It's Brillig the Frog!

By some twist of fate, I ended up guest-blogging on TWO blogs on the very same day.

Today come visit me at Twas Brillig

and

at Six LDS Writers and a Frog!

My Funky Reading Habits

I’ve gotten better about not always finishing books that I start, which is a very good thing. Feeling compelled to finish a book I don’t like has been a bit of a curse for me—a curse I’ve had hanging over my head since high school.

Case in point: One year in English we were running out of time to read a novel before the end of term. Miss Drummond (whom I idolize; it’s because of her I’m a grammar fascista) summarized something like ten chapters and then told us to skip ahead.

I COULDN’T DO IT. I had to read the whole thing, which necessitated a few long nights of extra homework so I wouldn’t fall behind the rest of the—sane—class.

I know. I’m a sad, sad person.

Part of my obsession with finishing books is getting personal "credit" for them, because for many, many years, I’ve kept a running tally of the books I read. If I don’t finish a book, I can’t very well put it on my list of books I’ve "read" for the year, now can I?

Well, for 2008, I decided to make a sub-list: "Partially-read Titles." I cannot tell you how liberating that list has been. So far I’ve added half a dozen books to it in just the first five months of 2008. That is UNHEARD of for me.

Yippee! What freedom!

My other reading habits are still a bit odd, and I’m the first to admit it. The other day my husband noticed me swapping between various books and teased me about leaving four—yes, FOUR—books on the couch, all with bookmarks in them.

"Exactly how many books are you reading right now?" he asked.

"Oh, not that many," I assured him, with a dismissive wave of my hand. And then I began counting.

I always have at least one book in my purse or in the car. Ya never know when you’ll have time to read in a waiting room, lobby, or whatever. A car book is a MUST. That’s one.

There’s the one I’m reading to the kids at bedtime. That’s two.

The novel hubby and I read together before bed. That’s three.

The book I read a page or two of each night as I brush my teeth. That’s four.

And the classic I’m slowly working my way through (it’s not one you can sit down and absorb hundreds of pages of in a sitting, but I do love it). Five.

The library book I need to get through because it’s due in a couple of days. Six.

And don’t forget the one that #2 and I started awhile back and haven’t gotten around to finishing. Seven.

And the audio book I’m listening to via iPod. Eight.

The non-fiction book I pick up when I have a few spare minutes. Nine.

Not to mention two writing books I’ve cracked open a bit here and there but haven’t really committed to reading. I don’t think I should count those, though. Not until I have actual bookmarks in them.

I did have two books I was going through for research, but that project is on a backburner, so I'm not finishing them right now.

(No, I don’t have a book in the bathroom. At least, not right now. I have read plenty of books that way in the past, though. For now, that’s where I do my magazine reading. Of course.)

I have a stack of other books waiting for me on my dresser. I have two big cardboard boxes stuffed with books that I’m "storing" for my parents while they’re away. (In reality, Mom let me raid her bookshelves before she packed them up prior to their latest mission. She’s got some of the coolest books ever.) Then there’s the huge list of books I plan to read that grows faster than I take away from it.

Hubby asked if keeping all the stories and writing styles straight isn’t a bit difficult. I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose it is a bit odd to flip between Victorian literature, Fantasy, Non-fiction, LDS literature—and a couple of other genres—in the course twenty-four hours.

Or maybe I just have a short attention span.

Hey, look! What’s that over there?

This Is NOT a Review

I'm in the middle of an LDS novel that I think is really, really good.

I recently finished another one that I enjoyed a lot.

My daughter recently read a YA book by an LDS writer and is dying for me to read it too. I will soon.

And my husband and I have plans to read aloud a book by yet another LDS writer, whose books we've enjoyed in the past.

All four of these books are by talented people, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if all of them ended up as Whitney finalists for 2008.

But I'm not telling you the names of the books or who wrote them. There's a reason for that.

Now, as many people know, I'm hyper-opinionated. I won't just tell you if I liked or disliked something. Instead, I'm liable to go on a rant about the virtues (or lack thereof) of a particular work. I get passionate about these things. I debate. I foam at the mouth.

That kind of thing.

But this year . . . you won't be hearing any of it from me. At all. Or, at least about fiction written by Latter-day Saints. (Movies and fiction by other writers are all fair game. I may have to get loud and ranty about those just to compensate.)

See, I was thinking about posting review about the one I'm reading as soon as I finish it, but then I remembered: I can't.

The reason is that I have the privilege of serving on the Whitney Awards committee for 2008. I get to read a ton of novels by LDS writers this year and judge in two categories as well as help select the novels that will be up for Best Novel and Best Novel by a New Author.

That's the terrific part about being on the committee. (For those wondering, I'm willing and able to be part of the committee because my next novel, Tower of Strength, won't be released until 2009.)

Keeping my opinions to myself might just be torturous for someone with as big a mouth as I have. On the other hand, I will get to voice them with the other committee members. That's some consolation. (Poor souls have no idea what they're in for.)

I encourage readers to nominate books they think are deserving of a Whitney and to tell others to do the same. Broadcast the news far and wide! The program is there to recognize quality fiction produced by LDS writers and to help the entire cannon improve and grow. The only way to do that is to get the best books nominated, and that takes the readers.

Visit the Whitney site at the link above to submit a book for consideration. Don't assume your favorite is a shoo-in. You never know.

In the meantime, I'll be tying my tongue into a knot.

David vs. David

I don't think I've ever, ever, blogged about American Idol, even though my hubby and I have watched it religiously from the very first year. (Thank you, TiVo. That's how we do it: back when we had toddlers and babies under foot, we'd get them to bed and then have some time alone with Simon and company.)

However, I'm writing about it today because the final performance night yesterday got me riled up. That and I won't be able to watch the results live tonight, so I'm giving fair warning: if anyone spills the beans, I'll hunt them down. Don't tell me.

But I think I already know who will win. If pure talent were to take it, it would be David Cook. (Two of my girls spent a good hour last night voting for him repeatedly.) But I'm betting it'll be the other David instead, because Cook's got a couple of big things going against him:

1) He lacks the "he's so cute!" preteen girl vote,
2) he didn't play to his strengths last night, and
3) cutie-pie Archuleta did.

Sure, during the rest of the competition, shake things up, take risks. But on the FINALE? Play to your strengths, man! Cook's a rocker. He's got an awesome edge. Did he show any of that last night? No.

While I really enjoyed all three of Cook's performances (I was jammin' out to his rendition of a U2 classic), Archuleta hit the stage to win it. He saw the night for what it was: not just another week of the show, but his last and final chance to show off his strengths and get the votes.

Every one of Cook's songs would have done him well on any other week of the competition. The guy's dang talented and never once ended up in the bottom three, but on finale night, that's not enough; you have to be unbeatable. THE BEST. And he could have been the best last night. He HAS been the best before. But not last night.

Ah, well. I was hoping a rocker would win it finally. (Both Bo Bice and Chris Daughtry really deserved to go farther than they did.) Even when (Okay, okay, IF. We don't know yet) Archuleta takes the title, Cook will have a fantastic career ahead of him. I just wish he could also lay claim to the win, because over the last several months, he's proven that he's the greater talent.

He just didn't show that last night, more's the pity.

That said, Go Archuleta! He's a great kid, and I'm glad his childhood dream is coming true. I'd be far more upset if someone else from the show were in his shoes, someone whom I didn't think deserved it.

I must say that dang, time flies. The idea that little Davy grew up watching American Idol is a bit freaky.

I'm not old . . . I'm not old . . . I'm not old . . .

UPDATE: In a twist of fate, I ended up staying home and watching the finale with the entire family (except for #4, who opted to stay downstairs with The Little Mermaid and a bowl of popcorn to herself).

YIPPEEEE!!!! Cook WON!

Even though we were watching it live, we didn't know who won the moment it was announced. See, the finale always runs overtime, and our TiVo was set to record from 7 pm to 9 pm. We knew it'd go over, so when the warning dinged that it was going to change channels to record something else at 9:00, we just told it to cancel the recording and stay on Fox.

But here's the thing: The TiVo technically stopped recording at 9:00 and then continued recording on the same channel, so right as Ryan said, "The winner of American Idol 2008 is David . . . " we got a 3-second blip of blackness and silence. The whole family screamed and jumped and gasped. We had to watch the crowd's reaction, trying to figure out who won. (The timing, people! Sheesh! NO other 3-second moment could have been worse.)

Since both Davids handled it with such grace, you couldn't even tell the winner from their faces at first.

Anyway, I was . . . AM (obviously) thrilled. Go Cook!

High Praise

This is yet another post about my literary hero, L M Montgomery. (I should start a new label for these . . . hmm. I'll label this post that way. At some point I'll go back and label the old ones!)

As I've mentioned before, I'm reading the fifth and final volume of her journals. I'm going through the book very slowly, just a couple of pages a day, usually right before bed. It's fascinating and educational all at once. And sad.

She spent her last years very depressed. Where I'm at right now, she's visiting her beloved Prince Edward Island for probably the last time and mourning the fact that all her childhood haunts were going to be soon desecrated by being turned into a national park. (I'm not sure I'd have the heart to visit those spots now . . . it would almost be a slap in her face to be one more of the hordes of tourists she dreaded.)

At this point she was also rereading a lot of her old work and commenting on some of it. Some of it felt as if she were reading someone else's work, since it had been so long since she'd written it, decades in some cases. She mentioned a couple of short stories that made her wistful--she thought they were some of the best work she'd ever done, but didn't think she could write like that anymore. She'd "lost" something. I don't think she meant in skill, but in perspective and outlook on the world and life.

One thing I thought fascinating is that she determined that she thought Rilla of Ingleside was her best novel, and thought that her weakest book was Windy Poplars. I've thought the exact same thing ever since I read them the first time. Rilla is her best. Poplars . . . meh. It's entertaining, but it's not stellar. Taking the #2 slot would have to be The Blue Castle, followed by the Emily trilogy.

At this point in her life, she was writing Jane of Lantern Hill and had yet to publish Anne of Ingleside, which were her last two books. I enjoyed both of those much more than Poplars. Eventually I might post about some of the ways certain events in her life impacted the storylines of those last two books, particularly one thread in Ingleside.

So here I am reading my icon's journals and planning to pick up another one of her books soon, which I do every year, and I receive an e-mail just last night.

It's the kind of thing I would have only dreamed of back in the eighth grade when I had my nose tucked inside an L M Montgomery book at all times and had delusions of grandeur of becoming like her.

The e-mail was from my dear friend (and hugely talented member of my critique group), Lu Ann, who teaches junior high English and has for some three decades. She was also named as Utah's Best of State K-12 educator of 2008.

Her 9th grade honors English students recently took a test in her class. One question asked them to use a book they had read for their lit. circle (I imagine that's like an in-class book group where they discuss books) and compare it to another book they'd read during the school year.

For her lit. circle book, one student chose Anne of Green Gables. (My kind of girl, obviously.)

The book she compared Anne to?

House on the Hill.

If you're looking for me, I'll be on Cloud 9.

"She did a pretty good job of it, too," according to Lu Ann. And now I'm part of her test!

To repeat: I have been compared to L M Montgomery.

I might be able to die happy now.

Googling Together

Why is the sky blue?

How can a whole tree come from a seed?

Where does rain come from?

Those are normal questions young children ask. They are also questions I can readily answer. Apparently, I don't have normal children—which, to be honest, is rather fun. I never know what my youngest will come up with.

She's asked me all kinds of odd things that I never would have thought to wonder about myself, like the etymology of various words (okay, so she didn't use "etymology," but that was the gist). I often don't know why we call something what we do, but it's great to say, "Let's find out when we get home," and then to boot up my trusty OED on CD and read about it.

She's wondered why the Earth is round when it's flat when you look at it. She's tried to figure out why water stays on the ground instead of flying off into space. (I'm not sure why she doesn't ask the same question about people. Apparently water is different?) I managed to field that one with a basic lesson on gravity.

Just the other day, she came up with her latest original query:

What do snails eat?

That one stumped me at first. What DO snails eat? Do they even have mouths? If folklore is to believed, salt will kill snails. And of course the French eat them. But I'd never given a moment's thought to what snails dine on.

I told her we'd go online soon and find out together, so yesterday she climbed on my lap by my computer, and we Googled her question.

Turns out that my guess was pretty close: they eat live and decaying plants. But they also eat other, more obscure things, like algae.

I almost closed the window, when she touched my mouse hand to stop me.

"Where do snails live?"

The site we were on answered that question, too. She insisted we read the entire web page, which told how long snails live, how big they grow, who are their predators, how they protect themselves, and all kinds of other fun things. (I didn't read her the part about how snails are hermaphrodites. That's a can of worms that would take a lot of explanation.)

At the bottom was a diagram of a snail's insides. We had to look at that, too. The mouth. The eyes (which are on the ends of their tentacles), the foot, the radula, and so on.

Then she posed her next question, asked with all the seriousness her little face could muster:

Where do snails go poop and pee?

If she were a boy, she'd have asked the question and giggled hysterically. And then maybe farted or burped for good measure. But no. She was genuinely curious. She wanted to know.

I had to study the diagram a bit closer. "Ah. There. Right there," I told her, pointing at "anus."

She tracked the process. "So here's the mouth. The food goes to the stomach, and then it comes out there. Right by the place the slime comes out." She was quite pleased with herself. A moment later she hopped off my lap, satisfied.

I love how curious she is about the world. It makes me wonder what her next question will be about. And then I start asking questions about new and exciting things that pique my curiosity. I look them up for myself. For all I know, I'll use some of my Googled questions in my writing some day.

A preschooler is a wonderful thing.

Snails? Not so much.

Chatting with Tristi

I first met Tristi Pinkston four or five years ago after I joined the LDStorymakers e-mail group. Since then, she's become a great friend and has been there to help me out more than once. But I love Tristi for another reason too, and that's because we both write historical fiction.

Her book Nothing to Regret is likely the most original perspective I've ever read about World War II, and I love the fact that she's got a new book out, Season of Sacrifice. Like her other books, it's a novel, but this time the story is based closely on her ancestors who were a big part of the Hole in the Rock expedition.

Several other bloggers have reviewed Season of Sacrifice already. I recommend you read some of those posts. This one is very much worth your time. So is this one. But this one is my favorite post I've found on it so far.

Today I get to host Tristi on her blog tour, so instead of posting another review of the book (okay, here's my review: It's great. BUY it!), I thought it would be fun to pick her brain a bit in an interview, one historical novelist to another.

Her answers are downright delightful. (My favorite: "I'm essentially one big walking quirk.") Read on to get to know Tristi and her book:


I know you did a lot of research for Season of Sacrifice by reading your ancestors' journals. What other research did you do?
My main sources were Incredible Journey by Lee Reay, At All Hazards by Brenton Yorgason, and Hole in the Rock by David E. Miller. At All Hazards is historical fiction (I'm sorry to say, Yorgason got a few things wrong), and the other two are nonfiction. Each of these books was tremendously helpful and they're listed in the back of my book as recommended reading.

Was it a challenge putting words into their mouths—and then hoping it's what they would have said?
It was a little challenging, but not as much as one might think. I already knew how they felt about things from reading their journals, so I just used their same vernacular and put their feelings into dialogue. Additionally, I truly feel their spirits were near to me as I wrote. I sensed, many times, the direction I should go.

Name at least one thing found during your research that you would have loved to include in the book but didn't for one reason or another.
Well, I don't know if I would have loved to include it, but Sarah's boyfriend from Wales actually followed her over here. He was in New York, working to earn passage to come out to Utah for her, when she wrote him and told him she no longer had feelings for him. I decided to leave that out—it seemed kind of mean. Not that she should have married him just because he came for her, but I didn't want the reader to feel that she'd led him on in any way, because she didn't. She had no idea how her life would change as she came to know the Gospel.

Without any spoilers, what is your favorite scene from the book?
All of my favorite scenes revolve around the intense faith these pioneers showed. I love the scene where Ben takes the wagon down the Hole for the first time to test it out. I also love the scenes toward the end as the tensions reach fevered pitch about polygamy. I really feel those passages contain some of my best writing ever, besides being testimonies of the incredible obedience of these faithful Saints.

Which character do you personally relate to most?
Sarah. I don't necessarily relate to her in a way where I feel we have a lot in common, but rather, I feel a connection to her. She's my great-great-grandmother, and we share the same blood.

What was the hardest scene to write?
There were two scenes that were very difficult for me to write. The first was the retelling of Stanford Smith's descent down the Hole. His wife, Arabella, tied herself to the wagon to try to keep it from going down too fast, and she incurred a serious injury, which she later recovered from. What made this story so touching was the faith of their children, who were left at the top while their parents took the wagon down. The oldest child told her parents that she had just waited there with God until they came back. My heart was wrenched out of me as I wrote that scene.

The other difficult passage was the one where Sarah decides to marry Ben. I've never been a fan of polygamy, and so for me to authentically write her change of heart was immensely difficult. I pretty much came to a standstill as I figured it out. What I finally realized was not that Sarah was converted to polygamy, but that she was converted to the Lord and wanted to be obedient at all costs. Once I made that clarification in my own mind, I was able to move forward.

Since the basic plot line was predetermined by actual events, how did you go about writing the book? (What was your basic method of attack? Did you outline the whole thing, write the new sections first or last, etc.?)
In so many ways, this book wrote itself. I read the family history documents I have, I read the books I mentioned above, and I took scads of notes. Then I sat down and just started to write. I began at the beginning and wrote through to the end, only going back to add depth and detail. This is completely out of the norm for me—usually it takes me months to come up with the finished product.

What is your typical writing schedule?
Typically, I answer my e-mails and check my favorite blogs first thing in the morning. I can't function if I don't do that; it's a weird mental hang-up I have. Throughout the day, I'll sneak to the computer as I'm able and maybe edit a little, answer e-mails, and the like. Then at night, I sit down around nine or ten and get to work. I check my mail again and then I write my blogs for Families.com (I'm a media reviewer, movie reviewer, and I also blog on topics of interest to the LDS people).

After that's done, then I pull up my work in progress. I'll stay up until two or three in the morning, writing. Sometimes if there's a scene that's just dying to be written, I'll manage to squeeze it in during the day, but my children are still young and I homeschool, so I don't have large chunks of time during the day.

Do you have any writer's "quirks" that help you get into the flow?
I'm essentially one big walking quirk. But to be more specific, I can't have music playing. It distracts me. I also have to check my mail. If I think someone may have written to me, and they're waiting for an answer, I can't work. I like to have a glass of ice water next to me (I'm an ice eater) and I also have some Vicks Vaporub sitting here (keeps my brain awake) and some lip balm (yes, my own brand) I also find that taking long showers or baths really helps get me in the creative mood—I'll often come out of the bathroom with whole scenes ready to go.

What has been the biggest surprise for you about the publishing industry?
The biggest negative surprise is that huge lines of people don't queue up to see you when you have a book signing. I used to envision doing a signing at the mall and having the whole hallway congested because there were so many people eager to meet me. Yes, I also did have the fond idea of all the guys who flirted with me, but never asked me out, coming to the mall, seeing me, and feeling so sorry that they never confessed their love to me. None of that ever happened.

The biggest positive surprise has been all the friends I've made. I truly feel so blessed for the interaction I have with other writers, with aspiring authors, and with those in the publishing industry. My life is rich because of the friends I now have—good, true friends I can turn to for anything. Of which you are one, Annette!

Aw, thanks, lady! :) Right back at ya. If you could give your younger writer self any advice, what would it be?
You know what, I would tell myself to get an ergonomic keyboard years before I did. The only problem with that is, they weren't invented back when I started typing. I would love to have saved myself all the pain I went through as a girl and young teenager. Rampant carpal tunnel, folks. I'm now using an ergo keyboard and take flax seed and vitamin B complex every day, and I feel great.

Any other advice . . . I'd tell myself to be a little less cocky. I went through a period of time where I thought I could do no wrong. Guess what—I can. And often. I know that now.

What's up next?
There's a lot still up in the air for me right now. I've got some contemporary mysteries that are just for fun—two completed and one in the "thinking about it" stage. I have a Vietnam-era novel I'm really proud of, as well as another family history-inspired novel set during the Depression. As far as what to write next, I've got about twenty books outlined and it's all a matter of time.

Me again. To purchase Season of Sacrifice, click here. Seriously. Click there. Now.

A Tale of Two Wrists

About four weeks ago, #2 was climbing around some stuff in the basement (a no-no) and fell about four feet onto her arm. She came to me crying and holding her wrist. We iced it and gave her some Tylenol for bedtime.

After school the next day, she was in more pain, and the wrist was swollen. Okay, then, off to the doctor's office. We took her to an urgent care facility, where a nurse practitioner, a doctor, and a radiologist all took one look at her arm and declared that it looked and "acted" broken. To their surprise, they couldn't see a fracture on the x-ray. They made up a custom, fiberglass splint for her and said to come back in a week to get another x-ray.

Not 48 hours later, #3 was out roller-blading, took a turn too sharp, and landed, yep, on her wrist. A neighbor helped her back into the house, and she arrived, howling with pain. We decided not to wait 24 hours like we had with her sister, so off again I trotted to Urgent Care.

The exact same nurse practitioner was working. Since my girls have bright red hair, they're easily remembered. She looked at us and cocked her head. "Weren't you just here a couple of days ago?"

I grinned sheepishly. "Uh, yeah," I said and was tempted to add, "But I really am a fit parent."

Up to that point, we had never had so much as stitches with any of our four kids, and suddenly in a couple of days we had two wrist injuries?

We got #3 x-rayed, and this time the fracture was clear. Even my untrained eye could see it on the film. The good news was that it was a "green stick" fracture, which apparently is the best kind to get because they heal fast. (News to me.)

She was told to return in a few days to be casted when the swelling had gone down. We had to return anyway in a few days for #2 to be checked again, so I made an appointment for both girls on the same day. #3 would be casted, and #2 would be x-rayed again (and possibly casted).

Once again, the x-ray was inconclusive for #2. She got a removable Velcro-like splint to wear for another week or so (a radiologist was going to compare the two sets and give an opinion), and her sister came home with a bright blue cast.

Eventually we got word that #2 didn't have a fracture, although a clear diagnosis wasn't ever given beyond, "Hmm. Maybe she sprained it." The pain has finally gone away for her, though.

And today #3 gets her cast off. Then she'll have to go back to practicing piano. Poor thing.

Below is a picture of their arms. At first glance, it almost looks like it's one person with two injured arms, because #2 hurt her left arm, while #3 hurt her right.



They say things come in threes. So far, we've had two, and it appears we got through the craziness without a third shoe dropping.

KNOCK ON WOOD.

My First Kill

I think I was fourteen at the time. I’d gone with my mother to the BYU bookstore, where she agreed to buy me a binder for my writing. It was a rosy pink with “Brigham Young University” in silver on the spine. The binder still sits on a shelf in my office.

Once home, I eagerly filled it with notebook paper, then plopped onto the living room couch and began scribbling.

I had no concrete story idea; I was just in the mood to write. I began with an image and went with it: a little girl walking through a meadow where her imaginary friends lived. I’m sure the idea was a direct result of the fact that at the time, I constantly poured over the work of L. M. Montgomery.

In the brief story, the girl greets the fairies and other mythical creatures and bemoans how she has no other friends. The other children mock and tease her. She feels welcome only there with her magical companions. As I wrote, I discovered that the girl also has a serious illness and rarely gets to go out to her meadow.

She lies on the ground, hidden from sight by the flowers above and around her. Then she closes her eyes and whispers, “My dears, I’ve come to join you.”

And dies.

A perfectly melodramatic story for a teen to write. But overdone as the two-page ditty was, the ending hit me with a bolt of lightning. I closed the binder and stared at it, feeling not a little shaky.

A little girl was dead, and I had killed her.

It didn’t matter that she was fictional, that she hadn’t ever really inhabited this world, experienced life, or had a family to mourn her passing (I worried about her poor mother—would she be able find her daughter under all those flowers?). In those few minutes I’d lived with her on the page, she had been real to me.

The sensation was odd—a creative rush combined with the sensation of intense guilt almost nauseating in its strength. The little dead girl seemed to haunt me for days afterward. I’m sorry, I wanted to say. I didn’t mean to kill you. I didn’t know you’d die. It took a week or two to get over the guilt.

Then I had my first dip into research. I had to figure out what she’d died from, so I cracked open one of my mother’s many reference books and read up on various fatal illnesses that could strike children. For reasons I don’t recall, I settled on aplastic anemia, a disease I knew nothing about save for a brief description written in tiny text. The fact that a child minutes away from death wouldn’t be in a position to frolic in a meadow was pretty much irrelevant to me.

Since then, I’ve killed many fictional people, but I’ve reached the point where I no longer take responsibility for their deaths. I grieve when they die; they’re my friends, in a way. But it’s not my fault. Sometimes characters, just like people, die.

About a year ago, after reading At the Journey’s End, a man in my neighborhood came to me and said, “What is your problem with death?”

Confused, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“By the end of the first chapter, three people are dead.”

At first I was taken aback. THREE? No way. I thought back. One person dies in the prologue. One in the first chapter. Oh, wait. Two. Yep. That makes three. But both deaths in chapter one were real historical figures. I didn’t kill them. They really died on that day in history; I just told about it.

As if that made it so much better.

So I thought back to my other books. Lost without You has a mother already dead before the book begins, which is pretty much what the plot revolves around. Plus a little girl’s kitten dies. Oh, and a man dies in the girl's presence. Almost forgot that one. At the Water’s Edge has two deaths. And House on the Hill? Several pretty major deaths, plus a dog.

Wow, I thought. I do have some kind of fascination with killing people off.

The best response I could come up with for my neighbor was, “Rest assured, no one dies in my next book.” I paused to double-check, thinking through Spires of Stone just to be sure—did anyone—or anything—die in it? Even a cat or dog? A mouse? Nope. No one dies. Phew.

However . . . I can’t say the same for my upcoming Tower of Strength. Sorry. It does have two deaths, plus one more in the back story that we don’t see. My obsession with the end of life is apparently quite healthy.

But I’m innocent! I swear, I didn’t kill anyone in that book. It’s not my fault, and I won’t feel guilty over it.

Okay, so I still cried writing about them.

Goodness, we writers are certainly an odd lot . . .

Coming Spring 2009 . . .

It's official!

My next book, titled Tower of Strength, has been accepted for publication and will be released next spring.

My fourth temple-related book, it's set in 1884 Manti, a few years before the temple there was complete. Much of the story centers around events (both real and fictional) that took place in and around the city's Temple Hill.

I love the title they picked; Tower of Strength can refer to both the temple (the towers are under construction during the story) as well as the heroine. Tabitha really is a tower of strength, and that plays a huge role in the story.

This book has been an interesting ride. I loved uncovering the story and characters. I struggled with some of the research. I laughed. I cried.

And in the end, I'm excited for my readers to meet Tabitha Chadwick and get to know her for the strong woman she is . . . even if they have to wait almost a year before meeting her!

Orcs Don't Go Bump in the Night

When he was about eight, my son went to see The Two Towers with his dad. Some people thought we were completely nuts to let a child so young see it. He'd surely get nightmares, they said. It was way too intense for a third grader. But we knew our son.

Some time before, we'd gotten The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD. As I left for a commitment that night, my husband started watching it. I was a bit concerned about the scariness level for the kids, but he promised that he'd turn it off if our son showed any signs of anxiety. The girls weren't interested anyway, so they wouldn't be watching.

When I returned that night, I discovered that not only had my little guy not been terrified by the Orcs (creatures that quite frankly freaked me out in the theater), but that he had watched the movie on his feet, jumping off the couch and pretending to slash Orcs right along with Aragon. I should have known; ever since he could hold anything relatively narrow and long, he'd been pretending to sword fight. The drive must be on the Y chromosome or something.

(Toy store store employees were horrified when we tried buying him a toy sword. What kind of psycho parents were we?! I'm sorry, but a hollow, plastic light saber doesn't do as much damage as a metal butter knife.)

He loved the movie. What about nightmares? None. At all.

A few weeks later, our 3-year-old daughter got a Disney Nintendo game starring Mickey Mouse. The game, intended for preschoolers, had cheery music a cute graphics. Typical Disney. The player was to go through the magical world and gather up the pieces of a broken mirror and put it back together again, because a ghost had broken it. That's about as much as I remember about it. All of the kids played the game, including our son as he helped his younger sisters figure it out.

Within days, he began having regular nightmares . . . about the Disney ghost in his closet.

Somehow the animated ghost terrified him and seemed real, whereas the bloodied Orcs remained firmly in his fantasy imagination. Go figure.

He wasn't allowed to play the Mickey Mouse game anymore, but he was allowed to see The Two Towers. Again, no nightmares.

The only person who got a start was my husband, who, on the way home from the theater, heard our son whisper from the backseat in a perfect imitation: "My precious . . ." who then laughed his head off when Dad jumped.

Attack on the Grammar Fascista

My family is out to get me.

It began a few weeks ago when #2 left the piano bench during her practice time and sought me out in the kitchen.

“This song is so easy,” she said. “Can I play it less times?”

Twitch.

Before I could answer, I had to clear my throat and get my face under control. Then I launched into a speech about count nouns versus non-count nouns and therefore the proper usage of less and fewer.

“It drives me crazy,” I told her. “Commercials mess them up all the time. It’s not less calories. You can count calories, so it’s fewer calories. It’s not like time or flour, which you refer to in general quantities—less time, less flour. So it should be fewer calories. Fewer, people! Fewer!”

#2 just looked at me. “So . . . can I play it less times, then?”

Twitch.

(For any other grammar fascistas out there, I don’t hold to the antiquated school of thought that one must use “may” in requests such as these instead of "can." I’m not a savage.)

The song really was easy. Normally the kids are required to run through all songs five times each, but I decided to be flexible. “Fine,” I said. “You can play it three times today . . . if you ask me again using fewer. Say, 'fewer times.'”

She grinned. “Awesome, Mom. Thanks! Can I play it fewer times?”

“Yes,” I said, glad to have bestowed such a great grammar lesson upon my offspring.

As I turned away, she shot out, “Less times!” Giggling hysterically, she bolted into the living room.

“FEWER times!” I yelled after her.

“LESS times,” she called back, still laughing.

That exchange has since snowballed into the family finding glee at torturing me. They’ve always known that Mom’s a bit of a nut when it comes to grammar and usage, but they’ve never used it against me.

I don’t even know how the conversation got started the other night at dinner. All I know is that suddenly everyone was thinking up horrid grammar mistakes and hurling them across the table just to see the vein in my forehead pulse.

My husband even got into the game. Knowing one of my all-time pet peeves, he found ways to inject imply and infer into every conversation for the next few hours. He purposely (and rather brilliantly, I might add) used them wrong every single time.

That night, by the time I had on my pajamas, I was on the verge of calling for a strait jacket.

“Stop, stop!” I wanted to cry out. “Oh, the humanity!”

But after a good night’s sleep, something wonderful dawned on me. If my family knows enough to use incorrect grammar just to tease me . . . they also know the correct grammar because I’ve taught it to them.

Bwaahahahahaaaaaa!

I win.


Note: Thanks to Luisa, the Ultimate Grammar Fascista (one of the highest forms of praise I am capable of), for the use of her banner.

2, 3, Cha-Cha-Cha

My partner on the university summer ballroom team almost didn’t ask me out.

We’d spent every morning for a good chunk of the summer dancing together. I’d gone out once with another guy on the team—a boy that, while nice enough, didn’t exactly impress when he went on about how desperate he was to get married.

Over the course of the summer, my partner and I became great friends, and yeah, we flirted a bit. But I kept talking about how I was going to serve a mission, and he took me seriously on that.

I don’t remember the first time I saw him, but I do remember the first impression I had of him. It was early in the summer before we had assigned partners and instead the guys rotated between the girls every few minutes. He was my last partner of the day, and I remember thinking, Wow, this guy can really lead, and we work well together. We both finagled things so we’d end up assigned together, and we had a ball all summer long.

During that time, the film Strictly Ballroom came to theaters. I thought it would be a great excuse to hang out—ballroom is what we did, right? It wouldn’t necessarily be a date . . . I was going on a mission, remember. And I insisted that I didn’t like him like him, although when my friends asked about him, I had a hard time sticking to the story . . . . and not blushing.

He and I made plans to see Strictly Ballroom, but then it left the theater before we had the chance. Here was this guy who wasn’t afraid of a smart girl with a scholarship (big points in my book), who could quote Shakespeare for crying out loud, and who had the warmest chocolate-brown eyes ever, and my one excuse for seeing him off the dance floor had fallen through.

Dang. Now what?

Fortunately, he decided that we should still see a movie, so we went to Sleepless in Seattle. Best first date ever. No awkwardness at all. We already had inside jokes and plenty to talk about. It did take him awhile to stop looking for me four inches taller than I really was, because he was used to my silver Latin-heels-enhanced height. That first date turned into many more.

He proposed on my birthday, and the following spring, we were married. It’s been fourteen years now, and each has been better than the last. Today we work together better than we did in our fancy dancing shoes and costumes.

Happy anniversary to my life-long dance partner.

I love you more!

Seeking My Plot

Most successful writers I know have no dearth of story ideas. The majority tend to have so many ideas that they often have to sort through them to decide which book to write first.

There was a time when that described me, too. I had plot ideas swimming in my head all the time, and I have several unpublished manuscripts to attest to that. I worked on them before and shortly after the time that I wrote House on the Hill.

For years I had felt compelled to write something about the Logan temple. I'd had a love of Cache Valley and the temple there for a long time and knew that there was a story I had to write about it. At the time, I had no plans for sticking with the historical fiction genre or for writing more books about temples.

In fact, the next book I wrote was a murder mystery, a sort of sequel for Lost without You, my first book, that takes place ten years later when the daughter, Angela, is a high school senior. I had a ball writing that one (it was totally awesome when my cop brother didn't guess the bad guy).

And then House on the Hill sold. Really well. And readers were suddenly clamoring for more. That's when I got a call from my publisher that boiled down to, "Hey, let's do more of that."

When I went back to the drawing board, I realized that I really loved doing historical fiction. In a lot of ways, writing it came more naturally than some of my other, contemporary, work had. The problem was that my writing mind had left the historical arena. I had that murder mystery plus two other contemporary novels I was working on.

The question loomed large: What should I write next that would be historical?

I decided pretty quickly to write a follow-up to House on the Hill, because the number one question I was getting from readers was, "What happens to Abe?"

Well, I'll find out, I thought.

When talking it out with my husband, he suggested writing about another temple. And then doing a whole series of temple books. I loved the idea and jumped all over it.

That was a few years ago. Now I've got three temple books in print, a fourth written and awaiting acceptance, and a fifth in the research phase. It's great, and I'm loving the experience. I've learned so much Church history, things we don't generally hear about, and I've come to appreciate and respect the early Saints so much more.

The trick, though, is that I no longer have the luxury of thinking about plots ahead of time. I have no inkling of what storyline my temple books will have until I start digging into the research.

How in the world could I decide what would happen in At the Journey's End until after I read up on the types of events that really occurred on the Honeymoon Trail? I couldn't.

For me, the location and its history become a secondary character to the book, the backdrop to the main story. I still maintain that I don't want the history to become the point of any of my books. The history is and always will be the backdrop for the plot and characters. The stage, if you will. You won't find a history textbook, with gobs of things that are "good for you" shoved down your throat. Ick.

The bottom line for me is I can't come up with a viable storyline until I know what constitutes the stage: what was going on in a particular area at a certain period in time, what the "personality" of the place was.

I thought I was an anomaly in my method, but in the most recent Writer's Digest, I came across a quote in an interview with Sara Gruen, author of the best-selling novel Water for Elephants. I don't have any delusions about being the next Sara Gruen, but something she said made me think that maybe I'm not entirely loopy for working the way I do. Talking about her latest book, she said:

"I didn't think about story until I'd done a fair amount of research into the backdrops, but then it was clear."

Yes! I wanted to shout from the rooftops. That's how it is for me, too! Someone else writes this way!

Maddie from At the Journey's End popped into my head fully formed after about two weeks of research. Tabitha from my upcoming Manti book trotted "on stage" one day with her name, a great line of dialogue, and her back story after I'd been reading up on Manti for several weeks (and starting to worry that I'd never have story to tell about it).

This is the point I'm at right now. For drafting purposes, it's getting a bit late in the year for me to not have a story in mind if I hope to turn in a manuscript by the end of the year, like I usually do. There's a bit of pressure growing, that same bit of worry I've felt before.

You've been reading about that place off and on for weeks now, it says. You have no story. It won't come this time. Who are you kidding?

As much as I talk myself out of the worries, the calendar ticks away one day at a time, and I do get a bit anxious. But then yesterday I was (yes!) smacked in the face with my heroine's first name. I don't know who she is yet; I'll have to spend some time getting acquainted with her and her family. I do know she has a brother she's very close to who will play a big part. Beyond that, it's very sketchy.

But it's coming.

This morning I opened up one of my research books that I've been putting off, and I read thirty pages. It's a sign that I'm getting stoked again. The characters will show up when they're ready, and the story will, too.

I can't wait to meet them.

Indoctrinating the Younguns

My mother did it for me over twenty years ago, and I'm doing it to my kids, with no apologies.

When I was around 10, and lasting for several years thereafter, Mom made a point of renting videos as a means to creating culturally-literate children. The great part was that in addition to getting a great education, we also had a ball seeing terrific classic films together.

Now when I run across fellow Gen-Xers who haven't seen these gems, I have to remind myself that not everyone had such a great learning experience from their parents in their early teens.

I plan to show my kids all the same great shows Mom shared with me, but at this point, my kids are still a little too young to appreciate the likes of Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, or The Philadelphia Story. Ditto with some of the Hitchcock greats (my personal favorites: Charade and Wait until Dark). My son might be able to sit through something along the lines of The Dirty Dozen, being as there's a lot of guns and fighting in it. And I've toyed with showing them Some Like It Hot, since that's downright hysterical. Even the youngest might be able to get some of it.

But until they're mature enough to appreciate the older greats (with a few exceptions, like Mary Poppins and Chitty, Chitty, Bang-Bang), I'm indoctrinating them with the classics from my youth. We've gone with The Private Eyes, an 80s film starring the inimitable Tim Conway and Don Knotts. A few of the others they've watched include blockbusters like E.T., Big, Newsies, and most recently, Footloose.

(Side note on that one: I've known forever that Footloose was filmed in Utah, but now that I'm an adult—and am far more familiar with Utah County than I used to be—it was a ball watching it and recognizing actual locations. It was also fun to see one of "our" missionaries from the time my parents presided over the mission in Finland. He was an extra in the movie before he served. I had to jump off the couch, rewind the DVD, and point out Elder Sperry to the kids. We caught sight of him two or three times.)

Next up is Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which I saw over and over again at the Movies 8 dollar theater with my good buddies, twins Denise and Melinda. We saw a lot of movies together that year. (We also smuggled pounds and pounds of penny candy from ShopKo into the theater. Good times.)

Movies on my to-be-watched list: Ghostbusters, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and The Muppets Take Manhattan. I regularly come up with more to add. That way I can make sure my kids get a taste of the cultural icons I grew up with.

One great thing about all this is that we're having a ton of fun watching these movies together. Each brings back all kinds of great memories for me.

Another benefit: The kids are starting to "get" references in TV shows and movies that refer to things they recently saw because I showed it to them. They're also understanding better why Mom and Dad laugh at parts of the Shrek trilogy and other movies that they don't grasp: Oh! Those lines are references to other shows! It's like a light bulb going off in their heads.

Just the other day, my daughter was home sick. We ended up snuggling on the couch together as we caught an episode of Leave It to Beaver. I didn't expect her to watch the whole thing, but my culturally-literate side kicked in, and I insisted she watch a few minutes of it. That way when she heard mentions of "The Beav" or "June Cleaver" on other shows, she'd know what it meant.

Lo and behold, that very night while watching a DVD, we heard a reference to Leave It to Beaver. She was a bit tickled to be the only kid in the family who had a reference for the line.

So thanks, Mom, for yet one more thing!

I'm Getting There . . .

I've made some progress on my catch-up list from last time:

• Get a way overdue and much-needed hair cut. Hasn't happened yet. I'm thinking maybe Monday or Tuesday.
• Cut the kids' hair. It's on today's "Saturday is a special day" list. This way they'll look less like homeless waifs when we walk into church tomorrow.
• Bake a decent dinner. It's happened once so far, thanks to the crock pot. (I made homemade rolls to go with the beef stew. That counts, right?) But we've had a few unexpected issues that have thrown a wrench into having a great dinner, like an emergency trip to the doctor for DD10's possibly broken arm.
• Do the laundry. It's now caught up to a reasonable level of completeness. The mountain is gone, and everyone has stuff to wear again. We're back to maintenance mode.
• Go grocery shopping. Done. Of course, there were a few things I forgot to put on the list, but I DID go. We now have clean clothes AND food.
• Clean a few toilets. That's on one of the kids' chore lists for today. So I'm getting it done, even if I'm not the one doing it.
• Make the bed every day. Done. Except that I haven't made it yet today. But I will. I swear.
• Get dressed before noon. Managed it every day this week except Friday, but I had good reasons. Really, I did. And today I was showered and dressed WAY before noon. Impressed? Should be.
• Go to the library. Done. I even put a book on reserve that I have a sneaking suspicion will be a Whitney finalist this year. See, I'm trying to read up as much as I can NOW to avoid having a wild attempt to madly dash through 25 books in a few weeks like I did this year.
• Mop. As with the toilets, one of the kids gets to do that today.
• Sleep. Somewhat happening. Critique group tends to throw a wrench into that once a week, but I've gotten close to 8 hours most nights. And today . . . I got to sleep in. Hubby even got up and closed the bedroom door so the kiddies wouldn't bug me. Felt GOOOD. And naps? Nope. No naps. But I didn't really expect to slip one in, either.
• Run miscellaneous errands. Hasn't happened yet. Soon, for sure.

But next week I also need to make time to have some fun with the kids. It's Spring Break, after all. One of their friends is on a big trip to California right now, and when she asked my daughter where we were going for Spring Break, she replied, "Nowhere, really. Well, we're going to the dentist."

(Cringe.) It's true. The kids really do have their 6-month appointments during Spring Break. Long story, but I couldn't avoid it. I'll have to make it up to them somehow. We'll come up with something really fun to do during the break. At least once.

And finally, I may be the last blogger on the planet to jump on board, but for those three people who haven't heard about J. Scott Savage's upcoming fantasy series, Farworld, listen up. The first book, Water Keep, will be out in a few months, and as part of the ramp-up for that time, he's planning a giant blog tour. I get to host him this summer, and one reader from my blog will get a signed Advanced Reader Copy of Water Keep.

To learn more about the series (or to host Scott as part of his tour), click here.

Rewrites and Catch-ups

When the writing conference was over and done with, I had two weeks to get my Manti book rewrite done and turned back in to my editor. (The illustrious and rockin Kirk, seen below during his workshop at the conference. The man is my new best friend.)

It was going pretty well . . . until a cold smacked me upside the head and laid me out, well . . . cold. I bought an extra two days, recovered (for the most part), and turned it in late last night.

What I should have done was buy three extra days, see, because when I got the extension until Tuesday, I didn't look at the calendar. Therefore, I didn't realize that yesterday was not only the day I help in my third grader's classroom, but I had a dentist appointment for a crown (and I'd already rescheduled with my dentist several times) AND a birthday lunch with one of my bestest friends ever. And my daughter's choir concert was that night.

Hahahahahaaa!

To make my promised deadline, on both Monday and Tuesday I woke up at 5:30 am to get some work in before the kidlets woke up. This all by itself is monumental. I should get an award. Seriously.

I value my sleep higher than even chocolate. Leaving early the warmth of the covers and the softness of my pillow is just not an option for me. Heather has gone weeks at a time waking up in the wee sma's to get writing done, and I've envied that. I just cannot wake up that early and still function.

The fact that I walk around like a zombie on less than 8 hours of sleep also factors into the equation. I could easily sleep 9+ hours every night if I had the time.

Whether I behaved like a normal human being for the last two days is in question, but I did get up early, and I did turn in the book on Tuesday, as promised. (Granted, it was hours past the time Kirk had left for home . . .)

The one great thing: I'm really loving the way the book is shaping up. There were elements that were okay before, but with Kirk's guidance, I was able to knock them up several notches. From characterization to plot to pacing, the whole thing just feels stronger and better. YES!

Now that the rewrite is done, I have other projects and deadlines looming ahead of me. Of course. That's the crazy kind of person I am.

But before I delve into those, I thought I'd do a few other things I've missed out on lately:

• Get a way overdue and much-needed hair cut.
• Cut the kids' hair. (If my son doesn't get a cut soon, he's going to start looking like a sheep dog.)
• Make a decent dinner (one that doesn't involve something frozen that's baked on a cookie sheet).
• Do the laundry. (I fear my children are running out of anything to wear to school.)
• Go grocery shopping. (Alas, I had to miss out on my Grocery Game list and sales for this week. There just weren't enough hours in my days. I think it's time I visit Costco.)
• Clean a few toilets. (And touch up the guest bath for when critique group members descend tonight. I'll pretend it's been clean all week.)
• Make the bed every day.
• Get dressed before noon.
• Go to the library (renew the book I've had for four weeks and haven't had time to read).
• Mop.
• Sleep. (At night. But also get naps during the day. Fine. Who am I kidding? Like that's ever going to happen.)
• Run miscellaneous errands (make an exchange of a defective product, get milk money quarters from the bank, yada yada).

Some of those will happen today. Most will happen over the course of the next week or so. It takes me a while to play catch-up. Okay, so I'm frequently in catch-up mode and a bit frazzled.

I'm a writer. We're an eccentric lot, right? Right?

5 Random Thoughts

1) My son is going to grow taller than me in a few months. I'm so not ready for that.

2) The other day, DD5 proclaimed her requirements for the boy she will marry someday:

• He must like her.


• She must like him.


• He must like kissing.

When pressed, she admitted that making sure he's NICE would be a good idea as well. ("Like Daddy," she decided. Couldn't go wrong on that one.)

3) I've been an avid watcher of American Idol since the very first season. It's the one show hubby and I TiVo and then watch together, often when the little ones are asleep. This year the turbo-giant cell phone company, Nokia (based in Finland, my other homeland), is a sponsor.

Now you'll all know what a total nerd I am: I was so pleased to hear Ryan Seacrest pronounce the name of the company correctly; most people don't.

It's NO-kia, not no-KIA.

The stress of any Finnish word is always on the first syllable. Sheesh, people. It's not like it's an insanely difficult language. Oh, wait . . .

4) On a similar note, I've been brushing up my Finnish (once fluent but accented, now covered in brain dust) by reading the Book of Mormon in the language. I have the online English version in front of me so I can consult it when I come across passages that I don't understand.

I'm doing pretty well, except for those Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi. If I don't understand it in English, what are the chances it'll make any sense whatsoever in Finnish?

That, and even though I attended Finnish public school for three years and could speak with the best the grade schoolers around, you decide how likely it was that I would learn the Finnish terms of things I run into regularly in the scriptures.

During just today's scripture reading, I had to check the English version to translate several words.

Among them:

• plow shares


• pruning hooks


• soothsayers


• Philistines


• idols


• chariots


• haughtiness


• moles


• bats


• nostrils

Yeah, those are words I used in everyday conversation when I was 12 . . .

Okay, I probably heard "nostrils" from some boy classmates. But the others? I don't recall any conversations involving soothsayers or bats.

5) And finally, because it's just too good NOT to post, here's next year's conference king, Jeff Savage, being a total sport after I "crowned" him with all kinds of goofy stuff like "gauntlets of courage" (silver oven mitts) and a crown my daughter helped decorate with foam hearts and glitter. (The red sleeve is mine.)

The Writer Brain Curse

It's bad enough that after years of critiquing and editing my own and other writers' work that it's almost impossible to read a book for the sheer fun of it. I can't shut off the editor in my brain. I can't help but rewrite sentences in my head as I go or notice plot holes and character motivation problems.

But it's getting worse.

The research end of my brain is now poking holes into plots too.

I recently finished reading a book that had a rip-roaring fun plot. The story was action-packed and very well written. My editor brain didn't even have to pull out the red pen too often.

The problem, then? Factual details that . . . weren't.

And this isn't even a historical novel.

Three (among many) that jumped out at me:

1) This one is something almost everyone knows: referring (several times) to knowing that you don't have cell phone reception because there is no dial tone. Excuse me? Okay, so the book is probably ten years old. Cell phones weren't as commonplace a decade ago. But they did exist, and anyone who has used one knows that there is no dial tone. Instead you have those bars that tell you if you have a signal. (I hear that a company is now making cell phones that do have dial tones, especially for seniors who are used to such things. But that's the exception, not the rule, people.) How did this one get past the author and the editor?

The next one I know thanks to my son's new passion: Mythbusters. I swear, that show is going to forever ruin all kinds of movies and books for me.

2) Blasting doors and locks open with a gun. Not possible, even with a dead-on aim, and definitely not with one or two shots. Happened at least twice in this book (and a ton of other books and movies).

And finally, one I learned through funky reading material discovered in an article in Writer's Digest that suggested writers go to expert websites to get their facts straight:

3) A character is murdered and his eyes are cut out of his head so the bad guy can use them to get past a retinal scanner. The catch? According to the article, retinal scanners only work on LIVING eyeballs. You can't take one out of a person's head and hold it up to the scanner. (Sorry, Tom Cruise, that part of Minority Report doesn't wash.) Too bad that a good chunk of this book's plot line depends on that particular murder and retinal scanner.

See what I mean? It's getting tougher all the time for me to suspend disbelief. Maybe that's why I'm reading so much fantasy lately.

Sigh . . . sometimes I'd love to be able to just immerse myself in a good yarn again without overthinking it.

Close Friends & Conference Fun

I wish I had a picture of a particular moment at the LDStorymakers Conference. It was one of those times when your worlds collide, although it wasn't traumatic like when George from Seinfeld was at risk of being destroyed when Relationship George collided with Fun George, but it was a funky moment nonetheless.

After a session on Saturday, I walked over to a table to grab my things. Standing beside it were three people.

Jeff Savage, who has been part of my critique group for about six years, joining just a couple of months before my first book, Lost Without You, was accepted for publication. As the first man in our group, he's been a great asset. We finally had a guy to tell us when our men were acting like sissies. Of course, he's also known for his "Well, I really have just one comment," critiques. When you hear that, brace yourself. The "one thing" is probably major. And darn it all, he's usually right.

Here's a picture of Jeff at the Whitney Gala before presenting an award . . . giving a "talk." You can tell that the figures at the bottom are in their "pre-author" life, because they don't yet have their blogs . . . (That talk will go down in Whitney history. It was hysterical.)

Angela Eschler, my beloved editor who has been the one who worked so tirelessly on all five of my books. I'm not a person who deals well with change. Consequently, when she recently left Covenant, I came close to flipping out. (Fortunately, she left me in very good hands. Kirk totally rocks.) Below is critique group gal pal Michele Holmes at the Whitney Gala (left) with the amazing Angela.



And the last person of the trio was Sarah, one of the Babes that Spires is dedicated to. I've known her since the 8th grade when we started our L.M. Montgomery fan club. We were part of a tight-knit group of friends in high school, took creative writing together our senior year, and in college collaborated on a novel. She was the first person to give me honest feedback. As we wrote together, she freely told me when I had suggested something really dumb . . . and when it absolutely worked. The first time I tried writing a book on my own, I panicked; I didn't have Sarah there on my shoulder to guide me.

And we both have way too many things we could blackmail each other about.

Here these three people from very different areas of my life were standing together, chatting. I had to smile.

And then I thought about all the frightening stories they could share with each other about me.

I can picture it now:

Jeff: You should have read that pathetic opening chapter Annette brought to critique last time. I mean, really. Holy lame. Well, okay. The writing was good on a sentence level. Of course there weren't any grammar or punctuation errors. She's the stinkin' grammar police. But the overall arc didn't work. I really just had two comments. But if she takes my advice, she'll be rewriting that chapter for a good month.

Angela: And I bet she used a dozen semicolons. I can't count how many of those I've had to take out of her books, and she argues over every one of them. Touch-y.

Sarah: Just try drafting with her. [shudders] She's such a control freak. But she listened to me, at least most of the time. If she hadn't . . . man, our book would have been a sappy mess.

In all reality, each one of them represent an important part of my life, and I'm grateful for their friendships and the impact each one has had on my life.

As soon as I can get my hands on some of the other photos taken at the conference (since my own camera hung out at the bottom of my bag the entire time), here are a few I do have. If you've been reading other blogs about the conference and Whitney Gala, you may have seen several of them already.

Here I am right before the dinner at the Gala, with my sweet husband at my side:


With Whitney winners Michele Holmes and Heather (H.B.) Moore. All three of us began attending our critique group as unpublished but hopeful writers. It's amazing how far we've come.


Hard to see, but this is right after I read the winner's name for Best Romance/Women's fiction and got to give the award to the very-much deserving Michele. Also pictured is Lisa Mangum of Deseret Book.


Two years of conference "Queens." Heather and I flank Josi Kilpack and Julie Wright, who were the conference chairs for 2007. As the conference wrapped up, they presented us with big boxes of chocolate. They know me so well.

What a weekend!

That about sums it up. I’ll surely post more later (especially some photos), but for now, I had to just express some overall feelings from the experience.

The conference has come and gone. Jeff Savage (or J. Scott Savage, depending on which of his books you’re talking about) is officially crowned as the next conference chair—and is our first conference "king" instead of "queen."

The attendees were enthusiastic, the instructors fantastic, the food yummy, and everything else just great. Meeting editor Tim Travaglini and literary agent Jaime Chilton—and chatting around a table with them late into the evening—was definitely a highlight for me.

I’m so grateful to all the many, many people who helped us put the conference together. It took a small army of dedicated people to do it all. Thanks to all of you; you know who you are!

When the conference wrapped up Saturday, the hard part was over for me, but the Whitney Gala was still ahead. My husband, awesome man that he is, showed up with a dozen roses for me. (How cool is HE?!)

We got to sit at the same table with Whitney Award winners Josi Kilpack, Brandon Mull, and Jessica Day George. (The last two make me officially cool in my daughter’s book.)

I had the opportunity to announce the winner of the Best Romance/Women’s Fiction award alongside Lisa Mangum of Deseret Book. To my absolute delight, my good friend, Michele Paige Holmes took the award. I was supposed to remain neutral, but I’m sure the thrill I felt was plainly obvious in my voice and on my face when I read her name.

I can honestly say that winning an award myself wouldn’t have been any more joyful for me in that moment. I’ve been friends with Michele for many years, and I’ve seen the long, hard road she’s traveled to get where she is. I was so happy for her that I sat back down and promptly began crying.

Tears continued to be a large part of the night for me. Josi’s winning speech got me all choked up too, as did several others. While I’m sure part of my weepiness stemmed from a serious lack of sleep for three days, each and every tear that night was a happy one. Some people came up to me concerned that I was sad over not winning a Whitney myself. Truly, I didn’t expect to win, so I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t. (I just hoped I’d lose to my other good friend, Heather Moore. And I did!)

But the tears were more than just happiness for good friends. Our table was dead center at the back of the room. As a result, I had a great view of the large crowd that had gathered for the awards. A lot of amazing people were inside those four walls. Some I’d go so far as to call legends.

As the evening wore on, I felt a surging sense of awe and privilege. That night represented the beginning of something very big. And I got to be a small part of it. I even got to be involved a tiny bit in its creation. I was sitting in the middle of a piece of history. The thought was overwhelming. I felt so honored to be in the company of those around me, to bear witness to the birth of something so much bigger than myself, something meaningful, something that I believe Orson F. Whitney himself smiled down upon.

After the 2007 conference, I drove home a bit sad because it was all over for a year.

This time, I drove away feeling uplifted, honored, and overcome. I cried for nearly half an hour as I drove, unable to believe that I . . . little ol' me . . . the gal who scribbled stories about mice in second grade . . . I was there. I am part of this amazing community that began as a simple e-mail support group and has morphed into a powerful force, where some of my dearest friends on the planet belong.

How did I get so lucky?

Like I said, I’ll post more about the conference and the Whitneys later. I’m still trying to finish the "re-entry" process with the family and (with any luck) catch up on some sleep.

And oh yeah—then I have a couple of deadlines to meet, because I get to write and publish books for readers of my faith.

Did I mention that man, I’m one lucky woman?!

(Oops. There go those tears again . . .)

It's HERE! And I'm Outta Here

Quick post today . . .

I'm doing the headless chicken dance today as I load up the minivan and get the family ready for when I leave this afternoon for the conference, which begins early tomorrow morning with Boot Camp.

As you can imagine, there's a lot to do while the kidlets are at school and before I drive off into the sunset. And when I do leave, I won't be back online until next week.

I'm guessing that a good chunk of my readers won't be checking up on me over the weekend, as they'll be at the conference with me.

However, a lot of Storymaker friends won't be there for one reason or another, and they were lamenting the fact. Some of the Whitney finalists are in that number. They asked, half kidding, half serious, if someone could please text message the results of the Whitney Gala as they happened on Saturday night.

Their wish was the Whitney Committee's command.

So here's the fun news:

Three authors who are attending the Gala (Matthew Buckley, Tristi Pinkston, and Jaime Theler) will be blogging live every step of the way.

If you won't be there, you can follow the awards ceremony online as it unfolds.

Check out the Whitney Awards blog during the Gala to see what's going on and who wins.

The dinner begins at 6:30 pm MDT, followed immediately by the awards ceremony. I imagine the bloggers will get started before that, however. Should be fun!

Following which, I'll be collapsing from an exhausting but (I'm sure) wonderful weekend.

See you on the other side!

St. Paddy's Day Scars

As a mother, you try your best to raise your children with love and understanding, shielding them from the darts and arrows of the world.

Invariably, you will fail.

It's just a part of life; you can't shield your kids from everything. Indeed, when it comes down to it, you wouldn't want to shield them from everything, or they'll never learn life lessons. However, no matter how hard you try, you'll end up scarring the little guys in ways you never predicted.

Case in point:

Three years ago, I sent my kindergartener off for another day of school. Off she went, merrily waving to me as she hopped out of the minivan and trotted along the sidewalk into the school.

Two and a half hours later, she came home in tears. In short order, I was informed that it was all my fault.

You see, it was St. Patrick's Day, and I had neglected to be a good mommy. I hadn't sent my little girl to school in green. Apparently, several of the boys in her class thought that fact was great fun and spent the entire school day (thank heavens it was just 1/2-day kindergarten) pinching her. Whether it was at recess, at her desk, or on the carpet when the teacher read stories, all day long, she was pinched.

By the time she got home, the poor girl was traumatized. She fell apart in my arms, relating the horrendous details of her school day.

"Mom, why didn't you make sure I wore green?!"

I've since made a bigger effort on St. Patrick's Day--a holiday I frankly care nothing about. (Today I'm wearing a bright RED shirt . . .) The one and only way I celebrate the day is making sure my kids go off to school with something green. It's probably more of a self-defense measure than anything else.

Today that included my junior high schooler. I had him change his black shirt for a green one. (After all, you never know if those pinching bullies in kindergarten grew up to be junior high schoolers and might decide to pick on a seventh grader who lacks the proper color.)

I even made sure my preschooler had green on today, just in case there was a boy in her class who might try to torture her with the pinching tradition. I certainly didn't want to have another child scarred by the holiday.

So this morning as I'm putting a dot of super glue on a St. Paddy's Day bracelet for my third grader to wear (made with a kit sent by Grandma Lyon for that very purpose), she pipes up with, "Hey, Mom, remember how in kindergarten I didn't wear any green and those boys pinched me all day? Man, that was awful."

Yeah, honey. I remember.

But I was so hoping you didn't anymore!

Oh, well. There's always Easter.

The Countdown

It's ten days away for most of those involved, but it's essentially nine days away for me.

NINE.

ACK!

I'm referring to the 5th Annual LDStorymakers Writers Conference coming up next week, which Heather Moore and I are co-chairing.

Can I just say that I am eternally grateful that
a) I'm not in this alone and
b) that my partner is so capable and
c) that her strengths lie in all my weak areas?

As some readers may remember, we were "crowned" at last year's conference, so this conference has been twelve months in the making. The last couple have been the most intense, of course, and now it's almost here.

We're dotting i's and crossing t's right now, trying to make sure that there are no lingering ends left untied. (It's amazing just how many ends there are to check . . .)

Between now and then, I have a lot to do, for both the conference as well as for my personal life. For starters, I have to get everything ready for Easter before I drive off to the hotel, because by the time I get back, there will be NO time whatsoever for any of that.

The family is heading up to visit grandma while I'm gone, so I should probably help get little people semi-packed before I leave.

Several of the kids have activities that Mom needs to help prepare for, coordinate, or drive to.

And then there are the ponchos I'm trying to finish knitting for my girls so they can all match on Easter Sunday. (Key word: trying.)

In the middle of all this madness, I did something really stupid: I asked my editor about the status of my latest submission.

If you know anything about the writer's ego, you'll know what a really dumb move that was for a writer who is already under stress. The only possible good outcome would have been a response like, "It's Pulitzer-worthy! We loved it!" Then I'd smile and go my merry way, with a little boost to keep going through the next nine days.

I'm sure you can already see where this is going.

Instead of a declaration that I'm the next big thing, we're discussing revisions and notes.

Really, that's no huge surprise. With Spires of Stone I did two rewrites, went over oodles of notes with my editor (and granted, wanted to bang my head against the monitor numerous times), but ultimately came out the other end not only alive but with a much better book that was accepted for publication and is now up for a Whitney Award.

So why am I such a basket case? That would be because writers seesaw between egomania and self-despair all the time, and are capable of flipping between the two in a matter of seconds. My past publishing experiences with five previous novels notwithstanding, I still feel like the rookie just waiting for that next rejection letter telling me my baby is ugly and that I stink.

I should take a nice, hot bath tonight to help me calm down a bit. That is, if I could sit still long enough without checking e-mail for conference stuff, or going over my workshop presentation notes, or working on the table centerpieces, or sending the latest updates about the waiting list and lunch choices to committee members, or . . .

You get the idea.

Basically, I look like Chicken Little on serious doses of caffeine.

To cope, I bought two of the silver bags of Guittard milk chocolate chips. You know, the jumbo ones? Yeah. That should last me, oh, a day or so.

For those readers who are coming to the conference, I can't wait to see you. Once the big day is here, it'll be downright awesome, and I'm sure I'll be having a ball. I've been in touch with a lot of you, and I can't wait to put faces to names.

In all seriousness, the conference has been a huge shot in the arm for me every time. Last year I drove home a bit wistfully, knowing I wouldn't be able to experience it again for another year. Sure, there would be other conferences, but none are the same as this one. If you've come, you know what I mean.

See you in ten days.

A Very Serious Interview

Or not.

Some time ago, Luisa was interviewed on her blog with questions provided by a fellow blogging friend and offered to pass along the love.

I raised my cyber-hand (Oooh, oh! Pick me! Pick me!) and she has obliged. Below are her fun questions and my answers.

Thanks, lady!


1. How did you celebrate your first writing sale?
First, some back story: Our first VCR was a hand-me-down from my in-laws. My writing goal for years was to use money I earned through writing to buy a new VCR before that old one bit the dust for good—which could be at any time.

My first couple of writing sales were articles that were clustered together, so I used the money from them to buy a brand new VCR with—oooooh, self-cleaning heads and the ability to mark commercials! (I’m dating myself here . . . DVD players didn’t exist yet . . .)


2. How many writers does it take to change a light bulb? Please explain your answer.

Just one.

But it might take somewhere around 37 light bulbs to get the job done, because she’ll keep changing it, trying to make it just right.


3. You know the advice, "Sometimes you have to kill your darlings." Was there ever a scene or line that it really hurt to cut, but cutting it made the story stronger?

I remember one line in particular that I wanted to use in my first book, but my critique group hated it. I tried putting it somewhere else, because darn it, it was such a good line, but it just didn’t ever feel right. In hindsight, I’m so glad I cut it. It would have been mucho cheesy.

But in general, I tend to have the opposite problem—my critique group and editor generally come back with, “Why didn’t you include this scene? Or this one? Write about [blank].” And I’m always glad when I take their advice; those scenes have often become my favorites. I’ve heard the same thing from readers, who of course, had no idea that their favorite scene wasn’t in the original.


4. Fast food: yea or nay?
Yea if it means I don’t have to cook tonight.

Otherwise nay, especially on date night. Unless I’m in the mood for a strawberry slush from Sonic.


5. Do you have a secret skill that you never get to show off?
I’ve got one weird and useless skill that’s hard to explain in words (anyone coming to the LDStorymakers conference, corner me, and I’ll do it for you). I got it from my mom, and my sisters can do it to: Using nothing but air, you move your lower lip extremely fast in and out, to the point that it's almost a blur. It looks and sounds rather funky.

I can also crinkle my tongue so it looks like a 3-leaf clover.

I know; such an amazing set of talents.


To continue the tradition, if someone would like me to come up with interview questions for them, just raise your cyber hand.

I can promise you'll get them . . . but it won't be until after the LDStorymakers Writers Conference (which is coming up in about 2 weeks . . . holy cow . . .).

Make—or Wear—a Scene

First off, thanks to everyone who commented and sent me notes of support; I appreciate it more than you know.

I'm doing much better now.

Today I thought I'd mention a fun new product some of my readers might enjoy.

When my brother-in-law Brian was on his mission in Italy, he came across men's ties with artwork on them depicting various events. The idea stuck with him, and now, many years later, he's doing something similar.

Enter Scene Ties, designed by artists with images from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and U. S. History.

Currently, my husband owns this one, which is a pretty, blue-tone number that portrays pioneers crossing the plains. (Pardon the blur; the pictures didn't transfer here all that well):

And my son picked out the one showing Daniel in the lion's den (a play on our last name, I think):

Scene Ties also has ties with the Stripling Warriors, Samuel the Lamanite, and the signing of Declaration of Independence. More of these 100% silk ties are in the works.

So here's the kicker: If you'd like to try one out (or buy one for a gift for the man in your life, or maybe a missionary), check out the web site here.

When you check out, you can get $2 (about 12%) off a tie when you enter this coupon code:

thelyonstale

(Note that there are no spaces or punctuation marks.)

They're really pretty ties; I hope you'll check them out!

Ever had a day

that was supposed to be free and open and fun,

but then you got an e-mail that turned it upside down,

and it kept you preoccupied and stressed all day

to the point that you spent hours and hours drafting a reply and coming back to it and rethinking it

and feeling nauseated and near tears over the entire issue

even after you finally get up the guts to hit "send,"

because you know you still didn't say it right,

so instead of getting anything of value accomplished (having fun with the kids who are out of school for the day, squeezing in some work on that freelance job, or, I don't know, making sure the family has clean underwear), your day is sucked into the void of worry

to the point that it's an hour past dinner time when you finally put the lasagna on the table

and although it tastes great, you can't stomach it

or the yummy rolls, either

and your hands tremble

and your head is killing you

and you find yourself snapping at your poor kids for the stupidest things

and they wonder where their mommy went?

Been there too? Oh good.

Because that's what it's been like.

Hoping tomorrow is better.