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Animoto.com [Jan. 1st, 2009|06:34 pm]
Check out my new trailer for THE WAY HE LIVED!

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A DAWSON GIRL [Aug. 10th, 2008|11:02 pm]
It’s that time again: The fourth season of Dawson’s Creek is on TBS.

It’s always been my favorite season of Dawson’s Creek. For me, that year was the show’s Golden Age.

Everything came together that year—the writing was quick, the soundtrack was awesome, the characters were at their best-looking. Not to mention the gorgeous shots of Wilmington, North Carolina (aka Capeside, Mass.). Yes, the Creek was at its finest, then.

I once read an essay by the all-around-writer-extraordinaire Anna Quidlen, in which she referred to herself as “a Paul Girl.” She was one of those early-1960’s tweens whose favorite Beatle was Paul McCartney, and the decision defined her.

The girls who first gravitated toward Avril Lavigne? In 1964, they would have been John girls. Girls who would today be considered emo went for George. The Ringo girls? Well, you can’t put a label on the Ringo girls—at least I can’t. But Paul girls? In Quindlen’s words: “Paul got the little ladies…He was for girls who were traditional, predictable, who played by the rules.”

By the time my adolescence rolled around, the Beatles were cool, but vintage. We had ways of defining ourselves, sure, but not by identifying with men now older than our parents. Enter Dawson’s Creek.

Dawson’s fans went one of two ways: pro-Dawson or pro-Pacey. There was no middle ground. You either wanted the beautiful, sharp-tongued Joey Potter to end up with soul-mate-and-best-friend-forever Dawson, or charming-and-classic-screw-up Pacey. (Please note: Nobody wanted her to end up with Tom Cruise).

I was a Dawson girl.

After all, the series was called Dawson’s Creek for a reason. Besides that, though, it was obvious that Joey and Dawson belonged together. They’d been together from the beginning, and Pacey? He just wanted her once Dawson decided he wanted her, too. Pacey was every worst trait rolled into one. He wanted what he couldn’t have. He got it and treated it like trash. His communication style was sub-par, if not downright caveman. And he messed up. Not once, but all the time.

Joey’s with Pacey in the fourth season, which may be why the Dawson girl in me loves it so much. We Dawson girls watch patiently as Joey and Pacey lie to each other, fight with each other, and generally self-destruct. We know at the end of the day Dawson will be there, window and arms wide open. So what if the chemistry between Pacey and Joey is undeniable?

I watch this generation of girls take sides, too—we have Edward girls, we have Jacob girls (though to be fair, I have never actually met a teenage Jacob girl). I myself am neither an Edward nor a Jacob girl, and maybe my lack of taking sides defines me, as well. I haven’t read Breaking Dawn, either, so I don’t know how it all ends up.

My hope is that it turns out better than it did for Dawson.
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Oops: Betsy Tacy [Aug. 10th, 2008|10:51 pm]
Thank you to reviewer, blogger, and all-around book brainiac Little Willow for alerting me to this issue and getting me the permission to repost this piece from Lorie Ann Grover (I wanted to the same thing with Little Willow’s name that she did with Lori Anne’s—you know, where you click on it and it links to her website? But I am an idiot, and I don’t know how.)
Anyway, as a huge Betsy-Tacy fan, I had to spread the word:
We will make it our aim at readergirlz to draw your attention to books that are sadly going out of print (OOP). If we all rant and copy and repost the blogs as we are able, maybe we'll tug the ears of the publishers. When Nancy informed us that the Betsy-Tacy series was going out of print, you should have heard the divas groan! I'm sad to say, we have our first OOPS! entry.

In 1940 Maud Hart Lovelace published her first novel Betsy-Tacy of the future series. The original works were illustrated brilliantly by Lois Lenski.

At the start, we meet five-year-old Betsy and her new friend, Tacy. Set in Deep Valley, Minnesota (Mankato, Minnesota, the author's town) in 1898, the girls' adventures abound. From everyday life to extraordinary fantasy, the duo is inseparable. Whether going to school for the first time or riding a feather above their homes, the girls discover the world.

Rereading Betsy-Tacy, I was struck by the history contained in the thin volume. I found American cultural history our girls should be exposed to today. What's a hitching block, or a pussy hood, and how do starched petticoats button to muslin underwaists? At the same time universal timeless themes are touched upon that our girls will still connect to personally. Shyness, siblings, imaginations, and death are a few of the concepts explored.

The entire series follows the girls as they mature. The first four titles focus on the girls from ages 5 to 10. Heaven to Betsy takes the characters to high school. Each work shows the characters age about a year until marriage in Betsy's Wedding.

Betsy-Tacy (1940)
Betsy-Tacy and Tib (1941)
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill (1942)
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown (1943)
Heaven to Betsy (1945)
Betsy in Spite of Herself (1946)
Betsy Was a Junior (1947)
Betsy and Joe (1948)
Betsy and the Great World (1952)
Betsy's Wedding (1955)

More from Lorie Ann: I was so happy to discover the Betsy-Tacy Society. Here's an excerpt from their homepage:

The Betsy-Tacy Society was founded in 1990 by a group of 12 Mankato-area admirers of Maud Hart Lovelace's life and writing; it now numbers more than 1500 members. The goals of the BTS are:

* To promote and maintain the availability of Mrs. Lovelace's work;
* To advocate for the reissue of any titles not currently in print;
* To preserve existing landmarks and sites associated with the real people and places portrayed in the Betsy-Tacy books; and
* To sustain interest in the lifestyle of the period, with special emphasis on family and women's history.

Let's speak up to keep Maud's dream alive. As she begins Betsy~Tacy:

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell'd in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream...
- William Wordsworth

Give a shout out to the Betsy-Tacy series through the kidlitosphere.

HarperCollins, don't make this collection of true American girls go OOPS!

- Lorie Ann Grover, rgz diva/author

Notes from Little Willow:

I too enjoyed the Betsy-Tacy books. As a child, I checked them out from the public library. I remember learning that the author had based all of the characters on her own friends and family members and thinking, "That's like Little House!" Now, as an adult, I continue to recommend both series to young readers.

I love it when young writers ask me, "Is it okay to write stories that are kind of like what really happened to me?" "By all means," I reply, and we talk about books inspired by real lives.

The Betsy-Tacy books are classics. They represent and depict the society and the writing style of the times. They also value friendship and show the characters grow up. I have used this series as a kind of stepping-stone to the Anne of Green Gables series, which I adore. I also give it to All-of-a-Kind-Family fans, and vice-versa.

I hope that Betsy-Tacy comes back into print so that their stories may live on as they deserve.
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My Two Dads [Jun. 19th, 2008|02:14 pm]
Did you ever see that ‘80’s sitcom about the girl raised by two single men, each of whom might be her biological father? I was pretty young when the show was on, so I don’t think I was ever clear on the logistics of their living arrangement, or how/why each man was so certain the girl was his daughter. BUT I do remember the three of them lived in the same apartment building as the judge who worked on their “case.” I also remember the two dads were complete opposites: One was this very attractive, too-young looking artist type, and the other was a total Wall-Street. Between the two of them, she got the best of both worlds (like Hannah Montana, except less annoying).

As I’ve been thinking about Father’s Day this week, I’m realizing how much I’m like that girl on My Two Dads (minus the eighties-tastic hair and boyfriend whose voice hadn’t changed). Between my father and my father-in-law I feel like I have everything “normal” and everything “abnormal” in a father-daughter relationship.

One of my dads helped tile my bathroom floor. One helps me figure out insurance statements. One of my dads wears Hawaiian shirts. One wears the old suit/tie combo. One of my dads can see—courtesy of Lasix—the other is blind in one eye. One of my dads sees a doctor, one sees a medical intuitive. Which dad is which might surprise you.

Once I said to my husband: “When you put them together, our father equal one perfect dad.” But I think I had it wrong. My dads are close enough to perfect on their own.

Happy Father’s Day Week, everybody!
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Pictures a Go-Go [Apr. 22nd, 2008|01:21 pm]
So, I haven’t yet figured out how to add a picture to my livejournal, but I have posted a great picture on emilywingsmith.com. If you enjoy hilarious marquees, check it out.

In other picture-related news, some of you asked why there weren’t any pictures of me on my site. The answer? Because I didn’t know how to post them. Now, here they are, under the “About” section. Enjoy!
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And Another Thing [Apr. 16th, 2008|12:45 pm]
Something that has been bothering me for some time, now: Does anyone know what’s up with the song selection on Rock Band, video game extraordinaire? How depressing is it that I only know a handful of the songs?
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Wednesday Musings [Apr. 16th, 2008|12:43 pm]
This last week, driving my car has cost approximately $7.50 a gallon. I blame this entirely on the (un) fair city of downtown Salt Lake. I can drive in my little suburb for a fraction of this price. But when I want to do something, uh, not entirely lame, I MUST PAY!

Imagine if you will: A beautiful early spring morning outside the truly exquisite downtown Salt Lake City library, where I am planning to meet fabulous writers Sara Z. and Anne B. They’ve planned a write-in of serious proportions, a regular Electric Boogaloo for creative minds, and they’ve invited ordinary writers to join them. Enter, me. I am nothing if not ordinary! Throughout the afternoon, I enjoy the company of these delightful authors while scribbling in my notebook (because, while I actually own a laptop, I sometimes prefer to go it old-school). I also feed my parking meter religiously.

Does it do any good? No. Because when the day is done a Pepto-pink sheet of paper is under my windshield. It’s a very pricey notice that I do not have a front license plate and this, apparently, is against Utah state law. Who knew?

Flash forward to the next week. The Cool Writers are having a luncheon, and they’ve once again invited the Ordinary Writers. Yea! It’s like back in high school when the popular girl finds out you’re dying of a mysterious illness and so she’s super-nice to you out of pity (okay, so that’s never actually happened to me, it’s from an episode of Dawson’s Creek, but you get the idea). The lunch rocks. Cool people abound. Someone eats a massive Cobb salad. We order every dessert on the menu. And I show off my street-smarts!

After lunch, I find my car in the massive parking structure adjacent to the restaurant. I give the very old, very British parking attendant my validation. He says I still owe him a dollar. I do not have a dollar. I do not carry cash. I mean, seriously, what year is this, 1983? Nobody carries cash anymore! Likewise, I do not use checks. But they accept only cash and checks. Meanwhile, a line of cars is forming behind me. I politely ask if I can take perhaps mail in a check to pay my debt. The man says no. The man says he can’t let me out, because a dollar is just too, too important to gloss over. He gets out of his booth and makes all the cars behind me back up. “Come back when you have more validation,” he says. I try to park, remember where I parked, find something I need from some store, and buy it all before my hour’s up and I need to pay another dollar/validation. Usually I peruse bookstores. Not today. I grab a book that looks good and rush out of the parking lot, and hour and twenty dollars behind schedule.
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Being a Real Author [Apr. 4th, 2008|01:50 pm]
I am now a real author.

Okay, so, actually no.

I don’t know how or when anyone actually becomes a real author. When their first book is published? Their fifth book? When they have something, anything, accepted for publication? When they wake up and say, “Today I am a real author?”

To me, it’s always been, “I will be a real author when I have a website.” Because real authors have websites. Yes, this is the kind of logic that I can wrap my head around. You know, the hopelessly flawed kind of logic.

Anyway, I have a website, emilywingsmith.com, and I have a picture of my book cover, and really, what else do you need? Besides people to look at it, I mean. Because you need what I believe everybody else refers to as “hits.”

So please hit this website. But not literally. Because I know from experience that will seriously mess up your monitor. Emilywingsmith.com will even get new-and-improved bonus features as time goes by. And by time going by, I mean my learning how to add new-and-improved bonus features.
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Trivia Tuesday: Five Quirky Things About Me [Mar. 18th, 2008|03:58 am]
1) I hate frosting so much that I used to think the saying “the icing on the cake” meant the really bad part of something really good (i.e, “losing my luggage was the icing on the cake of my trip.”) This has caused no small amount of confusion in my life.

2) I read the Baby-Sitters Club until the series ended in 2000. I was nineteen years old. At one point in my life I could recite the title of every book, in order. Sometimes I will still do this when I can’t fall asleep. These days, I can’t remember much past #21: Mallory and the Trouble with Twins.

3) I have a false tooth, which I refer to as “bad tooth.” It is much smaller than the rest of my teeth and also a half-shade whiter. It is easy to floss bad tooth because it is a good distance from the teeth on either side of it. Bad tooth is the bane of my existence.

4) I have bad tooth through no fault of my own. My real tooth wasn’t knocked out in a reckless dirt bike crash or anything. I actually never had a real tooth. The missing bicuspid is a genetic gift from my great-aunt on my dad’s side.

5) I talk to myself. Loudly. This would be only minorly embarrassing if I said clever/hilarious things to myself. I do not. I used to say, “I hate you!” but that habit pretty much broke itself. I would start yelling it in the presence of other people, and would then have to explain, “Oh, not you, I’m just talking to myself."
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What My Book is Not About [Feb. 27th, 2008|12:25 pm]
You might think it’s easy for authors to tell you what their book’s about. As in, “Oh, you’re getting a book published? What’s it about?”

Perhaps other authors have no problem with this question. But I do.

What’s it ABOUT? Well, I mean, I wrote it, and don’t get me wrong, it’s about stuff, but…I can’t really put it into words…I mean, it’s about some kids…teenagers, really, and one of them died…but it’s not, you know, ABOUT death…kinda…but not in a boring way, like “here, read this book about a dead guy”…anyway, it’s, um, realistic young adult fiction? Does that help?”

Which, of course, it doesn’t. Help, that is. Because now people know waaay less than they did to begin with.

So while I try to come up with a decent synopsis of my book (which may take a while) here is something I can say unequivocally:

Yes, my book is titled THE WAY HE LIVED.

No, it is not a book about the life of Christ.

Originally the book was not titled THE WAY HE LIVED. Because, you know, it wasn’t about the life of Christ. But the all-knowing Editorial Team and Marketing Team wanted to change it, and who am I to argue? I’m not exactly market-savvy. In fact, all I’ve ever actually sold are Girl Scout cookies.

When I heard the new title, though, I was like, “Isn’t there already a book by that title, published by an LDS (Mormon) publisher?” A quick Google check determined that no, there is not. So why be obsessed with underlying Christian themes in such a straightforward title? I mean, come on! The world is full of he’s who have lived in various ways.

Then, an IM from a friend, asking about the status of my book. My response, concerning the new title. Her reply: “I guess since your editor isn’t LDS, he doesn’t know that sounds like a book about Jesus.”

Vindication!
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Stranded: An Impromptu Restaurant Review [Feb. 15th, 2008|04:38 pm]
Today’s post was going to be about my book. That is, after all, the reason I started blogging. I was going to reveal all these juicy book details, but instead I am so busy recovering that all I can offer is a restaurant review.

Recovering from what, you might ask? Well, from spending the night STRANDED in Lehi, Utah.

On Wednesday I spent the afternoon in Provo, visiting my delightful friends/former college roommates (shout out to Dee, Mim, and Ruth). Of course, while I was enjoying good company and great Mexican food inside, it was snowing outside. But that was to be expected, as it’s been snowing like crazy here.

Also expected was heavy traffic as I journeyed to my North Salt Lake home. But there’s heavy traffic and there’s completely motionless traffic, and this traffic fell into the latter category.

6:45—Wow, we haven’t moved in ten minutes

6:55—I’m right here by the exit, should I get off and take back roads home?

7:05—I’ll get lost if I do that

7:15—If I’m still here at 7:30, I’ll get off

7:25—If I’m still here at 7:30, I’ll just spend the night here

7:35—Where am I, anyway?

Answer: Lehi. The winds were 75 MPH and the snow was blowing willy-nilly. Yes, that’s right: willy-nilly.

I pulled off the freeway and into a motel parking lot. I do not wish to devote much time to reviewing this motel. Only to say that it was the type of motel that advertises its rate on its sign ($39.99, fyi). It was the type of motel that looked dirty at first glance, but further inspection proved that it wasn’t dirty; just in dire need of refurbishment (i.e., the ceramic on the tub was chipped rather than stained). By way of toiletries were two mini bars of soap.

Now, for the restaurant review. My inclination was to order pizza from the (comparable) safety of my room, but delivery had been closed for the evening. And who could blame those brave, but not suicidal, delivery drivers? The nice Dominos man suggested One Man Band Diner, just steps from my motel.

Okay, so it was a lot of steps. But it was worth it.

One Man Band Diner is one of those places where you order from a phone at your table. BUT unlike other restaurants of that variety, this one is reasonably priced. The beverage selection is ample, with fountain drinks including apple beer (!) and wicked-good hot chocolate. Food is prepared in an open kitchen, so you can watch your salad/sandwich/burger as it’s made. The dessert menu changes daily, and on this day included hot-fudge raspberry brownies. What more needs be said?

If you are ever in Lehi (whether because you are stranded or because, for some reason, you wanted to go to Lehi) I highly recommend this diner.

I do not, however, particularly endorse the Motel 6.
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Signs [Jan. 28th, 2008|12:33 pm]
I need to go to Las Vegas.

No, seriously, I really do.

It’s research for the newest book I’m working on. I already had parts of the LV scenes written from when I began this story many moons ago. Simply put, they blew. I knew I needed to go see Vegas for myself. I needed inspiration. I needed to gorge myself at buffets. I needed for no one else to ever, ever, read my previous attempts at those Las Vegas scenes. Ever.

So I convinced my husband to take a roadtrip to Sin City with me. I looked up hotel deals on my favorite travel site. On Thursday, January 24, I booked a lovely, very inexpensive room at the Monte Carlo, complete with two complimentary buffet coupons (How I do love me the deals).
The next day my husband IMs me a link very similar to this one:

http://www.lvrj.com/news/14480217.html

Yes, one day I make reservations at a hotel, the next day it’s BURNING!

Our reservation is in six days.

“Do you think this is a sign?” I ask my husband. He, of course, answers that he does not believe in signs.

A reasonable enough answer. A good one, even, considering that he didn’t want to take this trip in the first place.

But still. . .
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(no subject) [Jan. 23rd, 2008|11:16 pm]
Your Birthdate: October 14

You work well with others. That is, you're good at getting them to do work for you.
It's true that you get by on your charm. But so what? You make people happy!
You're dynamic, clever, and funny. And people like to have you around.
But you're so restless, they better not expect you to stay around for long.

Your strength: Your superstar charisma

Your weakness: Commitment means nothing to you

Your power color: Fuchsia

Your power symbol: Diamond

Your power month: May
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A Day In The Life [Jan. 23rd, 2008|11:35 am]
Yesterday was a typical Day in the Life of Emily Wing Smith. Not necessarily because it is what I do on a typical day. Yesterday exemplifies the issues I face on a typical day.

9:00 am—woke up. Yep, I don’t wake up until 9. Or, actually, later, depending on the day. This is not because I am a lazy sack of trash. Okay, it is because I am a lazy sack of trash. But it is also because I’m a writer. I keep pretty strange hours. Luckily this is okay by my husband. He always wakes me up when he leaves in the morning, usually about 7:30, kisses me goodbye, and lets me go back to sleep. Which I do.

9:45 am—left to pick up Hannah. Hannah is my fourteen-year-old sister, and yesterday was one of those made-up school holidays so people get a four-day weekend. I thought, perfect opportunity for some quality sister-bonding. We decided to go shopping. Hannah needed new pants, as she is now 5’10 and all her pants are too short. I needed new pants as I am 5’4 and all my pants are nasty at the bottom because they drag on the ground so much. And it is winter in Utah and the ground isn’t pretty. Anyway, I drove off to Hannah’s house, knowing full-well its location, as it is the same stately manor in which I spent my teenage years, and even some of my young-adulthood. Thus, it baffles the mind why I turned onto the WRONG FREEWAY to get there.

Of course, while it may baffle the general mind, to my mind it made perfect sense. I am an extremely poor navigator and an even poorer driver. This is not the first time I have gotten lost going someplace I’ve been several times before. I am a pro at finding “alternative routes” to my most frequent destinations. Alas, this time luck was not on my side. Or the side of the car about two yards ahead of me on said WRONG FREEWAY. Although I didn’t know until 20 minutes later, when I finally crawled past it, this car had somehow gotten munched. No wonder traffic had been at a stand-still.

11:00 am—Hannah and I were finally in downtown Salt Lake City, livin’ it up sista -style. We talked about the general lameness of ninth-grade while walking from store to store in the freezing cold. We bought bath products that smelled like flowers and/or fruit. We tried on pants. We found pants. We purchased pants. My pants were part of a velour “loungewear” combo, which is perfect for me, as I spend a great deal of time at my computer, lounging away. As the clerk was ringing them up, she looked directly at me and said, “Do you guys wear these to school?”

Hannah and I exchanged the briefest of looks. Since this has happened before, we knew what to do. Which was lie. “Yep,” I said.

I do not go to school. I have graduated from school—high school, college, grad school. I’ve finished them all. I am almost positive this sales clerk was younger than me. Generally speaking, I am not a proponent of lying. But I never have the heart to tell people I’m twenty-seven.

1:30 pm—took Hannah home. Did some work on my newest novel while I waited for a very important computer package for my husband. This is the story of my life. Computer thing after computer thing arrives at our house, whether via post or my husband himself. I never have any idea what these things actually are, which makes it hard to have the right level of enthusiasm.

Got a call from my awesome mother-in-law. Yoriko is a headstrong, hilarious woman who, although she lived in Japan for the first twentysomething years of her life, is somehow more technologically-challenged than I am. Every time she leaves a message on our answering machine, it’s like she’s never used one before. “Hello….?...Uh, hello, Emily?...Yes, well, I was wondering something so if you could call me back…well, talk to you later, thanksbye.” Another thing I love about Yoriko is that she’s even tighter with a buck than I am. So she’s been figuring out how to take a family vacation to Hawaii using only timeshare-exchanges and frequent-flier miles. Now she’s made the reservation for all eight of us at a resort on the Big Island, which should make for a very interesting trip. She gave me a link to a website that, it turns out, doesn’t exist, and said goodbye. Gotta love that woman.

5:00 pm—husband returned from work. I realized I had once again forgotten to make/plan for dinner. Likewise, I had forgotten to go to the store, and the contents of our refrigerator were limited to half-a-hunk of cheddar cheese, some pickle relish, and a bag of mini carrots. We made spaghetti from the year’s supply of non-perishable food we keep in our basement (in case of natural disaster, or, you know, the End of the World). We shredded the cheddar cheese and put that on top.

After dinner a friend from my church came over to discuss Girls Camp. This is a camp for all the teenage girls in our congregation. I’m in charge of teaching the girls at church on Sunday and doing activities with them during the week. She is in charge of planning their camp. This is a Good Thing, as I am many things, but a camper I am not.

Let me just say this: I am worried I will have to go to camp.
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Best of State [May. 25th, 2007|05:42 pm]
So I'm not one of those people hooked on American Idol, but I did record last night's season finale on my DVR. I work with the teenage girls in my new congregation, and with their adament love for Blake...well, I had to see it all wrap up.

Thank goodness for the miracle of the DVR. Let's put aside the constant commercial breaks. What's up with the Golden Idols? Why would I want to watch people who can't sing accept awards for not being able to sing? During a SINGING competition?

It reminded me way, way too much of an event I attended Saturday night. A little soiree called "Best of State."

This was a favor to my dad, whose law firm had apparently won the honor of "Best of State" something (luckily, it was something law-related...Best Legal Services, I think they put it. But I can't remember. And I left my program there). Anyway, he had to go and my mom was busy, so I was a last minute fill-in. Which meant donning the satiny gown I haden’t worn since my honeymoon cruise over four years ago.

The food was decent, and the presentation of the awards was blessedly brief. But the award categories ranged from random (Best of State Dog Groomer /Pet Hygienist) to ridiculous (Best of State Political Figure).

But what interested me most? The awards for the “creative arts”: Best of State Playwright, Fiction Writer, and Non-Fiction Writer. Now, I may be a writer myself, but I don’t claim to know of every author or (any professional) playwright in my state. So it really doesn’t matter that I wasn’t familiar with any of the winners. It does, however, beg the question: by what criteria are these writers judged? The same criteria used to award Best of State Pet Hygienist? Can the winners now add to their query letters the line: “Please note that I am the best fiction (non-fiction) writer in my state?”

Will editors realize this distinction is equivalent to that of a Golden Idol?
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(no subject) [May. 11th, 2007|01:57 pm]
So, I'm realizing that the things I find significant enough to write about are rare, indeed. In part, this is because the whole livejournal thing confuses me a bit. But let's not kid ourselves. I'm just really bad at keeping a journal, and as much as I wish this bad habit didn't include blogs, it does.

There are lots of things that happened to me over the last nine months that I would consider blog-worthy. Of course, at the time when they were happeninging, the last thing I had time for was blogging. Isn't that how it goes, though? The more you have to write, the less time you have to write it?

Blogable Events In My Life Since August 25th:

* taught AP Psychology at my former high school while my former high school AP Psychology teacher was on maternity leave. Don't get me wrong. I am not a teacher. I am a twenty-six-year-old English grad. Who once took AP Psychology. So we see the sad state of affairs regarding public schools in the big square state in which I reside. Anyway, teaching high school is a fair amount of work, even if it is only for three months. Especially because while this was going on I

*bought a new house. Which was good. Because my husband's commute to his new job was starting to totally bite. So we found a beautiful new place in a neighborhood much closer to his new office. Which was good. Except that it meant we

*sold our old house, and that is pretty much always a pain in the neck. And this was no exception. Although it only took nine days to find a buyer. And the family who bought the house was awesome. So the whole selling-a-house thing went smoothly and it was also fairly hassle-free when we

*moved into our new house, only I didn't actually put things away in my kitchen for about a month. I'm kind of OCD when it comes to arranging things in my kitchen. There was no time for it. Likewise, there was no time to put any books on the bookshelves. Digging through boxes to find the book I wanted was annoying, but I told myself bookshelf arrangement (about which I am also fairly OCD) would have to wait until I

*graduated from Vermont College. Which I did in January, with a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Writing for Children and Young Adults. It was one of the the most amazing experiences in my life (going to VC, not graduating. Although that pretty much rocked, too). And while this didn't happen until four long months after I graduated, because of my time at VC and the wise input I received there I finally

*finished my "novel." Yep, the one I've been trying to write for nearly two years. And this time, when I finished writing, it felt done.

Now we see if anyone agrees with me.
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My First Entry [Aug. 25th, 2006|04:46 pm]
So. I'm trying to write a novel. I say "trying" because every time I think I've written the novel, it turns out I haven't. Yeah. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I thought that was the whole reason I was writing. Guess not.

One of the characters in my work-in-progress is a blogger. M., my wise faculty advisor at Vermont College, liked the blog form, but asked me to think about how my character would really blog. And I realized I needed first-hand experience with blogs. Not just reading them (which I do regularly) but actually keeping one. Learning exactly how much of my life I feel comfortable putting out there into the blogosphere knowing that someone might actually read it. Seeing what events in my life are actually significant enough to prompt me to blog.

I'm hoping that maybe this will be more than an exercise. Maybe it will give me, you know, an epiphany.

Or at least some vague idea of what this novel I'm writing is actually about.
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