One Week

I have one week.

One week to unpack our boxes.

One week to find a place for everything.

One week to haul in a tree, decorate it, hang up stockings, and buy a few more presents.

One week to stock our pantry with food.

In one week my parents and my brother will be here. I know they won't mind a bit of a mess, but I badly want us to have Christmas together, not just a visit that consists of wandering around a maze of boxes and dusty furniture. I want to have a lighted tree and a place to sit down and sip eggnog. I'd like to cook them meals in our own kitchen. Make sugar cookies. Hang a wreath from the front door.

It's a lot to ask. But if the designers on HGTV can do a room makeover in three days, surely I can get everything looking sort of nice in one week. Can't I?

I'm making progress. I did my first load of laundry in my new washing machine today, for instance: a load of sheets so that I can make the girls' beds. I've hung curtains (never mind that they're wrinkly).

Now if the weather will cooperate, I can go buy a couple of bookshelves for all the books I brought from China that are piled up in the living room. I couldn't leave my books behind. Today I planned a big bookshelf shopping trip, but we've had freezing rain here all day so I had to call it off. Instead, I spent an hour up at the house unpacking more boxes and making more piles. Piles of toys, piles of novels, piles of kitchen utensils, piles of shirts.

Eventually I'll be able to clean and set up the living room, but I have to wait for the kitchen to be done so we can get the dishwasher out of the middle of the living room floor. Everything depends on everything else.

But counter tops should arrive tomorrow, if the icy roads don't stop the installers from coming. And then we're just that much closer to being done. That illusive done-ness. It always seems to be several days out. Never now.

That's why I'll focus on progress: another shirt hung, another shelf cleared of odds and ends and wiped clean, another bit of furniture scooted into the right spot. We'll get there. Hopefully in one week.

Settle

Yesterday I started unpacking boxes at our new house: plastic storage boxes layered in dust and sturdy cardboard boxes with Chinese writing printed on the outside. They'd been in the garage for six months, freezing in the recent cold snap and layered in dust.

Inside were old friends and treasures.

I found my favorite cooking utensils I'd used in China: a cookie sheet, an ice cream scooper, my Pampered Chef garlic press, my bamboo spoon.

I said hello to them as I took them out. "Hello, old friends," ... here on the other side of the Pacific.

I unpacked our framed pictures: all of Olivia's Junior Kindergarten artwork I'd framed, all our Chinese prints.

I found a box of fragile things: the blue tea set NaiNai bought me in Thailand, the carved wooden cross Aaron and I bought at a bazaar last Christmas.

I almost cried as I set the Russian nesting doll from my mother on our bathroom shelf. It had its place in our bathroom in China and I had a hard time imagining it sitting anywhere else.

As I took out item after item, each holding a special spot in our old home, I didn't know at first where to put them. I felt overwhelmed. How would I ever make this new house mine? We've been living in limbo for so long, it seemed we'd never have a permanent place to set anything; these things should stay in boxes forever.

But now it's time. Take them out. Dust them off. Settle.

Let yourself.

FitG Update: The Graveyard Book

On the night when a mysterious man called Jack murders an entire family, there's one who escapes the edge of his knife. A baby boy toddles out of the house of death and finds refuge in a graveyard. He lives there for fifteen years, adopted by ghosts, with a guardian who is neither alive nor dead.

They give him the name Nobody Owens, "Bod" for short, and they give him the Freedom of the Graveyard, which means that he can pass through walls, see clearly in the dark, and interact with the graveyard's inhabitants. But Bod is still very much alive, and even though he loves his home, his adopted family, and his neighbors, he yearns to be among the living.

But he can't leave the graveyard. It's too dangerous. The man Jack is still looking for him, desperate to finish the job.

I loved this book. Endlessly creative, it was easy to lose myself in the plot. The unusual caste of characters from ages past -- Bod's ghostly neighbors -- were delightful. Bod is a perfectly likable character, bold and brave. You have to be to live in a graveyard with ghosts, I guess. To sleep snuggled in a grave. To face the ancient Sleer in a long forgotten tomb.

I would recommend this book to every adult I know. Unfortunately, I wouldn't recommend it for children, which is ironic since this is technically a children's book. My eight-year-old daughter, for instance, loves books at this reading level, but I know the plot would be too scary for her. The story opens with the man Jack murdering a family and stalking a missing toddler. That's enough to give any kid nightmares.

On the other hand, I love how The Graveyard Book takes some of childhood's classic fears -- ghosts, monsters, murderers, darkness -- and shows Bod overcoming them. Granted, Bod's not entirely a normal kid. He has special powers given to him by the inhabitants of the graveyard. He has learned from his 800-year-old tutor and from his guardian's friend werewolf skills that regular children would never know. This special knowledge helps him to face his enemies. He never runs away or backs down. I was impressed with his fearlessness in passages when my own heart was racing.

So, if you're over twelve-years-old, I recommend The Graveyard Book. I'll be looking out for more of Neil Gaiman. They can't all be this scary ... can they?

Snow

today it snows
finally
warming us
covering
the cold blankness
the ting of frozen cement
the crunch of ice-grass
softening
the blast of wind

falls lightly
feathery
patterning
the ground
the ugly brown bush
the fallen flower
concealing
all our faults
brightly

Creation

Your writing is your creation. Your characters' worlds are based on reality, but they're places and names and surroundings you've made up in your head. The words you choose to describe these places are all ones you've chosen specifically. They have your brand on them, your own unique flavor.

So, why is it that an agent can look at a person's work and say, "Cliche ... There's too much of that around already ... I've heard that story so many times before, I can tell you right now what the ending will be."

Weird, huh? We think we're slicing off a part of our unique soul when we write. Then it turns out a thousand other people have thought the same thought and have written it all down already. And we were so sure it was original.

That's why I'm so amazed when I look at my children. Even other people's children. People in general.

Because we're all so unique. Nobody looks at a newborn baby and calls him or her a cliche: "Looks too much like the parents. I've seen this one so many times before, I'm bored of it."

No. We marvel, because each creation is so individual, so remarkable, filled with so much potential.

I'm glad that even though my genes may have been involved in making my children, I really didn't have any choice in how they turned out. I'm glad my children's creations were out of my hands, so I could enjoy the originality of their design and the uniqueness of their temperaments without imposing my cliched, cookie-cutter ideas, my boxed-in thinking, my limited insight, on them.

And I keep writing. To find myself. To find my unique voice and the story that's all mine, inspired by the originality of reality.

Cowboy Church

Tonight I got to sing a couple of duets for the Cowboy Church.

I'm not kidding.

There is such a thing as Cowboy Church.

I didn't know it was Cowboy Church when I showed up, but many of the performers were there in boots and spurs and when they prayed the congregation removed their Stetson hats.

They talked about trusting in God, loving America, and believing in the right to bear arms. All in the same breath.

That's Cowboy Church.

And here we thought when we came back to America from China that we were coming back to a monoculture where we'd never experience anything interesting or unusual again. We thought life would be predictable. Boy-billy-ray-cyrus, were we wrong! Show up to sing a couple Christmas songs at a venue, and you've got Cowboy Church instead.

Yeehaw hallelujah!

(Wish I'd brought my picture-takin' machine just to prove it to you.)

WIP Wednesday: Typing Keeps Your Fingers Warm

Just a quick update on this sunny, frozen Wednesday.

For those of you who are newish to my blog, WIP stands for Work In Progress, and while I have a lot of works-in-progress that are not related to writing (my four children, for instance), this series of posts is specifically about my writing projects.

I'm busy querying agents with my young adult (YA) novel V-Day. That means I'm sending out letters and usually a sample chapter by email to find out if agents are interested in representing me and my book. It's pretty tough to sign with an agent, so this process can be emotionally turbulent. Lots of rejections. (This time around I've received just as many requests for partials as I have rejections, so that's encouraging.) When an agent asks for a partial, it means they're interested in the premise of the novel that you've presented in the query letter and they want to see more. Partials are exciting because it means someone's actually reading your stuff. And in many cases you get constructive feedback on your novel, even if the response to the partial is ultimately a rejection.

To keep myself from becoming obsessed with the query process, I'm also working on my new novel, another YA contemporary called Back. This one is slow-going so far, but I think that's because I'm being cautious with it. I don't want my plot to derail, so I'm being very careful to decide exactly what I want to focus on before I get too deeply into the story. Maybe I'm being too cautious with this one, though. Part of the fun of writing for me is not being exactly sure what the character is going to do when I start a new novel. I can have the plot all laid out, but there are always undercurrents of motivations and personality that pop out like color accents in a woven rug. You're not exactly sure how it's going to look until you've finished. You stand back and say, "I wasn't expecting that, but it's nice. I love it."

Other times you stand back and say, "Ugh. Okay, that didn't work. This is a mess." Yes, that happens too. That's when you break out the scalpel and start slicing into your story. I guess I'm trying to avoid as much of that blood and gore with this new novel as I can, which is why I'm progressing slowly. I'm thinking a lot. These characters are often on my mind.

Meanwhile, I'm critiquing/editing my writing pal Stina's new contemporary YA. It's always fun to give back a little to these writing friends who have given so much to me through the art of kind, but brutal, critique. My only problem is, I'm not sure if I'm as helpful to them as they have been to me. I'm giving it my best, though.

Now, off to be productive while my baby's napping.

Remember, if the cold weather is getting you down: typing keeps your fingers warm. Write a novel!

Clean your Room!

I'm not a gimmicky parent.

In other words, I don't have a bagful of tricks to get my kids to obey me. I rarely play games with them to get them to eat their food or pick up their toys. When it's time for us to leave somewhere they really want to be, I just say, "Let's go," and expect them to follow me. I don't usually try to distract them with something else when I say, "No, don't touch that."

I don't do it much, because I think there's a lot of value in learning to do something even when it's not wonderfully fun.

And it also means when the situation is desperate and I need to use a gimmick, I get magical results.

Last night was a perfect example.

"Go clean your room" doesn't usually work in our house.

"Go clean your room" ends inevitably in whining, punching, and every kid complaining that they're the only one doing any work. Last night I said, "Go clean your room," while I was trying to cook dinner. As I stood over the stove I heard the rumblings of discontent beginning in the bedroom. When I went back there, Anna was lying on the floor in the hallway close to tears, Gabe was wandering around staring at the mess and groaning, and Olivia was trying to boss everyone around.

So, I gave into the gimmick.

"Okay, kids, clean your room and when you're done I want to see The Reveal."

Now, for those of you who don't watch HGTV, you may not know what a Reveal is. My kids love watching HGTV. Olivia's favorite is Divine Design, but she'll watch basically anything on that channel. We love the part when, after the designer finishes the room makeover, he or she reveals it to the owner of the house. It's the climactic moment when you find out how much the owner likes the makeover. And you, as the viewer, get to see the completely finished room for the first time too.

Well, as soon as I said the word "Reveal," the kids perked up. After that, it was a race to get into the room to clean up.

As Anna ran, she called over her shoulder, "We'll make it look like a hotel!"

"Okay," I called after her, "I'm excited to see it."

When the job was done, NaiNai and I had to close our eyes and Olivia led us down the hallway to the bedroom. The Reveal was incredible: beds made, dress up clothes in the basket, trash picked up. I could actually walk through the bedroom again without tripping over something! Amazing.

So, three cheers for incredibly handy, discreetly-used gimmicks. May they all work as well as this one did.

Don't Feed the Dog

My sister-in-law has a miniature dachshund named Sadie.

She's cute.

She's sweet.

She's little.

She's also a little bit stupid, considering she failed obedience school.

And she drives my mother-in-law crazy because she goes to the bathroom on her new carpet.

Sadie doesn't like going out in the cold. Yesterday I put her outside to relieve herself and she stood at the door with her tail tucked between her legs, trembling and looking up at me with her limpid brown eyes.

She prefers being rolled up in a blanket on the sofa. But, then again, so do I.

Sadie, like any small dog with a big appetite, is a beggar. She sits ram-rod straight on her hind legs with her front legs tucked up like a rabbit's and waits for you to drop something. It's nice, though, because I don't usually have to sweep up after dinner. Doggy-vacuum.

Because of her begging habit, Sadie struggles with her weight. She's a small dog with a barrel stomach. The vet told my sister-in-law Sadie was two pounds overweight. When you only weigh twelve pounds, that's a lot. Practically dachshund version of morbidly obese. Because of this, we have received strict orders: DON'T FEED THE DOG!
So, Sadie looks on jealously.

But Sadie has a friend, a small compatriot who sometimes finds herself bored at mealtimes and entertains herself by dropping food over the side of her high chair tray. Sadie knows where to stand at dinnertime to get the best meal.

And when it comes to Oreo cookies, she and her best friend both know where to stand and beg.

The Season

'Tis the season to...

...Set the Costco-sized bottle of Eucerin in its place by the sink. Anything to assuage these cracked, burning knuckles. Slap on the lotion and squint when it stings. Remind yourself it has to hurt to feel better.

...Turn on the oven. Use any excuse to bake. That's why we get these saddle-bags on our thighs this time of year. Christmas cookies aren't the only reason. Neither are prime rib and creme brulee the only culprits. Nor the red-and-green candy. Because 70 degrees on the thermostat just doesn't feel warm anymore. If you have a packet of chocolate chips in the cupboard, you bake cookies. And you turn on the oven extra early and let it warm up. Then you hover next to it while the cookies are baking, hands extended. Watching. Wishing for fuzzy slippers.

...Curl into a ball like a fox at night. A chill hangs over the top layers of covers, like a ghost floating inches from your face. You can feel the cold in your toes because you don't have a tail to wrap around them. They stick out of your curled-up ball. That's why you can't let your children into bed with you this time of year, because they kick off the blankets and let you freeze.

...Unpack the gloves, even though you're just walking out to the car, because the steering wheel is still so cold, you barely want to touch it. Icicles gather on the windshield like tiny flowers, blinding you when you drive into the sunshine. Time to learn how to use the defrost button in the mini-van. Just one of those things you never had to know before, in your old life.

Details

Yesterday I went shopping.

At the door of the store sat a man ringing a bell.

Next to the man ringing the bell was a red bucket with a sign over it that read "Salvation Army."

Since this is my first Christmas in America in many years, I'd forgotten about those Salvation Army guys taking donations outside of stores during the Christmas season.

I hadn't actively thought about them in at least seven years.

And isn't it strange that when I imagined them all those years -- if I ever did imagine them -- I saw the Hollywood version: the Santa outfit, the active, hearty donation collector, standing at the curbside ringing the bell with gusto, shouting, "Merry Christmas!"?

But no. The volunteers I saw yesterday looked tired and cold. They sat hunched over in metal, fold-out chairs. They wore baseball caps.

The experience changed my mental image. If I ever write a book set at Christmastime and I write about the Salvation Army donation collector, I won't have a fat, jolly Santa Clause on a street corner ringing a bell. He'll be a small, tired, hunched-over man in a squeaky chair.

Experience altered the details.

And sure, they're details. Big deal, right? Somewhere in the United States there is a probably an over-achieving Salvation Army donations collector who stands out in front of Walmart in full regalia and collects more donations than anyone else. It could happen. Still, my mental image is different now. It's the details, these small experiences, that can change our writing -- take us from shiny, happy cliches to real life.

Another example: Last night I drove home from the paint store to see a police car across the street from our house, lights flashing almost blindingly in the darkness. Someone had been speeding and the policeman was issuing a ticket.

I pulled into the driveway and noticed how the police car lights flashed against the house, not in streaks of blue and red as I would have imagined, but in an undulating indigo light that threw the black shadow of the ornamental maple in a gorgeous pattern against the house.

I didn't know police lights looked that way against a house. I never would have guessed it.

Experience changed my mental image. Now I can describe that in a book. Just a little detail. At different times of day I'm sure the lights look different. Maybe the fog last night had something to do with the indigo wash of light. Saying a character looked at a flash of red and blue lights against a house wouldn't be wrong. But adding that bit of detail -- the indigo light -- adds richness and depth. And makes the whole scene more interesting.

I love noticing details. What does a tree really look like against a winter sky? What kinds of noises do birds really make? What does the heat of the stove really feel like against your face when you open the oven door?

Details like this help pull our writing out of cliche and into awesomeness (in my humble opinion).