Moving Day

Hello Friends,
The packers are here and I’m shutting down the computer for a week or so. I’m happy to email folks with our contact info. Just leave me a comment and I’ll write you a more private message with the address, phone, and my new email. (Hoping to cut down on spam.)

The FOX smear campaign

Well, friends. It’s a political post today, but I hope you’ll press on because it is really about FOX news and their constant focus on everything but the issues that matter to the American people. I hope you’ll watch the video and feel that something has to be done about the biased, racist, and sexist “news” that they report. I know there must be an audience for this because FOX is doing great, but I don’t think it is the same audience that reads my blog. So write a letter to the editor, sign a petition at moveon.org, contribute to the Obama for President campaign and let’s stand together for peace, education, and the environment.

PS: Listen to NPR instead.

Office Clean up

I apologize to those who read the blog regularly. Office clean-up seems to be a reoccurring theme for me. For those who don’t read, here is the cyclical process.

1. My office/studio is clean.
2. I’m all proud of my amazing organizational skills and reinvigorated.
3. I am very productive in this lovely clean space.
4. I make significant headway on a project trying very hard to put all my tools away and file papers as I go.
5. At this point some other project becomes necessary at the same time (going to a school visit, helping my children with a school project, directing a huge 500 person conference, giving my kiddo a birthday party, moving my entire married/mother life of 15 years OR ALL OF THESE THINGS!) and it becomes impossible to keep things organized.
6. The office is a huge disorganized mess.
7. I cannot work in my office. It makes me feel oogey, and all I can do is “friend” people on Facebook, read blogs, and play scrabulous and word twist addictively.
8. I clean my office/studio. Sorting the keep and toss piles, reorganizing, sharpening pencils, spray cleaning the dust off my desk.
9. Go to #1

To those of you who are taking Laurie’s 15 minute a day challange, congrats. I’ll get to it as soon as I can see the floor again.

Feelings, wo-wo-wo, feelings

Last night, hubby asked me how I was feeling about the move. “I really can’t complain,” I started, then I did.

Everyone in the community as been welcoming and friendly, the kids are making friends, the house is lovely, the school is great, so what could be wrong.

It is just a feeling. A feeling of being alone in the middle of a crowd. In Maine, when I was feeling alone it was because I was in the middle of field and forest without many neighbors. This is different. I’m sure that when we settle in and get our things I’ll feel more grounded.

I think what I’m missing most is my work. I’ve been writing and drawing but not working on current projects. My characters and their conflicts are on hold in a file in a computer in Maine and I’m here. But soon enough, they will be here too and I will be happy to have them.

So how am I feeling. Fine, just fine.

Five on Friday (alright Saturday but whose counting?)

1. Hot, hot, hot here in Southern Maryland.
2. So exciting to see small boy taking safe risks like jumping off the diving board and diving off the side of the pool into the deep end. There is something to be said for positive peer pressure. Let’s hope he knows the difference when the other kids start daring him to do un-safe stuff.
3. I want my computer!
4. Very fun to watch my kids make friends. There is a book in this for sure.
5. Must call secret agent man and get feed back on my recent submission. I’m getting antsy.

Maryland

I am at the Leonardtown Library and have met all the children’s librarians and their assistants. We have our library cards and I now I am reconnecting with the world. We got here on Sunday after an all-day drive from Maine. Somehow, we managed to miss the lasting storms and just drove in and out of cloud bursts. The cargo was pretty dry when we pulled up at our new house.

The house is a spacious ranch in a development near a golf course. The neighborhood seems very nice but is definitely suburban and a big change from our more rural setting in Maine or my city neighborhood growing up. The good news, the kids have immediately found friends and we spend all the very hot afternoons at the community’s pool. Last night when hubby got home from work, he took the kids to play tennis at dusk. We collected fireflies with the neighbors and shared fudgesicles. So there are definitely benefits.

The kids have visited their school and were charmed by the principal. “It’s too bad that we have to wait so long to go to school,” said I., “it is sort of suspensful.” So that’s good.

The biggest bad is that I’m without all my stuff. I’m certain that I can write without the computer and purchased a good old single subject spiral for the purpose. The only problem is I’m not exactly sure where I’ve left off in the novel. No matter- I’m going to focus on scenes and try to make some forward progress. If you’ve sent me an email recently, I’m sorry I’ve not responded. I need to use the library connection to get to the internet at this point.

Five on Friday

1. “I’m moving” is a good excuse for many things. Especially the emotional roller coaster that I’m on. It swings from I’m-all-business-and-have-a-“to do”-list-to-complete to I-need-a-two-hour-nap-and-a-good-cry.

2. Many things feel like “lasts”. This is last time I’m… (fill in the blank.) …getting books from the library I love, going to a baseball game here, making a play date with this family, going to this restaurant with friends.

3. The moving sale was exhausting and I didn’t really get rid of all that much. At least I can bring it to Goodwill knowing that I tried.

4. Writing is difficult now. (see number one)

5. Big number 7 birthday tomorrow for E. We are currently having a bonfire and dancing for sun on the solstice. Kids are coming over in bathing suits for a splashy fun party. I suppose if they get wet in the rain it is the same outcome.

Late

It is late for me but I feel that I have to post just to say that I’ve written something today. Generally I take the weekends off but get right back to work on Monday. This day was just packed with cleaning, sorting, meeting with moving companies, changing addresses, calling cable companies. I had the funniest experience when calling Time Warner.

(Thick foreign accent.) “Hello, this is Eric. How can I help you today?”
Me: I tell him my situation
Eric: “Can I have your address?”
Me: I give him the address.
Eric: “Oh, I’m sorry, Anna, Time Warner Cable does not service that address. I can transfer you to the satellite company who may serve your area.”
Me: Okay
Eric: Starts to transfer my phone call but there is a rather long pause when the operators working in the background are audible. When I listen harder I can hear each one say: “Hello, this is Eric. How can I help you today.”
I laughed.

Friday Five

1. Roar! is off my desk and with my agent. I’m eager to hear his feedback and hope, hope, hope he likes it. Cross your fingers for me.

2. Because Roar! is off my desk I brought my sewing machine to the first grade to help sew memory pillows. They draw on a square of white muslin, pick a calico backing and bring it to parent volunteers to sew it up.

3. Then came home to paint the still incomplete master bathroom. It is green. I love green. But not this green. I think I hate this green. It reminds me of the cinder block walls in my elementary schools or hospital scrubs. But it goes with the green glass mosaic tile that hubby chose and I said yes to. So now I have to live with it. But not for long because…

4. One month until I move.

5. Last night, the parents played against the kids on my son’s baseball team. Picture me in deep left field. The crack of the bat. The ball comes soaring in my direction. A high fly ball. I run to it, glove outstretched, closer, closer, “I GOT IT” I shout. Then thunk. It slides right into my glove. I wish I had a clip hear for you to see. Alas there is none. But there are witnesses.

Passion and politics

chaoticcentury

left me a reply to my Sexism and the Media post and I felt that I should respond. Sometimes when our writing comes from passion it needs a few revisions to get from the heart to the page. Perhaps I didn’t want to put too much out there as this is a blog about the children’s book industry and my attempts to enter it, rather than a political blog. I tried to be subtle but I think my attempts at subtlety were just fuzzy and confusing. Allow me to clarify.

I do not think that sexism doomed Hillary’s campaign. I think there were a lot of other things going against Hillary. Her husband’s history, her inability to rise above the politics-as-usual game, her “experience” brand (which at times seemed unfounded), her inability to connect with younger voters, her connection to the imperialism that would hold the white house if she were elected…Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton?

That said, I admire her tenacity, and her focus on domestic issues (health care specifically). I would have liked to hear more about children, education and peace.

The second part of the post (connected to the video link) was really about the decline of journalism and the false familiarity of journalist with their subjects. I do think

chaoticcentury

is right that Senator Clinton preferred “Hillary” in an attempt to distance herself from the Clinton name. But she is what she is. All of it. I actually think this false familiarity started with Bill Clinton going on MTV answering the boxers or briefs question, and jamming on the sax. Not that this was wrong, but I think it opened the flood gates.

Most important, Democrats and others who are fed up with the current administration must unify to elect O’bama, and change the direction and priorities of our country. Our economy, our supreme court, our health, our environment, our children and our international reputation is on the line.