Every January, I make a big old cup of coffee and sit down to write my goals. I begin by evaluating the previous year, and then I outline what I want to accomplish in the coming year. 

I won't lie. 2013 wasn't the easiest year for me, as a writer. Moving to a new city is totally disruptive, no matter how organized you try to be. Throw in a couple of personal and professional surprises, and I'm just glad to have emerged from 2013 with all of my limbs intact.

So I'm aiming to make 2014 the year when I'm ALL IN. The year I write the big stories, make the big moves, without worrying about failure. I figure failure will come... but not all the time. Not if I stay in the game. 

I've got ten goals. None of them, sweet blog reader, is to keep up with my blog. I've got different fish to fry. Like writing two novels this year. And hiking twelve different Texas trails... hopefully without any coyote companions. 

I'll post here if the spirit moves me, but I make no promises. In the meantime, thanks for checking this area out and don't forget you can always find me on Twitter, Facebook, or use the link up top to send me a note. Especially if you know a good hiking trail in Texas.

courtesy Library of CongressIt's fantastic to win a Big Official Award. But writers need encouragement along the way, too... especially for the things we can control. 

Maybe we ought to start giving each other merit badges. Can you imagine the next RWA or SCBWI convention, with writers wearing their sashes and badges proudly? Here are some badges I'd like to see:

--Revision Demolition: Honoree has completed revision during which at least 25% of the novel's content was changed. 

--Plot Architecture: Honoree successfully identified and defended all classic plot points in their novel. 

--Rejection Survival: Honoree has resubmitted work at least ten times after a rejection.

--Storytelling Scholarship: Honoree has read ten nonfiction books about writing and/or storytelling, and can speak coherently about them. 

--Character Conversion: Honoree has completely rewritten novel from the POV of a different character than the novel was previously.

--Murderous Merit: Honoree has excised a character who existed in at least 20% of the novel's content.

Writers, what merit badges do you wish someone would bestow upon you?

During a summer trip to the beach, I was struck by how empty it is, except for a few brief peak hours. It made me think of how people all too often wait for the "right" time to live their lives.

The sun comes up before 7. But most people wait until prime time... ten, maybe eleven in the morning... to occupy the sand. They live intently while they are there. Frisbees. Surfing. Or drinking. A lot.

All is done in a few hours. Before and after, they scurry in, scurry out. No lingering, not for the adults. Some children protest leaving. Cry. But they are quickly shuttled off.

I like the ones who come early, creeping like crabs. They seem to relish the aloneness. Or maybe they wonder why so few are there. They're ready. Where is everyone else? 

Others stay late. They sit in shadows of the hi-rise hotels, determined, saying there is still plenty of life and light left in the day. Where did everyone else go? How could they forget the waves, the sand, the sun, so soon? 

A beach is more beautiful in its early potential and waning hours. I wish more people were there to see it.

I never predicted this! Image courtesy Library of Congress.I thought nature was going to give me somebody just like me... a girl, for starters. One who didn't look forward to gym class. One who made sure to be parked in front of the TV when the next figure skating competition was on. 

But of course it doesn't work like that. I got someone far better. I got my boy. My athletic, unstoppable, funny boy. 

And along with that has come some pretty cool changes to my life. Things I never expected for myself. 

Take football. Football, the sport I have never understood and never wanted to watch. It wasn't on in our house, growing up--that was baseball, sometimes. My high school had a football team but I pretty much went home once my marching band job was done. But now I've got my Redskins t-shirt and yesterday I caught myself having a deep conversation with a Kohls' checkout clerk about RG3's recovery (or lack thereof). And I even joined my first Fantasy Football league this fall (don't ask me how they're doing). 

Then there's scorekeeping. I actually was the scorekeeper for my kid's baseball team, for a few seasons, until we moved. Never did I think I'd be following a baseball game closely enough to be marking down every strike, ball, and base play. I started because I wanted to help out. But in truth, I loved it. It really taught me a lot about the game and gave me new appreciation for its strategy.

There are things I have given up, too. I used to insist on cooking "real" dinners with "real recipes". Now that's something I save for the weekend, if at all. I still make dinner, but it's essentially sponsored by Trader Joe's. That's because I've got the kid stuff to focus on, and my life is richer for it. 

You think you know how your kid is going to change your life, when you first look down at their face. But they've got a lot of surprises in store for you. Sure, some of them are stinky. But a lot of them are quite delicious.

© Nob50 | Dreamstime.comSome women insist on diamonds. Others, mink.

Me? Just don't give me carnations.

I blame the booster clubs. 

It all started in middle school. On various holidays--and some made-up holidays--the booster clubs would hold carnation sales. Usually the carnations had been stuck in some dyed water the night before and they were brilliant unnatural colors--green for St. Patrick's Day, purple and gold for school spirit days, and so on. 

You didn't buy the carnations for yourself. Well, maybe people did, on the sly. But you'd never admit to it.

The idea was that someone would buy a carnation for you. Or if you were truly charming, maybe multiple someones would buy you a carnation. Then you'd carry a little bouquet around school and shrug innocently when people asked who bought them. Carnation recipients rarely kissed and told. Their air of mystery was both maddening and fascinating. 

I think my best friend bought me a carnation once. A much less sensitive sort, I think she got sick of me bellyaching and bought one. It was nice. 

But I knew it was cheating. 

The carnation sales continued through high school. If anybody ever bought me one, I don't remember. Apologies to any high school Romeos who remember differently.

All I remember is the crawling dread that came with each carnation day. I pretended I didn't want any... but I dreamed that I'd get one. Just one. I didn't want to be greedy. It would be stuck in my locker door, with a note: "from your secret admirer". I'd even take one of those weird green carnations. Just... one. 

Not that I wanted one, you know. 

So, these days, I'm lucky enough to have a lovely husband who buys me flowers. Lilies. Roses. Daffodils. 

But I've warned him: no carnations. 

I'm over them.

Mostly.

Someone--I wish I remembered who!--once told me that the best thing for a writer was to stay in the same place, with the same person. Stability was key to good writing, they said. 

Well, I've got the same person thing down, happily. But I certainly haven't stayed in the same place. Since I've gotten serious about my writing, we've moved three times: once from Florida to a rental in Maryland, then from the rental to a home we had bought and renovated, and just this last week to from Maryland to Austin, Texas. 

In the long run, moving has always been for the good. I've met new people and gotten to see new inspiring places. I wouldn't have written CANDOR unless we moved to Florida. And I wouldn't have written my recently-finished novel if I hadn't had daily walks in the woods up in Maryland. 

But moving takes a bite out of writing productivity. There's no way to avoid it, at least for me. When there's an entire study of book waiting to be packed--or worse, for me, unpacked--it's pretty hard to sink into your story and create. And of course there's also the issue of needing to stop work so you can clear out of your house for a showing, and having to tuck away all your weird inspiration pictures and objects when you put your house on the market. 

For the first time, I am taking formal time off from my writing for this move. I won't be outlining, writing or editing any fiction in November. Instead I'm using my writing time to paint our new house, and unpack, and trek to IKEA for the fifty zillion things we'll need for our new place. I'm hoping that this will be time well-invested, that by December I'll feel settled and raring to return to writing. And I won't waste any time or energy feeling guilty for unpacking in November. 

I can't wait to see what new projects Austin and the rest of Texas inspire. Just as soon as I get my study unpacked...

Make good decisions, players. Image courtesy Library of Congress.Writers don't know what's going to happen to their stories--not when they're writing them. Sure, we all have dreams. We dream of whizzing through the draft, making a few finishing touches, then having an editor fall in love with the book. Next comes a cover photo shoot in Paris, debuting #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, and every literary award you can think of. 

But really? We don't know. We don't even know, often, how the story will finish... let alone whether anyone will want to read it.

All we can do is write the story that wants to be told. 

There's a RadioLab episode called Are You Sure that includes an interview with two professional poker players, Howard Letterer and Annie Duke. I loved the point that they made, together (they're siblings and often overlap each other when they talk). 

"If you're making good decisions, you're making good decisions," they said. "You have to be blind to the outcome."

Of course they were talking about making the best possible poker move you can, given the cards in front of you. But this struck me immediately as being applicable to writing, too. When you create a story, you make good decisions. You'll get paralyzed if you try to speculate about the outcome.

Oh, the temptation is there. If I write the ending this way, will the book sell better? Will people love it more? It's so easy to think that way. Or... what if I get rid of this character? Maybe my reviews would be better. 

The next time you get stuck with a writing decision, authors, remember Howard and Annie. Make a good decision for the story. Don't think about whether this choice will make the book sell... or not. Serve the story. 

Then no matter what happens, you'll know that at least you made the best choices you could for your book.

Little Dude riding on Sligo Creek TrailThe moving truck has pulled out, and tomorrow we fly to our new home... Austin, Texas. My husband has an awesome new job there, and happily my day job has an office there too. So between that and the bat bridge, how can we resist? 

We've had six wonderful years in the DC area. It's been a great place to explore, and make friends, and to have our Little Dude go from toddler to grade schooler. People are so smart and engaged in their world here, and the pace is both bracing and energizing. Anytime a friend asks me whether they should consider relocating to the DC area, I answer YES, without hesitation. 

We'll miss our friends the most, and being able to drive up to New York in a few hours to see family. But there are smaller things too, like my regular walks at the Sligo Creek Trail, and being able to slip into DC in a half hour from our suburban hideout in Maryland. I've loved having three airports to choose from, and being near so many awesome historical sites like Monticello and Colonial Williamsburg. I know our son will miss having two MLB teams within a half-hour drive, although we'll have minor leagues to console him. 

But perhaps the worst of all? No Bergers cookies in Texas. I guess I had better keep tweaking my recipe for the homemade kind. Or pack a suitcase full and stick them in our Austin freezer.

Of course Austin has lots to offer, including an amazing writing community and getting to be near friends who've only been long-distance, before. But for now, we're just savoring our last days in DC and Maryland. We hope we'll see lots of our Maryland friends down in Austin.. we've got a guest room in our new house! 

Thank you for those six wonderful years, DC. We're so glad we came.

Long before Disney cornered the market on princesses, my father and I joined the YMCA's Indian Princesses program. It is one of my fondest memories of things I did with my Dad. 

It was a club for Dads and their daughters--no brothers or Moms allowed, though I'm certain it my was Mom who sewed my felt brown vest and put the badges on it. We met once a month in someone's home. Hosting duties rotated, and I was always thrilled when it was our turn. We got to keep the tribe "drum"--an empty blacktop container with fake rawhide stretched across the top-- for an entire month! 

The meetings opened with a standard pledge, much like the Girl Scout meetings started. It was: “We, father and daughter, through friendly service to each other, to our family, to this tribe, to our community, seek a world pleasing to the eye of the Great Spirit.”

I think we mostly mumbled through that. Then there was banging on the drum, for awhile, until one of the Dads couldn't take it and we were told to stop. Now. We had a snack, and there was some sort of nature-y craft. All I remember about the craft is when one of the girls left deep scratches all over our dining room chair with the buckles of her patent-leather shoes. She'd been wiggling in the chair, feet under her, while working on her craft. Much muttering happened in the house after that incident. 

Every daughter and dad got to pick their own Indian name, with all the gleeful innocence of upstate NY white kids who had no idea how offensive that could be to a Native American. I was Golden Star. My father was Talking Bull, much to his amusement. Later on, my sister chose Running Deer. We made necklaces with our names burned into half-cut little logs, and then we got beads and plastic bear claws at meetings for good deeds and achivements. I still have  my necklace, and my father's. 

These days, Google says there are still some Indian Princess groups out there, but it seems like most have become Adventure Guides. I get it. That's the right thing. But I'll always treasure my days as Golden Star. 

Maybe I could still make myself a blacktop drum.

That's one tough inner critic. Courtesy Library of Congress.Writers, forget the orange prison jumpsuit Piper costume and the Great Gatsby costumes… here are some ideas just for you. Although admittedly, they might take a lot more explaining than, say, a flapper dress and a beaded purse. 

• The Inner Critic. We’ve all got (at least) one. What does your inner critic look like? Maybe she’d be nicer to you if you dressed up like her for the day. 
• The Plot Point. Put your creative brain to work and figure out what a midpoint would look like if it walked into Panera for some chicken noodle soup. Or maybe style yourself as an entire plot diagram.
• The Remainder. Truly a frightening costume. Be sure to include the odd grocery store style price tag. 
• The Pseudonym. Pick a real one--Robert Galbraith, perhaps, or a classic like Richard Bachman—or make up your own. Make sure nobody can see through your disguise unless it will net you a spot on the bestseller lists.
• The doomed dog. They say it’s a rare dog that survives all the way through a kidlit story, unless it is a narrator. Make your costume a salute to Sounder, Old Yeller, Old Dan or Little Ann. 

This Saturday and Sunday, my mother and I will be making our annual book nerd pilgrimage to the Library of Congress National Book Festival. Over the years we've learned some tips and tricks that you, dear reader, ought to take advantage of, should you join the masses:

• Make your battle plans ahead... with back-ups: The full schedule and author bios are posted on the Library of Congress website, and the Washington Post book section also publishes a special edition (it was in Monday's paper). It's worth figuring out who you want to see--but have a plan in case the first tent is full to bursting. We were both a little freaked out by the busted-out mayhem at John Green's talk last year and decided to avoid trampling by heading over to our back-up option. 
• Bring snacks. There aren't many quick-grab places to get something, and the few that are there are mobbed. 
• Consider a picnic lunch while you listen to an author talk. While the Mall does offer decent lunches in some of the Smithsonian Museums, this will mean missing at least one author talk. The talks run straight through the lunch hour. 
• Move quick to get a seat. If you must sit under the tent while you listen to author talks, be prepared to engage in some fast-moving action to secure a seat. Arrive to the tent ten or fifteen minutes before the prior author finishes. As soon as they're done and the crowd gets up to leave, swoop in for your seat. Sadly this is not the time to be extra polite. I don't advocate bowling over little old ladies, but don't hang back and let someone go before you either. They'll sit. You won't. Your only other option is to stake out, and occupy, seats in the hours before your favorite author's talk. 
• Come with questions. Most authors offer a generous amount of time for Q&A--sometimes their entire session. I'm always surprised by how few people have questions, despite the enormous crowds most authors attract. Likely if you have a question, you'll get to to front of the microphone line to ask.
• Be sure to snag a tote bag. So far, at least, there have been free tote bags from CSPAN that are distributed at the same booths that hand out the gorgeous free posters. They are huge totes and they realy hold up. Besides, could there be a wonkier DC souvenir?
• If you want a signed book, prepare to miss some talks. The lines are super long to get signed books. While they keep 'em moving, you're going to miss one or maybe two talk sessions if you want to get a signed book. 
• Don't like a talk? Leave and find another. Over the years we've discovered that while we might love certain authors, we don't especially enjoy their talks. So we've gotten to the point that we just quietly, quickly get up and exit. There are probably eight talks going on at the same time, so we just go and try another. We've stumbled across some outstanding talks this way--my mother had never even heard of Sarah Vowell until we laughed ourselves silly at her reading. And I haven't missed reading any of her books since.
• For the love of Pete, don't drive in. But you knew that, right? It's DC. It's the Mall. It's a special event. Take Metro. I think we'll try L'Enfant this year in hopes that the popcorn guy decides to set up his post on a weekend day...

I hope I'll see you there! Look for me lurking in the Margaret Atwood talk... and at Katherine Applegate's... and Hoda Kotb's...

Yesterday DC suffered its worst mass casuality since a plane crash in 1982, all at the hands of a man shooting a gun. In our shock and mourning, the media and our nation's citizens asked the right questions: why? And how do we make it stop?

And then, at midnight last night in my DC suburb, hundreds of people lined up outside of GameStop. Why? They wanted to buy a brand-new video game that, according to the New York Times, starts "with an extended bout of cop killing".

I mapped it. The Navy Yard is a 11.5 mile drive from that GameStop. On the same day that 12 lay dead from gun violence, less than 12 miles away, people lined up for the chance to simulate the same experience that Aaron Alexis had yesterday. Shooting people, good and innocent people, in cold blood.

I firmly believe that playing violent killing games makes people numb. I believe this as a mother of a boy. I believe this as a life-long video game player. I won't have those games in my house. Ever. Once you've shot a hundred fake people in a head, the horror of a REAL person getting shot in the head has got to be less. Whether you're doing it--or someone else is.

We need to be outraged, DC and America. We need to be outraged or we won't have the energy and endurance needed to fix the gun violence in our country.

Look, I'm an author. I also firmly believe in uncensored creative expression--and the right of people to access that uncensored creative expression. Including video games. But just because someone's offering a graphic video game with gun violence doesn't mean anybody has to buy it.

What if, in its mourning and self-examination, we as a nation had boycotted that release of Grand Theft Auto V? What if not a single American bought that game, even just for a week? Heck, let's go farther. Let's shut off the violent games for a week. All of them.

Then, how about for a month.

And then a year.

Then maybe we'll all be awake to the depth of the violence, the wrongness, of what happened in DC  yesterday--and in so many other places, to so many other innocent people, in our nation.

Awake enough to insist on change.

Dwight and Mamie enjoying live TV. Courtesy Library of Congress.Every summer, one of the networks used to show Wizard of Oz on a Friday night. My mother would pull out the good old air popper and we'd settle in front of the TV. I liked picturing all of our neighbors doing the same thing. Maybe some people had carrots and others had potato chips, but we were all watching the same thing at the same time. If we opened our windows, we'd hear other people's television sets, on the same movie.

It felt cozy. My whole world had stopped to take a breath, relax, and lose themselves in a story. 

Now that only happens for special events. The Super Bowl. The Oscars. And in DC, at least, the White House Correspondents Dinner (OK, that last one might just be on CSPAN in the background). 

I appreciate the networks' attempts to bring back live TV. Scandal's cast live-tweeted last season. I tried it once. I felt like my brain was going to explode from keeping up with six cast members' twitter streams, plus the show--it's not a show you can tear you eyes away from easily. But it felt a little bit like community again.

You can often catch "live" Facebook conversations going on during a show, too (American Idol on Elizabeth Law's Facebook page, anyone?). That's fun... if you have the right chatty friend at the right time. 

Some people campaign for everyone to unplug their TVs for a week. Admirable. But I'd like to go a little smaller. What if we could all kill our DVRs and swear off TV episodes on Amazon, Hulu, etc for a week? What if we could all watch TV together?

Even if we're in different houses, I bet we'd still feel like something a little magical was happening. 

When women are getting ready to birth a child, there are often many signs that their body is ramping up for the big event. They might become restless, or have the urge to clean and organize, or experience a myriad of physical symptoms. 

I seem to have the same signs when a novel's plot is nearly done cooking in my brain.

I get incredibly restless. Nothing keeps my attention for more than a few minutes at a time. It feels like my brain is running at a really high rev--for no good reason. Lots of spinning, lots of smoke, no output. 

And I get the nesting urge too. All the laundry is done and put away. I put together bags of donations. I bake. 

It's not a comfortable time, mentally or physically. I don't sleep well. I binge on strange foods (sesame sticks mixed with chocolate chips!) and find myself pacing. 

Every single time this happens, a plot is born. Suddenly, the plot pieces that have been ping-ponging in my brain for months or years shift, as if I've twisted a kaleidoscope. 

Then it is time to run to the whiteboard and start sketching out the bones of my new novel. The plot has decided it is going to be born, and it will be born right now.

It is during this time that I best understand the obsessive nature of artists. I only want to work on this plot. Work, fun, food, none of it seems that important. Must. Birth. The. Plot.

When it's over, everything ramps down. I'm energized, because I want to write this thing. But my body and brain are on a steady pace now. They know that a marathon of writing, revising, and more revising is ahead--probably for the better part of a year. It's easier to sit down to work, and to focus. I have a goal in front of me.

I fear for the day that a series idea hits me full force. Triplets!

Can I handle it? 

Only if Trader Joe's keeps the sesame sticks in stock. Maybe some pickles, too. And dark chocolate... and those little pepperoni pizzas...

Yes, kids have shrimp poppers for lunch and Parkour gym glasses. But they're missing out on some of the school stuff I had, back when I went to elementary school. Here's five of those sadly departed things from my days in public elementary school:

• Bring your pet to school day. Yes, our elementary school actually had a day when kids could bring their dogs, cats, rabbits, you-name-it, to school. I didn't have a pet at that point, though I threatened to wrangle Patches, the next door neighbor's cat. So I don't remember the particulars of how parents (who likely hated this day) got those pets to and from school. What I do remember quite clearly is the pet my beloved first-grade teacher brought: her horse. 
• Story time for bigger kids. These days, it seems like you finish kindergarten and daily story time dies--unless you count the teacher reading you a book about rock formations, which I don't. Curriculum changes and testing have pushed out my favorite part of the day. I'll never forget the thrill of sitting down every day in second grade to listen to Mrs. Tracy read CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.
• Small class sizes. In our part of the country, at least, schools are constantly trying to find a way to keep class sizes down even as enrollment swells. I've heard my kid is at the start of an enrollment "bubble", and going by the number of portable classrooms popping up all around, it looks like the bubble will be around for awhile. 
• Recess in the woods. Yes, they let kids wander in to the woods that bordered our playground, way back when. I can't imagine parents going for that today. But it was awesome.
• Big scary metal slides. You haven't lived until a helpful "friend" has shoved your reluctant self down an insanely tall, fast, steep slide. 

What do you think today's kids wish they had from your school days?

Once and awhile I stop writing and get in a cooking mood. This is one of my all-time best recipes. It's from the August 2004 edition of Cooking Light. 

Marinara Magnifica

• 1 tablespoon olive oil 
• 6 cups chopped onion (about 3 medium) 
• 1 tablespoon sugar 
• 1/2 cup dry red wine 
• 1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil 
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 6 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes, undrained 
• 2 (14.5-ounce) cans diced tomatoes, undrained 
• 2 (6-ounce) cans tomato paste

Preparation

1. Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat; add onion and sugar. Cook 30 minutes or until golden, stirring occasionally. Stir in wine; cook 1 minute. Add remaining ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

Enjoy! And let me know how it tastes.

By Ashleyspider.webs (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsSchool has started in our neck of the woods, which always makes me wistful and nostalgic. The first day of school was nearly a holy day for me, and I still wander the special "back to school" aisle at Target every year (even when my kid doesn't need a thing from it). 

Things have changed since I first walked into Mrs. Carpenter's kindergarten class, back when Carter was president and you could mail a letter for fifteen cents. Here are five things from today's classrooms that I wish we had way-back-when:

• Promethean Boards. I'm not going to pretend I fully understand what happens with these things, but the name alone suggests a mythical portal, versus a regular old chalkboard. Who wouldn't want one of those?
• Shrimp poppers for lunch. My mother wouldn't have had to pack a lunch for me if those kinds of delicious things were on the cafeteria menu. Yeah, yeah, I know we parents are all officially up in arms about the lack of nutrition in things like shrimp poppers but... aren't they delicious?
• Parkour for gym class. Forget climbing ropes and doing pull-ups. How about vaulting off walls? Yes, apparently, some schools actually offer this. Excuse me while I go find magic elixer to make myself eleven for a day...
• Cool "aftercare". My kid has done geocaching club, been on a travel flag football team, and made short movies, all in his aftercare program. And don't even get me started on the cool hovercraft he got to ride (no, I am not kidding!). 
• Dumping jello on the principal's head. Seems like these days, principals and vice principals are cool about having Jello or Gatorade dumped on their head, so long as the whole school logs a ton of reading hours or completes another academic feat. I do not imagine this happening in my school days. Ever. 

Watch for my follow-up post, 5 things kids wish we still had in schools...

Guess how many English classes I took in college?

Two. 

One was a required composition class for first-year students. The other was a survey of romantic literature (any BU alums out there remember the legendary Ma Barker and her "Myth of Love" class?). 

Neither of these classes was instrumental in making me into an author of young adult novels. There were some other parts of my college education, though, that did make me a better writer and more devoted reader:

• Journalism classes from the pros. Nothing removes sentiment or mystery from writing more effectively than a jaded ex-reporter who cut his teeth working in the Boston Herald newsroom. Our professors didn't stand for long, muddled mush. We learned how to convey information quickly, clearly, and without any clutter. That's a great skill set for any novelist, particularly someone who writes for teens.
• Working at the daily school paper. My time at Boston University's Daily Free Press taught me how sacred deadlines were, and that sometimes the most important thing is to get the work done--not to make it absolutely perfect. While writing novels is a different pace and process, sometimes that "get it done"' attitude is what you need to get over the hump of a difficult spot. And novelists have the luxury of being able to go back and fix it later, unlike journalists. 
• Getting an MBA. I was going to night school, taking two or three classes at a time. That meant very little time to do homework--and lots of long essays to write, analyzing business cases. I learned how to assemble my thoughts quickly and get them down on paper without too much agonizing. 
• Getting a Masters of Library Science. I always loved books. But my classes at Simmons College elevated reading to a religion. They also made me feel like I will always be at home in any library, any where, and that if you research hard enough you can almost always find the answer. 

Know what else? Having this education and these degrees sure hasn't hurt in earning a paycheck, which gives me the space to write what I want instead of writing what makes the most money.

If you love to write and think that the only way to become a novelist is to study English at college, think again. It could be a very fine choice for you--but so might a science degree, or a religion degree, or a business degree. Or maybe college isn't even the answer at all, at least for right now. Check out UnCollege for more thoughts along those lines. 

Also look at this list of 15 Famous Authors with Surprising College Majors.

I'm smiling, so clearly this wasn't a spinning classA little while ago I raved about my favorite fitness class, Body Jam. But there have been plenty of failed exercise ventures in my life. Here are a few:

1. Spinning. Oh, how I wanted to love it. It's supposed to be a calorie torcher and there's music, so that's a plus. But I hated it all. I hated fiddling with the dials and such on the bike. I hated how my butt hurt. And everytime the teacher told us we were going up a hill, I wanted to shout "no we are not, we are still stuck here in the YMCA gymnasium, marooned by the broken fans!"

2. HIIT. Supposedly this stands for High Intensity Interval Training, but I think it really refers to how hard you smack yourself in the forehead when you realize you've signed up to take an insane class. It's like gym class gone mental. I lasted ten minutes. Once the instructor broke out the fuzzy discs that you hold on the floor while you do push-ups--so with every muscle twitch you slide further from your push-up stance--I was done. For me, exercise is supposed to be fun, not a punishment.

3. Soccer. OK, maybe this doesn't count as an exercise fail, because I quit soccer when I was eight or nine. But wow did I really hate playing this sport. I always got stuck in fullback, probably because I couldn't connect the ball with my foot reliably. And the few times the ball came my way, I had to fight every urge to run the other way. The pinnacle of my youth soccer career was when I kicked the ball into our own goal, in a fit of excitement. We lost the Pizza Bowl that day. The winners of the pizza bowl got free pizza. Guess how much team liked me?

As a kid, I spent my summers at our family cabin, near Bennington, Vermont. Each summer there was a day when we kids were making our moms just enough crazy that they drove us over to the Bennington Battle Monument.

The monument commemorates the Battle of Bennington (which actually happened in Walloomsac, New York, but who's quibbling?), a Revolutionary War battle that set things up nicely for the decisive Battle of Saratoga. It looks like the Washington Monument's little sister, standing at 306 feet versus its big sister's height of 555 feet. For Vermont, that's plenty big. The monument is the tallest building in the state. 

Our Moms never took us there on the nicest day--on the bright, sunny, hot days they kept us busy swimming and boating. Monument days were sultry, gray, and sometimes drizzly. Accordingly, we usually had the monument to ourselves. 

See, most people go to the monument, go up the elevator, and take in the view. That is, of course, best done on a sunny day. But for our purposes, we didn't need the gorgeous view. Our mothers had another plan:

THE STEPS. 

Four hundred and thirty-eight of them. 

Send the kids walking up those 438 steps, and then back down the 438 steps, and you've got hope that maybe they'll stop poking and pushing and torturing each other. 

Smart moms. 

These days the steps are usually closed, although it looks like they are sometimes opened for special fundraiser events. I will leave you with a video of runner Tim Van Orden making his way up in about 1:45.

We took substantially longer. 

look at those KanJam movesOur family is always looking for fun new things to do at our cabin in upstate NY, particularly active things we can do outside. Last summer my sister and brother-in-law brought an awesome new game to try: KanJam. 

It's a pretty simple concept. You play with two teams. Each team gets a black cylinder with a hole cut in the side (the "Kan")--shaped like a flimsy kitchen-sized garbage can. The Kans are spaced a good distance apart. Then you stand by one Kan and throw a frisbee at the other. Your teammate is standing by that other Kan, and they are allowed to try and knock the frisbee into, or at least against, the Kan. You get points depending on where the frisbee landed in the Kan, or whether it hit the side. 

This was popular with all ages at our cabin, and it was easy to adjust the game for smaller kids by moving the Kans closer together. And there's even an iPhone/Android app that you can use to keep score on your smartphone. 

If you're hardcore, you can even join a KanJam League or go to the KanJam tournament!

Maybe there's still some way to deduct your smartphone and tablet as a business expense! Here are a few apps I use for writing:

• Day One. This is a very simple journal app that allows for keywording, insertion of photos, and super-fast entry. It also integrates with DropBox to save your entries. I am a terrible and infrequent journaler, but finally I have found something that works for me. I use it like my own private twitter stream, just to me, with ideas and snippets of conversations and private thoughts. 
• Stitcher lets me listen to podcasts (for ideas and connecting with the creative world) without having to futz with downloading them to my laptop and syncing them with my iPhone. it also suggests new podcasts I might like.
• The Squarespace app helps me to manage this website and candorfl.com
• I use GoodReader to read and annotate PDFs of my manuscripts on my iPad
• If I need to get ideas for the next book to read, I pop into Goodreads using their app
• For great music while writing, I'll pull up the Songza and Pandora apps
• And when I'm stuck and need to take a break, I love playing Scramble With Friends. I think it keeps my brain on the writerly word side of things even while I relax for a few minutes.

What apps am I missing?

Ah, August. This was the time when swimming lessons were winding down, back when I was a kid in Ballston Spa. We'd had the entire summer to work on our crawl and backstroke and dead man's float. 

Now it was time to be tested.

If it weren't for the patches, maybe nobody would have taken the tests seriously. The patches upped the ante. You only got one if you passed--and this was the old days, when there was no guarantee that Mama's little darling was going to be good enough. You had to earn the patch.

For me, those patches were the reason to ride in the hot car to the cold pool, every weekday morning. As soon as I got one, I begged my mother to sew it on my swimsuit.

They weren't much to look at: just the American Red Cross symbol and a word denoting the level you had passed. Beginner Swimmer. Advanced Beginner. Intermediate. Advanced. The YMCA patches were much fancier, with embroidered pictures of fish. But mostly those were for the Saratoga kids who took year-round lessons. We all pretended the YMCA patches were inferior, as were the stray kids who showed up at our town pool with them. 

Sometimes the patches gave you special privileges. I remember that you had to be wearing an Advanced Beginner patch before the lifeguards would let you swim in the deep end without your parents. I took great pride in being able to slip under the rope and swim without my mother beside me. 

I don't think they hand out patches anymore. Little Dude has passed a few levels of the YMCA program with nary a patch. I'm sad for him. That guppy patch would have looked awesome on his board shorts. 

I've still got my patches, although they have not yet been unpacked. We're living year-round in a warm place, now. Think it's time to stitch that Advanced Swimmer badge to my suit?

in RomeThey say that things are more likely to happen if you tell the universe what you want. So, universe, here's my top travel dream list... at least, for today.

• Venice 
• Australia 
• Greece
• London
• Israel
• Botswana
• Instanbul
• Bali
• Vienna
• Tokyo

Readers, where do you want to go next?

at Kindling Words West 2011On Sunday I'll be flying to New Mexico for the Kindling Words West retreat. I can't wait.

Retreats have always been an important part of my writing. When I lived in Florida, I went on a few with writing friends--to the beach and to a cabin in the woods. My critique partner and I have had our own cabin and house retreats, too. And then there is Kindling Words, which I can't recommend highly enough. 

I like retreats for a few reasons. The first is that I typically get a ton of work done. I revised an entire draft of DROUGHT at Kindling Words West, one year. But even more important is the chance to talk about craft and life and creativity with other writers. We are so often stuck in our own little holes, without face-to-face contact with other people who are the same flavor of crazy. Social media helps, but you can't beat sitting down to dinner with four other authors. We don't always "talk shop"--we might talk about someone's chickens, or our favorite television shows, or the best places to hike. But there is always an undercurrent of understanding and belonging. At retreats, I get to hang with my tribe. That nourishes me.

Retreats also give me the chance to be entirely my creative self. I don't have to wear my work hat, or my mommy hat (thought I miss my kid tremendously), or worry about any other Grownup Necessity. I can play. I can be the same core self I've been since I was five or six. Sometimes I forget that girl is in there. 

But a retreat always brings her back. 

I'll be sure to post a retreat report upon my return.