My Costume? I'm an Author

The truth is Santa once carted a typewriter all the way from the North Pole and lovingly placed it under our Christmas tree.  Hopefully he left a few dollars in my mom’s stocking, because she was the one replacing my typewriter ribbons as I filled pages upon pages with stories, stories I was convinced would catapult me onto a best-selling list before I left junior high school.

I became interested in boys and wrote about hand holding and note-passing and breathless first kisses.  I became more interested in boys and experienced those things.   I decided my first novel wouldn’t be finished until after high school, filling floppy disks with ideas and beginnings and endings, the middle of my epics hazy and unsure. 

My dreams of moving to New York and writing for a living out of a studio apartment curled inward, pushed back by ideas of journalism and white space and bylines.  They shrank into the corner during the angst-inducing year of philosophy classes, later beaten into submission by the academic reading and writing required of an English major. 

The truth is dreams can get tired, too.  Teen author slid into young adult author until finally my fingers stalled at my keyboard, and I casually relegated the idea to “one day I will write books.”  One day in the future, one day when the kids are grown, one day when my life feels settled, I will write books.

Everything changed when I met Greta.  If you’re shaking your head and looking around for a straightjacket as I talk about meeting a fictional protagonist, you’re probably a reader and not a writer.

The truth is I didn’t create her or imagine her or plan her; she walked into a specific writing prompt and presented herself, and I needed to know more about her. 

So I wrote her, in snippets and glimpses, without regard for chronology, filling in the details as they revealed themselves to me.

More than a few thousand words, and several snapshots of her life, later, and I’m at the point where I think it’s time we made a commitment.

And that’s where novel-writing dreams collide with a compelling character and begin to dance to the frantic tunes of NaNoWriMo.  National Novel Writing Month.  Or November, to the non-crazy people who don’t plan on churning out 50,000 words in the next thirty days.

The truth is I’m unsure about this undertaking.  Nervous.  Exhilarated.  Terrified.

The truth is I wouldn’t have done it without the excitement percolating around it at Write on Edge.

The truth is I can’t do it without their support.

The truth is I can’t do it without YOUR support.

The truth is I’ve always known there are novels curled together in my brain, patient and dormant, biding their time.

The question is can this one make the leap into reality?

photo courtesy of Laura at Purple Sky Photography

hopefully I'll still be smiling by November 30th

and as for the nitty-gritty ,I'll still be posting during this experiment

I'm aiming for three posts a week-Monday, Wednesday, & Friday

This week's prompt was The Truth.

Every MONDAY join us…
Write, post, link-up, share your story and your voice. Be part of carrying the weight of confidence and share our mission
to empower, inspire, and remind women, parents and children
that the time has come to celebrate ourselves!

Next week’s prompt: “Something you do not regret doing”

(Remember you can also write on a topic of your choice.)

Respectfully, Mr. King, I Disagree

ready to slide

photo by Purple Sky Photo

More than fifteen bottles of nail polish languish in my make-up drawer: shell pink, tangerine, a metallic teal that stained my toenails for months.  Used a time or two before being forgotten.

My gaze wanders to our mantle, mentally redesigning the space.

I flip through running magazines looking for new workouts and training plans.

So when the Write On Edge prompt presented itself this week, I hesitated and considered calling it a night without a post scheduled for the morning.

In “On Writing” Stephen King wrote, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”

Disagreeing with the prolific Stephen King seems ridiculous.  His success is legendary, his path paved with best sellers and respect and ownership of his genre.

My path is unsure, a hill obscuring what is next.

And there are moments I agree with his statement.

I hesitate before throwing aside warm blankets on a cold morning; I shrink from jumping into Lake Michigan at the beginning of the summer, the water still chilled, waiting to be warmed by months of sun.

But bigger moments?  Realizing I was ready to get married? Choosing a new career path?  Starting a family?

Those moments don’t scare me.  I relish the planning, the anticipation, the adrenaline of putting my plan in motion. 

Follow through is what brings the fear. 

What if I made the wrong choice?

Why was I entrusted with the two most amazing creatures on the planet?

Am I crazy to think I’m capable of that? 

Stephen King might have a problem getting into a plane to skydive, but my doubts creep in after I’ve leapt into the sky, as I’m spiraling to the ground.

I can only pray that my parachute catches the wind on the way down.

the prompt:

In “On Writing” Stephen King wrote, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”

Write a memoir post – first-person and true – inspired by that statement.

Word limit is 300.

And while we’re talking Stephen King, don’t forget! The first Read on Edge tweetchat will be Wednesday, October 19th! Happy reading and writing!

The Constant in the Chaos

My fingers race over the keyboard, thoughts tumbling onto the screen.

Pausing, I read what I’ve written.

Sigh.  Select the text.  Delete.

More slowly, I begin again, attempting to form the sentences in my head before typing.

I read what I’ve written.

Sigh.  Select the text.  Delete.

Pushing back my laptop, I read the jotted prompt in my little notebook:

“The top area of your life where you would like to apply the Just.Be.Enough. mission of standing taller.”

My cursor blinks at me, the screen blank, glimpses of ideas scurrying around my mind, ducking behind columns as I try to grab them, pile them together, decide which part of my life most needs this important mantra: Just.Be.Enough.

I idly flip the pages in my planner, take a drink of water, reach for the book on the corner of my desk, ready to distract myself with another one of the endless tasks on my to-do list.

My nails are unpainted.  I need to empty the dishwasher.  There are new songs I want to add to my running playlist.

Each thought is a bouncing ball, a tiny sphere of pink rubber ricocheting back and forth in my mind, bumping against other thoughts, rebounding off each other, crowding the space and making it impossible to follow any one thought to its final destination.

Again, my eyes go to the prompt:

“The top area of your life where you would like to apply the Just.Be.Enough. mission…”

I jot notes.  Running.  Writing.  Self-Image.  Parenting.

Running has been a struggle lately; after the half marathon I need to rediscover what it means to run without a clock, without mileage expectations, without a goal other than the joy I find in running.

I’m writing and editing and collaborating on amazing projects, but I am unsure what all of those things mean in relation to my own professional path, unsure if it can even be considered a professional path.

Preschool has reawakened my worries about moving, where I want the kids to go to school, when we’ll be able to consider a move at all.

Dylan resisted going to bed tonight, and as he buried himself into my chest, I breathed him in and vowed to spend more time enjoying each little phase of their development instead of worrying about timelines and schedules.

“The top area of your life…”

I study the words I’ve doodled.  Which area is top?  How do I determine where I need to most accept my limitations and embrace my strengths, when I’m so unsure about so many of my end goals?

Deliberately, I reach for the computer.

I have not had a moment of clarity.

I can’t declare that I am enough as a runner, a writer, a mother, a wife.

I am uncertain about where any of these paths will lead.

Without a goal, a destination, I cannot state with certainty that I am enough.

There is only one certainty.

Today, in a parking lot, I held Abbey’s hand, her other hand holding Dylan’s small fingers.  Ryan completed our small chain, holding Dylan’s other hand firmly in his.  Our eyes met briefly, over the heads of our children, a smile holding the four of us together.

I am unsure where my path will lead, but I know who is walking at my side.

And that is enough.

Every MONDAY join us… 
Write, post, link-up, share your story and your voice. 
Be part of carrying the weight of confidence, empowerment and share our mission
to empower, inspire, and remind women, parents and children
that the time has come to celebrate ourselves!

It Started With a Corner

For a long time, I blogged from my couch, laptop precariously balanced on a pillow teetering on my knees.

Inevitably, my eyes wandered to the television, DVR’d episodes of Gossip Girl, episodes of Law & Order I’d seen seventeen times, reality shows I should be embarrassed to admit to watching (Dance Moms, I’m talking about you.)

Idly, I clicked open a few blogs I meant to read earlier in the day. 

Checked my e-mail. 

Pinned pretties.  (And if you don’t know what that means, you’re better off.  Your to-do list will thank you for not opening a Pinterest account.) 

Finally made it back to my patiently waiting blog posts, my train of thought lost somewhere along my path of distraction.

I began to covet the immortalized necessity of Virgina Woolf – a room of one's own*.

I can see this room.  Cozy and feminine.  White furniture and frilly touches, peppered with optimistic shades of turquoise and yellow.  Delicate toile fabric. 

Absolutely unlike any of the rooms in my actual home, a home filled with vibrant, saturated colors, espresso wood, neutral décor.  A home I love.  A home filled with love and laughter and endless diversions.

A home that doesn’t have a spare room for Ryan and I to share an office, let alone for each of us to have our own, no matter how many ideas I might lust after on Pinterest.

Still, blogging on the couch was lulling me into a comforting vortex of wasting time. 

I needed something more.

As we discussed moving things around, creating a playroom space in the basement, I turned my eye to a corner in our living room, a corner housing a brightly colored dollhouse.  

Yet behind the dollhouse, I saw something more.  Built-in shelves.  The open staircase that snagged my heart the very first time we entered our house.

Potential.

Carefully, I purged and organized the toys so that they would fit into two of the four baskets remaining in our living room. 

Wistfully, I put aside my idea of an ideal writing space. 

Practically, I realized that I was building a for-now space, a stepping stone of sorts, a place to write towards my goals and my dreams.

Thanks to a particularly engaging episode of Sid the Science Kid, I managed to put together a sleek desk, the espresso color blending perfectly into our living room. 

Actually, it took an episode of Sid and the majority of Sesame Street.  Abbey and Dylan were in a state of television Nirvana.  There were four thousand and three parts in that one little box!

My dream room is tucked away, waiting for a day when I can paint and furnish and lose myself for more than the stolen moments when the kids are safely ensconced in their beds.

For now I have a corner.  

It still needs to be cultivated, decorated with small bits of me.  I need a chair, so that I don't have to drag my dining room chair over to my desk each night.  But for now I have a corner.

And it’s enough.

My room of my own.

For now…

 *I realize I have oversimplified Woolf's idea of a room of one's own.  I don't mean to disrespect her ideas or the struggles that women writers faced in her time, but I honestly think my little corner will be beneficial as I move down my writing path, wherever it may lead.

How have YOU lived the Just Be Enough feeling this week?

Write a post, or link up a post you've already written, about how you felt comfortable, powerful, or content in your own skin recently.  

Just Be Enough is teaming up with Bellflower Books and Crickett's Answer for Cancer to bring beautiful memory books to women fighting breast cancer.  For every 20 linked stories, Bellflower Books will donate a $75 gift certificate to a woman and her family to create a twenty-page memory book.  The families will be chosen through Crickett's Answer for Cancer.  Our goal at Just Be Enough is to provide ten families with one of these books.  The campaign will continue for two more weeks, and we are currently very close to our third book!  

Please consider linking up, and if you read a post you think fits with the idea of being enough, send them over!

I'll Admit It, Tears Fell

I'd like to introduce you to some new bling that will be gracing my sidebar...

Did it just get blurry?  I guess that was just me and those pesky tears of happiness again.

I've written about having a hard time accepting compliments about my writing, about shrugging off words of encouragment and comparing myself to other writers.

I've written about my goals of breaking into the freelance market, of calling myself published, of taking the quotation marks away from "writer".

So when I read an e-mail saying BlogHer wanted to syndicate Slow Down, I cried a little.  I have read that e-mail more times than I should admit.

I am so very honored to be part of the amazing group of women whose words have graced the pages of BlogHer.

If you could, I would be forever grateful if you could skip on over and drop me a sparkle or a comment.

If you're new here, visiting from BlogHer, please grab a cup of coffee and stay for a bit.  You might enjoy reading what my three year old has taught me, what I think about my flip-flops, and why it's ok (sometimes) that my kids are sporadic sleepers.

Empty Drawer

the prompt:

Let's get all steamy up in here and write about sex.
But you know us. There's a twist.
You can't write about the act. I don't want to read about any heaving bosoms or girded manhood (please tell me someone else giggled besides me).

This is part of Greta's Story, taking place between "Tears Will Fall" and "The Godmother," but it can stand alone as well.

Her hand hesitated on the brushed chrome.

James had been gone for over a month, and she had wiped his presence away in broad swoops. 

Photographs tugged from frames, haphazardly thrown into the trash or crumpled into boxes pushed to the back of closets.  The rug in their bedroom, the one she could finally admit she hated, rolled up and dragged to the curb to be picked up by a faceless woman with a rusted green van and strong, chapped hands.

This drawer held the last of him, the last, fragile remnants of her marriage.

Abruptly, she pulled it open, scooping the contents into her arms and dumping them onto the still-bare wooden floor next to her bed, wishing she would have remembered to bring a box or bag or garbage can into the room with her.

Silken bits of fabric, each holding a private memory, a glimpse into the life with a man no longer welcome in her heart.

Demure white satin pooled on the floor.  Greta had opened the pristine box holding the nightgown in front of her mother at a small, intimate bridal shower.  But on their wedding night, James’ lips sought hers the moment they fell into their room, trailing along her neck as his fingers urgently pulled at the silk covered buttons, the carefully packed negligee forgotten and unworn next to the bed.

She reached out to pull a crumpled bit of red lace away from her dresser.  Blushingly opened at her bachelorette party after a glass of wine, she hadn’t even been able to think about wearing it until after a cocktail on the beach and two glasses of wine three nights into their honeymoon.  She shouldn’t have worried.  James had more shocked than seduced, allowing his glance to linger on the scant lace bits for only seconds at a time before burying his head in her hair, his hands tracing paths his eyes wouldn’t touch.

Greta’s fingers slid into the pile, gently pulling out one of the few pieces that had been worn more than once or twice.  Light as air, the gossamer nightie was trimmed with lace, a soft, delicate blue, calming and familiar.  Even after the harsh words and heavy silences that announced the end of their marriage more surely than the divorce papers, this piece almost brought a smile to her lips as she remembered the comforting feeling of sinking into their bed, fabric billowing around them with a sigh.

Anger stopped her half-formed smile.

Her jaw clenched as she reached for the last piece of lingerie she had purchased.  Sheer lavender silk and black lace, contrived, designed to seduce.  Expensive and flattering, Greta had purchased it and planned its unveiling, offering herself to her husband when she had nothing left to give.

Cringing at the memory, she heard her sighs of pleasure echoing endlessly between her mind and the empty room. 

The morning after, she had woken slowly, basking in the warmth of sunlight streaming across their tangled sheets, a heartbeat passing before she realized he had already left for work.

The warm sunlight was suddenly a spotlight on her mistake.  Desperate, she had spent hundreds of dollars without blinking, counting on the connection she knew she could coax out of him as their bodies met in spaces their words couldn’t reach.

The fabric in her hands had been her hope for reconciliation but had delivered only lust.

Now, she wiped at her tears, unbidden, unstoppable, taking vicious note of the tracks of mascara dragging across the pastel silk.

It was all garbage now.

Birthday Wishes

There weren't any candles on the cake, because really, that many candles would have taken off all the frosting, and where's the fun in that?  But it's my birthday, so I'm making birthday wishes anyway.

Lean in, and I'll whisper them, but not too loudly, or they won't come true.

In this coming year, I wish...

...to gracefully become the mother of an actual pre-schooler and not just a pre-school age daughter.  I can't believe that in a month I will be leaving her at school twice a week

...to beat my personal best time in my upcoming half marathon

...to find balance on my blog.  I have a few other projects taking shape, and I know that I may have to limit posts here to 4-5 times a week in order to stay consistent (and sane)

...to beging doing some freelance writing work

...to find patience.  I always, always wish for a little more patience

...to hug and kiss my babies and my husband every day for the next seventy years

and last, but certainly not least...

...to have Reese Witherspoon's wardrobe spontaneously appear in my magically expanded closet

*poof! the imaginary candles are extinguished*

Cross your fingers for me that they all come true?  (I'll share the clothes, I promise!)

Can I Buy a Niche at Target?

I feel my cheeks flush, a momentary flash of pleasure bubbling to the surface before I force it to retreat.

“Thank you, but…”

“…it’s the jeans.  They hide a lot!”

“…I really need to work on the dialogue.  I don’t think it sounds believable.”

“…there are so many more talented writers out there.”

Graciously accepting compliments is tough.  I shrug them off, finding it easy to rationalize the words into kindness or obligation instead of actual admiration.

So when I saw the Summer Blog Social prompts about “advice for me,” encouraging us to speak to our strengths and also areas we would like to improve, my mind skated over the strengths facet of the post and went to the weaknesses in my blog.

As I ventured out of my blogging bubble, I worried I would lose steam and run out of ideas.  Instead, I have a little notebook filled with jotted notes and post ideas, and I’m beginning to worry about those notes. 

Abs singing the wrong words

More random run thoughts – leis, Proud Mary, small towns

Preschool beginning next month

(pause for emotional moment)

Each of my notes is a little seed, a seed I fertilize during runs and while driving in the car, a seed that takes shape and grows into a post.  And that, I think, is one of my strengths.  I can manage to find a foothold in an idea and climb it like a beanstalk into something substantial.

But are my seeds too different, too haphazard? 

Where is my focus?  My direction?  My niche?

These questions creep into my thoughts as I try to find a cool spot on the pillow at night.  They sting my eyes as I rinse shampoo out of my hair. 

I love watching my little seeds grow into posts, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible to plant heartstring-tugging toddler posts next to irreverent running posts across the garden from serial fiction and possibly even venturing into the cultivation of a vlog or two. 

I’m not a gardener.  I don’t know if it’s reasonable to plant strawberries and cucumbers and tulips and peonies and hydrangea in one garden without it turning into a giant mess of weeds.

So Summer Blog Social readers, are any of you expert gardeners?  Can you help me understand how to define and refine my blogging niche without sacrificing my little seedlings tucked away in my notebook, waiting to feel the sun?

he's confused, too

A Fact, Two Goals, & Some Beads

Little known fact about me...I was a philosophy major my freshman year of college.  I thought that I could ponder life’s meaning, write magnificent papers, and eventually become a judge or possibly be on an ethics committee. 

Mediating snack sharing and taking turns with my kids may be just as complicated as any ethics issues I was considering when studying St. Augustine and free will, but it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind as an idealistic eighteen year old.

Enter another Summer Blog Social session!  Liz and Jessica suggested that we spend some time thinking philosophically about our blogs.  I may not be the best person to give blogging advice, but I am certain that my two semesters of philosophy classes absolutely qualify me to write on this prompt: What are your overriding goals for your blog and social media presence? How have those goals evolved over time?

When I began blogging, my goal was to create a virtual baby book and a place where my friends and family could have a glimpse into our life without me e-mailing pictures and stories about our lovely daughter, ad nauseam. 

Over time, our family has changed; I have changed; my goals for my blog have changed.  Only recently have I found the confidence to admit, even in my own head, that I have developed two distinct goals for Tiaras and Trucks. 

Personally, I want to capture the humor and beauty that weave together with the ordinary moments in our lives to create something extraordinary.  I hope that Abbey and Dylan will be able to look back one day and feel the emotions involved in building their childhood, feel how utterly invested I am in being their mom. 

One day, even later, I hope that they will look back and discover the facets of me that aren’t about motherhood; I hope they can appreciate my writing and running and rambling and know that my most important role may be “mother” but I have other roles as well.

Professionally (ok, I just hyperventilated a little that I dared use that word in relation to my blog,) I would like to use Tiaras and Trucks as a medium to explore writing opportunities. 

Yesterday, I confessed that blogging has awakened my passion for writing, and the lack of sleep over the last three years has led to delusions that I may be able to convince someone other than, well, me to publish my work.  My blog is helping me discover my voice, and I hope that I can convince someone, somewhere to take a chance on that voice for some freelance writing jobs.

Be gentle on me; this was a tough post for me to publish!  Putting my hopes about freelance work into words feels a little like telling your birthday wish when you blow out your candles.  But this week, this blog social, is about growing and learning, and that involves a little risk, right?

her goals are simpler

wear as many beads as possible at one time