November

I am a warm-weather child.

Living in Ohio has been such a new experience for me, especially as frost sets in. The leaves have long since fallen from the trees, and the world has grown winter-quiet.

Twice a week, I have a holy hour early in the morning.

I'm pretty sure that approximately 90% of the world has no idea what a holy hour is, so I'll explain. I go to one of the Cathlockiest of Catholic universities in the country, and we have Perpetual Adoration. This means that there is a chapel in which the Eucharist is kept, 24/7, which means that someone is there praying before it at every moment of the day. Even in the middle of the night.

Which means that twice a week, I drag myself out of bed in the wee hours, pull a jacket on, and set out across campus.

At the beginning of the school year, when the weather was September-fresh and I could slip out with only a sweater, it wasn't bad. Then it got colder, and I cringed and quaked and whined like a pouty little kid at having to leave my room.

Yet every now and then, while the bitter wind swirls around me and my bones jump with shivers, I'm struck by the raw beauty of winter.

Winter has no pretense. It is bare and immediate. It calls my heart with its silence.

It's November now, and my holy hours will get more difficult. The world is turning to ice, and in those moments just before I see the lamps outside the chapel entrance, when I experience only wind and darkness, I'm afraid.

And when I enter the chapel and am so welcomed, so loved, by the soft glow of candles and the beauty of the monstrance, I know that I can trek across an icy campus in the dark, that I can sacrifice hours of sleep, that I can kneel on a stone floor, dizzy with wishing for my far-away bed, because this is worth everything.

Reasons Why I am an Enfant Terrible (plus some news)

So, I need to own up to the fact that I've been a total brat. My bratness is not completely my fault, but to be honest, well, a few things have gotten away from me.

First off, deadlines and goals I set for myself. It's been a busy year, with lots of new things that demand my focus. I'm beyond being kept on my toes, I'm en pointe.

*snickers at her own joke*

But I can't make excuses, since I've been behind all year.

First of, my adventures in audioland. In March and April I did several posts talking about my research into audio book making, promising that I would be posting my resulting audio chapters within a few weeks. Well, time got away from me, and the next thing I knew, it was September. Oops.

So will I be posting Hearthsinger chapters? I honestly don't know. I hope that eventually I'll be able to share them, because I truly enjoyed researching and creating them. The cast was so much fun to work with and it was amazing to hear my own words spoken by other people. I'm sure I'll be posting more on the subject, since I'll (hopefully!) be making more forays into audioland.

Secondly, my disastrous ambition of finishing Lilla & the Tower by the end of the summer. It's still a dream I wish I could have accomplished, if I could turn back the weeks. Unfortunately, even vacation was a whirlwind this year. Lilla will definitely be continuing, but at this point, as far as writing goes, I have no plan. Currently, I'm working a few minutes a day on the second draft of TDS, tweaking some of its kinks and cutting a whole lot of words. It's a happy and painful process. I'm hoping that some Lilla time will sneak in there somewhere.

(On a happy note, I have a new blog! You may notice it's yellow. Like corn, maybe, or sunshine, or maple leaves in the fall, or perhaps some soft Sweater wool....)

And lastly, I had vague intentions of getting the TDS sequel up on my figment page right around now. Sadly, that won't be happening for a while, either, but the synopsis will be going up on my blog this week! As soon as it does, I'll post a little more about it and why I chose my new main character.

*exhales*

Things are hectic.

But good hectic.

Thank you for reading my hectic blog.

Willkommen in Europa

Twenty days. A long route north over Nova Scotia, following the tail winds over Greenland, dipping down through France and landing at last in Stuttgart, Germany. Clammered against my seat with ear phones and a desperate desire to sleep.

Oh, what a relief to stand up and stretch your legs after nearly ten hours! It's 8:30 a.m. The sunlight and the small airplane breakfast do just enough to convince my brain, kind of, that it's actually morning. Back home, the sun won't rise for hours yet.

That's the way my trip began, three weeks ago. Up till now, my summer's been quite tame--work, college preparations, sneaking a last few days at home. Then, late in July, it was time to head back to Germany for a delicious three-week vacation.

A quick explanation: when I was sixteen, I did a foreign exchange through my school. For six months, I lived with a family in Baden-Wuerttemberg, the southwestern-most state of Germany. I went to school and took two additional private German lessons a week. It was a beautiful stolen chunk of time, where I made friends, took trips around the country, and had the amazing experience of learning a new language.

Afterwards, I came back to the States, and the real world started again. I went to school. I studied for my SATs. My life was college applications and senior classes. I started to notice how much I stumbled over words during German class.

This spring, I wrote to friends in Baden-Wuerttemberg and asked if I might stay with them over the summer. In July, I packed up a couple of gifts--two bottles of Texas hot sauce--and boarded my plane for Stuttgart.



 I can't possibly describe every day of the trip, though I'd love to. I'll just say that it was non-stop, hectic. Autobahn-quick. The first two weeks I stayed with various friends who all live in separate small villages. My favorite: Michelbach, region Schwaebisch Hall.

Gorgeous.

Other than the friends, other than spending time with beloved people whom I haven't seen in several years, there were other great highlights.

1. The food. Friends and acquaitances were shocked to hear that I eat much more sensibly in busy, fast food-famous America. And why? Because I can't resist German food. And we ate. And ate.

This is Döner, the world's most amazing food.
It's worth a trip to Germany just for lamb and yogurt sauce on pita-ish bread.

When cousins arrived, I even got treated to a lesson in how to make Spätzle, a regional noodle dish with sausage and lentils:

Ta-da!

2. One day, friends and I decided, like true former Waldorf students, to spend the afternoon felting. If you don't what felting is, it consists of taking bits of colored wool, wetting it in hot water and soap, and then rubbing it between your hands until it holds together. Kind of like making dreads. I've felted slippers before, which was interesting to say the least. Lucy and Miri and I gathered up our supplies and headed out to the garden:

After a while, the boys came out and decided to try their hand at felting, too. I think we girls hit a little closer to the mark.

After hours of felting and felting, we were just about ready to sew all our teeny tiny pieces together and make some extremely gorgeous potholders.**

**Sarcasm disclaimer. I also need to practice my felting skills a while longer before my potholders reach "gorgeous" standard.

3. A quick detour to Italy! A mutual friend of Lucy's and mine lives in Brescia. Our last week, we piled into the car. This is what the morning in Germany looked like.

Austria....

Ten hours later...ahh, Salo, Italia!

Six days in Salo with quick trips to Brescia and an accidental almost-trip to Verona after a wrong turn on the Autobahn. After fear of arrest and a sixty-euro traffic ticket, we were back on track.

We started the nine-hour drive back to Germany at 2:00 AM on Monday morning. I dozed off in the back seat and woke to the sun rising in the Alps. When I woke for the second (or possibly third) time, we were just outside of Ulm.

We had one afternoon. We grilled. I packed. We ate in the garden until there was no room left.

I arrived in Stuttgart the next morning just in time to settle in for my flight.

Now, it seems impossible that I was in Italy only four days ago. It was the roadtrip of a lifetime, and now, I'm happy to be back home. Home where everything is scheduled, regular. Where we measure things in inches and miles instead of centimeters and kilometers. Where things are safe and familiar.

Yes, it's good to be home. :)



Poking Writer's Block in the Eye

In the midst of an attack of writer's block so bad I want to throw a brick at the wall, I've stumbled across an article I wrote last semester for my school newspaper. This part made me smile:

And so, as the realization of only one final week of school blazed through, the first natural thought I had was, Free time! For writing! I love the thought of having time to sit and crank out a new chapter, and if writer's block hits, there's always chocolate, so I'm quite prepared to battle it out.

It's funny, now that I think on it. I've craved relaxation and time to lie back on my couch and stare at the ceiling, and writing definitely won't bring me this. Sitting down to write a chapter--a measly two thousand words--can turn into an entire afternoon, my neck cramping as I stare at the computer screen and choke out sentence by sentence. I get up, pace in circles, stomp until my neighbors complain, or go read Jane Eyre for the hundredth time.

Rarely, very rarely, I feel myself nod and sigh as I type a sentence, and I know that that moment is one I'll never have to change. It's really just all a muddle there in my head; it takes shaping and sweat to pull it out and polish it. Sometimes, I get up and cheer. It's silly, but I do it, and then I feel so electrified as to put on a superhero cape and save the world.


This is nice for me to look back on when I'm sweating and biting my tongue until it hurts, when everything I write turns to mush, when writing a paragraph is as painful as pulling teeth, when chocolate won't sway my creative juices, when I find I've been sitting at my computer for an hour and have done nothing but play solitaire, when I can't stand the story I used to be so excited to write, when there just isn't an available brick to throw. Remembering that nod and sigh when something flows through my cramped, unwilling fingers makes me smile, and I wonder, a little, if that one triumph isn't worth every moment of frustration.

Three Reasons I Can't Do a Blog Post

1. Because I'm rereading an old figment fave.


I'm stuck on Andronicus & Junia right now. By nature, I'm a re-reader, and once I find a favorite book, I'll read it again and again. Right now, I'm completely in love with Janelle Labelle's story about two children in a castle in Nova Scotia. Synonyms and blue soap snails and gorgeous moments abound.

Voila. Le link.


2. Because I woke up with Lilla hair.

Letting my dignity fly out the window, I woke up this morning, looked at myself in the mirror, and took a picture. Hilarity and shame ensued. Here you are:

.It's not only distracting, it's totally unprofessional.

But possibly inspiring.

3. Because I'm preparing for a late night writing session.

My new goal is to be finished with my first draft of Lilla and the Tower by September. It's a long shot, especially since I've been kicking myself to crank out a chapter a week. Right now I'm settling back, toying with the thought of tea, and getting pumped up for a midnight writing session. Everyone has their magic time. :)

So, you see.....I simply can't do a blog post. 

Aaaand.....Close!

I hope I can officially say that my utter out-of-figment-craziness-just-remembered-she-has-a-blog time is finished. For those of you who actually read my blog, and to everyone who has been following my progress on figment, you guys have been very patient! Summer break has started, and aside from work, I have nothing to do. The freedom is bewildering.

Because it has been an embarrassingly long time since my last post, there's lots of news to share!

First and most exciting, Default Sweater is finished! It's officially official, folks. I really wrestled with those last chapters, but I'm thrilled at the way things turned out. It's odd not to turn on my computer and head straight for that word doc the way I've done for the past eight and a half months.


Final count: 76,969 words. Oooh, I can't wait to start editing some of those boys out. I haven't gone back and read the whole thing yet, but I know my fingers will start jumping to fix everything up as soon as I do. Editing is like cleaning, or washing dishes....cleansing, creating order out of havoc, isn't it? ....or is it just me?


I announced this on my figment account, but I'll go ahead and give it another plug--there's going to be a sequel! I can't usually plan sequels out in detail while I'm still working on Book #1, but even while I was writing TDS, I knew I wouldn't want to let go of those characters. At this point, I won't have to, anyway, since I'll be an editing fiend with the story for a good long while yet, but having reached the end of draft one, I'm glad I decided to continue the adventures for a while. Looking back at it, I really feel that there were a few characters who didn't reach the end of their own story, even though Erin has. I'm excited to continue for their sake.


So! Right now I'm being a good girl and working on my new main project, Lilla & the Tower, which will probably carry me through summer and into early fall. I'm very excited to switch back to that girl--she waited a long time for me. Sheesh.


Sequel details: The TDS sequel will be going up on my page in the late summer/early fall! It will feature a new main character who, yes, did appear in TDS. It's in the early planning stages right now, but it's looking to be something very new. I'm very excited.

To everyone who has given me so much help over the last months of writing The Default Sweater--thank you. I've got some homemade chocolate chip cookies with your name on them.

Tea and Other Curiosities

So, I lied.

I recently looked back at my last post and realized I had promised to post Hearthsinger audio clips by early April. So I guessed that slipped past me. I have no concrete theme for today's blog post; my life has been so hectic lately, so I guess I'll just share a bit of what I've been up to with you all until I have time to sit down and write a nice fat post about the audio process with Hearthsinger.

Figment News:

Most exciting news is, Default Sweater is almost done! I can't believe it. I'm scanning my "Chapter Progression" word doc and counting remaining chapters. I'm already planning edits for the second draft and I'm just so excited. Finishing a story, even a first draft, is funny, because I'm simultaneously so excited to have this brand new story there for people to read, and sad to let it go. Writing TDS has been such an adventure, and it's taken me through more twists and turns than I ever expected. But more on that later. :)

My post-TDS plans are exciting, too. Although what's posted on my figment account right now is just a first draft, I'm feeling the need to step back from the story for a little. My plans as they stand right now are to return and keep writing Lilla & the Tower, which I'm totally excited about. It's fun to switch back to fantasy for a little while after working on TDS, which has no magic to speak of.

Well, except perhaps the magic of manly eyes. Manly eyes in droves. I'm realizing I need to go back during rewrite time and count mentions of eyes.

Also, TDS has no girls locked in towers, feuding queens, or possibly glass slippers. All things I'm hankering to write.

In the meantime, I'd like to talk about something else. Namely tea.

I like tea. I think about tea a lot. In the past year, I've read two figment works which consistently mention tea (namely Waxflower Wood, formerly Nattie & Finn, by Anande Sjöden, and Birdcage Girl, by Kimberly Karalius). The tea mentioning was not a central plot point in either of these, but I'm a tea kind of girl, so I noticed.

My family has actually given me tea for Christmas before. So my next goal, as soon as Default Sweater is finished, is naturally also tea-related. I guess it was perfect for me to write a story set in England, a place I've never actually been.

When I was little, we lived in the frigid Siberianesque state of Maine. I was seven when we left, so while we were there, I went through a merciless strengthening of my immune system....e.g., I was sick ALL THE TIME. My mom isn't a big one for medicine, unless it's cough syrup or aspirin, so often, I was left to fight through it with more natural remedies, like vegetables, chicken soup, blankets.....and tea.

I drank it like an Englishman, with milk and sugar. When I was sixteen, I lived in Fichtenberg, Germany for six months, and encountered more tea-drinking, of the milk-less and sugar-less variety. Germans have a national distrust of "flat" water--e.g., non-fizzy water, and, like typical Europeans, a love for frequent tea, coffee, and cigarette breaks. My host mother used to make a pot of tea in the morning. Whatever we didn't drink before catching the bus for school, we'd drink with dinner that night.

So I'm a big tea drinker. My father thinks I'm nuts. He's a typical southerner, so "tea" to him implies black tea, boiled with sugar, then left to cool and be drunk with breakfast. He kind of regards me as some sort of European hipster who drinks unheard-of herbal concoctions and doesn't like "real tea"--cold and sweet.

Okay, this one is coffee. But it was delicious. The cookie, too--already had a bite out of it before I took out my camera.

My tea fascination obviously comes out in Default Sweater, and my next goal is to count mentions of tea just for fun. The next chapter's going up soon. Thirty-three down, three to go. WOOT WOOT.

Off for a cup of tea and Chapter Thirty-Four. It's eighty-five degrees outside, but I defy you, stars.