Julie Inada's Brain...

...has been taken over by the public educational system. We are confident that this takeover is a temporary situation and will be rectified once Teacher Inservice Week has concluded, and all of Julie's posters are up, her independent reading books sorted by category, her first-day-of-school copies are made, and her students have arrived and are diligently working away at something engaging and challenging, and Julie can sit back and think a thought or two unrelated to teaching.

Manuscript or Pickax? --Christy

This is the first week since the beginning of June that I’ve had full days at home alone; the first time in three months that I can actually write. So what do I do? I grab the pickax, of course.

A couple of years ago we bought a big, beautiful fir to be our outdoor Christmas tree. Because we purchased it in winter when the ground was too hard to dig, we left it in the planter it came in. Fast forward two years: the poor tree was still in the planter, strangling itself with its own roots. I kept meaning to get to it but it was off in an odd corner of the yard that I rarely visited and wouldn’t remember until late at night when you start worrying about the weirdest stuff, like having the death of a fir tree on your conscience.

My manuscript that sold is with the editor for comments, the one I finished in June is with my agent, and now I have to face page one of a new manuscript. So Monday I avoided it by cleaning the house for seven hours, Tuesday I avoided it by creating a website to manage six years of digital photos, and yesterday I avoided it by planting the tree.

First I grabbed the shovel but the going was slow—this baby needed a huge hole. That’s when I reached for the pickax. I’ve always been impressed with how lethal it looked and I must say, swinging that thing was immensely satisfying; sometimes you just need to exercise your inner gravedigger and just go at the earth with a pickax. Once I’d dug a whole big enough to bury one of the Seven Dwarfs, I wrestled the 200 pound mass of needles onto a dolly and wheeled it to its new home. It looks happy.

So I successfully avoided another day of opening a new document, titling it, and typing the first words. But today is wide open—like the calluses on my palms. Today I’ll do it.

Uh, right after I organize my desk.

Does anyone else find crazy ways to avoid the fear of staring a new manuscript?

Hanging on By a Speedo Strap--Marcia

Most parents I know are ready for summer to end. They've had a bear of a time keeping kids busy, fending off the "Mommy I'm bored!" syndrome.

I love summer.

And it's more than waning, we're down to the rind.

Two business meetings already this week. The kind where you have to look put together and brush on a little mascara. A call to make breakfast treats for the teachers, a plea to start PTO meetings. I don't want to.

I want to stay in my cotton shift, sipping coffee, my half-naked kids running around. I want to make cards for my friends, write a little bit, garden a little bit, cook a little bit, swim a little bit. I don't want to hurry. Anywhere.

It doesn't matter how hard I squinch my eyes, school days are around the corner. So I have responsibilities today that keep me from storytelling.

Last week the Princess made me a pair of red branch-coral earrings and left them at my door before we drove off on vacation, my dear friend Greta gave me a painting that made me cry, and Captain Morgan came to the back fence when we returned, strumming my old neglected guitar. He had cleaned it, polished it, put on new strings, and tuned it. What beautiful gifts.

The generosity of the human heart. Treasure given just because. There is no better kind.

Now, I'm off to bake zucchini bread for teachers. And then I swear, @#%*!, I'm going to the pool.

Reading = Peace -- Kerry

We're back in Ashland after a month of canoeing, campfiring and cavorting. Max's stitches came out yesterday and last Saturday we made it into the local Newberg paper for a noise complaint from the neighbor from our rental house. While the summer has been a rich waterlogged tapestry of sunburns and smiles, I am ready for some peace and quiet in the beautiful Rogue Valley.

My summer reading program, the forty-two year old version ranged inexplicably in various directions:
Esoteric: "Discovering Clairvoyance" by Sanaya Roman, who channels someone named Orin
Personal biography: "She Got Up off the Couch" by Haven Kimmel
Political: Obama's biography

I journeyed to the library with my children in tow the first day we came home this week. I pondered my course of action for my fall reading program with enthusiasm. Utne Reader was actually checked in and I found an autobiography of Steve Martin. Both good signs that point toward spontaneous moments of happiness stolen amidst the preparation of "The official return to school." Now for those few moments....

Feeding Reesie -- Jenie

Unfortunately, my life’s work is not writing.

Rather, my life’s work is getting food into the bottomless belly of my seven year-old son.

This isn’t easy. First of all, the skinny guy burns off calories so quickly, he actually gets hungry by eating.

Also, there’s his sensitivity to carbs. We try to follow the Feingold Diet, eliminating dyes, preservatives, partial-hydrogenation, and corn syrup. In other words, if it’s in a Dorito, Reesie can’t have it.

The next challenge is that Rees is a self-proclaimed vegetarian. And strict, too—he won’t eat anything “with feelings.”

See, trying to suppress an infinite appetite with tasty, Feingold-y, vegetarian, high-protein fare is tricky!

Plus, I have three other eaters to satisfy: a starch-seeker and two ravenous carnivores, who mostly have to settle with what I’m making for Rees.

The good thing is that the little cutie will snarf almost anything. He inhales Cuban black beans, Teriyaki tofu, and grilled cheese with tomato soup. His favorite is a sprout sandwich.

The bad thing is that I’m always in the kitchen, baking bread and stirring lentils, while ideas for revising my manuscript evaporate with the steam.

Writing is definitely on the back burner.

There will be a time, though, when the house is empty of hungry young people, when Fritos and Oreos crowd the cabinets, when time for writing and revising is abundant.

I hope there will still be something to write about.

Reading = Peace -- Kerry

We're back in Ashland after a month of canoeing, campfiring and cavorting. Max's stitches came out yesterday and last Saturday we made it into the local Newberg paper for a noise complaint from the neighbor from our rental house. While the summer has been a rich waterlogged tapestry of sunburns and smiles, I am ready for some peace and quiet in the beautiful Rogue Valley.

My summer reading program, the forty-two year old version ranged inexplicably in various directions.
Estoteric: Discovering Clairvoyance
Personal biography: Haven Kimmel
Political: Obama

I journeyed to the library with my children in tow the first day we came home this week. I pondered my course of action for my fall reading program with enthusiasm.

Utne Reader was actually checked in and I found an autobiography of Steve Martin. Both good signs that point toward spontaneous moments of happiness stolen amidst the preparation of
"The official return to school."

Savoring Summer--Kerry

Blogging comes late in the evening for me today. I fit it in somewhere before the Olympics and after reading to the kids before bed. And now, like Pooh Bear in this evening's bedtime story, I sit down to have a good think.

I debate my blog topic. There's so much to choose from. Michael Phelps has renewed my interest in swimming and eating. I decide that this is exciting only to me. Max tore one of his ten stitches at sword camp. No one wants to hear the gory details. I have spent three weeks on the road and slept in approximately six different beds. Happily, the one I slept the best in is the one I am in now, two days after my return from various points throughout Oregon. None of these subjects is really worth a whole blog.

But the thought that summer is really only officially here for two more weeks until the start of school beckons me. The thought that I'd like to swim in one more mountain lake and savor one more dinner on the deck. My father turned eighty and my first child is entering the last year of her grade school career.

I want to hold on to the hands of time. (humanizing nouns).

The smoky haze in the valley dissipates like the cobwebs in my brain. (metaphor or simile).

Summer sun sweetly fades, crisp fall days await. (conclusion).

Almost All Things India -- Jennie

I love India.

I’ve never been, but pray feverishly to Buddha for the chance to go someday.

My second-hand obsession stems from Bollywood movies, yoga books, ayurvedic medicine, and stories from a Mumbaian co-worker.

Today, I had planned on blogging about the proliferation of India— how the world’s largest democracy is everywhere these days.

It started with Newsweek’s excerpt of Farid Zakaria’s book The Post-American World, which argues that America has lost its superpower status to India and China. “Relax,” Zakaria seems to tell his readers. “Celebrate, even”; it’s not that the US is losing ground; it’s that other nations are gaining some.

Really? If there was one thing I learned from eighth grade, it was how great America was. Was. Because now, other countries are better?

Oh, the angst between loving India and giving up that American pride!

This sudden conflict was exemplified last week in the local grocery store, its shelves full of flatbread, curried lentils, spicy snack mix, and Punjabi sauce.

Even the Lego corporation has caught on. Okay, so Lego is actually Swiss, not American. But that doesn’t mean that its new 6,000 piece / $300 Taj Mahal isn’t plastered all over our catalogs—and the set isn’t available until September.

India’s hot.

But I’m not going to blog about it.

Because tragedy struck.

In an effort to improve something, anything, about my currently impaired condition (how long does one GD bladder/rectal recovery take???), I dyed my hair. Orange. Then I had to re-dye it. And it came out even orangier. I screamed, my husband laughed, and my ten-year old son asked if I needed to get my head extinguished.

So, I have a real problem.

At the moment, I’m not going to worry about balancing my fixation with the Land of the Tiger and my loyalty to America. There’s nothing like a huge hair crisis to put everything into perspective.

Il Fait Chaud - Julie

It’s hot. My car said it was 113 degrees when I got in it yesterday after Sam’s swim lesson. And yes, some numskull is going to post a comment about Southern Oregon’s DRY heat, so much more pleasant than that HUMID heat in the actual South, and that is why they’re numskulls. Hot is hot. Especially when you have a history of being a person who is unable to really function in heat. My mom tells stories of when I was little and as soon as the thermometer hit 85 degrees my face would turn beat red and I’d burst into tears if anyone spoke to me.

I was living in Cincinnati, Ohio during the hottest summer on record in the history of our particular galaxy (except maybe for that summer the meteor killed the dinosaurs, that may have been hotter). I spent many nights in our charming 1910 apartment sleeping so close to the fan that my breathing sounded like someone fwapping through the pages of a book with their thumb. From my weakened state, lying on top of the sheets at 3:30 a.m. gazing through the fan out the window, the cicadas were a buzzing menacing heat machine, lightening bugs seemed like overkill and actual lightening, when it came close (one one thousand, two one thousand CRACK!) presented itself as an opportunity to ditch this urban oven and take my chances in hell.

Ashland, Oregon summers are only better in that we are now above the poverty line and can afford to air condition both our house and our car. Heat is merely the experience of a hot blast of crap you must endure house to car and car to house. And I’ve realized, looking out our window into the silent dry heat, that the reason I am unable to function in heat is not just the physical discomfort, but the recognition that Mother Nature could grind me, anyone, into a fine white moist powder quite easily if She had a mind to. I have no defense. Take my air conditioner, put me outside with no shade and what? Oh, let me drink a lot of water! Keep hydrated! No. I’d die. People die from heat all the time. New Mexico. Arizona. They are dropping like flies. So it’s really my sense of powerless against the elements that renders me useless in the heat. Well, that and it’s really hot.

Hereinafter referred to as…

I now have in my possession a contract for two books with Flux, an edgy new imprint for teens. On this publishing agreement my name appears and is then followed by these words:

Hereinafter referred to as “Author”

Seeing those five words written after my name has been a dream of mine for decades. It was first a dream so big I put it in the better-to-never-try-than-fail category. Slowly, I circled around it and poked at it until it seemed less daunting. I took endless classes, read all the books, and then I started in earnest. Five years after I typed the first bits of this story I now have an amazing agent and a two-book deal with an editor I respect immensely.

I’m having trouble signing the contract. I ruffle through the glorious 18 pages and gaze at the Hereinafter sentence often, but I can’t get to the last page to sign it. I’m not sure, but I suspect it’s because writing my name on this contract—however small or large the books may turn out to be—will forever put me on the other side of this dream. And that’s a weird concept.

Denoument--Marcia

Summer.

I make cucumber raita with long bumpy cukes Dan has grown in the garden.

I pick huge bunches of basil and mound it on top of ratatouille I have chunked on top of a rustic pizza crust.

Fists full of blueberries go into a pot with a little sugar and water, to be made into a syrupy reduction and poured over fresh ones and served in chilled glasses.

Maia, brown-haired, brown-eyed, with high-top Converse she's decorated herself, comes to the door and is easily ushered in and blends into the play outside in the "Land."

"Land" is an ill-used flower bed, with nothing but pebbly dirt, crab grass, some Lamb's Ears creeping in, and a nice edging of broken concrete slabs that I use to make raised beds. It is perfect for a hippo pool made from a coconut shell, a river lined with pea gravel, a dinosaur cave made of twigs, and an ancient crumbling temple made from a decapitated laughing buddha statue. A couple of Barbara Bush pearls from a broken necklace sprinkled around, and voila! Hours of fun.

We go to the pool and greet all the clusters of friends and neighbors. The mothers I know laugh and make up a plan to incorporate ourselves so that we too can go out to "Business Dinners". We call our selves "The Mamas and the Tapas." You bring the people, we'll bring the fun.

We split for dinner and wind up back at the neighbors' sitting around a patio table flickering with candles, listening to our children as they play Kick The Can, first in the Chicken Lady's yard then in ours. Back and forth they go, laughing and playing, shouting, and trampolining until the sun sets vermillion behing the pine trees.

Captain Morgan's niece is the first to go to college, he has shipped her out from Indiana for a whirlwind tour. She is eighteen and luminous. The Chicken Lady has us all say where we were and what we were doing when we were 18. The stories are amazing.

We eat taffy from a bag they bought at the coast. James puts on a tie and button down to go with his Yu-gi-yo bathing suit and bare feet. He loves the Chicken Lady. Captain pulls out his guitar and Madame Deltour does a little Marilyn Monroe riff. The stars are falling. Great showers and scatters of stars. But we don't need to get up at 4:00 AM to see them. They are all around me, blueberries, and dinosaurs, cannonballs, candles, the faces of my friends.

Eightieth Birthday, Three Doctors Visits and One New Headlight Later --Kerry

Missing coffee talk with LWC's right now. The mostly calm moments in the SOU sanctuary punctuated by occasional laughter or sarcastic comments seem so serenely remote to me as I complete one of the most frantic weeks of my life since perhaps the week before my wedding. The brief highlights include:
-throwing a party for sixty on the grounds of Argyle winery's garden where most of the children thought it would be fun to eat in the dirt in their new clothes in the Laurel hedge and all the ice melted.
-taking Max to the doctor's office twice and the hospital once for a nasty virus, a punctured eyeball (accidently, by my fingernail), and a nasty gash in the knee from falling on a branch - which required ten stitches.
-replacing a broken headlight which promptly quit functioning later that evening followed by a blowout with a tire the next day, which had to be changed by a complete, albeit polite, stranger.
Writing? Contemplating?
Neither.
But looking forward to both.

Love, Love, Love -- Jennie

Two and a half weeks after surgery, I am now on page 85 of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight. I am reading as a literary-ologist, trying to answer the 1.3 million-copies-sold-the-first-day question: What makes it so good?

Not that I’m any published author (yet), but Meyer does everything we writers are forbidden. The first sin is that the book’s too long: 500 pages crippled with minute and distracting plot “details” that read more like a list of uneventful daily activities than a novel.

In addition, the only variation in sentence beginnings is between “I” and “When.” The sentences are also the same length; there is no rhythm or flow. Verbs are overused: “flashed,” “flickered,” “looked;” the book is plagued with adverbs; and—believe it—there’s tons of “I felt…”

“I felt!!!”

Here’s a passage from page 33, an example of some of the above:

“When I got home, I unloaded all the groceries, stuffing them in wherever I could find an open space. I hoped Charlie wouldn’t mind. I wrapped potatoes in foil and stuck them in the oven to bake, covered a steak in marinade and balanced it on top of a carton of eggs in the fridge.”

Is this a culinary diary, or a book about vampires?

I know. I’m snarky. Meyer is probably sending her bodyguards after me right now.

But, Stephanie, wait.

First, I’m claiming the Vicodin-exclusionary clause. Next, let me say congratulations. You somehow (marketing?) tapped into a commercial, crossover market, and totally deserve your ga-zillions.

And I know how you did it.

With love.

Julie’s newest blog chronicles her obsession with The X Files not because of its quirky sci-fi plot, but because of the compelling love story between Scully and Mulder. The love story!

Love is big! It’s huge! Even my sixteen year-old brother, who read my YA manuscript, claimed that his favorite part was not the sports, or the boy’s conflict, or the guy stuff, but the love story!

Ah hah!

The secret to YA book success is revealed. And, my friends, I am sharing it with you. It’s love: pure and simple, forbidden or unrequited, lost or found. Love.

Now about the vampires standing in my doorway…

Gypped by Fiction: Ode to Mulder and Scully - Julie

I guess I’ve come about as close to a heroin addiction as I will ever come. I’m rewatching all nine seasons of the X-Files. I am abandoning all obligations I have as a wife, mother, writer, daughter, friend and teacher to sit on my green couch in the dark (natural or curtain-created) and watch all 216 episodes. That’s 9,504 minutes of quality television for you math folks.

As mentioned before, I was a big fan of the show in the 90’s and only stopped watching because in 2000 the show suddenly had my demanding infant son for competition, plus David Duchovny left and really, for me, the whole appeal was the relationship between Mulder and Scully, not Scully and the guy from Terminator 2 and Annabeth Gish from Mystic Pizza.

For my birthday this year I asked for a boxed set of the entire show. What I got was a grainy pirated set with “X-Files – Season 1-9” written in my brother-in-law’s handwriting on the paper CD sleeves. Apparently quality recording doesn’t matter to me.

This show is beautifully conceived, written, filmed, acted – I do have standards. But people often assume that I have an alien fixation or a penchant for the paranormal, when really, I’m just a big fan of love. The love between these two characters takes nine years to build, and develops slowly and sweetly, as they tromp through old growth forests, search the sewers of New Jersey, save each others' lives numerable times, pursue bad guys, aliens, clones, nut cases. Their affection for each other is always restrained. We get brief glimpses: in Season 2 they hold hands for a second after a particularly emotional case, in Season 3 Scully cries on his chest after being held captive by an extra-disturbed serial killer, in Season 4 Mulder’s head falls to the steering wheel for a moment before he has to identify what he thinks is Scully’s body (it’s not!).

Last night, I found myself weeping at the closing scene of an episode where Mulder and Scully dance together to a Cher impersonator who sings “Walking in Memphis” for a deformed teenager who is obsessed with the movie Mask. You had to be there. Anyway, I had this feeling of being gypped, which I know is not a politically sensitive expression, my apologies to the Gypsy community, but something huge welled up inside of me, and I had all these very real emotions coursing through my body, altering my body chemistry for a moment, when it dawned on me: THIS IS ALL PRETEND. This is not my life – these are not my friends – this love is not real. It’s just script, actors, set, being beamed to me through some sort of technology which I will never understand. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson probably don’t even like each other much. Gypped, I tell you.

In my lifetime I could conceivably come to understand the technology of television; I will never understand the mechanism of fiction. I had been tricked into welling, coursing emotion by some form of magic. And now what? I know I have real love right here: Husband, Son, Friends, the whole deal. That’s real. However, I have 106 episodes left, so that will have to wait.

A Photo Essay by the World's Worst Photographer and Even Worse Essayist -Christy

The SCBWI national conference in LA was quite a spectacle. When you cram 900 writers and illustrators for children into one hotel, hi jinx will ensue.

I met some really great people, reconnected with some others I'd met earlier, and had a chance to catch up with my agent at a lovely little cocktail party she threw for her clients. Had many awkward moments in my Editor one-on-one meeting, as my manuscript was critiqued by my all-time dream Editor, Julie Strauss-Gabel of Dutton. She is smart and acerbic and gets right o the meat of the matter. Love her, and had to keep myself from stalking her.

And now, for the photos.

It began and ended as any gathering of children’s book writers and illustrators should – with a frosty Gin and Tonic. Here Davis Wakefield sips his from one of the 100 cups he “borrowed” from the lobby Starbucks late the first night.

Below is a photo of my "new favorite” Graeme Stone, who came to children’s books by way of modeling. You can tell by his circa 1990s pose that he’s watched a bit too much Elsa Klensch. Graeme knows more about Serbian culture than anyone I’ve ever met. I envy his name, which will make any book jacket seem a little more highbrow.

And then there were the Mermaids. One was working:

Two were working it:

The Disco Mermaids are the most fun people in children’s publishing and are so generous with their time and vast knowledge. Smart and beautiful – you want to hate them but just can’t.

Then there were Katie and Sarah Frances, the Y’all contingent from Mississippi. Gorgeous and elegant and very, very funny. Fabulous accents that make you hang on their every word, wondering what they’ll say next. When I die I want to come back as a southern woman.

I loved hanging out with Lee Wind. Smart, funny and damn attractive. Wears jeans made of Chosen Cotton. Lee was so articulate and passionate about gay teen lit that he’s been asked to moderate a panel at the NYC SCBWI conference with some very heavy hitters from publishing. Congrats to you Lee! Well deserved.

Another woman in the “I want to hate you for your quick success but can’t because you’re too damn funny” category is Suzanne Young. Sorry Suzanne, had a steal a photo from your website because my only pic of you sucked and you deserve better than that. Oregon is kind of a wild west state anyway, so that’s how we roll: See it, take it.

And last but not least there was Jennifer Grey "No one puts Baby in a corner" Olsen. An AMAZING illustrator and all-around hilarious woman. We connected on a soul level about reality-TV.

All in all a great conference. Thanks everyone!

Oh, yeah, there were also some good speakers. They get enough publicity on their own.

Midnight in the Garden of Medford-Marcia

Who needs to write fiction when life is so outrageously rich? Why, the last two weeks here in Medford have provided a veritable explosion of color.

Mr. Thom, Stylist to the Stars, (although there are no stars in Medford, unless you count Johnny Depp’s mother nestled in at the Manor) just suffered a tremendous loss. A few years back Mr. Thom “caused a stir” when he moved a bunch of old Victorians out to his property on South Stage Road and cobbled them all together into mansion cum salon cum B&B ad hoc infinitum. Word has it he was just about to start work on a wine bar and that’s why he took out the $4 million insurance policy.

There is so much good juice around this story, including the fact that he already had a house fire in 1999 and was about to be sued for $100,000 in unpaid contractor’s fees. Previously, he had been famous in Medford for marrying very rich and very old and wearing mink coats, long hair, and cowboy hats. Oh yeah, and there was his stint on Judge Judy for doing some bad hair extensions while intoxicated.

Some people thought it a might odd that Mr. Thom ran around his front lawn wailing over his deep-fried shoe collection (600 pair!) and sizzled celebrity autographs. But when your house burns down there’s no accounting for the first thing you think about. I was upset about a bunch of hangers I’d just purchased at the Dollar Store. I was finally trying to get organized.

This week Senator Atkinson who lives the next town over was fixing bicycles in his garage. His buddy, a councilman from Jacksonville, dropped his own bike off for a little tinkering. He forgot to tell the Senator that there was a loaded Derringer in the little pouch hanging off the bike seat. When the Senator plopped the pouch on the garage floor, the gun went off and blew a hole in his thigh. The Senator’s quick-thinking wife tied him off with a bike tube and called an ambulance.

Why does a 53 year old councilman cycle the bike paths of our burg with a loaded Derringer with no “safety”? How do you forget you have a snub-nosed gun loaded and dangling off the back of your bike? He was carrying concealed without a permit. Just like all of Janet Evanovich's Jersey characters. There will be no legal action because it happened on private property.

Hmmm. What really happened in that garage? Just the word Derringer is so Wild West. Does every town have its own version of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil?

I already know that Crazy Dan will be in one of my books, probably “Doc,” and maybe the Glove Woman, now passed. Crazy Dan has earned his moniker as a matter of distinction from all the other Dans. There is already Judge Dan, Dan T, Dan the bread man, Dan the Deli Man, Daniel-san, Big Dan and then Crazy Dan. Sometimes all the Dans will wind up together in a freak moment of convergence (Except Big Dan, because he’s gone too).

Crazy Dan walks from White City to Medford every day. All day. He knows and recognizes so many people it is uncanny. But then again, he has bummed nickels, cigarettes, lattes, pancakes, and pastrami sandwiches from an entire community. He is harmless but smells like the bottom of a Hawthorne Park garbage can and likes to flirt with attractive thirty-somethings. We all have favorite Crazy Dan stories. I’ll save them for later. They’re only good once.

Last weekend while camping at Lake of the Woods, I was introduced to my friend Greta’s niece Allie. Just like her aunt, she is edgy, straight talking, dead pan, smart, and analytical. She reads and likes to write. She is off to a Catholic college next year, and has a bit of reading to do before she goes. While washing the dishes one night, we talked about what kind of books she likes.

“I don’t really like books about people,” she said. “I like books about ideas.”

“Hmmm. What do you mean books about ideas? You mean like a book on the death penalty or saving the Ginseng Root?”

“Noooo. Like, well. . . I like books on Existentialism . . . like Victor Hugo’s, The Last Day of a Condemned Man and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”

“Mmmm.”

I remember this stage myself. I remember being so full of ideas I thought my brain would explode. Unfortunately, I can’t hold an idea in my head for more than three and a half minutes anymore and am far more interested in the Chicken Lady next door than man’s search for meaning in a meaningless world.

My writing is all about people. How they connect or don’t, how they provide answers or create more problems, how we relieve each other’s angst, and provide each other relief, recognition, a good laugh, and love. Are these ideas? I doubt it.

I am pleased to have found my subject. I am relieved to have discovered that my characters might also have a sense of place. I do like to create a scene and Medford, the longer I let it soak, can be pretty funny. I have my own little colorful garden to pick from, and it is right outside my window, down my block and around the corner . . .

Post Writer's Conference Glow -- Kerry

After a serious case of preconference jitters, which included running phrases through my head such as, "what if the agents laugh at me and my writing?" or worse yet, "what if the agents laugh at me and my writing behind my back?" I had a great time at the Willamette Writer's Conference.
As much fun as I've had doing anything educational since maybe my sophmore year in college when I spent an entire term watching the Yanamamo Indians of the Amazon in endless films for Anthropology 202. The professor always had a pot of coffee and some treat that involved sugar. This is a direct analogy to my experience at the conference: bottomless urns of Starbucks coffee, cookies at three o'clock, and entertaining speakers whose only requirement from me was to sit and watch them.
For three days, I absorbed seminars with abandon:
Grant writing, How to write a winning proposal, Writing through your dreams and revelations - the stuff of dreams for aspiring writers to immerse themselves in.
Then there was the frosting on the cake - we actually got to talk to real live agents about our book proposals, show them our writing, and talk entirely about ourselves for fifteen real minutes. Of course we had to pay $25 for each of these sessions, but still, as LWC friend Julie would say in relationship to paying for therapy: "What's not to like about talking solely about yourself to someone who's paid to listen?"
Turns out though the agents were paid to listen, a few even responded appreciatively and two even want more material from me.
So my biggest nightmare didn't come true, no laugh in my face rejections, at least not in front of me anyway...

Still Ramblin' -- Jennie

With prescription pain meds comes permission to ramble, right?

I thought I'd be so much better by now, but an infection set me back. So there's no deep, cohesive thought following Julie's intricate insight. There's only this:

Christy and Kerry, hope you're having a fabulous time - I mean, I hope you're learning a lot - at your conferences. You know, you're about 1,200 miles apart this very minute. But you're probably both enveloped by words and writers. Can't wait to hear about what you've brought back!

And this:

After two weeks, why am I only on page 13 of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight? Do I not like the book? Do I want to not like the book? Why does Meyer get to break all the rules of YA writing, and sell a ba-zillion copies?

And this:

Before 10 this morning, my kids and I had already discussed the value of the dollar around the world, and Canada's socialist medicine.

And lastly:

Being flat on my back for two weeks has forced me to be creative. I've played Uno, Rat-A-Tat Cat, and Star Wars Monopoly; I've visited with friends, talked on the phone, and sketched out some story thoughts; I've read the same issue of People Magazine cover-to-cover, twice, and still can't remember any of it; I've read to my kids. (I'll tell you what I discovered about Pinnochio in the next blog.)

Right now, it's time to get flat again.

Oh, to be upright...