On the Way to the Christy Awards!

I'm making an album on facebook to hold the pictures for the next few days. All of you, even if you are not a facebook user, can access it here.

Some people dread traveling. Not Mom and me. We love riding the shuttles and guessing what families or individuals are off to do. Making friends while waiting at gates. (A woman at LAX had just read a review of The Familiar Stranger and gladly took my card!) Making friends on shuttles to hotels.

I was explaining the advantages of flying away to a dear friend, trying to make him understand why I love it so much.

~no cleaning, cooking, or refereeing
~nap or read at any time on the plane
~free movie this time around
~no children tugging at me--which I love, but DO need a break from occasionally
~someone actually brings me a snack and soda while I read/nap

What's not to love?

Mom and I are so alike and flexible, which also makes it relaxing and an adventure. For instance, our luggage took forever to come off in St. Louis, so our shuttle loaded someone who wasn't supposed to be on ahead us. "Never mind," we said, "we'll take the next one."

Or this morning, when Mom let me sleep until 11 local time, then work on the newsletter until almost 2 without eating breakfast or lunch. We meandered down Washington from the hotel and found the yummiest food at The Mango, a Peruvian restaurant.

Interesting moment: as we were walking back with full and satisfied tummies, an African-American person approached.

"Excuse me, ladies? I'm gay." He stepped back and just looked at us.

O-kaaay. What were we supposed to say to that?

Turned out he was in town for a drag queen convention and had run out of gas. For whatever reason, by looking at us, he thought it would matter he was gay.

I wish I could have sat down with him and shown that we don't dislike him because of who he is or what he does, maybe shown a bit of God's unconditional love ...

Writer's Boot Camp

Or should that be Writer's Book Camp?

Students from Veritas school in Newberg arranged for me to speak one afternoon of their week-long writing intensive. What a fun group of kids. I believe all of them were going into 8th or 9th grade, and belong to a critique group together at one time or another. As I expected, most focus on writing speculative or fantasy.

I gave them a short version of my "journey to publishing success." Then we broke for a healthy snack of some kind of luscious cake with marshmallows, honey grahams, and chocolate smothering it. They had me at "cake." ;)

We spent the next two hours discussing the most common problems I see in my editing business and how to fix those issues. I also recommended my favorite five writing books.

For a writing exercise, I asked them to pick something or someone in the room, write a scene from that Point of View (POV), include a disaster (natural or otherwise), and to portray an emotion without labeling it.

What resulted was a hilarious series of stories told from other students POVs, or from a ceramic figurine, or even the couch pillow as tsunamis, earthquakes, and werewolves wreak havoc. And in almost every story, a student named AJ ended up screaming like a little girl.

Great kids, great food ... I have a great job!

Keeper of Prayers

I tucked my almost--as in three days away from--two-year old "Tyler" into bed tonight and sang a few songs, then prayed. After I said, "Amen," he prayed too. Went a little something like this:

"I-nah, i-nah, i-nah i-nah i-nah i-nah. I-nah Mom. I-nah i-nah i-nah i-nah mine." And so on, with a very powerful "i-nah" at the end.

I watched him, gorgeous blond hair against the pillow, hands together on his chest, eyes screwed shut in utter concentration ... and I smiled at the thought of that prayer going straight up to the throne of God and being saved in a golden bowl.

If you hear that one in heaven someday, remember it came from my sweetie! :)

Close Encounters with ... BAMBI? Ahhh-dorable Pictures

Fifteen acres of forest can turn into a part time job of mowing. My dad is great about getting on the riding mower and doing a few hours here or there between the cloud bursts.

The other day he came zooming back to me as I was weeding the flower beds. Despite riding, he was obviously breathing hard and wide-eyed.

"I almost mowed over a fawn!"

I grabbed the four kids and followed him back into the woods. A perfect fawn lay motionless, the mower having passed on six inches from it. Baby deer have the instinct to stay still when danger is near. When they are tiny, deer don't give off any scent, so if a predator is near and the deer doesn't move, it likely won't be found.

Amazing, isn't it? The only camera I had was my cellphone, so excuse the low quality of the pictures. And I was so thankful Dad had noticed in time! But ... after awhile I wondered if he had just nicked it, the teeny-tiniest bit, maybe we could have kept it and rehabilitated it and fed it with little baby bottles ... ;P