Month: November 2011

I am thankful for hummingbirds, and also that they will eat out of my feeder. I miss them this time of year.

(This one is cold. It was raining.)

Also for butterflies. Because they’re beautiful.

I missed yesterday’s post. So today, I am grateful for two things. These kind of go together, anyway.

I am so grateful for my agent, and for my editor.

Currently I’m in the middle of a revision based on an editorial letter from my editor, which is brilliant. I’m intimidated at trying to turn all this brilliant feedback into brilliant revisions, because wow…that’s a tall order. But I’m working on it. I’ll get there.

At the same time, I know that this revision would be much, much harder had I not already done the revisions suggested by my brilliant agent. In fact, I wouldn’t be doing this revision at all, because my book would probably still be wandering around submission-land someplace.

I am so glad not to be wandering around submission-land by myself anymore.

A lot of people these days are down on publishing houses, down on editors, down on agents. Agents are just taking your money for nothing, they say. Editors are just trying to keep you out of publishing! They don’t get it! They aren’t necessary! They mostly aren’t even helpful!

Oh, man. As per my last post, I am glad that those people have options available to them that can serve their needs. I think the many indie and self-publishing choices that are constantly evolving are awesome and exciting. But as for me…I do not agree with their conclusions. I am so, so happy to be right where I am…working with an agent and an editor and a big publishing house.

See, I’m not a brilliant writer. No, really. I am not. I put words on the page, and sometimes they are good. But a lot of the time, they are lacking structure. They are lacking development. Sometimes they are the wrong words all together. Here is the true fact of my life: I am not capable of producing an excellent, developed manuscript without feedback from readers. Yes, I have critique groups. Yes, I’ve had freelancers look at my work. (Nice when those freelancers are your friends…and like to read your work for free. Love you guys lots!)

But let me tell you, my books would be much much worse were it not for the excellent, insightful criticism that I receive from my agent and my editor. I make the changes, but their input changes the way that I think about my work, and that shift is something that I, for one, very much need. I can make the changes. I can make my words better. But I need support to get it done right. My best work only happens when I lean on these outside sources to help me get there.

I am so, so grateful to get to work with such amazing professionals. I hope that in the end they benefit from the partnership every bit as much as I do. But wow. That might be asking a lot.

I’m still not interested in blogging about my pregnancy, but I will say this, as it’s apropos to today’s point: the thing that has surprised me most about pregnancy is that it makes everyone in the world feel like they should get to tell me what to do with my body, and how to feel about it.

Everyone I know reads books about parenting and pregnancy when they’re beginning. I read the very beginnings of several books before throwing them all away in disgust. Because those books? They can’t be satisfied with presenting the wide variety of choices and options in a non-judgmental way. Instead, they all want to tell you what to do. And not just that, but scare you into believing that if you don’t choose their particular favorite choice, everyone is going to die.

I am not exaggerating.

I don’t like talking to most people about these topics, either. Because everyone has an opinion, and no one is willing to admit what I see to be the obvious truth: there are many, many options available in this life. And while a few of them are obviously preferable and safer, most of them are of equal value. Most choices you can make are just fine.

I’m grateful for a wide variety of fine choices. Not just related to parenthood, but all the many choices I have in my life.

I’m grateful that I can choose to talk about my experiences, or not.
I can choose to have my baby in a hospital, or at home.
I can choose pain killers, or not.
I can choose to breastfeed, or not.
I can choose to eat and sleep and work on whatever schedule I want, or no schedule at all.
To go back to work one day, one month, or one year after having my child.
To write one book next year, or three.
I can choose to self-publish, or work with a small publisher, or a big publisher.
To blog every day, or never.
To self-promote until I collapse, or to do no promotion at all.
Hell, I can choose to never write another book again if I don’t want to.
I can choose to go back to teaching. Or something else entirely.
I can choose to work, or not to work.

And everything in between.

I can choose anything I want.

Choice is no guarantee of result, of course. If I choose the impossible, I’ll fail. But I can choose failure, too. I am allowed.

Every choice has consequences. But the consequences are often not as dire as people want you to believe. I’m grateful for the freedom to choose, and to ignore everyone who wants to reduce my choices to the small collection of options they feel are the acceptable ones.

And instead of deciding that my choices are the right choices for everyone else, I can choose to allow others to live in the same, open world that I do. I can understand that not all people need to make the same choices. I can choose instead to celebrate choice.

Isn’t it wonderful?

I spent the afternoon learning how to play Blood Bowl. This was my first game ever, and it was not Drew’s first. Not by a long shot. It was a “learning game” in the sense that I talked through all my strategy out loud to give Drew a chance to correct me if I was misunderstanding the game’s rules, or making stupid tactical mistakes.

He did not correct me, except in the case where he needed to explain a rule I didn’t know yet.
About halfway through the game he started declining to comment on my strategy at all, in fact.

And I totally kicked his butt.
By a lot.
(We both played excellently, but my rolls were better.)
And we both had a blast.

We play a lot of games around here. Space Hulk. Warmachine. Hordes. Fairymeat. Malifaux. Now Blood Bowl.
These games, they are so very much fun. I love getting to play them.
And I’m thankful for that.

In keeping with the theme of my year (The Year That Everything Broke), I have to say, I am so very, very grateful for people who can fix things.

My mechanic tops this list. If you live in Provo or Orem and you don’t take your car to Computune on Bulldog, you are doing it wrong. These guys are fantastic. They’ve often taken a look at whatever I think is wrong with my car, and told me it’s nothing, don’t bother spending the money. Other times they’ve fixed small problems for under ten dollars, or for free. All this means that when they say a fix is necessary and going to cost my $700, I know they are telling the truth. They’ll even shop around for the parts for me, trying to get me a better deal. They’re always on time, and if a project goes wrong, they often foot the bill for the problems, to avoid going over their original estimates. I seriously love these guys. As long as they’re there, I won’t buy a car they won’t work on. (If said car exists. I haven’t had an occasion to ask, yet.)

Also on this list is my doctor. I’ve been something of a mystery patient over the last several years, but my doctor doesn’t give up on me. He doesn’t tell me it’s all in my head. He’s always got a new idea to try. He listens to me and then explains things in words I can understand, but that don’t patronize, either. And he’s discovered all kinds of awesome things, like that I’ve had a vitamin D deficiency that makes me tired. I’ve been taking supplements for the last six months, and not only am I much less tired, but I’m also looking forward to winter instead of dreading it. This is nothing short of a miracle.

Then there’s the endless list of service people who’ve fixed our dishwasher, or shown us how to winterize our sprinklers, or replaced the mechanism on the garage door, or fixed our furnace. Some things we can fix on our own, but other things I’m very, very glad that I can call other people to fix for me. It makes my life better and easier, and is worth the money I have to spend to save us the time and stress and future breakages that would result in trying to fix everything ourselves.

I am often grateful that Drew and I have similar money values. Money is supposed to be the number one thing that couples fight over, but we’ve never had a fight about money. That’s not because we do anything special–we just both like to spend about the same amount of money, save about the same amount of money, and spend discretionary money on the same sorts of things.

Really, what this looks like is that neither of us likes spending money (or shopping, for that matter), we both like having a healthy financial buffer, and we both would rather work as artists than have lots of toys, or even much financial security. It’s just so nice to know that when I have to say, “I don’t think we can afford that right now,” I’m going to be met with agreement, rather than resistance. It’s also nice because while our funds for fun things are limited, it’s possible to spend them on things we’ll both enjoy, which makes the money go farther.

I’m sure we could work it out if we disagreed about these things, but agreeing about them makes my life simpler and our financial lives healthier, so I’m grateful for it.

I am thankful for flowers.  I mean, look at them.  They’re beautiful.  I’m also thankful for plants that spontaneously produce them with little to no effort from me, and the ground to plant them in.

Continuing my Thanksgiving theme for the month: today I am grateful you can do that for a living.  No, not write.  Paint miniatures.

Don’t get me wrong–my job is awesome.  I’m going to do all I can to keep it for as long as I can.  But I live with a constant reminder that I do not, in fact, have the most awesome job in the world.  Because my husband does.

For example, last week, he got paid a lot of money to paint this:

Earlier this year, he got paid to paint this:

And he regularly gets paid to paint things like this:

I just can’t compete with that.

It’s kind of a pain to explain to people what Drew does for a living, because it’s not a profession that’s on most people’s radars.  If I can get a person to even understand what it is that he does, I inevitably get the question, “You can do that for a living?”

My answer is always the same.  “It’s a surprise to us, too.”

But here we are.  I’m aware every day that the success of Drew’s business is the only reason that I can afford to continue writing.  It’s his business that’s paid our bills for the last two years.  We made some future financial goals at the end of 2009, including the amount of income we needed to be able to pull from each of our businesses in order to meet our life goals and justify continuing.  Drew’s business is overperforming.  And what’s just as important?  He loves it.  I love it.  It’s no end of fun, and gets less stressful as time goes on.

I’m grateful for that.

Every day, when I wake up in the morning, my thought process goes something like this.

My life is awesome.
I get to do this for another day?
How did I get that lucky?
Oh, hi husband. You are awesome.
Hello, house, you are also awesome.
I’m just going to sit here in the awesomeness for another minute.
Then I’ll get up and do what needs to be done today to keep it.
(Then I usually fall asleep for another hour, which I shouldn’t, but whatever. Nobody’s perfect.)

So when I read this post series idea this morning, I wanted to steal it. I have so much to be thankful for. I don’t talk about this as much as I think about it, because, really, sharing feels like gloating.   But seriously guys.  A month of things I’m thankful for?  I might go on for three months.  Or four.

I’ve decided to go for it. The idea-stealing might be tacky, but I’ve decided I don’t care.  Here we go.

Thing I am thankful for #1:

Let me tell you about this guy:

No, first let me tell you a story.

When I was maybe twelve years old I was with my church youth group. I don’t remember what the topic of conversation was, but it was something that came up a lot and also something that I did not care about at all. (Band practice, perhaps? Something along those lines.) I complained. Why do we always have to talk about this same thing?

And I remember an adult telling me that when I got older, and got married, I’d have to talk about the same exact things every day. My husband would come home and want to talk about work, and there wouldn’t be anything else in the world to talk about, so I might as well get used to just talking about the same things all the time.

That’s not an exact quote, obviously, but I remember the spousal example specifically. And I also remember thinking, wow. Your life must really suck. I don’t have to be like that when I grow up.

Back to my husband. I’m not just with him in the evenings. We’re together almost literally 24-7, because we both work at home, and we have the same hobbies, and we like to hang out with each other when we have the choice, anyway. (Are we one of those annoying couples that other people have hive-names for, like Brangelina? Maybe. But I like to think that our friends are cooler than that.)

Let me tell you, in all that time we spend together, we do a lot of talking. A lot. Sometimes we stay up until the very early hours of the morning because we’re talking and can’t just shut up and go to sleep. And yes, we talk about work. Though I have to say that having to talk about the latest in miniatures gaming is not quite the boring conversation I imagined as a twelve-year-old. But the former-me would be pleased (and smug, no doubt) to know that we don’t just talk about that. We talk about politics, and art, and science, and philosophy, and literary theory. We can dissect a good movie for a solid four days–a good video game for even longer. We design role-playing settings, we debate economics, we talk game strategy. And all this while cooking dinner or eating lunch or working.

In short, contrary to the predictions of my long-ago youth leader, my life does not suck. My life is, in fact, awesome. And never repetitious or boring.  And full of interesting ideas, and debate, and variety.   And this is due, in very large part, to this guy:

Jeez, I love him. And our lives. And I’m thankful every day for that.