MamaManagement

This is not a To Do List. This is a Cosmic Book of Hopes and Dreams and Deeper Whys. (Sculpture by David Kracov) I've spent the last week or so in a heightened state of anxiety. It has not been fun. I tried blaming in on the move and all the extra stuff there is to do with the house and the life. I've spent more than four hours at the DMV in the last week and I still have to go back one more time. That's reason enough for anxiety, right? But then, last night, (after having a mini anxiety attack) I remembered what my last therapist said to me around this same time last year. Amy, this is your stress time. Every year, the activities and responsibilities ramp up in October, hit a frenzied peak in mid December, and then slowly descend back to normal by New Years. And every year your anxiety follows the same path. This happens every year for me since I had kids. Every. Damn. Year. And every year I am surprised by it (Every. Damn. Year.) and try to shove it down and p...

Book Revision Central Ever wonder how a book gets from a writer's head to the book store? I used to think that they just sat down and wrote it, and then sent it to the publisher, where it was edited, printed, and sent to book stores. Um...no. It's not as neat and tidy as all that. It's not smooth. It's not easy. And it's not fast. At least not for me...and I haven't even gotten to the agent and publisher part...YET. (From what I've heard, that's a whole other can of beans!) Since I'm knee deep in third round revisions on one of my middle grade novels (and having some, ahem, issues with, um, motivation and focus right now...), and I'm doing more intricate and elaborate work on it than I ever have on a book before, I thought I'd share a little glimpse of what this book writing stuff looks like. First, what got this book to where it's at today? Well, I wrote the first draft of it (as with all five of the novels I've writ...

It amazes me at how different each of my Nanowrimo experiences has been. 2017 was my fifth year participating and my fourth year as a winner (50,000 word finisher). Each year has held its challenges and its moments of flow; each book has come with both ease and difficulty. But the coolest thing is...they come. Sometimes I'm amazed that these detailed stories and characters and whole worlds come to me at all...and other times I'm amazed that I've managed to capture so few of them from this ethereal space in and around my mind, when so many live there. Either way, there's nothing quite like Nanowrimo to throw me into these imaginary worlds. The last few months have not been easy ones for me. There's a lot going on in my world and I've been struggling more than I'd like to admit (Okay, I actually admitted it in a blog post last week...so, super private!). In some ways this made Nano particularly difficult for me this year. Even though I technically had m...

NaNoWriMo 2017 IS HERE!!! If you know me, or have followed this blog over the last few years, then you likely know that National Novel Writing Month , or, Nanowrimo, is one of my most favorite things. For those of you who don't know, Nano is a virtual community of something like 500,000 people that commits to writing an entire novel, or at least 50,000 words of one, in the 30 days of November. You can learn more about it at nanowrimo.org. This will be my fifth year participating in Nano-- which kind of shocks me! Four years ago today I began my first attempt at writing a novel. I only finished 20,000 words that year, but that experience helped me develop a regular writing practice; it inspired me to find a writer's group; and it was the beginning of (finally) following my dream of being a writer. (That's a pretty big deal.) In all three years since my first try, I have  made it to the 50,000 word finish line. And since that first day, I have written four novels. ...

As many of you know, I participated in my 4th National Novel Writing Month this November, and made it for the 50,000 word win for the 3rd time in a row. First, let me explain something to you about NaNoWriMo that you don't likely understand if you are a) not a writer, and b) have never participated in NaNo yourself. It is all encompassing. When you participate in NaNo for the win, you live and breathe NaNo. To write 50,000 words in 30 days, you have to average 1667 words per day. (And, remember, you're not just putting any old words on a page here, you're creating a whole other world...and you're hoping at least most of the words aren't total crap.) That's a fair amount of work, especially if you have a job or a life or young children who aren't in school all day. You have to work writing time into your regular life schedule, and you have to immerse yourself in what you're writing. Which means you become obsessed with the whole thing. It also m...