son of a...that's gonna leave a mark.

I currently have three Works-in-Progress, all three going pretty well...

Why can't I title ANY of them? Will it just come to me? Should I know already? How do you title your projects?

It's really frustrating that I can't find anything to call them...they are like my little orphan children...and probably tired of me calling them "hey you", or "the other one".

I know I can call it something and change it later...blah blah...but I really can't think of *anything* that is worthy of a title...it's like some weird mental block I have.

Grrrrrr.

1. I didn't really forget, believe it or not. I don't know what my problem is. I haven't been motivated to write much at all lately. Maybe I am running out of things to say. Ha! On the contrary- I did work on Book Jr this week, and have come to the conclusion that the story is on a fast train to nowhere. Maybe an outline would not have been such a bad idea after all.

2. I am sick. Perfect timing, since we're supposed to be having a LG-free weekend. We were going somewhere, then we were going to stay here, now I have no idea what we're doing. According to my sinuses I will be in bed all weekend. Sigh.

3. Have I mentioned how much I love a good bargain? I went shopping the other day and I scored FOUR pairs of jeans, four shirts and a pair of boots for 80 bucks. I also recently acquired this shirt, but not included in the 80 bucks shopping spree. Even though the shimmery hunter green is reminiscent of a early 90's bridesmaid's dress and originally frightened me, I tried it on and liked it.  I got tons of other tops at NY&Co but since they were mostly all on clearance no pictures are available.



4. My child has taken to calling me "Paula", rather than "Mommy". He also repeated a very loud "SHIT!" after he heard my friend (who he adores) say it. He hasn't said it since...but he does say "poopie" a lot, and he thinks it's very funny to interject "poopie" into every conversation and song he's involved in. "Old Mac Donald had a Poopie. E I E I O." "Twinkle Twinkle Poopie Poo" etc.

5. Speaking of my child...thank GOD his school took portraits this week because I would immediately have him taken away from me if anyone knew when the last time I had his pictures made was. I suck.

I don't have anything particularly exciting to write about, so I'm just going to ramble on about a few random things in the hopes I will be interesting. (plus I am getting out of the writing habit and that is not good)

1. My head hurts.

2. My dog 

is becoming a gigantic pain in my rear lately. He used to be SUCH a good dog and now the older he gets he's turning into such a beast. I thought dogs were supposed to improve with old age? I used to be able to leave a Thanksgiving turkey on my coffee table and he would starve to death before he would touch it. Now he's acting like he's a stray, constantly digging in the trash and stealing food every chance he gets. And he weighs over 100 pounds so it's not like he's starving. Just now LG went to go outside and he plowed him down trying to beat him out the door. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out....he does this CONSTANTLY and barks his stupid head off when he's inside and wants out, or outside and wants in, approximately every 4 seconds. Arrrrrrrrrrrghhhh. See #1.

3. I have turned into someone I never thought I would be. At the end of September I'm going to a Scrapbooking Weekend at a hotel with my sister and her friends out of town. Now I can't make fun of her for doing such things if I am going to be doing them with her. I will not, I repeat WILL NOT EVER wear any kind of holiday sweater. This is not the first step of me becoming a Soccer Mom. I am still me. Funny, silly, quirky, independent, artistic, sarcastic ME. I  am looking at it this way.
   
    a. It will be nice to get away for the weekend
    b. It will be nice to spend some time with her
    c. I have a gazillion years of scrapbooks to get caught up on seeing as I haven't done one in uhmmmm at least 8   years
    d. Perhaps now my child won't hate me when he grows up and sees documentation that I loved him
    e. I will have lots to blog about

and

If they wear these or anything like these, I will leave immediately.



4. I wrote a little this weekend...my first draft is up to about 20,000 words. All I want to do is start on a new book, I am sick of this one. But I am not going to quit. Oh- and to anyone who is following (doubtful) my third/first person quandary, I am exclusively writing it in first now...which means I have about 70 pages to go back and completely re-write. Awesome.

5. I am going to make chicken and broccoli stir-fry for dinner and I am looking forward to it, seeing as I have eaten nothing but crap for the past couple of days.

6. I can't end on an odd number. Uhmm...Let's see. Oh. My hair is red again.

1. I went to the dentist today. It hurt. As if that wasn't bad enough, even though I brushed and flossed right before I went, I was horrified when she scraped out a big piece of green bean that was stuck between my teeth from lunch. Nice. My gums are sore. A filling I had replaced in May might now require a crown. Why is it, the one time in my life I've ever had a filling, it has to cause such problems? Anyway- my dentist wasn't in today, so this very nice, old retired dentist was filling in for his practice. He was chatty. He asked me lots of questions including...

Old dentist: "So what do you do?"
Me: "Um well I'm a mom. I have a 3 year-old. And well, I'm kind of a writer."
Old dentist: "Really!? How exciting. What do you write?"
Me: "Um...well...I did write a newspaper column...but now the paper will be a magazine."
Old dentist: (blank stare) "Oh neat. What else?"
Me: "Um...well...I'm working on some fiction."
Old dentist: "Oh that's wonderful. I'm a writer too. I write educational pieces. What do you write about?"
Me: (Blank stare as I internally ask myself how do I tell an old dentist that I write about love and sex and hot shoes) "Oh..well, I just write for entertainment."

Old dentist was not impressed as he quickly changed the subject to my gums.

2. As I sit here and type this, Hub is annoying the crap out of me.
Me: typing fast, as usual.
Hub: "type type type letter letter letter backspace backspace enter space letter letter letter type type type backspace backspace backspace letter letter letter letter space space type type."  (giggle)
Me: Shut the f*ck up!

3. I had an idea for a new book today. This makes three. I typed out a summary real quick so I wouldn't be tempted to start it. I REFUSE to start it before Book Jr. is finished. Speaking of Book Jr, to those of you on my friends list who read my excerpt, I really appreciate it, and thank you for the nice comments I got from a few of you. Of course, I am convinced that the other 95% of you thought it was crap and I briefly considered quitting writing for all time. Thankfully gallo_nero talked me off the ledge. For now.

4. I think I am going to submit some stuff to Parents. (mag) ... Wish me luck.

5. Is anyone reading my stuff on mommyspice.com? I guess I'll find out early next week if they are going to hire me for realsies. I'm still on my trial. The only people commenting there are probably my mom's friends, who I am guessing she e-mails daily to tell them to read her daughter's brilliance. Moms are the best.

6. I seem to be particularly needy for reassurance today. Please ignore me.

Sometimes, as a writer, you wonder if what you're writing is well...crap. I think my exact words to my friend were "I'd hate to be spending so much time on this if I were working on something that sucked big hairy balls."

I have a total of 4 people who have seen what I have written, at least in part, and here's my first review from someone who has read ALL that I have done, which I would guess is less than half of the book.

And yes, I am bragging, so deal with it. No, I'm not bragging. I'm convincing myself that what I am doing is worth what I am putting into it. Right?


Here's what she had to say:

WHERE can I buy this book?????  It’s freaking awesome!  Seriously, I just read it all over again, and I LOVE it!  I’m so excited to read more!  Marlo rocks.  This is good stuff.  You know you have to tell me- is Libby going to be preg, too?  I need to know.  No, really…I want to read it, so don’t leak anything.  I hope Paul saves the day and kicks Travis’s butt, that’s all I’m sayin’.  Nice job!!!  Send more asap!

Here is what I had to say:

Squeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Tonight, I write.

Book Jr. has been talking to me all day. We have accomplished quite a bit. The thing about writing books though? That feeling of accomplishment lasts for approximately half a second and then you realize you still have 20,000 more words to write. 

Sigh.

1. Over the past few days I have realized that my first (several) pages of my book are really, really weak. In a way that is encouraging because I know it will only get better, but on the other hand I have no idea what to do with it. I really like the rest of it (it's not done, of course), I feel like it's exciting and attention-grabbing, but the beginning? Not so much. What to do. What to do. What to do. I don't know.

2. It's Tuesday, so LG is home all day. We've actually been very productive and a lot of cleaning was done today. Not enough. Ever.

3. Hub and I are trying to think of somewhere fun to go for our anniversary in November. We've thought about Lake Tahoe or Mexico OR keeping it totally simple (and cheap) and just driving somewhere for a few days and saving up for a big trip next year for our TEN. I have been dying to go to Los Cabos but that's the tail end of Hurricane season and a bit too risky for me. What to do. What to do. What to do. I don't know.

4. When I went to work yesterday, I found this in my laptop bag:





I was relieved, because when I get to work I am always, ALWAYS, misplacing my Spiderman goggles, Legos, 2 Jenga blocks, Baby toy star and blue plastic cup. Seriously, LG, what would I do without you always looking out for me? 

I'm stumped. This novel that I'm working on, which actually was the second one I started but the one I work on the most, is really getting on my damn nerves.

The problem? It came to me as being told in third person. The first two chapters were great in third person. Then all of a sudden it's coming to me in first person, from the POV of the main character, of course.

So I've been forcing myself to write it in third because that's how it started and now the story teller is coming across as way too sassy and not as matter-of-fact as in the beginning.

I don't know which way to go.

This is hard.

I was sitting here feeling sorry for my neglected books and inspired by something I read today I started wondering what they would say to me, you know, if they weren't unwritten books and could actually speak.

Book: What happened? I thought we had something really special. How could you just walk away like that? 
Me: I don't know what to tell you. It's not you, it's me. It's something about Susannah that just isn't working for me. First of all, her name isn't even Susannah anymore. 
Book: Huh? How could you not tell me that? Don't my feelings mean anything to you? What am I, just here for your amusement? Susannah is my core, don't you think I should know if we're calling her something different now?
Me: You know, you're right. I am a horrible person. 
Book: Don't say that. You're just needing some inspiration. What are we calling her now by the way?
Me: Charlotte.
Book: I don't get it.
Me: Really? I think it's a better fit. "Susannah" was too prissy. "Charlotte" suits her better, and besides Keller was going to have to call her "Suzy" and now he's calling her "Charlie" and I think that just works a lot better. Don't you?
Book: If you say so.
Me: No really, I want your opinion. I need some advice.
Book: I think you need to see a psychiatrist. 
Me: Why? Are you thinking that is what she should do for a living. You know I've been struggling with her career.
Book: Yes, that's exactly why. It has nothing to do with having conversations with fictional stories.
Me: No, that's not right. She needs to be in an office setting. 
Book: I think you need serious mental intervention. 
Me: You're not making any sense. I already told you C isn't in the medical field. The Post-it reference would be lost.
Book: I'm going to Hawaii. Talk to Book Junior.

----------

Me:  Hey Junior. How's it going?
Book Jr:  You tell me toots. 
Me:  Well, I've been thinking about Libby and Tack a lot. 
Book Jr:  And?
Me:  And what?
Book Jr:  What did you come up with?
Me:  Did you know that Book went to Hawaii?
Book Jr:  Really? 
Me:  Really. Lucky bastard.
Book Jr:  I think maybe you're having a hard time focusing. 
Me:  Focusing on what?
Book Jr:  A story. Look, I'm going to be straight with you. It's either me or Book. You can't play with us both. We have feelings. We have lives of our own to lead. We need you to commit to one of us. This back and forth game is doing nothing but confusing all of us. 
Me:  But how do I choose?
Book Jr: You could draw straws.
Me:  I think maybe I should put a little more thought into it than that.
Book Jr: Which one is closer to your heart?
Me: You both are. I just can't choose right now.
Book Jr:  I am going to choose for you. Listen, as much as I want to be written I have to respect that Book had you first. I just came out of nowhere and intruded in your life like I had a right to be there.
Me: But Junior, you do. I need you. 
Book Jr:  Just let me finish, please?  I will always be here waiting. I'm not going anywhere. Go be with Book. It won't last forever. When your time with Book is complete it will be time for me. Live your life. I promise I will wait for you.