Happy Birthday!

I just realized that this blog is year old as of yesterday. I intended to blog yesterday to celebrate. But I also intended to blog the day before that and the day before that as well. I’ve clearly been having a difficult time with prioritizing blogging. I do have some legitimate excuses, like being pregnant and being out of town. But enough of the excuses. Here I am sitting my ass down on the couch to write. Finally.

I attended my second SCBWI conference last week in Los Angeles. It was fabulous once again. A highlight for me was meeting Jane O’Connor, the author of the Fancy Nancy books. While getting her autograph, I showed her a picture of me and my old teaching buddies dressed up as Fancy Nancy characters. She was charmed and asked for me to email it to her. So I emailed it and she wrote a brief note back to me. So unbelievably cool. I also got to speak to author/illustrator Peter Brown for a minute while he signed his book Mr. Tiger Goes Wild. He was super friendly and warm. I was so caught up with my chat that I forgot to get a picture with him, but I have no regrets.

I had some insights about writing picture books due to the break-out sessions that I attended. I realize I have my work cut out for me because I really need to go back and revise everything I’ve written to allow room for the illustrator to tell part of the story. This idea isn’t a new idea, but it finally started to make sense to me at the conference. I’m pretty excited about trying out some new ideas.

A few weeks ago I ran the Wharf to Wharf race in Santa Cruz with a dear friend. Well, we didn’t really run together because she actually runs while I jog at a snail’s pace. I succeeded in running the first five miles, but my knee gave out and I was forced to limp the last mile. I was a little sad that I couldn’t run across the finish line (I have never walked across a finish line before) but I was pretty happy that I was able to finish. In some ways it was a fun race, but it also sucked. I felt like I had to pee the entire time thanks to little dude bouncing on my bladder. I think I’m done with running until after he’s born because it just isn’t fun anymore.

Pregnancy has definitely changed my life. I haven’t had a solid night’s sleep since April. Most of my clothes don’t fit anymore. Running sucks. I can’t boulder anymore and no one wants to top rope with me. Everything that used to feel easy feels hard. I get emotional watching Charmed. I want to eat ice cream all the time (to be fair I wanted that before I was pregnant too). Being pregnant is like being on an amusement park ride. You’re all excited to get on the ride and parts are fun and exciting, but then things can get scary and you feel sick. And just like a ride, you can’t get off until it’s over. At least at the end of this ride, I’ll have a darling baby boy (which I’m getting pretty excited about, especially after my ultrasound this morning). But I’m not sure if I’ll be yelling, “Again! Again!” anytime soon.

What I’m reading: I finished reading Drums of Autumn and have started on the 5^th Outlander book A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I read the 11^th Maisie Dobbs book A Dangerous Place which was depressing, but good. I loved Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle so I read The Silver Star which was excellently written. I also read Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. It was interesting, but just not a very good story in my opinion. The Invention of Wings, by Sue Monk Kidd, was a great story. I didn’t realize until I read the afterward that it was based on the life of a real person. In college I took a writing class that featured the works of Toni Morrison, so I was excited to read her latest book, God Help the Child. It was interesting and totally bizarre, but that’s kind of her style. I’m currently reading Maya’s Notebook by Isabel Allende and two non-fiction books: Exercising Through Your Pregnancy by James Clapp and Catherine Cram and Parenting From the Inside Out by Daniel Siegel.

The Honeymoon, Part 1

We finally went on the first part of our honeymoon. We spent two nights and three days in South Lake Tahoe. We stayed at the Tahoe Lakeshore Lodge and Spa which is right on the beach. We had a balcony overlooking the beach and the lake. The weather was gorgeous and we enjoyed hanging out on the balcony and reading.

Bear statue in front of the lodge (now I see why
people are afraid of bears...)

View from our balcony

 The trip wasn’t exactly as we had originally planned due to a few circumstances that prevented us from being able to go rock climbing. Tom had wrist surgery a few months ago and I’m in the second trimester of pregnancy. So we decided to do some hiking in place of climbing. The first day we hiked to Roundtop Lake which is near Kirkwood. Between being pregnant and being unused to the high elevation, I was slogging along the whole time (take a step, breathe twice. Repeat). But it was great to be outside and the scenery was beautiful. Despite the slow pace (four hours to go less than five miles), we both thoroughly enjoyed the hike.

 

At Roundtop Lake

After the hike we went out to dinner at a place called Azul Latin Kitchen. I got some excellent tacos (one with fish and the other with pork belly, yum!) and then I proved that maybe I really am a fangirl after all. We were leaving the restaurant when my husband whispered, “Look over there at the guy in the green hoodie.” I slowly turned to look and then my head snapped back to my husband and I was like, “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” Sitting at a table in front of the restaurant with his hood pulled up (probably trying to avoid fangirls like me) was none other than Alex “My What Big Hands You Have” Honnold (at least that’s what I call him after the 60 Minutes interview with him where the reporter is enamored with his hands). If you don’t know who he is, he’s a professional rock climber who is known for his free solo ascents and speed record climbs of big walls. If you haven’t seen the 60 Minutes segment you can watch it here: 60 Minutes clip. Anyway, we didn’t bother him or his dining companion (maybe I’m not really a true fangirl after all). Then we saw him a little while later at Safeway, where I continued to surreptitiously watch him. I heard him say something to his companion and I was like, “Oh my god. He sounds just like he does on TV!” Sometimes, I’m such a dork.

The next day, we relaxed on the beach and had lunch at Sprouts Café, which was awesome as usual. Then we headed back to our hotel to relax some more. As we were getting ready to head out for our spa services, I got a call from one of my midwives to tell us that we are having a boy. With that news fresh in our ears, we walked down the hallway to the spa. My husband got a massage and I had a facial. It was wonderful. Then we went out for a romantic dinner at Evan’s American Gourmet Café. The food was French inspired and the restaurant is in a darling house that has been converted. We both enjoyed our food tremendously.

After breakfast the following morning, we packed up and went on a very short hike (which was all I could manage) to Cascade Falls. It was another amazingly beautiful hike with views of granite cliff faces, Cascade Falls and Lake, and Lake Tahoe.

 

Cascade Lake in the foreground and Lake Tahoe in the background

It was a perfect trip and we’re looking forward to October, when we embark on the second part of our honeymoon to Yosemite.

What I’m reading: I finished reading The Museum of Extraordinary Things and it was excellent from start to finish. I love historical fiction and I thought the author did a great job of writing about New York in the early 1900’s. I also read The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom. I thought this book was really entertaining. It’s also a work of historical fiction, but it takes places in the early 1800s on a plantation. As much as I enjoyed reading this book, I kept feeling like certain parts of it didn’t ring true. I’m still reading Drums of Autumn and I’m trying to decide what to read next. I just got the newest Toni Morrison novel and the latest  Maisie Dobbs novel by Jacqueline Winspear (I desperately want to read this because I thought the series was over only to discover that this came out in the last few months), but I have a shelf full of other books waiting to be read. Ah, the dilemmas of an avid reader in the first world…

School's Out for Summer

Since less than a month has passed since I last blogged, I’ll count that as progress towards being more disciplined about blogging. While I haven’t been blogging with great frequency, I have been writing and I finished a few rewrites of a story I’m working on about a fairy. I’ve also come up with two new ideas for books, but it’s hard to tell right now if either of them will amount to much. I submitted a story for my manuscript consultation at the SCBWI summer conference and I’m pretty excited to get some feedback on that.

School’s out for summer and it’s the first year since I started teaching that it doesn’t affect me at all. I haven’t subbed in a couple months which has been great. I think I may be over subbing, but I guess I have a few months to decide. What I’d really like is to find some kids to tutor. A few of my critique group friends have school age kids so I should really see if they can put me in touch with anyone who’s in need of tutoring. It seems like a good way to make a little money and still get to teach. Subbing seems like it would meet those criteria, but it turns out there’s usually no teaching involved.

I’ve hardly been climbing lately which is a huge bummer, but I did manage to get my brother to go top roping at the gym with me so that was fun. I really need to start hang boarding to build up my finger strength again because I’ve been getting weak. The weather has been beautiful for the past few days so I’m hoping that will help inspire me since the hang board is on our balcony.

A few weeks ago I went to visit the John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez. It was pretty cool to see that house where he lived (it’s huge and has a bell tower with a bell that you can ring) and learn some things about him that I hadn’t know before. He was a fruit farmer and made his fortune selling fruit from the trees in his orchards. He was worth $250,000 when he died (the equivalent of $5 million now). I was surprised by his having been wealthy but I guess it explains how he was able to make so many trips to the Sierras. There’s also an old adobe house on the property which has been turned into a museum. I thought it was a worthwhile place to visit, but only if you happen to be near Martinez (it’s on the way to Davis so it was very convenient for me).

A robotic arm from Pneubotics (the company my husband works for)

 Last week we took a brief trip to Pasadena. We stayed with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and it was fun to spend some time with them. I was able to visit the school I used to work at and go to the end of the year staff party. It was great to see some of the kids I used to teach and to catch up with my old colleagues. I also went to the DARPA Robotics Challenge in Pomona. My husband’s company was there to exhibit their robots, but they weren’t actually part of the challenge. I got to watch the last part of the challenge and see JPL’s robot compete. It was cool to get to see their robot in action. They didn’t win but they did pretty well.

 

John Muir's house

What I’m reading: I finished reading Needlework by Bekah Berge (such a great read and I hope it finds its way to a bookstore soon) and Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. I read And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Housseini which I thought was pretty good but I was not in love with the multiple first person points of view. I also read The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natasha Sanmartin Fenollera which was interesting but didn’t really do anything for me. And I read a memoir written by my husband’s grandfather called Growing Up in the Santa Clara Valley: From Picking Prunes to Submarine Service by Thomas L. Allen. I’m currently reading Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon and The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman which is superb so far.

I'm Back (and hopefully more disciplined about blogging)

I’ve been terrible at blogging lately mostly due to the fact that I keep thinking something really exciting will happen and then I’ll have something to write about. But life goes on pretty much like normal, so I’ll sum up the last month briefly.

Last weekend, I ran the Bay to Breakers run in San Francisco my friend, Heather. It was the slowest 12K I’ve ever run, but I had a great time. Bay to Breakers never disappoints. There’s just nothing like running through the streets (and hills) of San Francisco and then finishing on the beach. I can’t wait for the Wharf to Wharf run in July, which is similarly amazing. I feel bad for people who don’t get to run in such beautiful places.

I took a trip to Pasadena to visit a few friends and family. I realized that aside from missing people in Pasadena, I really only miss the Jacaranda trees and the Star Jasmine blooming. I’m so much happier living in Oakland than I ever was in Pasadena.

I joined a third critique group which met last week. I became acquainted with a few of its members at the Big Sur Writing Workshop that I attended. The group is really nice and it was great to get some feedback from different people.

I started tutoring a friend of my husband’s grandparents. She’s from Central America and does not speak English natively, although her spoken English is pretty good. I’m working with her on reading and writing in English and I’ve been really enjoying myself. I do still like teaching, just not in a public school setting.

What I’m reading: I finally finished The Emperor of All Maladies. It was excellent. I also read Story Engineering by Larry Brooks (good book, but I would only recommend it to fellow writers), Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande (excellent book about end of life issues), Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (somehow I had never read this), and Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon (the second book in the Outlander series). I’m now reading Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, which is the third Outlander book. I’m also reading Needlework by Bekah Berge (this is a young adult novel and it is not yet available to the general public).

Name Change Blues

I had been told that changing my name would be a hassle, but did I listen? Of course not. I impatiently waited for the marriage license to arrive in the mail and when it did I was off and running. Who wants to wait up to a month to get appointments at places like the Social Security Administration and the DMV? Not me. I had to start with the Social Security Administration (DMV checks with them), so I decided that if I got there 30 minutes before they opened I’d be all set. I arrived only to discover that there were already 30 people in line ahead of me. I sat in the waiting room for close to an hour and it was miserable (mostly due to a few people who hadn’t showered in a very long time and a woman who was watching a video on her phone trying to learn English).

That was Monday. On Thursday I went to the DMV. I randomly woke up at 5 a.m. and decided that I should have breakfast and then make myself look pretty for my picture (they make you get a new license picture, which I was annoyed about because I love my old picture). Based on my experience at the SSA, I decided I should arrive at the DMV an hour early. I got there and there were already six people in line. It was pretty cold out so I was wearing my puffy and UGGs. The guy in front of me (who was just there to be with his girlfriend) was in a t-shirt. I thought his goosebumps were going to pop off his arms and start attacking people. Poor guy. But the second guy in line had clearly been in line at the DMV before. He had brought a pool chair that fully reclined and he was ensconced in blankets. Aside from standing for an hour and a half it wasn’t nearly as bad as the SSA.

The good thing about all that waiting in line was that I got to catch up on some reading (I also got to wait in line and read for 40 minutes at the post office so that I could mail off my passport). I spent the rest of the week making phone calls to various places, writing emails, typing letters, copying my marriage license (the bank that holds my retirement account told me that I’d have to send them my original marriage certificate and that I should put a post-it on it that says I want it returned because otherwise they won’t return it), and filling out forms online. It’s amazing how many accounts I have. This is the problem with getting married in one’s mid-30s—one’s life is fully established already. I would advocate that women get married at 18 (before they have too many accounts to keep track of) in order to minimize the name change blues.

I registered for the SCBWI conference in L.A. that’s at the end of the summer. I had such a great time there last year that I’m really looking forward to going again. This time I also signed up for a manuscript consultation. I’ll get to meet with someone (agent, editor, or maybe author) for 15 minutes to discuss a manuscript. Now I just have to figure out which manuscript to share. I have to decide by the end of May when submissions are due.

What I’m reading: I’m currently only reading The Emperor of All Maladies (I know, so unlike me to only be reading one book). Ken Burns made a documentary based on this book that aired on PBS so I’ve been watching it too.

Back to Reality

My wedding is over and I was expecting to feel a little bit letdown afterwards (because I had been planning my wedding since I was six years old and now it’s over). Fortunately, I feel great. The wedding was awesome despite being quite different from six-year-old me’s imagination. It was amazing having all of my favorite people (OK, not quite all, but most) assembled in one room. I just wish it could have lasted longer so that I could have spent more time talking to people.

Aside from having a new name, married life is much like unmarried life. Although the new name thing is pretty weird. I subbed three days last week and introduced myself to each class with my married name. I told the kids that I might have trouble responding when they used my name because it’s new (each class actually clapped when they realized that I had just gotten married, which I thought was really sweet). I then proceeded to not respond to my new name. Someday it’ll probably seem normal to be called Mrs. Allen, but for now I just keep wondering who came into the room…

Now that the wedding is over, I have plenty time and undivided attention to spend on my writing. For the last three days I have been revising old stories and finishing two long-unfinished stories. It’s been really great to get back into it. I feel like I might finally be getting the hang of writing a picture book. It’s really kind of a bizarre genre to write these days. Sometimes I wonder what I’m thinking trying to tackle on the most difficult types of writing. But then I flip open a beloved picture book and I’m instantly reminded why. Picture books rock!

Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) offers a Work in Progress award each year. Submissions are read by editors and publishers and one story is chosen in each category (i.e. picture book text, middle grade novel, young adult novel, etc.). I submitted my favorite story, which I wound up minimally revising after the Big Sur Writing Workshop. Since the whole world of publishing is so subjective, I figured that just because one agent didn’t think it was perfect, doesn’t mean that someone else might not love it. The winners are announced in late summer, so I’m just going to try and not think about it for a while.

Today marks the one year anniversary of my shoulder surgery. I have to say that my shoulder is SO much happier than it was a year ago. I went climbing this morning for a little bit and climbed all of the V0s and V1s. Last week I tweaked my shoulder slightly (while trying a V6) so I took a week off and now I’m trying to ease back into it by only doing easy stuff for a few sessions.

I signed up to run both Bay to Breakers in San Francisco (a 12K in May) and Wharf to Wharf in Santa Cruz (a 6 mile in July). I’m excited to get back into running. I’ve been pretty lazy all winter, but now I’m ready to get into running shape again.

What I’m reading: I finished Unbroken (great book, although so depressing for most of it), Hollow City (not as good as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, but very entertaining), and The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of story structure any writer can master by Martha Alderson (only a good read if you’re a writer). I’m still reading The Emperor of All Maladies (it is seriously long!). Now I need to pick another book to read. I have about 10 new books on my shelf so it shouldn’t be too challenging.

Big Sur Writing Workshop

To sum up the Big Sur Writing Workshop in one word: WOW. And now for the multiple word version…

The organizer of the workshop encouraged people to carpool. So I decided that I’d offer to drive, and I wound up with a passenger from San Francisco. Of course I felt a little trepidation about driving with a stranger for 3 hours (and even more when I thought about how I’d also have to drive back), but my carpool companion wound up being a really nice guy who writes middle grade fantasy books. Although we didn’t have much in common, we chatted quite amicably for most of the trip.

The weather was glorious—warm, sunny, and not a cloud in the sky. This is quite unusual for Big Sur in my experience. It’s a good thing the Big Sur Lodge is located slightly inland because otherwise I would have had a hard time not ditching the workshop and going to the beach instead.

I got checked in and remembered that I was sharing the suite with a mystery roommate. She hadn’t arrived yet, so I claimed a bed and went to find the conference room. I got there early and met some fellow writers as we waited for the faculty to arrive. There were 14 of them in all. Most were agents from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. There were also three editors and a few published authors.

Each writer was assigned to two faculty-led critique groups. I wound up with agents for both of my groups. One of these agents is the agent that I was intending to submit my favorite story to, so I was thrilled. Both of my groups had four other picture book writers, which I was excited about because groups with mixed genres can be a little challenging (I’ve gotten used to critiquing 500-700 word manuscripts. Throw a chapter of middle grade or young adult at me and I freak).

The groups each met twice during the weekend. Group A met Friday and Saturday in the afternoon, while Group B met Saturday and Sunday in the morning. The idea was that writers would have some time to revise in between meeting with their groups.

I went to Group A, which was led by the agent I was interested in, clutching my “baby” and smiling. When the session was over, I left feeling completely dejected. Each person had 24 minutes to read aloud their story and then get feedback from the other writers and the agent. I was so sure that this agent was a good match for me and that she’d love my story. While she did like my character and the concept behind the story, she told me that the plot was old and tired. She challenged me to rewrite it before the next Group A session.

Trying not to feel panicked, I mingled with the faculty and my fellow writers during cocktail hour and dinner and then raced to my room to begin revising. I worked for about an hour before exhaustion overtook me and I went to sleep, still having not met my mystery roommate (her luggage had arrived so I knew I had a roommate, she just wasn’t in the room).

I awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to meet Group B. My roommate was cocooned in her bed and I left for breakfast without having met her. Through breakfast I debated endlessly in my head whether I should share the same story or a different story with Group B. I eventually decided that I couldn’t deal with more feedback about my “baby” so I shared a different story with them.

Much like Group A, Group B (both the agent and the writers) loved the character and the idea, but thought I could do a better job with the plot. I’m not as attached to this story and I too felt it had some issues, so it was a lot easier to hear that I should try to revise it. I just wasn’t sure when I’d have time to do this.

I headed back to my room with my box lunch and finally met my roommate. She was quite a character and I could probably write a whole post just about her. Suffice to say she decided not to spend her afternoon revising and instead took her pack of cigarettes and a tall boy down to the river. I, on the other hand, spent the three hour time block between lunch and Group A’s second meeting revising my story (looking back it seems more fitting to say “slaughtering my baby”). I actually rewrote the story from start to finish and it was terrible. I thought to myself that if the group liked it, I’d have to quite writing. Turns out they did not like my rewrite, so that was a relief. I did however, get some interesting ideas for revising the not-crappy version. 

After dinner, I went back to room feeling pretty exhausted. But rather than turning in early, I decided to try rewriting my second story before meeting with Group B the next morning. Once again, I completely rewrote the story from start to finish. By midnight I was finished. I set my alarm and cursed the inventors of Daylight Savings. Not only was I going to bed way later than usual, I was going to lose an hour of sleep. The sacrifices that writers must make.

Group B offered a lot of good feedback on my rewrite. While it was good feedback it was the type that requires me to completely rewrite the story once again. This time I did not feel dejected though, so that was a huge improvement. I also felt very encouraged when the agent told me that she’d “love to see where this character winds up” and I told her I would too and that perhaps I’d submit the story to her someday.

By the time lunch was over and I was saying goodbye to the new friends I had met, I felt utterly wrecked. And then I had to drive for three hours to get home. Such is the life of a writer.

It was truly an amazing weekend. I learned that I can do a complete rewrite of a story in three hours. In fact, I can do it twice in one day. I also learned that I do really want to do this whole writing thing. I talked with a woman in one of my groups who said she wasn’t sure the whole writing thing was for her. I left feeling totally enthused to continue pursuing my dream.If I weren’t immersed in planning a wedding, I’d have already started revising both of the stories I got critiqued. As it is, I can barely squeeze in writing the longest blog post ever. But after next Saturday, my schedule will be freed up and I’ll be ready to dive back in to writing.

What I’m reading: I’m still working on The Emperor of All Maladies. I finished Outlander and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I started reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand and Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I’m enjoying both of them very much. Now, if I could just stop watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, I’d have more time to read…

Bad to the Bone

I suffer from a minor obsession with shipping cranes, as I may have mentioned before. I’ve done a bunch of research online about cranes and watched videos. But there’s nothing like seeing something in person, particularly if you’re trying to write a book. So I ventured to Middle Harbor Shoreline Park today which lies sandwiched in the middle of the Port of Oakland. It was a beautiful, clear, chilly afternoon and when I arrived, there was a ship docked just feet away from me. A chain link fence with razor wire separated me from the dock and I pushed through a few barren bushes to get close enough to the fence to take pictures and videos with an unobstructed view.

I was absolutely in heaven watching the cranes unload the ship. I was taking notes about the sights and sounds on my phone when I suddenly heard a voice behind me. I turned around and there were two cops (US Customs and Border Protection: Field Operations) standing there looking at me very seriously. They asked what I was doing and told me I looked suspicious (I had on sunglasses, a baseball cap, a backpack, and sweats. Very unabomber meets soccer mom, I guess).

I explained that I am interested in shipping cranes and that I’m writing a children’s book about them. They asked who employs me and if I had a business card. I explained that I’m self-employed and unpublished. They looked so skeptical that I threw down the teacher card. I said, “Not only do I write, I’m also a substitute teacher.” Then they asked me where I teach and I explained that I work in two districts and that I used to teach full time but now I’m taking time off to write. Then they asked me where I used to teach. And where I live now. And told me that taking pictures and watching the cranes looks very suspicious. They also told me that if I had been sitting on a bench about ten feet from where I was standing that I wouldn’t have looked so suspicious. They told me that no one ever walks up to the fence to watch the cranes and so therefore I looked very suspicious.

I could tell they wanted me to leave the fence and suspected that they were just going to stand there until I did so. I smiled brightly and said, “Oh, I’m just so excited that I got to see what I saw!” And then I went to sit down on a bench and took out my laptop. They walked away and I started typing up the encounter. I assumed they had left, but I just looked over to the parking lot a minute ago and they were still hanging out at their car. I guess not much interesting happens at the Port of Oakland. Oh and one of the cops said, “Don’t be surprised if you get a call from the Port about this.” Well I actually would be surprised since I wasn’t able to offer them my business card. “Get questioned by cops” is now something I can cross off of my bucket list.

A couple of weeks ago I got scolded by a principal for using my phone while I was subbing. I spent a day subbing for a teacher who had a student teacher in her classroom. She left plans for the student teacher, but nothing for me. The only purpose I served in being there was to be a credentialed body in the room. So I read on my phone all day. And apparently got ratted out. Can’t take me anywhere.

Over the long weekend, my fiancé and I went hiking at Marin Headlands. It was a gorgeous, warm day and we ate lunch on the rainbow sand beach and hiked on the bluffs above the ocean. We poked around the deserted WWII batteries and had a blast.

We also went bouldering at Indian Rock in Berkeley. It’s the first time I’ve climbed outdoors since last March (before I had shoulder surgery). It was a humbling experience. I know that the grades I’ve been climbing in the gym aren’t representative of what I can climb outdoors, but I didn’t realize how far off the gym grades really are. I’m guessing a V5 in the gym is about equivalent to an outdoor V1. That being said, I climbed two V0s and a V1 and felt like a rockstar. I hadn’t realized how much I missed climbing on real rock. I had also forgotten how scary it is. video of me on a V0

What I’m Reading: I finally finished Confederates in the Attic. I really enjoyed it and found it to be an eye-opening glimpse of the South. I’m still reading The Emperor of All Maladies and Outlander. 

Not So Glorified Babysitter

If you’ve never gone to a Cirque du Soleil show you really should go to one. A few weeks ago my fiancé and I took his mom to see their show called Kurios in San Francisco. It was incredible as usual. I first went to see one of their shows almost eight years ago. My fiancé told me he had gotten tickets and I remember thinking, “Seriously? You’re taking me to the circus?” But wow, Cirque du Soleil is so much more than a circus. The feats that the performers do are just amazing.

I went on a brief trip to Pasadena to visit friends and take a much needed break from wedding planning/stressing. I stayed with a dear friend and her husband and their darling four month old daughter. As usual on my travels, I met up with friends and ate way too much food. It was perfect!

I subbed two days last week at a school I had never been to before. The first day I was a floating sub, moving from classroom to classroom to relieve teachers to work with the principal to write a grant. At least, that’s what was supposed to happen. I did go to three different classrooms, but I was only alone with students for about an hour and a half in the first teacher’s classroom. After meeting with the principal, the teacher came back and told me that I’d stay for another hour with her before moving to another classroom. But since she was back, she would teach and she wanted me to re-alphabetize her library… So I did. Then I went to the next teacher’s class only to find that she was there (no idea why) as well as a cooking/art teacher who was teaching a lesson. I guess the idea was that I would help out with the lesson. But there was nothing to do except pace around the classroom (ME: Do you need any help? STUDENT: No). When I got to the third teacher’s room, it was a repeat of the situation in the second teacher’s room. Super lame, but I guess the best way to look at it is that it was an easy way to earn $92 (the take home pay for a day in that district).

The next day I went back to that school and actually got to sub for a teacher who was out sick. The class was pretty nice and it was another easy day of subbing. It was a minimum day and when I went to the office to ask if there was anything I needed to do before signing out, I was informed that I should go ask some of the teachers if they needed any help before I left. So I wound up having to grade tests for another teacher, who then kind of took pity on me and talked my ear off for the last 30 minutes before I was allowed to go home.

For some reason it’s hard for me to keep sight of the fact that subbing is not teaching. It is not so gloried babysitting and “helping out”. It is also a pretty good way to earn a little bit of spending money and have a completely flexible schedule. But god is it boring.

What I’m reading: I’m still working on Confederates in the Attic and The Emperor of All Maladies. I finished Gone Girl and I can’t say that I was a fan. A lovely friend sent me a Kindle version of Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. I haven’t read very much of it yet, but so far it is quite enjoyable. It takes place in the Scottish Highlands so it’s really fun reading it with a (bad) Scottish accent in my head.

Falling Off

Don’t worry, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth, just off of the blogging wagon. Christmas Eve (the last time I blogged) seems so far away. Almost as if it happened last year…

The holiday season was pretty magical. Christmas was a lot of fun and my boyfriend and I got engaged on New Year’s Day! This is actually the main reason why I haven’t been blogging. I’ve been wedding planning instead. Wedding planning actually involves a lot of writing, it’s just not the type of writing that I’d like to be doing. It’s all making lists and writing emails. But I’m determined to be more disciplined with my writing now that I’ve got a venue and catering nailed down.

What you can’t see is that after writing that last sentence, I just zoned out on the couch for several minutes staring at smoke. My fiancé just bought a meat smoker and it’s sitting on the balcony in a direct line of sight from the couch where I’m writing. Smoke is so pretty! And so distracting.

While I haven’t been writing lately, I have not been completely uninvolved in the writing process and the furthering of my writing career. My primary critique group met this week and we had a really great session. We have a new home at a meeting room in the Lafayette library and we also have a new member. Our critique session was so rousing that at one point a librarian came to shush us. We were brainstorming ideas for someone’s story and I came up with a good one and everyone was practically cheering. It’s so much fun working with people who get excited about writing and about helping each other. The story I brought this week has a lot of flaws and I was eager to get some insight about fixing them. My partners came up with some really good ideas, so now I just need to buckle down and try some of them out.

For my birthday last year, my fiancé gave me the gift of going to the SCBWI winter conference in New York. After some thought, I decided that instead of this conference I wanted to go to a writing workshop. The workshop is held at the Big Sur Lodge and it’s organized by the Andrea Brown Literary Agency and the Henry Miller Library. Over the course of a three-day weekend, you have your story read and critiqued by agents, writing coaches, and peers. I’m super-duper excited and can’t wait for March.

Climbing has been going really well and I’ve actually had luck climbing with some nice girls. Because it’s been so long since I bouldered outdoors, I’m having trouble deciding how hard the gym grades really are (they’re usually a grade or two below what outdoor grades are, so a gym V5 might only be like a V3 outdoors). I’m now climbing V4s and V5s in the gym so I’m pretty excited and I can’t wait to climb outdoors again.

What I’m reading: I finished Call the Midwife. Overall, it was decent, but I’m not sure I’d recommend reading it. I’m still reading Confederates in the Attic, which is quite good. It’s written by a journalist who’s moderately obsessed with the Civil War. The book charts his travels through the South visiting battlefields, joining reenactors, and talking to other people who are seriously obsessed with the Civil War. I read In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It was interesting and very well written, but I didn’t actually enjoy it that much. I also started reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (ok so far, but I’m not in love with it) and The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (a “biography”/history of cancer).