island of Burano, the lace-making island in the Venetian lagoon, and how it was COLOR that really made that place come alive (that, you know, plus being in the Venetian lagoon!). But check it out. The architecture itself is very plain. Imagine if these buildings were white or tan or grey, like so many houses in the US:


See what I mean?

So I've always thought it would be a great idea to pep up neighborhoods with rainbows of paint, and lo and behold, some mad geniuses have actually started to DO it. You can even get involved, which I assume would mean helping paint. And HOW AWESOME WOULD THAT BE???

Anyway, thank you Steph for the link!

And thank you Jonsi for the music :-)

I am dreaming a dreamy dream

Photos pillaged from the internet.

Is it possible that one day in the not-too-distant future I might have my OWN dreamy-dream photos to post here?

:-)

The Winnowing of Post-its

This is the look of my manuscript in revisions.

You may know: I love revisions. This is the part of writing my brain can really cuddle up to. The safe part? In Not For Robots I have this bushwhacking metaphor: writing first drafts with a machete; unexplored jungle! Dangers! Beasties! Excitement! Extending that metaphor, revisions are like building a snug cottage in that jungle and setting out tea saucers of little biscuits for the monkeys. All civilized, like.

Well. You know. No exactly like that. But kinda.

So. Here in a nutshell is my revision process. First thing I did was read and internalize my editor's letter, make notes on the main areas of work she proposed, and then set about reading my (hard copy) manuscript over with those things in mind. I marked it up liberally, and then, once that was done, I took it to the computer and input any "easy" changes, those things that can be fixed right there locally, within a line or two. The bigger things, ideas, themes, I asterisked and post-it'ed for later. Later being now.

The REAL work of revisions. Not the line edits, but the reconstruction, the deepening of significance, tightening of threads, clarifying of characterization, all that. So I've got this fat old book bristling with post-its of how to make it better, and I have to winnow down those post-its, one by one, until they're all gone. Winnow winnow. Once they're all gone, then I'll read the whole thing fresh for flow and to catch anything I might have missed, and to futz happily with language until I run out of time, then I'll send it on in to my lovely editor and see what she thinks.

After that? Another pass. And then? Copy edits. And then?

Whew. On it goes until the very sight of one's own book triggers the gag reflex. It's sad, but by the time the book is in print, the author has read it to death and probably won't be able to enjoy it again for like twenty years. But that does not mean that holding it in its actual bookness is not the hugest thrill ever, because it IS. Just please don't make us read it again! Ha ha.

Anyway. In revisions, you should have a clear picture of what it was you were trying to do with the book (a thing you might not entirely know until you've finished that first draft). And then hopefully you can read your manuscript with some objectivity and get a clear picture of what you have actually accomplished. So. What needs to be done to bring the actual up to the ideal? That's what revisions are about. Perfecting. Realizing the promise of your idea.

Gotta go now. Post-its beckon!

Do you love revisions? Not love? Tell me!

SPEAK UP

Have you heard about the horrifyingly stupid op-ed piece by a university professor attempting to set in motion a ban Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak? Lots of bloggers have been writing about this, and since I need to be revising right now, I will refer you to Stephanie's post about it. I hope you will check it out. Book banning is always a horror, and in this case, it is just so . . . so . . . evil, so evil-stupid, and such a perfect encapsulation of the horrors of censorship. I mean, the book is about finding one's voice to speak up about rape, and this idiot masquerading as an educator (shudder shudder) is trying to silence it and keep it out of the hands of the very victims who might be helped by it. AUGGGHHHHH!!!

Shannon Hale also blogged about it here, which is where I first heard about the controversy. There's an excerpt in her post from a reader about a library copy of Speak and its poignant last page that really testifies to the importance of this book.

Also, I saw in Stephanie's post that a school district has banned Sherman Alexi's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and I am reeling over that. National Book Award winner! Brilliant! Brilliant! On what grounds was it banned? It's not sexually explicit, and that's the usual culprit? Is it because of the alcoholism? Because oh sure, we shouldn't let young people read about the devastation of alcoholism.

Why, America? WHY?


On a much happier note, Clementine took her first steps yesterday, which was cute beyond cute. I could TELL she was ready, the way she was just standing there all steady. I KNEW if I coaxed her, she would walk, so I actually had to hold her off for a few minutes until Jim could get there, and then . . . she did it! Back and forth between us, four or five steps at a time, and then she would fling herself into our arms. So, she has to work on her landings :-) It's all geared toward the rushing leap right now, which is just fine. What's better than a baby hurling herself laughing into your arms?

What did I forget today?

Each morning when I'm leaving for the cafe to work (I'm currently alternating between two), I do a quick rundown of the stuff I need. Laptop, check. Manuscript (currently using hard copy for revisions, and that sucker is heavy to carry), check. Notebook, check. Phone, wallet, keys, umbrella, power cord. I think that's it. I frequently forget one of these things. Usually it's the wallet or the power cord, which was not a big deal when the cafe was so close to my house -- plus they knew me and would let me pay for my coffee the next day. Now I have to be more organized. I almost left without my wallet this morning, but remembered at the door (it was on the floor where *somebody* had been playing with it, picking at its felt flower), and felt all smug. Ha.

So what's missing, now that I'm here? A tiny thing. Two tiny things: the little rubber covers of my ear buds! *Somebody* has newly started to pick them off while pursuing her favorite hobby of emptying my purse out item by item, so I had to put them out of her reach so she didn't, you know, eat them. And they remain out of reach. Joke's on me.

What I've learned from this is that you can still wear ear buds without the covers, but they don't block out ambient noise anymore. And that's kind of the whole point. So drat and blast.

Anyway. This next part here is probably obnoxious, but I can't help myself. In response to my last post (which was not, I swear, a desperate plea for praise!), young reader Katherine sent me a wonderful email, and I am not going to get in the habit of preening over praise emails here, but I can't help it this time. Here it is:

Hi Laini!!!
I was reading your blog and heard you needed encouragement!!! (Prepare yourself, for I shall be ranting about how much I love your characters..)

I'm 14. I read a LLOOOOOTT of books, on average, 2 books a week. And I can say with complete certainty that your books are my favorite and you are MOST DEFINITELY my favorite author. None of the others even come CLOSE.
I LOOOOOVE YOUR CHARACTERS!!!!! Specially Magpie :D and I was actually telling my friend the other day how cute Hirik and Whisper were as a couple!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D (*fangirl squeal*)
And it's not just your characters I love. The way you write it??? So much beautiful detail, the perfect combination of adventure, love, magic, sadness/heartbreak, anger, fantasy, everything!!! I love it all and you balance it all perfectly.
And also, your ideas are so original. SHEER GENIUS. The tapestry, the Djinns, and the one I thought was the coolest? Silksingers. I never would ever have thought of that and I don't know anyone who could. Spinning magic carpets with their voices!!! I'm a singer, so I probably got more excited about it than most would, but STILL....wow. Just wow.

On a completely unrelated note, you're so funny as a person :D not funny as in, laughing at you but as in your jokes are HILARIOUS :D
And I remember reading one of your old short stories about a ghost girl who put beetles in matchboxes with jewels and pretended they were robbing banks...... that made me laugh so hard and I loved it so much!!!

Anyways, I just wanted to say you are my idol and don't feel down. And just know that your characters are pure genius and you should never think otherwise.

Love,
Kat


Oh man, thanks Kat. That email made my entire head smile. You should have seen it. My big smiling head :-) Thank you. I love getting emails from readers. In the three years since my first book was published, the amazement has not diminished one bit that there are people out there with my books in their hands and what's more they like them. This is the coolest thing ever, and every day I am grateful I went for it, this dream, that has made my life so rich and fun.

Also, I love Kat's note because it affirms for me that my books do what I hope they do (for some readers, at least), and that they are the kind of books I want to write -- the kind *I* want to read, the kind I want to live in.

So, HUGE THANK YOU to Katherine. Yay!!!

*grin grin grin* *whole head still smiling*


Oh. And this is SO COOL. I will be reminding you in the upcoming days and weeks. The awesome divas at Readergirlz are featuring Lips Touch as their October title!!!! I don't know any online book community that can match Readergirlz for awesome, and I am thrilled to be part of it. There will be a live chat on October 20, about which I will remind you, but in the meantime they will post cool stuff, and ... stuff. Stuff is going to happen. Stay tuned!

Writers Need Cheerleaders

Writers need different things from different people. They need feedback, help, snack-making, coffee-pouring, advice, editing, encouragement, encouragement, encouragement, enthusiasm, encouragement, and encouragement.

Writers need cheerleaders. Before feedback. Before editing. Before almost anything else but snack-making, we need to be convinced and reminded that we are GOOD. Feedback of the critical sort, however constructive and wise, can be deadly if it comes too soon. Possibly the most important person in our community, is our cheerleader. Do you have one? Several? Have at least one.

And no. You can not be your own cheerleader. At least, not your only one.

Here is how it goes:

In the beginning of working on a novel, everything shimmers with your genius. The newness, the never-beforeness, the unmitigated awesome, it cannot be repressed. You do not need a cheerleader yet. Just work. Enjoy this time, because it will not last.

It gets harder. You keep working. It is not as delightful to draw up your chair each day and get started. You think wistfully of the wonderful, uncomplicated dishes that need to be washed. And did you once think that character was so unique? Whatever made you think that? Delusional.

Wow. This theme is so tired. Will anyone care? I barely care anymore. And this scene seemed so cool the first twelve times I rewrote it. Have I killed it? Or is it just in a coma? Or am I in a coma? Huh. What is a coma? I think I'll google it and learn all about comas today . . .

--Paging cheerleader.--

There comes a time when you cannot summon even the phantom of the enthusiasm you once had for your great idea. You have to trust that you had it, and that is was genuine and deserved. I actually recommend making a list, while you are still in the throes of passionate love with your incipient book, of all the things you love about your idea. Be detailed. Later you can look at it and trust that you knew what you were talking about. This helps a little, but there is nothing that I have discovered that can rejuvenate your enthusiasm like wild and heartfelt PRAISE.

I think every writer I know has this wish at some point: that they could temporarily wipe their brain clean of their book and read it fresh, like a reader. We can't, of course, be we can experience that vicariously through our first readers, or as I have heard them called lately, "beta readers." It might work for you to wait until you have a finished draft. I usually need propping up well before then, and will give over chunks of partial book. I am blessed with a few wonderfully gifted praise-givers, without whom I am certain I would never finish anything. My wonderful husband Jim gives great praise, as does my best friend Alexandra, who gives only praise, and no criticism -- and she is not withholding anything, she is just an enthusiastic reader with a very generous heart and open mind, and she has revived my flagging spirits and brain so many times, like injections of writing adrenalin right to my heart, Pulp Fiction style. Stephanie Perkins is also an amazing reader, both for praise-giving and, later, for feedback. Thanks, guys!

If you don't have a cheerleader, get one. You cannot trust yourself to see your book clearly when you have been deep inside it for a long time. You are not to be trusted.

Do you have a cheerleader? And how about this: are YOU somebody's cheerleader? When a friend gives you something to read, consider carefully what they need at that moment. It might be that they need critical feedback, but maybe they aren't ready for it yet. They might know themselves well enough to tell you exactly what they need, and they might not. Do not ever be the one to kill someone's book by giving them critical feedback too soon. Bite your tongue. Nurture. Cheer. Drop off snacks. Rave. And be specific. Writers love to know which parts you liked, what made you laugh or cry or shout, "No!" in nail-biting dread, what parts were really smart or compelling or original. Just the good stuff, mind.

Rah rah!

Oh, and, awesome: Lips Touch made Booklist's Top 10 Romance Fiction for Youth 2010 list! *thrill thrill thrill* !!!!! Here is the fabulous list, with a bunch of mouth-watering books on it.

Acceptable Destruction, or: the Calculus of Mess

Wow. I think I've forgotten how to blog. And I miss it! I've been trying to write a catch-up post for the past week. There are several saved versions in my blogger archive that I poked away at but that never coalesced -- in my deadline addled brain -- into any kind of sense. So. No guarantees here, either.

The monumentalness (monumentality, if you want to be strict about it) of having finished the book has given way to a feeling of weightlessness. Floating. The book is not in my head any more. It is not even just in my computer any more. It is on paper, fatly bound at Kinko's into proto-bookness, and it has also zipped through the ether to various large cities -- New York, London, Los Angeles. Weaverville, North Carolina, ha ha. It exists in the world in its unpolished state. Up next: polishing. Which is a job that I relish. I have a polisher's heart. I love to tinker. Bring on the tinkering! And if there are changes and fixes too big to be called tinkering, that's okay too. I love all of revision. (But ask me about it in late October and we'll see how I feel then.)

(To Katie, who enquired if this was yet another book after Daughter of Smoke and Bone: no. This was that book. Next up = the sequel! Actually, next up, today, is polishing a script to an illustrated project for younger readers that Jim and I have in the works. I wrote it last fall with a sleeping newborn in my lap and it has had a fairly interesting life so far, taken a number of journeys, lived temporarily in a number of houses, and now it is home like a college kid with a duffel bag full of laundry, soon to be sent on its way again :-)

So. Today I am auditioning a new writing cafe. Because of this tragedy:
Boo hoo hoo! My cafe closed. Three days after I finished the book! Isn't that eerie? I have this crazy idea that it is a drifting cafe of the mind (like the Treehouse of the Mind in Horns) that is there when you most need it. Right now, it is opening its doors in some little corner of Cincinnati or Boise or Sassafras (come on, there is probably a town in the US called Sassafras) where someone is in need of a quiet place to write.

To that person, I say: Give it back. It's mine.

Boo hoo hoo!

This new cafe is bigger and shinier, and not too busy or noisy, but a) the service wasn't friendly, and b) it's a 17-minute walk from my house, versus three. Which will be exceedingly unpleasant in the coming rains. I actually liked my three-minute umbrella walks to my old cafe, but I think the fun would wear off somewhere around minute five or six. I could (and probably will) get a bike, but then there's the whole glasses-in-the-rain thing. I never wear my contacts for staring at words. Ouchy.

There is another cafe closer to home, maybe ten minutes walk, but it is really busy and noisy and also so full of delicious baked goodness that I would ... increase ... if I went there every day. It's possible that I would prove powerless against coffee cake. Like, yesterday: I woke up from an afternoon nap filled with the pure conviction that if I didn't have cake immediately, I would die. Luckily, there was cake at hand, and so I live on.

Oh sigh. I may have to revert to my writing room for winter, and just barricade the door against cuteness and plug in my earbuds and pretend I'm in a cafe. It'll be cheaper. Plus, my writing room is awesome! I miss it! I am reminded of its awesomeness after having finally, totally belatedly, cleaned it to photograph it for inclusion in an upcoming studios issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine (love love love that magazine). Ah, cleaning with a one-year-old is so. Much. Fun. You know it is. Ever since Clementine became mobile, we have been learning what I'm sure all parents everywhere know, and it is this thing I'll call "acceptable destruction." I'll give you an example:

If Clementine is kept occupied for two full minutes by shredding a roll of toilet paper, and I am able in that time to brush my teeth and put my contacts in and maybe even apply mascara, is the resulting destruction acceptable or does it cross the line into being more hassle than those two minutes were worth? It's a careful and constantly evolving calculus of mess. It is amazing what comes to seem "acceptable." Such as: "Hm, it looks like letting Clementine destroy my brand-new crocheted flower paper clips from Anthropologie is going to buy me three minutes. Well. They were only $10." (And yes, I was watching to make sure she did not ingest any paper clips! I admit, though, she finds things. Like the other day, she was innocuously playing with a stuffed animal she had pulled off the shelf, and I looked up to find she had undone the pin it was wearing and had stretched back the needle-sharp pokey part like a ... hideous stabbing instrument ... and was looking at me kind of like, "Dude, you're letting me play with this?" )

Yikes.

(And as for the paper clips, I was going to take the flowers off anyway and sew them onto barrettes because really: who needs crocheted flowers on their paper clips?)

So. I don't have any photos of the real mess-making, but here is Clementine in various ways helping put the finishing touches on the room:
These books are for me, right? I mean, why else would you stack them under the bench? (Doy.)

Hey look, this stuffed animal is wearing a giant stabby pin too! (Hazards abound!)

Did you know there are a ton more books back here? Score!

Oh, I'm sure this post-it isn't marking anything important here. I'll just have this, thanks ...

What? I'm helping.

My work here is done. I'm off to climb the stairs now! Bye!

And of course, I can't neglect to show you this:
First, look at that keyboard! I have worn that thing out, which makes me weirdly proud. But the missing "m" is not my doing. How easily it disengaged, with the littlest "snick" sound. She reached right for it, like she wanted that one.

Okay. The secret truth is: this is all really really fun. Clementine is getting more fun every day -- that's what everyone says, and it's true. At this rate, when does your head just explode from overload? Or do we just have an infinite capacity for cuteness tolerance? I don't know.
Hey, I'm taller than you now, devil girl!

Where can I get some horns like that?

Uh, mommy, why's this door closed ... ?

I'm going to try to be an actual blogger again, because I really miss it! Don't give up on me! I'm still heeeeeeeeeere ...

There.

*dusts off hands*

I have finished my new book. It is done. For at least the next three days, because as you know, a book isn't "done" until someone pries it out of your hands and publishes it.

I am not feeling up to conveying the wonder of finishing a book. Tired. Happy. Tired. Happy. Going to bed.

Mwah. Goodnight.

Project

Oh yes. My, my yes.
Thank you to the brilliant Levni Yilmaz for summing it all up, and to Patrick Rothfuss for posting it, and Stephanie Perkins for sending me the link. That is a lovely chain of brilliant: Levni Yilmaz, and two of my favorite writers, Patrick Rothfuss and Stephanie Perkins ;-)

By the way, Pat had a FABULOUS post on revision lately, in which he tries to explain, at the request of a non-writer, just what exactly it is we writers DO when we are "revising." So good. So so good. As much of a pain as revising can be, I am YEARNING to be there. There is little that I can think of (in the realm of work, that is) as pleasurable as sitting down with a big fat freshly printed manuscript, a new pack of post-its, and a good pen. Oh, the love, the love. And I am nearly there. Salty tears of joy, my friends, are soon to be streaming down my face. But now, I am still something like the above video.

Yesterday was not the most productive of days. It was more of a getting lost in my own storytelling day, trying to get some things to come together just right and feel like they happened that way inevitably, elegantly, like nothing else could possibly have happened but that. (That is the trick, because, you know, at any moment in writing a story, literally anything could happen, and choosing the thing that does happen and making it seem REAL, that is a big part of this gig. So. I am still working this particular thing out. I'm getting it. Yesterday it felt kind of like I had just dropped a handful of pickup sticks and was staring at them in dismay, knowing I needed to get down on my knees and start gathering them up again, but, you know, not wanting to. You just have to do it.)

Anyway. What should I NOT be doing?
a) watching videos.
b) blogging videos.

(Thanks a lot, Steph. No really: thanks. That was awesome. Steph, by the way, is blogging every day right now, which is not easy. Go cheer her on!)

Upside-Downside

Upside:

A really solid writing day! The end of the book so close I can taste it. A self high-five for a bad-assitude at the close of a chapter. Yay!

As a bonus, baby falls asleep in car on the way home from parents', who have babysat and fed us so I could squeeze in another precious writing hour. I have it made, I think: sleeping baby at 7:30, without having to even try.

Ahem.

Downside:

Baby wakes up and stays up. Resists all tricks and efforts and sleep-induction. Husband not home. Baby wide awake. Book not getting finished.

More coffee is consumed against the certainty of a post-midnight workday extension.

Baby still awake at 10 pm; husband still not home to take over. I decide I might as well put the dishes away while baby plays. Something catches my eye just as I'm sliding a bowl into a stack of heirloom Italian ceramics on a tiptoe shelf. I drop the stack, terrify the baby, and break almost every dish. (Mom, if you're reading this, breathe.)

Comfort scared baby, who decides it's high time to fall asleep. About five-minutes post-disaster. Of course. Husband returns home two minutes after that, finds the cataclysm, wonders what happened.

Razzle fratzen.

hello!

Hi! I miss you, blog people! I am living in the shadow of a deadline right now (eeeep!) but I will return. Possibly very soon. Likely very soon. Certainly very soon.

Cheers!

Happy Birthday, Clementine Pie!

One year ago today:
And now:

We love you so much, our little pie. Thank you for a beautiful year, and many more to come.

We never knew that babies were so

a) easy
b) fun

Really and truly. At least, you are.

(More later. xo)

Harried check-in

Blog? I have a blog? Oh yeah :-) Little check-in here. I have been writing away, and there's not much to say about that but things I've muttered in tweet-form, such as how the story stretches ahead of me, seeming to grow, the way the horizon recedes in dream sequences and you can keep running and running and never get there, ha ha. But I'm not discouraged. I'm totally moving through narrative, it's just that the more it develops, the more there is to write! Still on track for my deadline, though. Whew!

Also, Clementine turns one a week from yesterday! Wowza! Thinking how to celebrate it in some mild way, with a minimum of presents, and a small number of people so she doesn't get too shy or overwhelmed. I'm excited. I have plans for a trunk of "artifacts" I want to collect for her for each year of her life, starting with, this year: her tiniest first onesie and pair of hand-knit booties (with pictures of her wearing them). I want to get some kind of cool antique chest to keep it all in (each year in its own little box inside), but I may hold off on that because it is looking likely that Jim and Clementine and I will be heading to ... and exotic location ... in the next few months, an exotic location known for its shopping, I might add. Not that that appeals to me, ahem. It's not for sure; I haven't planned a trip overseas in quite a while. When you haven't done it in a long time, it gets to seeming really insurmountable and improbable, as if you could just ... fly away to, say, India, or North Africa. Like: who does that? But then you do it, and you see: it's easy! (Well, so long as you can afford the freaking airfare.) So I'm just going to say here: we are GOING. Definitely. To an exotic place that shall remain nameless. Within a few months.

Anyway, the trunk of "artifacts." Along with letters to her, to read when she's grown up. I think it could be lovely. If/when I manage it, I'll post photos, of course! Gift-wise for now, I'm not big on oodles of presents for wee ones, but we have gotten her one of her favorite books (Homemade Love, by Bell Hooks) that so far we've had on a kind of permanent loan from the library. (The library can finally get their book back!) and one paperback that has been destroyed by love, in a more durable hardcover edition (Duck on a Bike, by David Shannon). I suppose some sort of toy will also make an appearance, but that's probably all. Someone suggested: wrap up a couple of her favorite things. It's not like she knows, and there's something so dispiriting about watching young children rip open gifts and toss them aside, isn't there?

I think my teenage niece and her friends are going to play guitar for us and sing and do some Polynesian dances, so that will be fun!

Anyway, I am perched in my cafe now, and I am on the brink of a Major Thing Happening in the story, so sayonara, Mrs. Kackleman!

Clementine's First Trip to the Beach!

I haven't been in the circumstances to be a "beach person" in so long it's easy to forget how very very much I am one. Really. I just love the beach. I was blessed with a beach childhood. As a Navy brat, the beach was never far. I was shoveling Hawaiian sand into my mouth before I could walk, or so I'm told, and after that was the Atlantic in Virginia, which I remember as monotonously same and without landmarks (not that I cared as a kid), and really really crowded.

Then, score: four years of perfect childhood summers (and all seasons, really) in Southern Italy, living two blocks from Serapo Beach in Gaeta, about an hour north of Naples. Every day at the beach. Every every every day. And yes, these were the '80s and yes, there were whispers even then about the sun not being "healthy" but whatever -- who could believe it? I was a brown berry of a child. The sea was warm, the Italians were wonderful, some parent or other could usually be counted on to spring for a peddleboat and if not, heck, there were cliffs to climb, grottos to explore, islands to swim to, castles to build, gelato to eat. Idyllic and perfect. My next beach? Not so much. Oostend, on Belgium's North Sea coast. North Sea? Not the Mediterranean. Moving on. High school beach: Huntington and Newport in southern California. Not my favorite, but you know. It did the trick, and had cute life guards, which let's be honest is a large part of what high school girls look for in a beach.

In college and came the shift to cold oceans where the coastal landscapes (Northern California and now the Pacific Northwest) became very beautiful . . . and very cold and very windy. I stress the beautiful part, but you know, that's not all it's about. The endless lolling, the sand-encrustation of childhood, swimming for hours and hours, drying salty, all that stuff, it's of the distant past, and I miss it. And I want Clementine (and hopeful future sibling) to have it, though with much much more sunblock. And doofy wide-brimmed hats they will complain about.

I didn't mean to go on about that. It's funny though, how easy it is to mislay a part of yourself. My beach self has been in a little box for years, and she's yammering for release. Mexico? Italy? I don't know. When? Not this summer, I guess. Maybe next. At least we got to the coast on a beautiful weekend, though it was far too short!

Our favorite beach town is Manzanita, about an hour and a half from Portland. Just north of it, in Oswald West State Park, is this lovely little beach, I think it's called Short Sands:


Clementine's first encounter with sand was not love-at-first-sight! It clung to her toes and fingers and it distressed her, that she couldn't wipe it off. She was not a fan, and stayed firmly planted on the safety of the beach blanket!

The next day, however, we spent a long loll at Nehalem Bay State Park, on the bay side (it's a sandspit with ocean beach on one side and lovely lovely river mouth on the other) and she got over her aversion in a big way. This little beach (accessed off the boat ramp parking, if you're going there) is one of our favorite spots: it's an alien driftwood landscape with a gentle shore, dunes on the far end, kayakers gliding past, and the town of Wheeler far across the water. Once we got Clementine set up with buckets of water and toys and holes to dig, she was entranced. It was so incredibly adorable that I forgot to take photos. Here we are, though:

And here's what it looks like in Wheeler, on the other side of the bay:

(I did a more travelogue kind of post of this same stretch of coast a few years ago -- check it out, me pre-pink!)
All the playing really tired the little muppet out, and at 6:30 on Manzanita beach, before we could even have a bath, conk! Out like a light for 13 hours!


Funny how carrying a baby has cut back my non-baby photography. All my pictures of this trip were of my sweeties! Or taken by Jim of his sweeties. Anyway, it was a lovely little get-away, but I'm still totally jonesing for a REAL BEACH VACATION. Though I can tell you right now, Jim, my love, ideal partner in all other things, is not probably going to be the ideal partner in a lolly beach vacation. Six years post-melanoma, he is understandably a bit freaked by the sun. Creamy little Clementine Pie has a life of icky sticky ooey gooey sunblock ahead of her, as it must be. I just wish sunblock wasn't so . . . so . . . you know. So icky. (Speaking of which, recent reports on how sunscreen is, amazingly, not regulated! There is super crappy stuff in it, including estrogen, so consumer beware! Especially for your babies, try to seek out the natural stuff. It's $$, but hell. Who wants to slather their baby with hormones???)

Okay, that's all. Cheers!

Favorite beach getaways, anyone? Dream beach getaways?

Vampire Happiness

Okay, so tell me how weird this is. Jim and Clementine and I were away for the weekend at the Oregon coast, lovely lovely, more on that later, but anyway, we were in one of those crap beach shops that all sell the same schmaltz, and walked past a little shelf of tchotchkes, you know, little figurines with sayings on them, super tacky? And Jim pointed at one and said, "How funny. For some reason when I first glanced at that, I thought it said ..."

And as he began to speak, I glanced at the tchotchke in question, and I don't even remember what particular tackiness it was, a unicorn or a girl or whatever, but it had a little banner unfurled across the front (all ceramic) with a single word on it, and AS Jim was speaking, I glanced at it and thought for a split second that it said, "Vampire."

And then -- then -- Jim finished his thought, which was, " ... I thought it said 'vampire.'"

In fact, it said in plain block letters: HAPPINESS.

So I ask you, why -- why? -- did we BOTH, independently of one another, misread it to say "vampire"? Vampire looks nothing like happiness. Happiness looks nothing like vampire. I cannot explain it. Our brains are one.

Jim did say, and I have to agree, that if it had said "vampire" he would have bought it.

Ha ha!

Hope you had a lovely weekend too. I'll be back with Clementine beach pics! It was her FIRST TRIP TO THE BEACH and it was suitably adorable :-)