Last winter we had fog–which almost never happens here, especially compared to the frequency of the fog in the Bay Area, where I grew up. But in California, the fog doesn’t freeze to the trees. I’ve been living in Utah eleven years, and have only seen this twice. The first time, I was at work without a camera. This time, I was luckier.
We have wasp problems. Every year they launch an assault on our house and our yard and we beat them back. Pictured above is the nest we found hiding behind some weeds at the end of last year. No wonder we couldn’t control them. I know there are some nests lurking around this year that we haven’t found, since killing the thirty-odd nests that we did find didn’t get rid of the wasps. Next year, I’m calling an exterminator.
This post is part of an ongoing series I’m doing about how I get writing done with a baby in the house. See the first installment here.
Against my own predictions, the last four months have actually been easier than the first two in terms of getting work done. As my daughter gets older, I spend a lot less time feeding her, which means I have more time with my hands free to do other things. The most wonderful development happened somewhere between three and four months, when she became interested in objects, and developed enough coordination to play with toys. Suddenly she wanted to do something with her time besides smile at us all day. (Though we still get plenty of smiles. All day long. It’s distracting and adorable.)
I’ve found that the most important thing I need to do in order to get work done while Cori is awake is to give her frequent spurts of focused attention. If I give her half my attention all day, she gets whinier and clingier as the day wears on, and then she refuses to nap or sleep. If I give her all my attention for five minutes, and then ignore her for the next fifteen, she’s happy to babble and chew on toys and roll around on the floor without me. As long as she feels like the center of the world some of the time, she’s happy to let me get other things done the rest of the time. I don’t know if other children do that, but I’m grateful that mine does, because it lets me get writing (and shipping and accounting and cleaning and and and…) done while she’s awake.
We’ve set up our house to accommodate both our daughter and our work. We have a play pen and an activity center set up next to Drew’s work table, where Cori can roll around and play with toys and practice standing and generally put everything in her mouth, and also be safe without our full and total attention. We spend a lot of time talking to her and singing to her while working, which makes everyone happy.
These days, most of our work looks like this:
(You may notice my computer screen is not featuring any writing. Shame on me. The internet is more distracting than my baby. By a lot.)
I can and do write while Cori is awake, but I’m working on a draft right now that’s taking a lot of brain power to form up. This means that I tend to avoid it, since writing sessions are draining. I get intimidated and don’t work. So for a while I made an appointment with myself that I would write as soon as Cori took her first nap. Between three and five months she had difficulty napping, so sometimes this meant I didn’t do it until five o’clock, but I’d sit down and write first thing after she fell asleep–no excuses. This really had nothing to do with her–the failure to focus was mine, and I’d gone through similar things before Cori was born. But nap time was a scheduled event, so I tied my writing to that to motivate myself.
More recently I’ve started getting up an hour earlier to write, because I find that if I write first thing, I’m not anticipating the work all day. If I’ve already gotten it done, I feel like the day is a success when most of it is still ahead of me. Also, since I’ve already jumped into the work, I’m more likely to do more of it in small snatches of time as the day goes on. Again, this is more my personal issue than a parenting one. I could be doing a lot more writing than I’m doing time-wise, but my brain rebels if I try to force through the hard work too fast.
This means that Drew takes care of Cori while he’s doing his internet work in the morning. Then he feeds us all breakfast. At ten o’clock I take over the childcare, having already written for the day. This means I have all those little bits of time when she’s happily playing on the floor, or in the pen, or in the activity center to do all the other work that piles up, clean the house, etc. Drew talks to the baby while he works, I run her around the house and feed her, and at six o’clock we both stop working and spend some more time together. Work gets done, and everyone is happy.
Honestly, I think at this point it’s the co-parenting that makes all this possible. Cori sleeps twelve hours at night–she usually gets up once during that time, Drew feeds her, and then she goes back to sleep and so does he. Then he takes her for the first two hours of the day, and I take the next eight, two of which she naps. Then we share childcare for the last two hours before she goes to sleep–he usually does most of the work in that time, though, including putting her to bed. So I’ve got her six hours of the day, and Drew has her five, and during all of that we can switch back and forth as need be. This means I only have to be the (almost) primary care-giver for six hours a day, and my daughter is still being taken care of at home, by her parents, full time. It’s a pretty wonderful set up, and we all love it. It also leaves plenty of time for us all to get work done.
I feel bad that most people probably can’t extrapolate this into their own situations, but that’s life. It works differently for everyone. As for us we’ll just keep adapting as circumstances change (the crawling is coming–any day now), and making sure that everyone’s needs are met.
Today the members of teamTEENauthor are blogging on this topic: Bully. To see other posts on the topic, check the links at the bottom of the page.
As I contemplated this post, spent a while thinking about what story I wanted to tell. I have no shortage of stories about awful things I saw my schoolmates do to each other. For several years, I had some painful things said to me on a daily basis. But it became clear to me that those were not the stories that I wanted to tell. Instead, I want to tell you about Jennifer.
In seventh grade, Jennifer and I were in several of the same classes. We sat together; we ate lunch together. Soon we started hanging out after school–we walked to the grocery store for sodas and candy bars. I hung out at her house with her and her brother. We watched movies. We had sleepovers.
And then, probably three weeks before the end of the school year, I stopped talking to Jennifer. We still traveled in the same social circles. I still saw her plenty at school. But I wouldn’t look at her. I wouldn’t speak to her. I acted as if she wasn’t even there. Jennifer acted bewildered around me, like she couldn’t figure out what she’d done, but she never struck back at me. Then the school year ended; I wrote the word “Rat” over the lower half of her picture in my year book. I asked to sign her year book, and when she reluctantly handed it over, I wrote, “have a nice trip, see you next fall.” I was guilty not only of petty spitefulness but also a painful lack of originality. I ignored Jennifer into summer break. And before the beginning of eighth grade, she moved away. I never saw her again.
I couldn’t tell you exactly why I did it. I could tell you about how seventh grade was a really lousy year for me. I could tell you about how I felt powerless, and so I wielded ugly power in a place where I had control. But it isn’t an excuse. There is no excuse for what I did. She called me her friend, and I hurt her. I knew it was wrong at the time, and I did it anyway. Plain and simple, it was a shitty thing to do.
Here’s the thing–I’m pretty sure Jennifer’s life was already difficult. She lived with her mom and her stepdad and four or five older step-siblings. I hung out at her house quite a bit, and I don’t remember meeting her parents, step or otherwise. I remember my mom saying years later that she thought the kids there were raising themselves. With only my thirteen-year-old perceptions to look back on, I’m not sure how good or bad the situation actually was. But I do know this: I made Jennifer’s life worse, when, as her friend, I should have been making it better.
Was I a bully? I never hit Jennifer. I never threatened her. I didn’t say the awful things to her that some of my classmates said to me. But I remember talking about aggression in a child development class. Some people believe that school-aged boys are more aggressive than girls, because boys are much more likely to hit each other. But it isn’t true. Girls are just as aggressive, but we wield emotions instead of weapons. We tear each other to shreds with the power of our relationships. A boy might say he’s going to hit you, but a girl will withdraw her friendship. It might not be physical, but it’s just as aggressive and harder to see. While I know that people can be classified as bullies based on a longterm pattern of persistent behavior, I think for many of us, bully is a shadow that passes over us. It’s an ugly, dark shadow, and I wish I’d never passed under it.
The next year, eight grade, was my last year of middle school. Friends drifted, other friends moved away. I ended up with no friends for quite a while; I ate lunch alone. I didn’t find another group of solid friends at school for two years. For those years, a part of me believed I was doing penance for what I did to Jennifer. To be honest, a part of me still does.
I think this is what I really wanted to say: Jennifer, I’m sorry. If I could change it, I’d undo what I did. But since I know that’s impossible, I hope for this one thing.
I hope I’m not a memory you dwell on. I hope you have forgotten me.
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More posts on this topic by teamTEENauthor:
It’s raining, which makes me happy. I’m happy because I like the rain; I’m happy because it’s been too hot. But mostly I’m happy because it’s coating all the houses in the evacuation zone in my valley, making it much less likely that they will burn. When a whole valley prays together, miracles do happen.
[This mini is from from one of the monsters from Studio McVey’s new Sedition Wars game. The kickstarter for the game is funding on Saturday, and is a phenomenal deal for the gorgeous minis involved. The McVey’s are amazing painters and industry veterans.]
As I’m working through a first draft these days, I’ve been thinking a lot about how little of the book actually makes it into one of my first drafts. There’s too much tell when there should be shown. There’s too much inner monologue when there should be dialogue. My characters say what they mean when they should hedge. My main character announces the intentions of others when they should be show in physical details. The scenes aren’t getting anywhere near where they need to be.
In fact, it’s a lot like Drew’s process when he sculpts a mini. He starts with an armature, which looks nothing like the finished product.
Here is an image of an armature by Jacques-Alexandre Gillois, who is one of the best mini sculptors in the world.
In that photo, the metal parts are the basic armature. These are built out of wire and solder in the basic shape of the critter. The wire armature is like my outline–a sparse foundation on which I’m going to build the rest of my story.
The green bits bulk up the armature, creating a thicker foundation on which the sculptor is going to place the underlying anatomy. Believe it or not, this completed armature is about as much like the final sculpt as my first draft is like the final mini. The basic shape is there. It’s kind of neat looking. You can believe it is going to turn into something. But it’s not there yet. Everything you can see is just a placeholder for the better details that will be brought out in revision.
And then I revise, adding details. So does Gillois. See the finished mini here. Also an explanation of the sculpting process. Notice how the mini looks like it could be finished several steps before it actually is. Writing is deceptive that way, too. A finished product is usually several steps past where it looks like it could be done.
I’ve been told by some that it’s smart not to have word counts when you’re drafting, because you should focus on quality, not quantity. I’ve been told that it’s stupid to try to write a book quickly, when you could be focusing on turning out a fine product. But here’s the thing: I can’t make my first drafts turn out pretty the first time any more than Drew can make his first go-round on a mini look like a finished product. The result would be a wad of goo with details but no underlying structure. For me, books are written in layers. It doesn’t matter how long or short a time I spend on the first draft. It’s still going to be nothing more than an armature.
But the armature is vital to the finished product. If the armature is wrong, the final mini’s anatomy will be wrong, and there will be nothing to do but cut off the offending parts and start them over.
As Gillois works through the process, the mini gets more and more detailed. He starts with the basic form, and then fleshes it out. If he needs an armature, it’s okay for me to need one, too.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in my yard. This year’s yard work goals are almost complete—I’ve been occupying some spaces with grass and others with irises so I won’t have to weed the bare ground there ever again. Of course that means this year I do have to weed them. Lots. Also, my vegetable garden is succeeding this year. The major discovery of last year’s experimenting was that I couldn’t handle all the garden space that I had, and I couldn’t handle it being on two sides of the house. This year I planted a garden one side and seeded grass on the other. Yesterday I mowed that grass for the first time. It still needs to fill in a bit, but it’s holding out the weeds now. Mostly.
I’m still plugging away at my draft, which has become increasingly first-drafty as I go. This happens. Every day I write something half-realized and tell myself that I can fix it. My brain just can’t lay a novel down in its full flesh. It has to come out in layers. Just because the first fifty pages of this one came out more developed than normal doesn’t mean I’m now writing the middle parts wrong. (This is odd for me. Usually my first-draft middles are much better than my beginnings.) I’m well past the halfway mark, and it’s going faster now. On to the finishing, and then to two revision projects.
I read an article the other day that suggested it was healthy to always consider yourself to be in the middle of things. That way, there’s no waiting for things to begin; there’s no slowing down because you are at an end. There can be no picking up pace to race to the finish, and no figuring out where to start. There is just the work ahead today, because you are ever in the middle. I love this idea, especially as it pertains to my work and my home life. I am ever in the middle of keeping my house together, ever in the middle of taking care of my child, ever in the middle of writing my words. There is no beginning or end to these things–not anymore. There’s no sense rushing through it to move on. There’s no sense waiting for some new beginning. There’s just the work ahead of me today. And you know what? I love it. Every bit of it. Even messy parts.
Talking about my work, though–one of the things that I do to alleviate the writing blues is to plot future, sneaky undertakings. Plodding through the middle-book blues especially makes me feel subversive. It’s not as if I’m subverting anyone’s goals but my own, of course. But my relentless scheduling of myself makes me want to do something to shake up the schedule entirely. Something creative and unexpected, even to myself. But because I’m me, I have to plot these things. I have to plan them. This is ridiculous and contradictory, which, in truth, is my favorite way to be. I’m plotting subversiveness for a few days in August. These little spurts of different are what recharge me for the day-to-day work, even when they fail.
One of Drew’s steady clients has an interview with Drew up at his blog today. I’m pretty sure John’s Praetorian force (featured in his banner, and the last photo on that page) is the largest force Drew’s painted. If you’ve ever wondered what life is like living with a full-time commission painter, that interview sums it up really well. Although, Drew forgot that I also do his accounting. Just had to throw that out there.
Congratulations to Hilary Graham on the book birthday of her debut YA novel, Reunited
First and most importantly, tell us about you book.
1 Concert. 2,000 Miles. 3 Ex-Best Friends.
Alice, Summer, and Tiernan are ex-best friends. Back in middle school, the three girls were inseparable. They were also the number one fans of the rock band Level3. But when the band broke up, so did their friendship. Summer ran with the popular crowd, Tiernan was a rebellious wild-child, and Alice spent high school with her nose buried in books. Now, just as the girls are about to graduate, Level3 announces a one-time-only reunion show. Even though the concert’s 2000 miles away, Alice buys three tickets on impulse. And as it turns out, Summer and Tiernan have their own reasons for wanting to get out of town. But on the long drive cross-country, the girls hit more than a few bumps in the road. Will their friendship get an encore or is the show really over?
That sounds like so much fun. I love roadtrip novels. Now, on to the bounty hunting questions. You’ve skipped bail, and a bounty hunter is looking for you. What three things do you bring with you?
My husband, my son, and my computer so I can write (and obsessively check my email).
Bringing backup sounds like a great plan. So where does the bounty hunter find you?
Oh, he can’t find my yacht in the Caribbean.
It’s also illegal for him to follow you out of the country, so good call. Now you’re the bounty hunter. When three things do you bring with you
while tracking your skip?
I’m going Macgyver style. All I need is a piece of chewing gum, a pen cap, and an empty whipped cream can.
I hope you ate the whipped cream first. Now, you’ve found your skip, right where you thought they would be.
Describe your location and approach.
I know he’s holed up in cave somewhere in the Smokey Mountains. So under the cover of darkness, I climb the steep path and surprise him, grabbing by the shirt-collar and saying, “It’s over, pal. Time for you to take a hike.”
You’ve just caught a skip, and you’re surprised to find them
attractive. What three things make them irresistible to you?
His rugged manliness, his sharp wit, and the sound of his voice saying my name.
After writing this bounty hunter fantasy, I am considering switching careers. 😉
Aww, you don’t have to switch, as long as you’ve got that computer with you!
Want to know more about Hilary? Find her online on facebook, twitter, or her blog. You can also find Reunited
