Deadline a-Comin' (Ruh Roh)

Whew! The past month just dissolved into nothingness...where does the time go??

I'm a few weeks away from my self-imposed first draft deadline for my novel and, well, I'm confessing right here and now that there's no way I'll be making that deadline unless I simply type "The End" on the last page of my current draft and call it finished. I'm still in the middle. Stuck in the middle. Wading through the middle. This draft is quicksand, really, sucking me in and down. Each chapter I write multiplies like a Gremlin - ten more chapters that I didn't anticipate bubble off of the one I just wrote. But I love the writing process, tedious as it may be at times. Novel writing is a marathon, not a sprint. The finish line appears to be somewhere in March or April.

I WILL finish.

I can't pinpoint one single thing that caused me to miss my deadline. There's a lot going on with me. In the hours not spent on my writing, so much is happening that requires not only my physical, but also my mental and emotional energy. Everything from sweet baby ten-month-old Taylor becoming increasingly interactive to new clients calling to a sick doggie to the agony of waiting to find out if my dad will be placed on the liver transplant list at Duke.

The year 2008 has shaped up to be a pivotal year for me in all facets of my life. To sum it up with a single "B" (see my earlier posts if I just lost you...), I'm calling the year 2008 "Busy"!

What word best describes your 2008?

Mid-Novelmber

I'm still in the middle of my novel in the middle of November. November is National Novel Writing Month (in case you didn't know), so I hope to do lots of writing this month in hot pursuit of my goal to finish my first draft by the new year. Being in the middle is tough. Although I can see the progess I've made to this point, I don't know exactly how far I have to go to reach the finish line. My novel keeps expanding along the way, but I guess this is one of those times when more is more. Better to have to cut back than add on during the editing process. I hope to have a productive Novelmber!

Nap Baby Nap!

I found the holy grail of motherhood - baby's afternoon nap in the crib.

You see, up until this past weekend I was letting Taylor nap while being held or carried or rocked. It seemed that there must be some other way, some way to have my hands free while Taylor took her nap. But each time I tried to put her in her crib, she woke in a tantrum as soon as her butt hit the baby mattress.

Determined to put Taylor on a loose schedule (not being a big fan of schedules myself), I decided it was time to try a crib nap in the afternoon. I let her cry for 10 minutes the first day before going in to rescue her and then added five minutes to the cry time each day. Well, on the fourth day, she fell asleep in the crib and slept for more than an hour (that was yesterday). And, right now, I'm watching her on the monitor sleeping in her L-shaped position. She went down for her nap at 4:30 with only a five minute fuss and it is now 6:15!!

I want to jump for joy! I've had almost two hours to sit in the solarium and write and talk on the phone and enjoy the turn of the day from dusk to night.

This is the best birthday present Taylor could give me.

Nap Baby Nap!

Gumped

I got Gumped.

I've noticed that Forrest Gump is on the movie channels a lot this week. You may recall, the story is told by Forrest while he sits on a bench waiting for a bus and talks to people sitting on the bench next to him. While the movie moves on, the people come and go, taking buses, but Forrest keeps on telling his story. Some of the people take interest in what he has to say, while others lend a half-hearted ear. Regardless of how the people react, Forrest tells his story.

Well, today I got Gumped. A perfect stranger interrupted my writing and told me all about his religious faith. Of course, I contributed to his behavior by responding to his initial comment with what I guess must have been an inviting reaction. Maybe I'm too friendly. All I know is that one minute I was having a brief and pleasant surface chat about writing and the next minute I was in the midst of a sermon about a faith I'd never heard of before that instant. And he kept talking. I didn't know what to do to make a polite escape. I wasn't waiting for a bus. I just wanted to stay put, sip my hot chai, and finish writing.

So I post this to remind you of and to elaborate on the warning we all heard as children: Don't talk to strangers or you might get Gumped!

Kristen's List

Ok, I know all of you out there can relate to this. How many times have you gone to run errands and been given bad service? This is on my mind because just last week I had a series of bad services that basically required me to do everything twice (and three times in one case). Having errands to run annoys me anyway, but to have to re-run all of my errands because of bad service makes me mad. So I've decided to begin my own list of bad service, partially as a way to vent about it and partially to get the word out about places to avoid. Feel free to add comments about your experiences with bad service. Here is my first installment:

1. Coachman Cleaners, Park Rd., Charlotte, NC - I've been there two times already to pick up a shirt. The first time they told me to come back because they wanted to work on a stain on the front of the shirt. The second time they gave me the shirt with the obvious stain still on the front of it and no note about their attempt to clean it. They are now trying to clean it again. We'll see if the third time's the charm...

2. Clinique Counter, Dillard's, Southpark Mall, Charlotte, NC - One of the ladies behind the counter gave me the wrong product information, leading to my purchase of a facial cleanser that I do not normally use. I didn't discover this mistake until I used the product later that day. I now have to find time to return the product. We'll see if the Clinique counter is polite about it...

3. First Citizens Bank, Cotswold Branch, Charlotte, NC - The branch manager mishandled the opening of my IOLTA Trust Account. He then blamed me when I called to explain the situation. I then went to the main branch uptown and closed the account. It took the bank more than 20 days to close my account. On top of that, the Cotswold branch is less than a mile from my house and it took the bank 5 days (on two different occasions) to mail notices to me. Their notices, both times, arrived with my mail after 5:00 p.m. on Friday, which meant I had to wait until Monday to do anything about the issues. Needless to say, I now bank with a different bank.

Bottom line - bad service happens all the time. It seems to me to be happening more and more often these days. Add to Kristen's List! Please post a comment and vent about your recent experiences with bad service...

The Year Of The Three Bs

Here is the big news...

I'm hanging out my shingle! My new law firm opens this week!

Please check out my firm website: http://www.ayersimmigration.com/

But don't worry, just because I'm opening a firm doesn't mean I've forgotten about my book. I'm still on schedule to finish it by New Year's Day 2009. I intend to keep working on it as my firm gets off the ground. I mean really, I don't expect clients to be beating down my door in the first few months, which should allow for time to do all I want to do - baby (of course :)), book, and business.

I read somewhere that you should name the year in order to accomplish all of your goals for that year. I'm calling 2008 "The Year Of The Three Bs" - Baby, Book, and Business.

3,2,1...

In my very first post, I mentioned that this year was a busy year with baby, book, and some big decisions. Well, now begins the countdown to the big reveal of one big decision. Stay tuned for a post with all the details to come in the next few days...(don't you just love the suspense!)

Unbeach That Belly

I should have known that strange and wonderful things were bound to happen on the day that I woke to see the sunrise over Isle of Palms. When I think back, I can't count the number of times I've seen a sunset. But sunrise is different. I'm not a morning person so watching a sunrise is a rare thing for me. This is how the day unfolded...

Taylor woke up (for the third or fourth time) early last Wednesday morning, August 20, 2008. After soothing her back to sleep (not knowing the time), I noticed a sliver of daylight dawning between the drawn curtains. The beginning of sunrise. I slipped out of the room, careful not to wake Taylor or Pete, and took Ali (our doggie) to the beach. A warm wind blew across the wide stretch of sand and a stack of lavender clouds filled the sky (the first band of tropical storm Fay, as it turned out). On the distant horizon, a smear of orange preceded the rise of the sun. I stood near the low tide line, watched the color of the sky shift and change to the constant sound of gusting wind and purring waves. I saw the beach turn from dim gray to brilliant beige in an instant. The day broke open.

And then the sky broke open.

Raindrops scattered across the beach and the wind picked up. I started to run, following fast behind Ali. We made it inside minutes before a downpour. But the magical day had only just begun. As it turned out, this was to be the day that Taylor took her first swim in the ocean. I dipped her feet in the waves and sat with her where the ocean smoothed over the wet sand. She splashed her feet in the salt water while I made sand drip booties on her chubby legs. Later that day, Taylor unbeached her belly and made more forward progress in her attempt to crawl. I call her current stage 'lurching'. And much like Taylor's lurching, my novel had been lurching along. It was on this day that my novel unbeached its belly and found forward momentum by first going backwards (much the same way that Taylor is learning to crawl). I realized - in a haze of creative distraction that lasted for the remainder of the day - that I need to tell the whole story. My novel needs a past. I went about jotting down thoughts on blue sticky notes throughout the evening.

We finished the day with dinner at Poe's (our first time eating there), which was an appropriate literary end to an inspiring day.

Peanuts and Applesauce

That's all we had in the house for lunch today - peanuts and applesauce. Hardly a meal. I've managed to make it about ten days without going to the grocery store. I dislike going to the grocery store, but it really is the idea of going and the actual gettin' going that stops me. Once I get there, I'm fine. Suffice it to say that the cupboards around here were quite bare. Tap water was the only thing to drink. It was time to make the trek to the grocery store. Still, I put it off until the very end of the day - around 6:30 p.m. - while my parents were here to babysit Taylor and hubby was on his way home from work. I went. I shopped. I survived. And now we have a wider selection of food to eat for the rest of the week. Even better, I don't have to go to the store again for at least another seven (maybe ten) days...

Writing Space

Writing requires self discipline and motivation. One key to developing and sustaining an internal drive to write each day is to create a writing area that inspires you. We all know how difficult it can be to actually sit down and put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). The greatest benefit of a writing area is its ability to transport your thoughts from your busy daily activities to your writing world as soon as you cross its threshold.

But how, you may ask, should I go about setting up a special area for my writing? What should I include? Where should I begin? As a writer working on my first novel, I struggled with these same questions. I settled on an area in my home that I transformed into a haven for my writing. Here are the steps that I took to create a motivational writing area:

STEP 1: Public or Private? You may write in many places - a coffee shop, the local library, outside at a park, or in your own home. The first step to creating a writing area is to decide whether you prefer to be at the mercy of public places or in control (for the most part) of your private environment in your own home. If you choose a public place, some of the following steps may not apply to you because you won't be able to set up a constant space in the same way as someone working at home. Most importantly, choose a place that you like to visit and one that is easy to access.

STEP 2: The Tools. Writers have both necessities and favorite tools. The necessities that you will need for your writing space may include a desk, a chair, a dictionary, a thesaurus, and paper. Favorite tools include such things as your preferred writing instrument (such as a computer, legal pad, pen, pencil, or tape recorder) and back up method (such as a printer and/or computer disks). For research purposes, it may be helpful for you to have internet access as well as index cards or a notebook for jotting down thoughts and information.

STEP 3: Stimulation inspires motivation. We each draw inspiration from different sources, most of which are related to our five senses. Use your five senses to create a stimulating mood in your writing area. If you are visually stimulated, then fill your writing space with favorite photographs, favorite quotes, favorite books, postcards, talismans, and other decorations that will inspire your imagination and motivate you to write. If you enjoy stimulation from sound, then play your favorite music in the background. Perhaps taste and smell arouse your creative side. If so, try scented candles or your favorite food and drink in your writing area. To satisfy your sense of touch, be sure to choose a comfortable chair for your writing area. You plan to spend a lot of time in that chair, right?

STEP 4: Eliminate Distractions. Interruption is the enemy of the writing process. The worst experience as a writer is to be disrupted in the middle of a writing streak. Don't let your train of thought roll on without you! Eliminate as many distractions as possible turn off the television, turn off or ignore the phone, get rid of errand lists and clutter in your writing area, avoid taking frequent breaks, and (if possible) find time away from pets and children even if you can only steal half an hour. Tell friends and family about your general writing schedule to eliminate unexpected visitors during your writing time.

STEP 5: Get to it. Schedule a time to escape to your writing area each day or week or weekend. Treat it as your own appointment with yourself. Sit there even if you stare at the blank page for an hour. As you succeed in spending time in your writing area each day, you will build motivation to return to the area and a positive attitude toward the space you've created. Over time, you will also notice things that are missing, things that you want to add, and things that you don't need or that may become distractions.

Above all else, keep writing!

Questionography

Most of us have seen these circulating on email. I thought it would be fun to post one. Please copy and paste the questions into a comment and send your answers back to me!

What time did you get up this morning? 10:22 a.m. (after 3:20 and 8:00 feedings)

What was the last film you saw at the cinema? i can't even remember

What is your favorite TV show? newly stuck on Mad Men

What do you usually have for breakfast? cereal or oatmeal-to-go and cran-grape juice

What is your middle name? Jane

What food do you dislike? meatloaf

What is your favorite CD at moment? a mix i made for hubby called Your Inner Ness

What kind of car do you drive? Chevy Tahoe

Favorite sandwich? #2 from Laurel Market

What characteristic do you despise? indifference

Favorite item of clothing? my one and only strapless dress

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tahiti

Where would you retire? Isle of Palms, if I'm not already living there by then...

Favorite sport to watch? tennis

When is your birthday? Nov. 5

Are you a morning person or a night person? night owl

Pets? Ali (7-yr-old boxer dog)

Any new and exciting news to share? i'm lovin' spending time with my baby daughter and writing my first novel

What did you want to be when you were little? a vet

How are you today? good. relaxed.

What is your favorite flower? calla lily

What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Aug. 15 - beach trip!

What are you listening to right now? taylor's graco swing motor hum

What was the last thing you ate? honey grain bagel w/ honey walnut cream cheese

Do you wish on stars? yes :)

If you were a crayon, what color would you be? aquamarine

How is the weather right now? warm and sunny

Last person you spoke to on the phone? mom

Favorite soft drink? root beer

Favorite Restaurant? the wreck

Hair color? brown

What was your favorite toy as a child? legos

Summer or winter? summer

Hugs or kisses? both

Chocolate or Vanilla? dark chocolate

Coffee or tea? chai (tea)

What is under your bed? old clothes, bocce ball set, boxes of wedding stuff

What did you do last night? went with hubby and taylor to lupie's for dinner then to two bookstores, fed taylor rice cereal and put her to bed at 11:30, wrote and surfed the internet

What are you afraid of? crazy homicidal people with nothing to lose; plane crash

Salty or sweet? sweet

How many keys on your key ring? 7 (a few of those are mystery keys...)

How many years/months at your current job? mommy (6+ months); writer (long time); lawyer (8 yrs)

Favorite day of the week? Saturday

How many towns have you lived in? 8

What do you want to do today? write for 2 hours, hang with fam, watch mad men, learn spanish

Teething Bites

Taylor made it clear to me Tuesday that she is teething. Unfortunately, I was driving on the interstate to Columbia when she began to react to the pain in her gums by crying in fits of distress for nearly an hour. That, my friends, was miserable. Also, for most of the day she clung to me and greeted everyone else with a square-mouth whine. And to top it all off, she screamed for the first forty-five minutes of the drive home. Nothing would console her, not even my effort to reach into the backseat (while driving) to offer her a knuckle. But I can't blame her. She dislikes teething as much as I do. I dread what this new teething phase will do to her sleep. Speaking of sleep, I need some after being confined for hours in a moving vehicle with drooling-baby-scream-a-lot...

Shark Week!

I LOVE Shark Week on Discovery Channel. In case you didn't know, this past week was Shark Week. Discovery Channel dished out daily doses of shark shows, everything from the top ten deadliest sharks to special hour-long features on certain types of sharks and their terror-inducing attacks. I'm fascinated by all marine creatures. Sharks, in particular, have both my respect and curiosity. I want to get in a boat-side cage to see a wild great white shark in South Africa. That would be amazing! The great white sharks off the coast of South Africa and Northern California have been caught on camera launching their aerodynamic bodies out of the water while hunting. I'd love to see that, too.

If you missed Shark Week, here is a quick recap of the five sharks that are consistently ranked as most dangerous year after year (in other words, do not free swim with these guys):

• Great White Shark - common in northern California, South Africa, and Australia. This was the star of Jaws (although that movie made this shark out to be a maneater when most attacks are simply a case of mistaken identity - the shark thinks the human is a seal - but I guess that doesn't make the victim feel any better).
• Tiger Shark - common in Hawaii, but also travels worldwide and is a total scavenger - will eat anything - which makes the tiger especially dangerous. My scuba diving instructor was killed by a tiger shark - no kidding - scary.
• Bull Shark - this is a tough smaller shark - scrappy and mean. It comes into shallower water and is also able to tolerate fresh water. Bull sharks have been found as far up the Mississippi River as St. Louis! Yikes!
• Oceanic Whitetip - this is the guy that you'll meet if you are ever stranded in the open ocean after a boat accident or plane accident - this shark will find you no matter how deep the water or how remote the location.
• Hammerhead - not as aggressive as the other four, but unpredictable and big.
  

And back inland in Charlotte, my week flew by...

Tuesday. Drove to Columbia with Taylor to visit Gigi, Big Dale, and Baba Ieko; went to Mad Platter with Josie, Emma and Jack to paint pottery; Taylor took her first swing at Woodland Park - she loved it! Home again by 10 pm.

Wednesday. My sister Sarah visited at lunch and Taylor fussed until she napped in the afternoon; bank and fresh market and harris teeter, oh my; made KJ's Casserole (my latest attempt to cook by mix-and-bake method); Aunt Linda and Uncle Wayne stopped by to bring Taylor her super-sized, exquisite birthday beach plate; I finished mixing the casserole; hubby stayed with Taylor while I went out with my sis to the Amos Lee concert at Neighborhood Theatre and heard all my favorite songs and then some; helicoptor fan; fork; brown-chicken-brown-cow (a very funny joke!); and more Shark Week!!

Thursday. Gag me with a spoonful of carrots...Taylor tried carrots, made a yuck face, spit them out and actually gagged. We spent the evening at Olde Providence Racquet Club, watching Pete play tennis in the Pro League. He won his match!

Friday. Took it easy. Starbucks time. The first day of August, already!?!

Saturday. Mommy Time (my two hours each weekend day to do with as I please...). Taylor and I visited with Kevin, Jessica, Kayleigh, and Nathaniel while they stopped over in Charlotte on their annual trip from Cleveland to Jekyll Island, GA. And more Shark Week!!

Sunday. Today is Sunday. I'm writing at Starbucks during my Mommy Time...

What a week! How was your week? See any sharks?

Swing Time

Tuesday, July 29, 2008.

Woodland Park, Columbia, SC.

Taylor's first time on a swing!

She loved it! The higher the better.

My baby girl. :)

Chai There!

I'm posting from the local Starbucks with Taylor napping joey-style in the Baby Bjorn. Just finished my iced venti nonfat light ice chai (quite a mouthful to order, but oooh so yummy). Baby and I didn't get out of the house until 4 p.m. today. Some days are like that. Yesterday Taylor turned six months old. Today she swung in the solarium for about an hour, then fussed and didn't eat all of her rice cereal. I took an afternoon shower while Pete was still home and then ditched the errands I planned to run in order to make some time to hang at Sbux. Tomorrow is our weekly venture to Columbia, SC to spend the day with my mom and dad. Taylor and I take off around noon each Tuesday to make the hour and a half drive south on I-77. Gigi, Big Dale, and Baba Ieko missed seeing us last week. I had a couple meetings like bookends in the day and a trip to Columbia wouldn't fit in between. What did I drink before there was chai? What is your favorite daily drink?

Rumblepantskin

Is it gas or is it poo?
When it comes to my six-month-old daughter's rumbling pants, I ask myself this question almost daily. Her sounds are quite deceiving. We sometimes call her Rumblepantskin. But there are many amusing things that she does in a single day. Lately, she scratches on things with her little hand. I don't know whether the sound of the scratching or the feeling of what she is scratching soothes her, but she scratches things all the time. She also makes high-pitched squeals of delight like a baby dolphin. It is now 9:20 EST on Sunday morning and my daughter is still sleeping (wow, right?). I'm pretty sure that her late to bed, late to rise sleep pattern is my doing. I hope it lasts...

Why Blog?

It's almost 1:00 a.m., but that's nothing new. I'm a night owl. Just this week I discovered blogging. To be exact, it was Tuesday evening at the quarterly lawyer writers meeting when another lawyer who is also a writer shared her insight into the publishing world, insight gained from her experience with her first book deal (check out her blog at http://carrie-me.blogspot.com/). She documented her writing and publishing journey on a blog. What exactly is a blog? I can't tell you how many times I asked myself that question, not ever feeling brave enough to ask it out loud to the world of everyone-else-who-seemed-to-know. But something about the fact that this other lawyer writer had a blog made blogging seem less obtuse. I thought I'd do a little research and find out more about this whole blogging thing, take an interest, maybe even - gasp - try it out. And here I am.

For those of you who don't know, a blog is short for "Web Log" and is, basically, an online journal. I adore journals. I've written in them all my life (my husband reminds me that this is not normal). So what could be a better fit for me than an online journal!! But, alas, there are deeper, more pressing reasons that I am drawn to blog. First of all, 2008 has been and will continue to be a busy and exciting year in my life. Our daughter (first child) will be six months old on Sunday, I'm smack in the middle of writing my first novel, and my husband and I will be making big decisions over the coming weeks (purposely vague). Bottom line - there is a lot of stuff to write about these days.

Which brings me to my second reason: fear of a house fire. You see, I am afraid that one day our house will just burn to the ground and my three dozen, old school journals that document my life in my own handwriting will be reduced to ash. I know it will be from some unforeseen cause like a direct lightening strike, a wiring mishap, or an overzealous dryer. But the cause won't matter because my journals will be gone. After my husband, daughter, and dog, my journals are the only things in this house that can't be replaced. I know what you're thinking - "Silly Kristen, just make a copy of your journals or get them on the computer." Believe me, I've started down those paths before. The problem is that when you've spent most of your life writing down experiences, thoughts and events like I have, you don't want to spend the rest of your life (it might just take that long) retyping or scanning those pages onto a computer. I even considered buying a fireproof safe, which is still a possibility although it is heavy and expensive and too small to hold all of my journals in its titanium, super-heat-and-melt-proof cubbyhole of an interior.

Then, like a bright, shiny light from above (cue angel chorus music), I discovered the beauty of the blog: eternal life. Here I can type away about my day, my life, the ups and downs of the year as it passes and always my words will stay a few internet clicks away, fully printable, and easy to save and copy.

Blogging is my new best friend. And this is my first official post. Yay!