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I have a confession to make: My six-year-old is far more popular than I am. All through kindergarten he’s been asked on more playdates than all my other kids combined. Now, in case you are not up on “playdate etiquette�� it is considered proper to reciprocate a playdate invitation by extending one to your house within a week or two of the first said playdate. Not super complicated, right? Wrong. I stink at this part of the playdate tango and I choose to blame writing.

On days with no afternoon activities I pick up my kindergartener, run errands, eat lunch and then put the two youngest down for some “quiet resting time.�� This is my magic hour (or two) where I can write or edit or research or catch up on all the other odds and ends of my writing life. There are other times I work writing into my day but this beautiful barren tundra of quietness is the one time I didn’t ever feel guilty picking up the computer and getting lost in a story.

At the beginning of�� the year I diligently tried to keep up with the boomerang invites after playdates. This is my third kid. I should be better at this by now, right? Uh uh. Very not good. Soon I realized I couldn’t keep up with it all. I was actively querying at the time, working on a new book not to mention doing all the other stuff life always included like feeding my children and (sometimes) cleaning my house.

Then in February I signed with my wonderful agent, the lovely Marlene Stringer and I decided I couldn’t fool around anymore. I needed those uninterrupted hours and if I was going to take my writing seriously then I needed to preserve that time in my day. Soon, I found my self giving long winded explanations as to why I couldn’t do after-school playdates anymore. I’d say stupid stuff like: “����’s not that we don’t want YOUR kid over, I just don’t want ANY kids over�� I mean��.I love kids…but not more kids…�� By the end of the conversation the moms would look at me, glossy eyed, not sure if I was making up a huge story or just giving up and becoming a neglectful parent.

Then, one day last month, a new mom approached me after school. My son had played at her house a few times over the past weeks and it seemed like another invite was on the horizon.

She started with a classic line: “We’d love to have a playdate with Thomas!��

I responded: “Sure what works for you?��

Next, she should’ve mentioned the date and time she was thinking of but instead there was silence. Uncomfortable pause, then playdate mom put her arm around “Little Jimmy�� and said: “We want to know why you never have Jimmy come over to your house.��

Oh no. Awkwarrrrd. I’m sure my face went red because it felt hot and I lost all ability to put sentences together in any understandable order. I immediately went into explain mode. I got half-way through my “����’s not you it’s me�� speech when the mom held up one hand and said, “Oh! I get it.�� You work from home.��

It took me a second to register what she was saying but when it sunk in I realized she was right. THAT’S what I’ve been doing. Writing a book, editing a book, writing a query a synopsis, querying agents, working with my agent to prepare for submissions, outlining a new book, creating a synopsis and query for the WIP and writing it—YES…I DO work from home!

When someone finds out I write the first thing they usually ask me is, “When do you find the time?�� I used to explain that I write during naps or at night or while the kids are engaged in an activity, but what my chat with this playdate mom taught me is: I don’t find the time, I MAKE the time. Like other people that work from home, I have to discipline myself, set goals and find a work/life balance that is appropriate for me and my family. Sometimes I look at the stories I’ve written and can’t believe they came from me. That’s when I know the minutes of writing I fit in here and there, the hours of work I’ve wedged into my already packed life were worth it. Now, I can proudly say—Yes, I work from home and I love it.

��My writing buddy

When I was a little kid I was pretty fearless. I lived in Florida and could catch lizards and frogs with the best of ‘em. As a teen I constantly tried to find excuses to tag along on my brother’s camping trips with my dad and their friends. The one trip I loved to go on was the rappelling�� trip. At this point in my life we’d moved way north to Illinois and the closest cliffs were in Wisconsin at Devil’s Lake. It was a four or five-hour drive each way but when I stood at the edge of that cliff with my harness on and a semi-reliable adult belaying at the bottom, fear was the last thing on my mind.

By my third or fourth trip up to Devil’s Lake I sure felt like a pro and honestly I was almost as experienced as any of the boys up there. So when it came time for the first group of rappellers to scout out a safe path back up to the top of the cliff, I was eager to be one of them. As far as I can remember, the trip down the cliff was uneventful, fun but nothing mind-blowing. Then it was time to find a way back up. I followed the two older teen boys up a rocky path, happy to follow their lead. But it didn’t take long for the path to turn into a series of small cliffs.

I scaled the first cliff just fine. I still can’t believe we were dumb enough to do this without gear but, yeah, we were. As I got to the second cliff, I was having a more difficult time finding hand holds and the boys I’d been following were nowhere to be found. When I finally made it up to the thin ledge at the top of cliff number two, I looked up. Cliff number three was straight up another twenty feet and I suddenly knew I would never make it to the top. I was a fourteen year-old-girl with no rope, no helmet and no real rock climbing training. I was standing thirty feet up on a cliff with no way to go up and no way to go down. I was stuck.

When I called out to the adult at the bottom of the rappelling wall he came over and I could tell by the tightness in his voice that he didn’t know what to do. All I remember him saying was�� “TURN AROUND AND COME DOWN.�� And I did. I turned FACE OUT from the wall and took a step down. Then I fell 30ft to the forest floor.

photo:meetville.com

How I landed on my feet I’ll never know, but I did. I rolled another twenty feet down a hill, propelled by my fall, narrowly missing trees and rocks that could’ve easily ended my life. When I finally stopped rolling I had gashes up and down my jeans, a very swollen ankle and a man who was sure he’d just watched me fall to my death. The poor guy was positive I was dead. Spoiler Alert: I wasn’t.

Now I can look back and see how stinking lucky I was. I came out of that whole experience with a few cuts and some severed ligaments in my right ankle. I also came out of it a little more mature and a lot more cautious.

In writing we often talk about fear as our enemy and I get that. I understand how fear can paralyze you, make you question every word you put on the page, make you feel like you should just give up. Fear is the antagonist to creativity.

photo: nehatu.co.uk

Here is when I say the big BUT. What I learned from my little tumble at Devil’s Lake is: Fear is also useful. Just like I should’ve been afraid to climb those cliffs without the correct safety gear and training. I should’ve looked for another way up. I should’ve slowed down and really listened to the man trying to help me at the bottom. Then maybe I would’ve understood that he meant for me to stop climbing and get the heck off that cliff in the safest way possible, not to turn face out and take a blind step into oblivion.

In writing we need to be open to these good kinds of fear, the ones that warn us we are going off the cliff or in the wrong direction. We’ve all met the writer that thinks the first thing he/she puts down on the page is the best. ����’s tempting to think we don’t need to edit. That we don’t need to fill plot holes or develop characters fully. ����’s easy to think that it’s different for me.

photo: Galery Ja

����’s not different for me or probably any of us. I learned that very quickly when I decided that I was going to take my writing really really seriously. I asked one of my friends to edit and critique a short story I’d written. He had a degree in English and I respected his opinion. I BEGGED him to be honest. Oh, he was honest. BOY was he honest. When he returned the story it was so filled with edits it made my eyes cross. They were good edits, helpful edits but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that at first they made me wonder if I was a writer. See—downside of fear.

It took me a few weeks to be willing to try again. I took the story and threw most of it out and started from a whole new angle. Then I spent hours rewriting it and rewriting and doing more research and then writing some more. What came out the other end was SO MUCH BETTER. That’s when I learned that as long as I don’t let fear STOP me, I can use it to guide me.

photo: ugusavay.com

Am I really saying to be afraid? No, not really but in writing I do use that nervous, gurgling feeling to keep me focused and humble. I use it to remind me to listen to those that have been through this before. Most of all I use it to inspire me to turn out the best finished product possible because I never want to start climbing a cliff only to fall off half way through ever again.

photo: REX

Photo credit: Percival Constantine

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So, I’m in the middle of writing a new book. I outlined, imagined and mulled over this story for more hours than I can count and that’s before writing one stinking word. Now I’m doing the “fun part”–writing. ����’s coming along nicely but in my goal to write every day I’ve found that my relationship with my WIP is a little…complicated.

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I think all writers understand the bliss of writing like you’re in love. Like, if my story were��a person I’d leave a love note in it’s lunchbox with a cookie and a few x’s and o’s under my name. During these love laced word purges, all I can think about is my story. Writing like you’re in love is amazing. Writing can be hard, heart breaking work. We NEED those magical “I love you�� writing moments so we don’t forget why we keep at it.

Photo Credit: Laura Gibson

There are upsides to these love phases like a great word count and the buzz of writing something new and exciting, but I’ve also found love is blind. When I’m writing drunk with adoration, I miss things. Inevitably, when I reread these sections they’re not always as good as I remembered. Rose colored glasses might look cool, but they must come off before editing because, just like a real relationship, the euphoric love phase cannot last forever.

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That’s when I write like I’m breaking up. I suddenly wonder what I ever saw in the whole thing after all. I tell myself, “Hey! Maybe everyone would be happier if we just called it quits, tried it all again with someone new.�� I slam my head against the keyboard hoping something great magically cobbles together out of my forehead typing. But I don’t quit. I take my WIP to therapy. I change, the story changes, my writing changes and in the end, we both come out better, stronger.

Photo Credit: Inner Loop Records

Of course there are always those days in a writer’s life where you write just to get the words on the page. That’s what I call my “just friends�� phase of writing. I like what I’m writing, but it’s just work. Work to get it out. Work to be happy about it. I’m following the outline, getting the word count in and hoping that at some point it all starts falling together again. When I’m in my “just friends�� mode of writing I never have a problem saying goodnight and sending that WIP to bed with a friendly pat on the back.

But I’ve found that some of my best writing happens not when I’m in love, or breaking up or even just friends. ����’s when I’m pretty sure that sneaky little minx of a story is plotting my demise while I’m sleeing. ����’s a total “frenemy�� moment where hate and love meet. That push and pull of “this is good�� and “I can’t get anything right�� causes a frustrating tug of war in your brain. For me, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when I figure out how plot holes are filled and when I really get to know my characters. When I figure out how to improve as a writer.

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These days are not frequent, and sometimes these moments don’t even happen on the page, they happen in my mind as I’m thinking and rethinking the story. When I have a frenemy moment with my WIP, I always get a little angry because, doggone it, I was doing FINE without those unsolicited suggestions from my brain! That’s usually when I realize the dissenting opinion is correct. Things need to change. I’ve yet to employ a change from a frenemy day and be disappointed

So, no matter what phase you and your WIP are in, just remember, there’s something positive that can come out of every stage in this complicated relationship. ����’s even more important to remember that if things aren’t working out between the two of you the way you thought they would, don’t give up—adapt because when a story is stalking you, a restraining order is not an option.

Photo Credit: quickmeme.com

Today is a special day in two ways! It marks my first post on my brand new author’s page and it’s also my 10th Mother’s Day as a mom! To celebrate I thought I’d share a piece I wrote a few years ago about why dandelions are my favorite flower.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Flowers for Mommy

Every spring a battle is waged in our backyard. My husband puts on his armor, faded tee-shirt and grass stained gym shoes, and then voyages out to the local lawn care store to pick out the weapons he will use against his age-old foe: the dandelion.

A stink’n dandelion!

Gardenguides.com defines a dandelion as: A perennial weed with a stout taproot. The leaves are invasive, growing outward pushing down the surrounding vegetation, such as lawn grass, killing them due to lack of sunlight. Or in other words-���� great big giant pest!

Note the lack of dandelions��.

Before becoming a home owner I was pretty ambivalent about these yellow flowering weeds. Let’s just say if the war against dandelions was a World War �� I’d be Switzerland.

Then a few years ago we arrived at��my son’s baseball game early. It’d been raining all week. The moisture combined with warm weather had encouraged those pesky little flowers to bloom like crazy. The outfield was covered in a bright blanket of dandelion flowers.

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an approximation of what the outfield looked like

My kids were mesmerized by the alluring glow of yellow. It called to them like a sweet siren’s song. For the next half-hour they ran around the field picking flowers, hustling back to where I sat��and then would toss them on my lap. It was a shower of flowers.

My youngest gazed over the field and at the growing pile of flowers in my lap. He laughed, very self-satisfied and said,”Look at ALL these flowers for mommy!!��

When I saw the pride in my kid’s eyes as they handed me their treasures, and the beauty they found in them, those weeds were suddenly as precious as roses and every one created just for me.

Since that day, dandelions are my favorite flower in the whole world! They are a cheerful yellow, a sign spring is finally here and my kids��can yank them out of any patch of grass and be thanked for it.��It is heavenly.

Every��spring when the dandelions bloom I let my kids roam free. Walks that took minutes take hours as they pick and pick to their heart’s content and my heart never feels so content as when I watch them collect their bouquets.

Now I get��dandelions by the handful. Some are offerings of love, some to decorate my clothes and hair and others to make into dandelion necklaces and crowns. And I’ve found that when picked with love and a little bit of imagination dandelions have a magical quality that can turn little boys into kings and princes and mommies into fairy queens.

One day, sooner than I realize, my boys��will wage the war against dandelions in the yards of their own houses. On that day they’ll see these flowers as weeds and not treasures. But even if I live to be one hundred and one I’ll never look at a dandelion again without feeling like a queen. I’ll always remember that once three little boys believed every single one was made just for me.

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