Attack of the Young Writers

I arrived a little early to my first Young Writers Program meeting with my stack of writing workbooks and my bag of prizes to entice the students. And I waited.

And waited.

Just when I thought the teachers I had distributed the flyer to last week had forgotten the YWP entirely, twelve kids showed up. Hooray!

Twelve is a nice number. Nice and personal. Then I realized they were all from one class. This meant I had three missing class groups. Oh crap.

I waited a little bit but no one else came so we proceeded with the intro. These were all fourth graders who I'd not worked with before. They were quiet and listened really well. At the end of our half hour together, they were excited and promised to be back on friday. I was thrilled.

I went to hunt down the three other teachers and found them all together in the lounge with looks of 'oh no!' on their faces when they caught sight of me. "Was that today?"

"Uh huh."

"We thought it was next week! Do you have an extra half hour? We'll send our kids right down."

"Sure." My day was crammed and I was pressed for time, but I figured half an hour wouldn't kill me.

Ten minutes later, thirty-five kids file into the library. Thirty-five. And these are only fifth graders. There's still one mystery quantity of fourth graders to be discovered on friday.

I'd learned my lesson last year when fifty kids showed up the first day, rabid for pizza and prizes. Umm, nooooo. The pizza party is at the end, after you earn it and the only way to get prizes is to earn them by writing. That announcement got rid of almost half of them.

So this year, I didn't even mention prizes or pizza on my flyer. Yet, the kids still showed up in droves. I spent my extra time with my eager and ultra inquisitive fifth graders doing my best to instill that this program involved writing. Lots of writing. There would be pizza and prizes, but ONLY after a lot of writing.

When I got done with my not near as enticing pitch as I'd given the forth graders, I came out and asked, "How many of you still really, really want to do this program? How many of you will be here for our planning meeting on Friday and be ready to write on Monday?"

Every darn one of them raised their hand.

I love that the teachers adore this writing program and that so many students want to particiapte, but holey moley. This is going to be a very long November. Or a blur. Let's aim for a blur, shall we?

Prepping for NaNo

I give up. Avoiding posts about NaNo isn't working since it's taking up a good part of my free and no so free time. I'll probably be waxing on about NaNo for the next month or so. Sorry.

Knowing it will be taking over my life, I've begun the last stages of NaNo preparation. I'm not talking about outlining, character sketches or research. When the time comes to write, I'll write. I'm talking about the serious stuff that will be neglected when this 50k in thirty days washes over me, pulls me under and spits me out on the shores of December.

I spent my weekend catching up on my laundry. My family and I will now be able to get by an extra week or so when I forget to toss a load in here and there throughout the month. I payed all my bills through the middle of November. I did a litle extra cleaning because we'll be going to bare minimum real soon. I got all my business financial reports caught up - I hate doing those and was, well, eight months behind. Oops! I spent extra time with my family. I got everyone's halloween costume ready and mine started. Best of all, I'm now halfway done with the nine hundred christmas craft kits I need to do for my daughter's school.

Not that I neglected NaNo in my preparations. I packed all my goody bags for my regional kick off party next Saturday. All my raffle prizes are sorted into my thankfully huge stash of reusable shopping bags - one for each of the two Young Writers Program schools, kick off, weekly write-ins, our all day write-in, and the TGIO party.

And now with a bunch of stuff crossed off my mental to-do list, I can move forward into NaNo with a somewhat clear head. Which begins.... today at noon with my first YWP prep meeting.

Deep cleansing breath.

What do you do to prep for NaNo?

Unexpected house guest

When I built my new, bigger, better pond this past spring, I hoped some wildlife would visit it. I was not disappointed. One frog led to two and then we released our two tadpole to frog Boy Scout project frogs into the pond. Next thing we know, we have six frogs and probably more. It's hard to tell them all apart except by size and only one is quite large. The rest are very similar.

The frogs have been a great source of amusement for the kids and myself. Each time we go out to feed the pond fish (four of the ten .10 gold fish that have survived in the pond), we count how many frogs splash into the pond rather than fall into the shadow that is giant mankind. The largest frog has become rather imune to our presence and gives off a 'Yeah, whatever. Feed the fish and leave us alone' vibe.

This has been fun and educational all summer long. But now it's fall and with the frosty temperatures, my friendly frogs seem to be looking for warmer places to hang out. Like under my house.

See, I have a tiny, dirt crawlspace rather than a much needed basement. We're used to chipmunks and mice skittering around under there dispite our best efforts keep their numbers down by feeding them the green pellets of doom. The favorite spot for tiny clawed feet seems to be the external lip around my main floor bathroom's tub. I'm not sure who's brilliant idea it was to install a tub with easy bottom access to all wildlife, but I'd love to track them down and have a word or two. Nothing is more relaxing than a nice hot bath and the skitter scratch of little rodents throwing a luau in the unexpected burst of heat.

Our furnace is down there. That makes for a nice warm place for all sorts of creatures. Including, apparently, frogs,- as we discovered when doing the annual fall furnace check. Let's just hope they are going there to hibernate rather than to sing to each other at night or do battle with the furry rodents who prance around my tub.

Busy and busier

I'd like to say that NaNo had stolen all my free time, so that by December I'd be back to my lazy morning hours of time to compose fun blog posts and write. Alas, it is not so.

Lately, my calendar has been full to the brim. For instance yesterday looked like this:
7am - see husband off to work, get dressed, start laundry, watch news, check emails & forums.
8am - get daughter off to school.
8:30 - see son sit in front of xbox because has the day off for conferences. Go to his conferences
10am - stop home. Discuss confrences. Demand son cleans his room. Get grocery list. Get Mother in law's grocery list. Get a few orders done.
11:45 - daughter is home from half day. Feed kids. Throw food in my mouth. Answer emails. Work on pep talks and forum post ideas
1:15 - go to bank, drop packages at postal outlet, get groceries
2:10 - realize while I'm in the middle of getting groceries, my daughter's conference is in ten minutes. Crap. Quick pay and leave.
2:20 -arrive at school, park, go to door next to classroom and learn its locked. Stupid school security. Drive around to main parking lot and run through school to the opposite end. Meet with teacher. Pick up books for NaNo book drive. Meet with teachers whose students I'll be doing the YWP with, copy fliers.
3:15 - drop cranky daughter off at home. Kick son off Xbox, make sure he's let the dog out an has cleaned his room. Go back to grocery store.
4:10 - finish getting groceries, drop off Mother in law's groceries, put her groceries away, scan all my groceries for stupid survey place and put them away.
4:45 -take deep breath. Answer emails, shift laundry to dryer and toss another load in. Consider what to make for dinner.
5:20 - throw dinner in face, talk to family, watch clock closely.
5:45 - leave for Boy Scout committee meeting
6:00 - no one else is there. wtf?
6:15 - others finally arrive. Have meeting
8:20 - discuss NaNo book drive and Boy Scout fundraiser with other moms while Boy Scouts finish their meeting
8:50 - get home.
9:00 - answer emails, read RIF program requirements - yes, I signed up to head that program up while at conferences. *head desk* Gather up the growing pile of things I need to mend and consider whether to work on that, the 100 felt cardinals I'm cutting out for xmas crafts for my daughter's school, or maybe write something.
9:10 - husband wants to watch tv together. Look at pile of stuff, look at tv and sigh. Watch tv.
10:30 - go to to bed and collapse.

Calgon, take me away!

Revisiting the past

Maybe it's just me, but my memories of things I previously enjoyed are always better than revisiting the actual thing. Movies I enjoyed growing up are always better in my head than hunting them down in a fit of nostalgia and sitting down with eager eyes only to miss the movie entirely, lost in a fog of how far we've come with technology and special effects.

Books are no different. Granted there are a very select few that I will stand by, but most are disappointing given a few years between first view and second. Perhaps this is because I've grown as a reader and/or a writer since I've first read them.

In the mood for something other than grammar humor last night, I pulled an old book off the shelf. By the end of the second chapter, I was beginning to question where it got so good that I'd deemed the book worthy of keeping. (I only hang onto books that I'd read again). It was ok, but little things bugged me. Distracted is probably the better word - confusing scene staging, repetition of words and the overall tone of the book itself.

What happened to the awesome book I had put on the shelf after racing to the last page the first time? I distinctly remember it as a book I couldn't put down. In fact, I'd raced through the other two in the trilogy as well. Did the magical suck faeries wave their wands over them all?

Maybe I've just become ultra picky when it comes to reading for my own enjoyment. Maybe I should build a bookcase shield to thwart the suck faeries! Hmm. Nah, it would just be another surface to gather fingerprints.

I think I'll just stop re-reading books and watching movies I fondly remember and just remember them instead.