I have a cold, and I had a cold last week and got over it, and now I have another one again. I am sitting here next to Forrest while he watches a rather mournful movie with Christian Bale (from the most recent Batman--which was the only movie in recent memory where I've fallen asleep in the theater) and another guy who's usually really funny (don't know his name) and they have escaped from some horrible tropical prison and some helicopters just flew by and didn't pick them up. I hate it when that happens in movies.
Speaking of Batman, whenever I see commercials for the newest Batman and see Heath Ledger in all that Joker makeup, it makes me kind of sick to my stomach. Poor Heath Ledger.
Ah! The helicopters are back. Maybe they'll stop this time. There's a bonfire now so they'd better. Oh no! The helicopters are shooting at them! Bummer.
So I had some drama this week trying to resolve some problems with the picture quality on my book's cover, but it looks as if that's all been figured out. I also have to get all those dang Student Treasures books shipped out on Saturday, and we're having a big party on Saturday, too, where we're inviting a bunch of couples from the neighborhood. We're playing SingStar, and I think probably Taboo . . . any other suggestions for good party games?
The kids are off track and are having a great time of it. We went to the Dinosaur Museum, and the cool SL Library. We've had some wicked snowstorms, too, and some good sledding. Tuesdays I'm pretty useless right now, though, because I have two classes (8:30 and 1:00), so today the kids bopped around in their pajamas for quite a while. Wyatt's walking probably 60% of the time now, and is getting pretty confident in his ability to get wherever he wants to go. Plus he can open all our dumb doors (it's those dang lever handles!!!) so he gets into the cat food and the toilet and goes upstairs and turns on the water in the bathtub and all sorts of fun things.
Okay, now Christian bale is eating a live snake. Eww.
I know I should go to bed, but I love having a little quiet time where I can sit next to my honey and type on my laptop and glance at crazy war movies. Hey! Now the helicopter is coming to get him for real! What a relief.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Totally Awesome!
Forrest and I went to an 80s party this weekend with some friends of mine from Segullah. We were supposed to bring 80s pictures of ourselves, and then post them on the Segullah staff message board . . . but I can't figure out how to post a photo. So I'm putting it up here for you guys to enjoy too. Now THAT'S some hair!!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Playing Catch-Up
So I suppose it's okay to blog on Sunday? Is it a variant of journal writing? I'm hoping so, because this is the first chance I've had to sit down and get anything posted in a while.
It's been a fun week. The two big highlights have been, first and foremost, Wyatt Dean Hallstrom's First Birthday Party!!! His actual birthday is tomorrow, but we celebrated with our family yesterday. Here's some pics of his fun with chocolate cake:
mmm, kinda tasty!
I mean, mmm, REALLY tasty!
That was amazing! Getting messy, eating cake, now I get to take a bath in front of all these people--awesome!
See how well I clean up?
It was pretty funny watching him dig into the cake. He also loved opening his presents. For a kid who's only one, he really loves his toys. He wasn't sure about ripping open the wrapping paper, so Mom had to help him out:
He's also done something that none of my other kids have done: starting walking right on his first birthday. Ethan and Elise were both kind of late walkers, and Jonas was a crazy early walker (9 mos!). But here he is, showing off his stuff:
The other exciting thing that's happened this week is the completion of Bound on Earth. We finally got through with the last minute edits and changes, and Parables finished the cover. The book was sent to the printer a couple of days ago, and I should have a "proof" copy in hand in a week or so. (Yee haw!!). Here's the cover, which I love (thanks to Tony, who did the beautiful cover art):
As time is growing nearer to the book actually being read by actual people, I find that I'm excited, but I'm scared, too. I hope people like it, of course, but I hope people understand it, too. You know how it feels when you prepare a lesson or a talk for church, and you get up there and say everything you've prepared and think it went okay, but then when you sit back down you start second guessing yourself and thinking, "Did I say everything I meant to say? Did everyone listening to me get the gist, or did I say one thing, and they heard another?" It's kind of that feeling. For example, the first few stories/chapters in the book are kind of sad. Actually, a number of stories in the book are kind of sad. But I also think that the book is ultimately redemptive and even uplifting, but as I was doing the final final read through, I kept thinking, "I hope ________ [fill in with family member / friend / person in my neighborhood ] doesn't think this means that I'm sad, or that I think life is sad . . ." because, I don't think life is sad. Not at all. But I do think life can be hard, and that one of the purposes of fiction is to highlight that conflict (and after all, as all my writing books tell me, "only conflict is interesting") and watch, vicariously, as other people work through it. Fictional people, of course. Although my Palmers don't really seem fictional to me anymore, after all this time we've spent together.
I'm certain that people will misread the book. As a matter of fact, there was a man who read it when I'd placed it with another publisher for consideration who liked a lot of things about it . . . but his comments were that he thought the book ganged up on the men. Such a thought had never entered my mind! In fact, my character Nathan is my favorite character, and the most inherently good character, of the whole book. But that was this guy's reading. Also, the Utah Arts Council judge who read it and liked it (one of his blurbs is on the cover) thought that I was too nice to the church. I'm certain that there will be some people who will read it and think that I should have been nicer to the church. And there's a whole blog post here about how I had absolutely NO AGENDA when it came to the church, and just wanted to write a book with Mormons in it where the church was just THERE, like race or culture or gender or anything else that is just a part of the fabric of who we are. Too often, when people write about Mormonism, the authors either want to use the book as a tool to convert, or they want to use the book as a way to expose all their gripes. I didn't want to do either, primarily because I think both approaches almost always ruin your chance at telling a good story.
Anyway! It should be really interesting when it comes out, hearing what people think, seeing, through their eyes, what I wrote without knowing it :-).
And Happy Birthday, Wy-Man! Love you!
It's been a fun week. The two big highlights have been, first and foremost, Wyatt Dean Hallstrom's First Birthday Party!!! His actual birthday is tomorrow, but we celebrated with our family yesterday. Here's some pics of his fun with chocolate cake:
mmm, kinda tasty!
I mean, mmm, REALLY tasty!
That was amazing! Getting messy, eating cake, now I get to take a bath in front of all these people--awesome!
See how well I clean up?
It was pretty funny watching him dig into the cake. He also loved opening his presents. For a kid who's only one, he really loves his toys. He wasn't sure about ripping open the wrapping paper, so Mom had to help him out:
He's also done something that none of my other kids have done: starting walking right on his first birthday. Ethan and Elise were both kind of late walkers, and Jonas was a crazy early walker (9 mos!). But here he is, showing off his stuff:
The other exciting thing that's happened this week is the completion of Bound on Earth. We finally got through with the last minute edits and changes, and Parables finished the cover. The book was sent to the printer a couple of days ago, and I should have a "proof" copy in hand in a week or so. (Yee haw!!). Here's the cover, which I love (thanks to Tony, who did the beautiful cover art):
As time is growing nearer to the book actually being read by actual people, I find that I'm excited, but I'm scared, too. I hope people like it, of course, but I hope people understand it, too. You know how it feels when you prepare a lesson or a talk for church, and you get up there and say everything you've prepared and think it went okay, but then when you sit back down you start second guessing yourself and thinking, "Did I say everything I meant to say? Did everyone listening to me get the gist, or did I say one thing, and they heard another?" It's kind of that feeling. For example, the first few stories/chapters in the book are kind of sad. Actually, a number of stories in the book are kind of sad. But I also think that the book is ultimately redemptive and even uplifting, but as I was doing the final final read through, I kept thinking, "I hope ________ [fill in with family member / friend / person in my neighborhood ] doesn't think this means that I'm sad, or that I think life is sad . . ." because, I don't think life is sad. Not at all. But I do think life can be hard, and that one of the purposes of fiction is to highlight that conflict (and after all, as all my writing books tell me, "only conflict is interesting") and watch, vicariously, as other people work through it. Fictional people, of course. Although my Palmers don't really seem fictional to me anymore, after all this time we've spent together.
I'm certain that people will misread the book. As a matter of fact, there was a man who read it when I'd placed it with another publisher for consideration who liked a lot of things about it . . . but his comments were that he thought the book ganged up on the men. Such a thought had never entered my mind! In fact, my character Nathan is my favorite character, and the most inherently good character, of the whole book. But that was this guy's reading. Also, the Utah Arts Council judge who read it and liked it (one of his blurbs is on the cover) thought that I was too nice to the church. I'm certain that there will be some people who will read it and think that I should have been nicer to the church. And there's a whole blog post here about how I had absolutely NO AGENDA when it came to the church, and just wanted to write a book with Mormons in it where the church was just THERE, like race or culture or gender or anything else that is just a part of the fabric of who we are. Too often, when people write about Mormonism, the authors either want to use the book as a tool to convert, or they want to use the book as a way to expose all their gripes. I didn't want to do either, primarily because I think both approaches almost always ruin your chance at telling a good story.
Anyway! It should be really interesting when it comes out, hearing what people think, seeing, through their eyes, what I wrote without knowing it :-).
And Happy Birthday, Wy-Man! Love you!
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Quickies!
Oh, I've been neglecting my blog. I just started up my new semester for school, and at the last minute they asked me to take another class. Long story short, there were some tech difficulties, so I've been spending some time getting everything up and running.
So what's up here? Hmmm . . . Wyatt's taking three or four steps. He's so close to walking, and could if he'd dare to venture out. He's also saying a few more words: ow, night night, and the other day he said "Hi!" to me when I walked in the door to rescue him from his crib. He's at such a fun age.
The kids are good--back in school after Christmas, but they only have two more weeks till they're off track again. It's getting harder and harder to get them out of bed in the morning. I can see my life five years from now, dragging them all by the arm at 6:00 a.m. (high school starts SO EARLY!!). Jonas is playing basketball, and Forrest is the coach of our little neighborhood team. They got KILLED last Saturday, but we're hoping that the team full of ringers that we faced is an anomaly. Elise got a new bedspread and used her Christmas money to buy some beads to hang up like curtains and they look darling. Very teenagerish. And Ethan checked out a book from the school library yesterday (the second book in the "Lightning Theif" series--but I can't remember what it's called) and read the whole thing in one day.
Oh, and did you all watch some of the returns last night from the New Hampshire primary? It was fascinating watching the pundits trying to explain why Hillary Clinton was still ahead despite all their prognosticating and polling until, lo and behold, she DOES win! Although I think the Dems would be insane not to nominate Obama. He has so much charisma, I think he'd be reaaaaalllly hard to beat. Did you listen to his acceptance speech after Iowa? Like a mixture of JFK and Martin Luther King. And I still watch Mitt with a little catch in my heart--like he's my kid or something and I don't want him to mess up on national TV--and part of me wants him to do well, but another part of me wishes he would just lose and get it over with. I really worry if he has to go up against Obama. I actually like Obama better than Mitt and I'm (obviously) predisposed to like Mitt, but man, he can seem so robotic. Loosen up, dude! I want to take his hair and shake it. He could still win, though. The Republicans are so up in the air, I wonder if any one of them is attractive enough to a broad base to even compete nationally.
Okay, so that's enough political speech. I have to go eat a PB&J sandwich . . . mmmm . . .
So what's up here? Hmmm . . . Wyatt's taking three or four steps. He's so close to walking, and could if he'd dare to venture out. He's also saying a few more words: ow, night night, and the other day he said "Hi!" to me when I walked in the door to rescue him from his crib. He's at such a fun age.
The kids are good--back in school after Christmas, but they only have two more weeks till they're off track again. It's getting harder and harder to get them out of bed in the morning. I can see my life five years from now, dragging them all by the arm at 6:00 a.m. (high school starts SO EARLY!!). Jonas is playing basketball, and Forrest is the coach of our little neighborhood team. They got KILLED last Saturday, but we're hoping that the team full of ringers that we faced is an anomaly. Elise got a new bedspread and used her Christmas money to buy some beads to hang up like curtains and they look darling. Very teenagerish. And Ethan checked out a book from the school library yesterday (the second book in the "Lightning Theif" series--but I can't remember what it's called) and read the whole thing in one day.
Oh, and did you all watch some of the returns last night from the New Hampshire primary? It was fascinating watching the pundits trying to explain why Hillary Clinton was still ahead despite all their prognosticating and polling until, lo and behold, she DOES win! Although I think the Dems would be insane not to nominate Obama. He has so much charisma, I think he'd be reaaaaalllly hard to beat. Did you listen to his acceptance speech after Iowa? Like a mixture of JFK and Martin Luther King. And I still watch Mitt with a little catch in my heart--like he's my kid or something and I don't want him to mess up on national TV--and part of me wants him to do well, but another part of me wishes he would just lose and get it over with. I really worry if he has to go up against Obama. I actually like Obama better than Mitt and I'm (obviously) predisposed to like Mitt, but man, he can seem so robotic. Loosen up, dude! I want to take his hair and shake it. He could still win, though. The Republicans are so up in the air, I wonder if any one of them is attractive enough to a broad base to even compete nationally.
Okay, so that's enough political speech. I have to go eat a PB&J sandwich . . . mmmm . . .
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