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Sarah -- I couldn't help but laugh. Your children are adorable, the play room looks like a kid's dream place. I'm jealous of them!

I wish you and your kids the best of luck as school rolls around. I can't believe you start so early! I go back the second week of September.

Thanks for sharing, and I hope you're having a great week.

Looks like you're setting up for a bonfire! |:~)

Will you come design a playroom for me??? I promise not to mess it up!

Oh, ha ha! Good luck!

I love seeing that even perfect magazine like playrooms end up looking like that. Seriously. This makes my heart happy.

And I just did a monumental toy purge last week. Two HUGE garbage bags full of plastic crap all given to charity. It felt good on so many levels.

Good luck with all of that. It looks like my garage. I think we filled an entire dumpster with stuff. Seriously.

My van is full of stuff to donate--I mean FULL!!

Plus, I filled up a couple of huge garbage cans.

The large men (my husband and his business partner) moved the large furniture today. Things are looking better, but we're a good ways away from the "after" picture.

I'm trying to figure out how to raise the table with some sort of leg extensions. It's a great table for games, etc.--we're just all getting to the point of needing to sit in real chairs instead of the kid-sized ones.

Anyway, it's good to purge. I was going to wait until the kids went to school to do the deed, but I want to be WORKING when they hit the books. Not crawling on my belly looking for marbles and barbie shoes.

sf

Purge, sister!

Glad to see you back!

We have all our computers downstairs, in the open (except for the college student.....her laptop goes everywhere.) I can't recommend it enough!

When my oldest two were little, we had a sunroom which became the toy room. Oh those were the days! The great thing was that no matter how big of a mess they made in the toy room, they always had a nice, clean room to sleep in.

No sun room in this house=toys EVERYWHERE (youngest child).

Good Luck!

shelley

I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only one being overwhelmed by childhood peraphenalia! Those magazine shots always make me feel so inadequate, so thank you for keeping it real!

Yes! The purge is so good, Miss J. !! I think I needed a little cleaning out time--kind of like starting the new year fresh.

Shelley, I love having the "toy" room. When we bought our house, it had been cut into three one-bedroom apartments (I'll post those "before" pix sometime), so we had three kitchens. This room was one of the kitchens. It looks big in pictures because of all of the windows, but the room is actually barely 9 x 10 feet. It is right off of our family room, and I let the girls do whatever they want in there (spill paint, play do, etc.). And, I can shut the door!!! Sorry you lost your toy room. All that STUFF can make a girl crazy.

Ha Solvang! I wish you could have seen my house when the photographers arrived -- SIX HOURS EARLY!! There was literally an entire box of lucky charms spewed all over my kitchen which was the room that they actually came to photograph. They thought it was funny, and while I was cleaning up the cheerios they photographed other rooms saying, "Don't worry, we'll just photoshop out the dirt and stuff."

The girls had been playing in the playroom all day, and they thought they were so cute. So, we raked out the room (what you can't see is the huge mess just behind the picture), and the girls posed for pix.

sf

Well it may be messy but it's absolutely adorable! I'd love to have a room like that in my house...messy or not!

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I wish we had a playroom! Lovely. I have a corner of my living room that looks like that where the boys pile stuff on their train table!

Great pics and nice information to us........


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Richard
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love the before and after photos!

Fabulous post, April!

Oh, dear. You did it again. You made me smile! :) Counting the days 'til your visit to RB Library. xx

Wonderful! I love that you let your story kidnap you. Awesome!

April,<br /><br />Great inspiration with a side dish of reality. Love it. <br /><br />Gotta go write my envelope poem...<br /><br />Hugs,<br />Barbara B

Thanks for a new &quot;form&quot; to try with my fourth grade writers!

Great post! Loved the title, so I HAD to read it. <br /><br />I get that writer&#39;s high, too. It is a fabulous feeling. I guess it&#39;s like a runner&#39;s high, but my body is designed more for writing than running, so I&#39;ll probably never know.<br /><br />Thanks for the fun, supportive, inspiring post.

I doubt the holiday weekend will mean more writing time for me, but June 1st is my day! I can’t wait.

That’s right Tee, June 1st is going to be the DAY! I know you aren’t scared, LOL.

I feel the same way about resolutions, so I also take this time to think about what I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure, lol. I've done very little writing since my daughter was born, and I don't want to set an unrealistic goal. I'm toying with the idea of putting aside 30 minutes a day for writing--journaling, roughing out picture books, or just

I have three resolutions (one to be more patient, two to eat healthier/drink more water, three for writing). My writing goal is to submit two items per week (to a magazine or publisher). I want to use my free time more effectively and write more!Good luck with yours!

I feel the same about resolutions too. It's a great time for reflection. Me? Take life as it comes, and try to stay happen. My goal for this year though - get at least 1 novel ready to query to agents by the end of the year :) A big one which feels doable. Remind me about that when I moan I'll never get it polished enough!

Sounds like both of you have set some reasonable goals! Good luck!

I can't remember ever making resolutions at the start of a new year. I do set goals & make lists (about everything - not limited to writing), just because that's my nature. This year I want to get my next book out by the end of the summer (while promoting the 1st - which is a pain in the neck) & want to get into more short story writing. I'd also like to blog more regularly - but that's affected

My hopes for the coming months (re: writing) would be knocking out my current revision over the next four weeks then completing my new WIP by March. Of course, I would love to find representation! But, timing on that is out of my control. Until then, I'll just have to be content with just doing my very best at the very least. XOXO

I meant to stay to stay happy, not happen!

Ditto re: resolutions but like to have goals. current goal: to be agent shopping with book 1 by Feb and concurrently into continuing re-writes on bks 2 & 3this after a loooooong hiatus up until several weeks ago. now thinking on the fast track again! And loving it!

Good luck, ladies.Becca, I used to write in 15-min bursts with the kids were babies adn toddlers. It's amazing what good stuff you can write even in small amounts.I'm still debating all the things I need to improve ... but simply writing more is one of my goals. So I'm off to ponder and write some more.

The top three, same as always:-eat healthier-get some exerciseand number one-get more sleep!

Jax, I feel your pain with the blogging. That should be a goal of mine, to do a little more around here.CJ, doing your best is always a great goal, imo.Jude, glad to hear you're back on the bandwagon!Vijaya, that's very encouraging news. I'm definitely going to give it a try.Danette, best of luck with those. And good luck to us all!

I hear you on revisions. Sometimes you need to just jump in and write anything new to feel creative again!Have fun!

Great goals.. Writing - I changed my schedule - no Internet until I'm done my word count and revisions for the day. Plus, I want to finish four books this year :)

I feel exactly as you do about revisions--nice, but they do clog up the creative juices, no?My writing goals: just more. More, more, more. :)

Jaxpop--I'm a list maker too!CJ, I think you're right--certain aspects of this business is out of our hands. You can try for representation, but you can't force it even by trying as hard as you can. the end result is up to another and all you can do is try. Yuna, thank you for having a typo. Seriously, I'm the queen of Typos, especially in the comment sections!! I think somewhere deep down you

Good luck with your goals!!! My current WIP is getting spiffied up to send out to a couple editors and an agent in the early spring. Then I'm going to work on shaping up the story I did for NaNo and finishing a rough draft for the 2nd story I started for NaNo. That's about it. I'd also like to attend a couple of conferences and/or a writing retreat. may all your goals be accomplished in 2009!

Bah, I don't bother with new year's resolutions. ;)But I would like to accomplish writing at least one new, satisfactory short story a month and get one novel polished and submission ready. ;)And read more. But I don't think of them as resolutions. O:)

Angela, I can almost guarantee I'm probably worse at typos than you! Seriously you ought to see my wips before spell check. I type fast and my brain often thinks ahead to the next paragraph....:) Glad I could oblige though :)

I don't set resolutions, per se, but I do make some goals for the year. :)One of my goals is to send a super-shiny polished partial to an agent who has requested it (thanks to a recent contest). I sure hope he requests a full. That's my hope... If not, my goal is to polish up my two novels and start querying like mad!We'll go from there. :)And yes, reading is a new goal for me, too. I never seem

Best of luck in 2009, Angela and Becca. Things I'd like to accomplish are finish and submit BIG SPLASH (thanks to your help with the query!). If I can finish and submit my other YA, that would be a bonus. :-)

I've decided to nano this year but I'm going to write a series of short stories instead of one long novel.

I say do it! :D(Are you ever going to do anything with "Orbmaster"? That was your nano book as well, right?)I'm sure you'll be able to write something sellable even if it's a rough draft to start. ;)

I'm not NaNoing only because it doesn't fit with my schedule. I'm all for finishing a first draft quickly but I don't mind revisions at all. At least not the first 30 times through something.

I just today blogged Seven Reasons WhyMo!I hate revising, too. So instead of thinking I'm writing something I'll try to publish one day, I try to focus on an aspect of writing that usually comes hard for me. So last year, it was all plot, plot, plot. I wrote a terrible fantasy novel that will never see the light of day, but it was great practice. This year I'm focusing on set-up and payoff.Do

I wouldn't dream of trying to sway you one way or the other. My own personal choice is not to NaNo. I find that when I make reasonable goals, I'm good at sticking with them. But flexibility is key. If I need to take a couple of days off and I don't, it kills my drive. So NaNo isn't such a good idea for me. Even if I had the time to do it this year :).

Lyra, I did that before, only with chapter book/mid grade novels. Good on you!Merc, I would like to rewrite Orb, someday. I have an awesome sequel in mind, but UGH the thing is so messed up with cliches and purple prose. I'm afraid to even look at it, but one of these days I'll yank it out again.PJ--Yeah, timing is everything. The first time I did nano, I was in Mexico with no internet access for

I'm doing Nano for 3 reasons1) It works with my style of writing. I like getting out the idea first and putting aside the inner editor. It helps my flow of creatiity2) This has given me the indpiration to plan out a novel that has been in my head for a while now and get the plan on paper and in Nov. the idea on paper too. 3) I need a break from my current WIP. I've been working on my WIP

I won't be NaNo-ing. I've just completed the third chapter of a very fun but very demanding fantasy, and that's going to take up a lot of writing time for the next four or five months. I don't want to lose focus with this work.My books also tend to be long - usually 130K first drafts - so there's no way I could complete one in a month. So I just plug away with my own thing and enjoy cheering on

I'm with Becca in that I won't attempt to sway you one way or the other, because writing style and process is a very personal thing. Nano doesn't work for my process. I have to take my beginnings slow and rewrite them a thousand times before I can write the rest. Don't know why, it's just how my brain works. But, to me, in getting the beginning absolutely just right, the rest of the novel

I've bitten the bullet and I'm going for it. I think because I've gotten into the terrible little habit of procrastinating over the past year and a half (as you well know). I believe this will be good for me personally as it will make me more accountable, and cause me to organize my life and priorities. No pressure friend, just do it! Tee! Hee!XOXO CJP.S. Miss ya! FYI - I'm on "blogger" now as

I work better under pressure, but being a PB writer, not sure that goal is reasonable for what I do..But only you can decide whether or not to jump in! Good luck!

I simply can't write without rereading and polishing the work from the day before first, so I really don't think doing NaNo for me would work. But I admire those who can do it. It at least gives them a structure of a story that they can scrub and polish later.

I'm attempting it for the first time this year, circumstances depending. It's a fun idea, because I can get really stumped with my internal editor yabbering away 'you're rubbish, you should quit writing'. Nice to just go for it! I hope to write the first book in a YA trilogy written.

CR--I agree, Nano can be a great time to take a break from current work. Often our creative process is stymied somewhat by revisions, revision, revision, and this can be a great way to get back on track.Marian--sounds like you're doing what works for you!Tabitha--I know a few people who feel this way about beginings. I know I di when I do the first revision--I have to get the start right in order

Nothing helps your writing more than writing; we've all got to churn out crap for some length before our writing turns to gold. It may or may not produce a best seller, but I think that has more to do with where we are in our development of the trade rather than the quality of work that NaNo can present.

I'm pro-nano! I think it's a great idea. Writing is a constant learning experience, and there's a lot to be taken from doing Nano (figuring out what type of writer you are etc, how you work under an intense deadline, learning to shut off your inner editor). I like what wulf said--nothing helps your writing more than writing. Plus, it's not like it's mandatory. That's why the really vehement

"Nothing helps your writing more than writing." I think that's a great quote, Wulf.

Wulf, excellent point. Nano is a great time to hone craft and experiment.Courtney--yeah, I don't see the point of being against nano--it's eather something you do or don't, but it isn't a exclusively good or bad thing. Now leaving Viggo Mortensen in a burning building in order to save PeeWee Herman...that's a bad thing.Jacqui, all I have to say is WULF for PRESIDENT!!

Even though I might regret it because of the timing, I joined Nano. . :) I'm with you.. Revisions make my brain explode.. Especially 60K worth. I've tried writing the whole thing, then going back and this method takes longer. I'm better at revisions as I move through the story. So, I kind of cheated. I'm almost 30K in my Nano.. So I can revise while I go.

Great post! I've struggled with a lot of those questions myself. One huge problem I have with Nano is that I do not, repeat DO NOT do well writing by the seat of my pants. I get frustrated and confused and I loose stamina. I have to write a little, pause, plan, write a little, etc. And it works for me. This year I bit the bullet and decided to Nano, but nothing official, no signing up. I'm doing

Keri, I think Nano is pretty adaptable. Good luck!Creative, I'll swing by your blog. I'm still not sure if I'll do nano or not. One thing i found helpful when I got caught up not knowing how to proceed with the novel is I'd skip ahead to the next scene I could visualize. That way I didn't lose momentum, and then later once I'd mulled over how to 'get to that scene', I'd go back and fill it in. It

Thanks Angela, for the tips as well.Tabitha's method sounds a lot like mine. Once I get past the beginning I can roll along pretty good, which is what makes me so antsy. I just need to scrutinize every detail. Maybe planning tomorrow's scene will help some. It's funny, but I find revisions exhilarating.

It's funny, but I find revisions exhilarating.We're similar in a way...I find the idea of having someone else revise my work exhilarating.lol

I signed up for NaNo a few years ago but never did it. I signed up again last month and I'm sticking to it. I want to see if I can actually complete it and I think the book I plan on writing for it would be the perfect length for the time frame (I only plan on having be around 55k words).I plan very little when I write and most of it is flying by the seat of my pants. I feel that with planning