I don't often find time to blog here about writing things. I figure there are so many writer-bloggers out there (ones who have more eloquent ways to say "blog about writing things", for example), I'm happy to not get lost in the mix. I just avoid the mix completely.

But I was sitting here, drinking a nice hot cup of tea and thinking about my day and I wanted to talk to someone about it. Since my children are ignoring me on Facetime and my cell phone reception is half a bar, you, lucky blog readers, get to listen-read to this ramble.

Today was one of those crazy writing days where a million things happen at once. One book is ready to send to editors, another was rejected (a couple of times). A decision was made for a revision, a plan was constructed for a proposal. There was a long drive through rain and Texas countryside, and then, after briefly veering off in the wrong direction, I checked in at a small B&B-type motel in order to be ready for a school visit tomorrow and a book festival appearance on Saturday.

It's been a day of ups and downs and all arounds. I had grand plans of ending it on a creative note - working on the new revision ideas, or brainstorming plot points for the proposal. Instead, I've found myself seduced by having a quiet hotel room all to myself. I'm watching Enchanted (on cable!) and eating Oreos (free from the lobby!), and drinking tea (also free from the lobby!), and while I have papers and notebooks spread out all around me, I can't quite get into the work because - and this is going to sound ridiculous - I'm so happy to have the work to do.

The thing is, I've been struggling all week to update my school presentation. I've been fretting over it. I've been feeling guilty and not on top of my game. I wanted to combine two previous presentations and then make some alterations more befitting a middle school audience. But I've been stuck. Everything I add to the presentation seems fun and interesting, but it doesn't take me all that long to talk about it. I've been trying to fill a few extra minutes of time at the end, and really struggling to do so.

Tonight, though, sitting here, rejections still simmering in my inbox, a new manuscript burning a hole in my documents folder, papers and notes spread out around me, a memory stick containing a presentation (which, itself, contains a quick how-to on creating not just zombie haiku, but fake blood to go with your zombie haiku), I'm having a kind of calming out-of-body experience.

This is my job.

These things... they are my job.

Writing words, talking to kids about writing words, fixing words, talking to kids about fixing words... this is it. This is my deal. It might not be fancy. And I might not be famous. I might not have a thousand books and a bajillion dollars, but I am just fantastically excited to be where I am today, both professionally and physically, in this hotel room, with these weird flowers on an armoire, and with this elephant lamp shining a warm light on framed pictures of fruit.

Maybe that's what I'll talk about tomorrow in those extra minutes I have to fill.

Fake blood and submission highs and lows are exciting, but realizing you've mostly answered a promise you made to yourself in the 3rd grade is pretty freaking awesome.

And even though it wasn't expressly part of that 3rd grade promise to myself, sitting in a room with an elephant lamp shining warm light on framed pictures of fruit is, frankly, kind of a kick ass thing. Not that I would turn down a suite in Manhattan, but you know, smalltown Texas is pretty damn fine, too.

It's a good night.

And now I better get to work.

and I'm reaching to my depths to remember a time when someone sitting in my chair at the kitchen table would have reduced me to indignant, angry tears.

I'm trying to not be angry with a five-year-old who is crying into her cheese and crackers because her little brother is sitting in the wrong chair. I'm also trying to not be angry with her for, first, covering the entire couch with cracker crumbs, before being asked to please take her snack to the table.

I'm trying to remember how unfair it feels when all you want is a snack, and everyone keeps telling you what to do.

I'm trying to remember those bubbling emotions when everything is so unfair, and everyone is so against me, and all I want is a couple of pieces of cheese and a funny cartoon on the TV.

Where is the lesson for this formerly quiet Sunday morning? Is the lesson for me? To be more empathetic with a child who has had a busy weekend and will be having a very busy week to come? Is it for her? To learn that listening often begets calm? That flexibility can earn you a more peaceful snack?

So many things I'm trying to remember about being five, but the one thing that stands out from those days is how that snack would stick in my throat as I tried to eat and not cry at the same time. How hard it was to swallow both my crackers and my pride while struggling to come to terms with whatever indescretion had befallen me.

I look at my sweet girl and think about how young she is to be accosted with feelings of how unfair life can be. Especially on a Sunday morning. And regardless of the fact that those feelings are spurned on by cheese and crackers and little brothers and kitchen chairs instead of bigger, worldlier things.

It's hard to be five. It's hard to have two brothers. And I hope if I tell her these things enough that, while it doesn't give her a pass for decimating a snack all over the couch, it does give her a sense that I'm on her side, after all. I'm on everyone's side. I'm on the side of "Where did the quiet Sunday go, and how do we get it back?" and "Life can be hard, but at least you still get to eat all that cheese."

What was it like when I was five? What was it like to be just realizing how big the world was around me? To be conscious of all the unfairness I would have to swallow just to get to eat my cheese?

I'm trying to remember. I think I can remember. I want to remember.

And in the meantime I also want a couch that is not covered with crumbs and a five-year-old who is not screaming on a quiet Sunday morning.

It's not too much to ask. Is it?

This past weekend I had the most amazing time at Austin's Comic Con. It's the first comic con I've ever been to, but I wanted to make sure I did it right, especially since I was there as an author trying to sell some books. Since my most recent book, Brains for Lunch (a zombie novel in haiku), is about zombies I figured, what the heck, I'll go all out and zombify myself.

The response was HUGE. I haven't posed for so many pictures since ever. I earned some street cred with teenage boys, I made little kids cry (sorry!), and I sold more books at one event than ever before.

So what's the trick to making yourself a dripping gorefest? I'm gonna tell you.

1) Hit up those Halloween superstores. I knew I wanted to go for some serious skin trauma so I bought a 15 ounce jug of liquid latex. I didn't need that much, but it was a good price compared to the teeny vials. You're also going to need a palette of greasepaint in grody colors. I got a nice collection of brown, green, yellow, red, black, tan and white. These are the only things you need from the Halloween store, everything else you can get at Goodwill or Target. (Side note: I bought a can of spray on blood that I used on my clothes, but in hindsight, I could have just used my homemade blood for this.) (Additional side note: I spent some money on crazy zombie contact lenses. I wasn't going to because they were so expensive, but on the first day of Comic Con I found a vendor that gave me a great deal, so I splurged.)

2) My next trip was to Target. I got some cheap foundation that was a fairly close match to my skin tone. I bought some super cheap skin-tone colored powder, with a puff. And I picked up some toilet paper, make-up wedges and extra eye make-up q-tip things.

3) You're going to also need some chocolate syrup and red food coloring (more than just a few drops). Luckily, I had both of these things at home already.

4) Now get yourself over to Goodwill and find some clothes that look like they need a good gross-ifying. I chose some gym clothes. If you want to go all out, find yourself a pair of shoes that are a couple of sizes too big, and then another pair that are regular size that relatively match the big pair. You can use one of the big shoes to make it look like one of your feet is on backwards.

5) OK! Now you have all of your stuff.

6) Get after those clothes. Rip some holes, mess up your hems, make sure your neckline is funky. Once everything is ripped, take the clothes and rub some dirt and/or mud all over them. Run over them with your car. Get them grungy. Do the same thing with the shoes. You can mess them up with some scissors, or you can just douse them with some homemade blood and let that do the trick.

7) Make your blood. It's about as simple as you can get. Find a small bowl, squirt in several tablespoons of chocolate syrup, and then dump a whole little bottle of red food dye into it. Stir. You want to make sure your blood is very dark with just a hint of red, otherwise when it dries on your skin it will get kind of pink, and it will stain and look fake. So mess around with your concoction until it seems right.

 

 

8) Dribble and splatter the blood on your clothes and shoes, then rub everything in the dirt some more. Once your clothes and shoes are sufficiently bloody and dirty, leave them outside to get dry and crusty - but watch out for ants and bees.

9) Now it's time to zombify yourself. There are four important things to note before you start messing around with liquid latex: a) it smells really bad b) you have to put some kind of oil or lotion on your skin before you paint the latex on, or when you remove the dried latex, it will rip out every tiny hair on your skin c) make sure you're not allergic by testing out a small patch on your arm d) if you have crazy zombie contact lenses, put them in now before you start in with the latex and get your hands all mucked up.

 

10. Once you know you're not allergic, it's time to figure out where you want your wounds. Pour the latex into a small container and find a paintbrush you'll never need to use again. Slather the spots of skin where you want the latex to go with oil or lotion or creme make-up. (Note: I used white creme make-up, and it was still pretty excruciating getting some of the latex off. Especially on my face.)

 

 

11. Now that your skin is protected, paint the latex on with a good even coat. The thicker the latex is, the more you have to mangle, but having some really thin layers here and there works well, too. If you want to make a serious wound, you want the latex to dry until it's tacky. If you're just going to mangle some skin, you can let it dry all the way. A hair dryer set on cool can help speed this part of the operation.

 

12. Grab some sheets of toilet paper for your wound work. Two-ply works best, because you can split it and use really thin tissue.

 

The tissue I had was quilted, which wasn't great. Go for the super cheap stuff.

13. You want to roll the tissue into thin tube-type things and stick them to the tacky latex in the shape of your wound. (Alternatively, you can just attach little tears and rips to add icky texture to patches on your face or wherever.) Then, you'll paint the latex over the tissue. When you do this, the tissue might get a little mucky and tear some. Totally fine. It just makes your wound grosser.

 

 

14. Whip out that hair dryer again and dry the latex.

 

Chin wound to go along with arm and leg wounds

15. Once your wounds (and other latex patches) are dry, smack them with your powder puff, so everything sets nicely and starts to get a skin-type color to it. After the powder is on, you can start adding make-up. I added some straight-up black and red grease paint outlines to the insides of my wounds before I painted over the whole thing with foundation. I imagine you should do the foundation first, but really, it all worked out fine.

 

 

16. Once you've got your outlines, get everything else with liquid foundation. I found that it went on better and faster with a paintbrush than with the make-up wedges. But the wedges come in handy for blending with the rest of your skin.

 

This is pre-liquid foundation, post-powder

 

17. After your latex patches are skin colored (or close), you can add bruise-y, dirty colored grease paint and then rip at the latex carefully with tweezers or your fingernails. Just peel bits off here and there, and if you can leave the bits hanging, even better.

 

I didn't use any special technique for adding the colors. I just globbed the brown and green and yellow and red all together on a couple of fingers and smeared them around.

 

18. Now it's time to gunk up those wounds. Add your greasepaint inside the wound and outside of it, and use your chocolate syrup blood liberally. Let it pool inside the wound and drip out.

 

Here's another angle. So gross! (But it smells like ice cream. Thanks, chocolate sauce!)

 

19. Now you just tear at your latex spots, add make-up and blood everywhere and ta da! You are a gruesome zombie sure to terrify everyone in your path (especially the unsuspecting people in the parking garage).

 

 

Don't feed the author!

 

20. And for that last, special touch, don't forget your backwards foot. I wish I could've figured out a better way to do this, but it was reasonably effective. It made people laugh and/or grimace, and it caused a few double takes for sure. All you have to do is use one of the big shoes you bought at Goodwill and either remove the tongue, or smush it down. Then you stick your foot in between the laces. Very simple. And if you tie it tight enough, the laces will still hold your foot in nicely.

 

photo by PJ Hoover

 

Ta da! You are now a disgusting zombie. Go forth and terrify.

(I'd like to thank Instructables.com for helping me figure out how to do all of this. Specifically, this instructable for wounds, and this one for blood. I didn't follow their instructions absolutely, but they were a great guide. Also, in that first link, if you scroll down into the comments you can see a picture of a guy who used chicken bones to a horrifying result.)

 

photo by PJ Hoover

 

GRRRRRRRRRR!

Sometimes I get a little panicky before author events. The idea of mingling and talking to people is overwhelming for an introverted author with the resting heartbeat of a gerbil. I will often sit in my hotel room and stare in the mirror and give myself the Jack Donaghy pep talk ("You're a lion! Take what's yours!"). Sometimes, the events are in my hometown so I have to bar myself in my bedroom and do the pep talk while my kids scream in the hallway ("Who are you talking to?! WHY ARE YOU LEAVING UHHSSSS?!).

On Friday, I was giving myself this pep talk in my backyard while I wrangled the hose (to fill the kiddie pool to keep the aforementioned children from spontaneously combusting). I had several events at our local ArmadilloCon coming up and I was excited to see what the con was all about, but also nervous about being around, well, other people. There were a bunch of famous-y authors in town doing panels and I was looking forward to/panicking about fangirling and stammering on some panels with them.

BUT THEN...

Instead of pulling a Jack Donaghy and finishing my pep talk while I expertly filled the kiddie pool with lukewarm water, I pulled a Liz Lemon (story of my life) and fell in a hole.

Yes.

I fell in a hole.

Bam. My ankle made a terrific, disgusting pop pop pop pop sound as I landed ass over elbows in the grass.

Now you might be wondering, "Wait, what? Where did that hole come from? Is your backyard full of holes? Are they from ARMADILLOS?"

Well, I'll tell you: the hole was not from armadillos, nor was it from my neighbor who routinely shoots his shotgun into the ground, aiming at bewildered rattlesnakes. This particular hole comes from a time in recent history when it would rain here and there in Texas. On those rainy afternoons my oldest son would go into the yard and work on making a mud puddle. He would dig and dig and then stomp and stomp and it was all glorious fun until we realized there could be dog poop mixing with the mud and then the hole was abandoned.

As time progressed (here I want you to imagine a timelapse movie of my backyard, all sped up and filmstrip looking), the mud in the hole dried to cracked dirt, the grass in the backyard died and came back as ugly desert-like weeds, and the opening to the hole was obscured by a cthulhu of dead St. Augustine grass and these wispy things that make you itch.

So, here I am, minding my own business, working up the courage to talk about zombie haiku in front of Paulo Bacigalupi and Rosemary Clement-Moore, and into the hole I go.

I knew immediately that the hole had won. My ankle got all wobbly and squishy and registered on this pain scale at about a 7. The children put on their firefighter jackets and ran around the house bringing me ice and random baby dolls to make me feel better. After hobbling around for a few hours I relented and went up to the urgent care behind the Wendy's (the best urgent care around, and also the urgent care that is located on a road named Slaughter, which is pretty awesome) and had some x-rays taken.

Nothing broken. Hooray! But sprained, nonetheless. And required to be stuffed into an aircast (also called an air stirrup, which sounds sort of steampunk to me). This aircast requirment increased the pain immensely even though the nurse said "most people" experience immediate relief. Drugs were prescribed. I was sent on my way. And I knew my fretted over panels at ArmadilloCon would have to be forsaken. The idea of walking around a hotel to get to various conference rooms made me cry giant tears of anticipated agony.

So I had to email the organizers and cancel. And I was embarrassed and sad to do so. After all of that worrying and working up my nerve, to be taken down by a hole was unexpected and (while potentially hilarious if it had been caught on video) very irritating.

I'm sorry, ArmadilloCon, for missing your nerdy delights.

And I'm sorry, ankle, for ripping you in half by not paying attention to the cthulhu grass camouflaging the giant hole I should not have forgotten.

Alas and alack.

Lemon out.

His incubator was a little Dagobah set up for him… warmed, darkened and humidified to keep him comfortable. She stared at him everyday, at first only allowed to briefly touch his head and his feet. No stroking, no caressing, no nuzzling allowed. She whispered to him to use the Force, to suck all the energy out of the Universe and harness it to grow and breathe and eat and poop and keep that heart beating (even though sometimes it was really hard to be able to do all of those things at the same time).

She wondered what he was thinking during those days in the incubator, so tiny, covered in wires and tubes. She wondered if he had a chance to think anything at all. Maybe he just got flashes of voices and light and noises. Maybe he spent the whole time dreaming of the womb he was no longer swimming in.

She found herself rubbing her belly a lot, mystified that there was nothing in there kicking her anymore. How could that be? How could her body betray her like that? And not only did it betray her, it betrayed him, too. It tried to devastate them, to ruin them.

Somehow, though, even as her body turned on her, her mind fought to stay on her side. It was an epic battle. Fighting to stay pregnant, fighting off infection, fighting to grow tiny, tiny lungs as fast as possible, fighting to stave off contractions, fighting to be brave, compartmentalizing fear so that she could be strong enough and stubborn enough to not let happen what seemed inevitable.

And through the whole battle - through the phalanx of drugs and hormones and steroids and fear - there was a tiny little man responding to his mama’s commands. He listened as she wept for him and he listened as she begged him and bossed him around. He tolerated it when she played the Rocky theme song through her mp3 player, onto her belly at full volume. He grew and developed - even with hardly any fluid to swim in. He saluted the doctors with his tiny middle finger when they said he would never make it.

Then, all of a sudden, he was on the outside instead of the inside. Two pounds, 12 inches, and a little bit see-through. He had no nipples, but tons of hair. Everywhere. Like a teeny tiny see-through nipple-less monkey baby.

He was born.

But was that a good thing?

The doctors and nurses whisked him off to Dagobah, trying to recreate the world he needed for survival. Synthetic chemicals replaced natural ones. Assisted breathing replaced oxygenated fluid. Their advanced technology was outpaced by the complexity of the human body, but would it do in a pinch? They were in a pinch.

She wondered if the alarms bothered him, when they went off as his heart rate slowed or his breathing became shallow. She wondered if his sleep was peaceful or tormented. She wondered when they would let her hold him. She was his mother. She could fix everything. She needed a chance.

She had not considered that when her epic battle was over and seemingly won, his epic battle would be just beginning. It didn’t seem fair to fight for so long and so hard, only to transfer the battle to someone so new and tiny. She wanted to fight for him, to swallow him up Greek-myth-style and settle him back inside her body. She wished she could have fought longer and harder so that his turn leading the charge would have been easier. But he didn’t seem to mind. He fought like he’d been taught. He took no prisoners, defied all odds.

She was finally allowed to hold him. Stuffing him into her shirt, all two and a half pounds of him - with his additional two and half pounds of wires and tubes. She nestled him against her bare flesh and tried to recreate the home he’d been evicted from. The nurses called it “kangarooing” which was appropriate because of how she was able to cocoon him, and how she fervently desired to kick anyone who came near her.

He slept on her, skin-to-skin, mouth open, his diaper slipping off his microscopic bottom. They rocked for hours, listening to the beeps of the machines, keeping Dagobah close by in case it was all too much. She held the syringe that fed him through a tube in his nose. It was a very poor substitute for suckling, but at least she got to feed him. (She was secretly disgruntled and jealous of the tube, though).

Dagobah treated him well. He began to grow. His nipples appeared! His eyes opened. He traded the tube in his nose for a bottle - and sometimes a breast - in his mouth. Weeks went by. Doctors came and went. Nurses silenced alarms, checked vitals, fell in love.

And she wondered, does he know? Does he see the army he’s created? She thought probably he did know. He could see them. He reacted to their touch, to their voices. But even as he knew them, he knew her better. He knew, out of all the people who took care of him in a day, which one was his mother. He smelled her, he turned towards her voice, he gripped her finger and nuzzled for milk.

She played the Rocky theme song for him. Over and over.

He would always be her Thanksgiving baby. Even if he was born in August.

It is late.
It's always late
when I sit down to enjoy the quiet of a house being cooled down by ceiling fans
and an air-conditioner that pops and cracks like ghostly knees and ankles
crouching outside my bedroom window.

The kids are asleep, the dog is asleep, my husband is asleep
I should be asleep
But it is late
And it is quiet
And if I close my eyes I can pretend the traffic noise seeping through my window
between the knee and ankle pops of the air-conditioner
is really the beach
beckoning to me to relax
to realize my shoulders should not actually touch my ears
especially when it is quiet
and late
and everyone is sleeping
but me.

All my friends, they suck the goats.
But I just want some artichokes.

The idea of writing a book is like
The idea of reading a book under a tree

It seems lovely.

You have your idea, you have your laptop (or notebook), the air crackles because you're embarking on something new.

You have your book in your hand, the spine hasn't even been cracked yet (or is so cracked the pages are falling out), the air seems fresher because it's morning and you have a warm cup of coffee in your hand.

So you sit...

At your desk. The white screen of your laptop (the empty page of your notebook) is UNDAUNTING. The words flow. Your ego soars. You are a writer! You. Are. Killing. It.

Under the tree. The grass is soft, the sun is warm, you read slow letting the words seep into your consciousness. It's a lovely moment.

And then...

You are not sure of the meaning of a word. You look it up. You search around to see the word in context. You briefly check your email. You go back to your idea, but wait... where were you?

The sun is warm. You scoot further under the tree where it's more dirt than grass. You throw a frisbee back to some guy who almost took out your nose. You lean against the trunk, but wait... are those ants?

So now...

You're lost. Does any of this even make sense? And what comes next?

You're swatting ants off your legs. Sweat trickles down your back. You spill coffee on the book.

And so.

You get up from your desk and make lunch.

You go inside and take a shower.

Writing a book is like reading under a tree.
It seems nice.
Until it isn't.
And then you try again.

I have been a lazy blogger lately. For shame. I have a good excuse, though - I have been busy pretending to be fancy. And as you may or may not know, pretending to be fancy takes a lot of time. You have to take a lot of showers and poke your eyes with mascara wands and decide how much xanax is the perfect amount for sleep, but not so much that you'll wake up with head full of stabbing bales of cotton.

Stabbing bales of cotton?

You know what I mean.

Also, when you are pretending to be fancy, you have to be "on" all the time, which means fooling people into thinking you are actually charming instead of someone pretending to be charming. This requires engaging in multi-faceted conversations, limited swearing, and a variety of breath perfumes. It also requires a LOT of energy, because remembering people's names is hard, and even harder than that is remembering to be constantly vigilant about your overactive armpit sweat glands that require you to keep some extra distance between yourself and others so that you don't cause an Exxon Valdez type calamity but with armpit sweat and a cocktail party full of fancy people instead of oil and vulnerable animals.

So.

I got to pretend to be fancy for a while, and this took a lot of preparation. Then it happened and it was awesome, then it took major recovery. I am still recovering.

And I wasn't even pretending to be THAT fancy. Just mid-list fancy. Which, if you know about publishing, isn't actually fancy at all. Unless you're typically trapped in your house chasing after kids and never get out. Then it's mega fancy because it requires bathing and ordering from menus.

In conclusion, I'm sorry to have been a poor blogger/tweeter for the last, well, forever. But there are at least three more librarians in the world who have bought my books so that is a huge win. Also, I got to hobnob with other ACTUAL fancy people (or at least people who are fancy in my own head) and so that was super cool.

Now I'm off to remind my children who I am again, and to try and write more books so that I can continue to have opportunities that get me out of the house in shirts without stains on them.

Settles over me
A black cloud
A stormfront
A fog
Every weather cliche.
Eyebrows dip into a V
Like the tornado puppet
in Elmo’s World.
But my eyebrows are
(hopefully)
less bushy.
Wind buffets my ears
but it is not real wind.
It is made of words
I don’t like
that swirl
and force me to write
Staccato.
Poems.
With poor.
Weather.
Metaphors.