I had seen this before.  We all had.  A couple years a go, we purchased 3 praying mantis egg cases from a seed company for a nominal price.  The goal was to put ‘em in jars, hatch ‘em, and watch ’em do their thing.  And so we did.  After a couple months or so, the Bell canning jars that held them were full (and I mean full) of baby praying mantises.  We had 3 different “litters” on 3 different days just because, nature being what it is, they didn’t hatch at the same time.  But that was fine.  Spread out the fun, more or less.

Lots of 'em...

Well, THIS year, we didn’t go looking for the egg case, but my son found one anyway, in his rigorous search for the perfect stick I would imagine.  So, for fun (yes, we are limited, I know, I know) we put it in a trusty old canning jar, and began the wait.  Actually, I think we forgot all about it.  But whatever.  When he found it, I figured it would take about 2 months to hatch, based upon the seed catalog eggs.  But apparently, global warming or natural climate variation was in effect, because a few days later, I was staggering around the kitchen in my morning zombie state, looked up at the shelf in front of my nose, and, you guessed it, a swarm of baby mantises (manti?) greeted my eyes.

Now, I may be a little skewed, but I think they’re kinda cute.  They are perfect miniatures of the adults, tilting their heads, looking at you with their bulbous eyes.

Hot or Not? You be the judge.....

They have the disconcerting habit of eating each other if you don’t let them go, however.  Cannibalism at its finest.  Immediately, the boys (who are homeschooled) got excited because they knew I would be more interested in the mantises than in algebra, and they were right.  I grabbed the camera and we all headed outdoors to take some pictures and do a release.   I shot and shot, got lots of good pix, and the little critters climbed out of the nursery jar in twos and threes.

Many seemed to find my arms a nice place to land and possibly set up housekeeping, but they skittered away when I blew on them.  Soon, the immediate area all around us–the brick patio, the nearby plantings–was teeming with tiny predators.  We left the jar then, out on the warm cement, and allowed them to make their first steps into the wide world.

I considered keeping a couple.  I really did. But this time, I decided not to keep any, basically because I have been there, done that.

The store-bought mantises of a few years back yielded 10 lucky winners…we set them up in containers (each in its OWN container, to prevent friendly snacking) from their first day, named them, fed them (wet catfood to start—they seem to learn quickly to lap it off the tip of a straightened paperclip) and then we got bigtime and ordered wingless fruitflies.  (Yes, I am so crazy that I actually ORDERED flies, to live in our home, to feed our pet praying mantises.)  Let me tell you, these babies can hunt.  We would pop a couple flies in each container and the mantises would quickly and effectively assassinate them.  But as they grew, so did their demands for food. And wingless fruitflies are flies nonetheless, and I got tired of squashing them all around the kitchen. So, we slowly pared down the herd with calculated releases.  Until there was one.

We decided this one (and I can’t remember his name) would get Cadillac treatment, so I bought him a plastic critter keeper which we outfitted with sticks and rocks.  He grew.  He shed his exoskeleton several times.  And I use the term “he” very loosely.  Could have been a “she”.  Probably WAS a she, as fast as it was growing.  But whatever.  This one hunted and killed voraciously.  Got some pix of it dismembering a fly.

Tastes just like chicken...

DELICIOUS!

Imagine if it were big and we were small.  Me thinks the human race would be in serious trouble.  Heads would be rolling, as it were.  But, nature being what it is, the status quo is fiction.  One morning, about 5 am, I was wisely sleeping and I heard a terrific noise that scared the crap out of me coming from the kitchen.  I sat straight up in bed, my eyes crusty, my heart pounding, listening for ANOTHER noise that would indicate imminent death from a home invasion.  Silence.  Nothing.  And since the dog didn’t bark, I figured I’d take my chances and go back to sleep.  Which I did.

When I awoke, I found the critter keeper on the floor, all the rocks tumbled onto the sides and roof.  There was no mantis.  I sifted through the rocks for a crushed body.  Nothing.  I searched around the kitchen for a tiny, poised killer.  Nothing.  Hmmmmm.  The cat wound around my leg and nosed through the rocks.  He looked at me.  His eyes were wide and green and innocent.  My mind flashed to all the times he has lept 6 vertical feet to catch a moth.  All the times he has stalked spiders and houseflies, creeping up on them as if he were hunting antelope in the grasslands instead of bugs in my house.

“Ah, Soda Pop,” I said.  He slanted his eyes up to me, clearly pleased with the situation.  So, the tiny hunter had become the hunted.  And then, apparently, had become lunch.  Or early breakfast.  Or maybe cats don’t care what the meal is called, as long as it’s still wriggling.  And for what it’s worth, I know that if ole Soda weighed in at 200 lbs or so, I WOULD be the hunted.  It’s a circle of life…thing.  And Soda knows that, too.  He tolerates me because I provide him with catfood and an occasional well-aged praying mantis.  He pays me for my endeavors by rubbing my legs and clawing my furniture.  Oh, and I dress him up in costumes as well. There’s a free download of his children’s book I HATE HALLOWEEN somewhere on this website, so check it out.

Oh yes, he pays his dues.......

See, here he is, all dressed up.  He hates me, clearly.  He takes it out on praying mantises and such.  It all rolls downhill.  Probably a Karmic lesson there.

Oh, and I have two new pets.

Adorable, ain't it?

Jumping spiders.  Beautiful little killers they are, as well.  I’ll keep you posted.  Now I gotta go feed the cat.

Here there be sharks.....

Another quick blog post, this one not relevant to anything except perseverance….been working on this little drawing for the past 3 evenings. It is the final page of “Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite”, a story I would love to publish this year. I didn’t say I was GOING to publish it, however. The drawings for this book are more complex than any I have done thus far, and although I would LOVE to be able to draw all day every day, I doubt that is in the cards in the immediate future, although I would LOVE to make it happen. However, paid jobs come first, so…
I also felt like it was important to do this illustration now for the simple fact that Maurice Sendak, a man I so greatly admire I want to grow up to be HIM, died a couple days ago. This illustration pales in comparison to his work, but the tale itself has what I hope is a “Sendakian” feel, and I just had to work on it this week. When the feeling comes, I have to obey. Good things result. And I’m happy with this one, extremely so. Be well, friends. When inspiration strikes, obey. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Blowing bubbles during our heathen Easter camping trip.

And the resultant drawing is shown here.

Sailor Blowing Bubbles

Why did I do this today?  What overcame me?  Sometimes I see something and I just feel this urge to draw it.  I can’t explain it, can’t tell you why, can’t even begin to communicate what it is I feel when that actual creative urge is upon me.  My fingers itch to hold a pencil.  I want to smell the wood shavings from my sharpener. Or maybe I’m just crazy.  I don’t know.  But I’ve learned it’s wise to pay attention to those moments.  Oftentimes, the result is much more satisfying than if I draw something because I just feel I should draw something because I haven’t drawn anything in a while..  Mostly, I think I draw it because I want to see if I can.  Can I do it?  Can I make it look the way I want?  Can I?  Today, at least, I could. I assure you, it doesn’t always work out that way.

And I couldn’t resist adding the tutu.  Now, back to work with myself.  HAPPY FRIDAY!

For sure, the kids in my own house WON'T notice.

So, I’m working on a new children’s book. Actually, I’m ALWAYS working on a new children’s book. Meaning, I”m always thinking about ideas for children’s books, characters, imagery, all sorts of things like that. BUT, I’m actually DOING something about this little project. I’m ACTING upon all those ideas and visualizations.  For me, that is the first, sometimes most difficult hurdle.  Getting from idea to action is fraught with miles of bumpy road for me.  However, I’ve written the whole thing, rhymes and all, did the plot, and mapped out what I want each illustration to be of. Now, this is a Bug Summer book, so it will be illustrated with both original art AND original photography.

Yep. Took this 3 years ago.

The photography is complete, and, I’m ashamed to say, HAS been complete for a couple years (nearly 3, yikes!). I’ve got a blog coming about THAT process, so I’m going to leave the photography portion of this little how-to for now. But, the illustrations, well, that’s the real time-sucker.

The first thing I do is visualize. I’ve been visualizing my illustrations ever since I decided I wanted to do a Dragonfly/damselfly book back in 2009. They always start out as hazy pictures in my head, and get better and more exact when I start photographing those critters.  I made an illustration for this book a couple summers ago, which you can see here

This one makes me happy when I look at it.

.

However, due to minor story changes (wardrobe) I will have to alter this one a bit.  No biggie though.  I don’t do a lot of finished illustrations before the actual writing of the story, however.  I only do enough to inspire me to write.  For me, writing is a collaboration in my brain between the visual and verbal, so it’s useful to have an illustration to focus upon.

After visualization, I put pencil to paper and I WRITE the thing.  Don’t get me wrong, I knew several things about this book before I wrote it–subject matter and characters the chief things.  I also know I’m there to inform and to entertain with this story, but this is NOT a straight science text.  This is a book for little kids and grown ups who really like to be wowed visually and enjoy the characters living in Inclement, Iowa.  The Bug Summer books are traditionally rhyming stories.  So, to keep with the theme the audience is used to, I will stick with that concept.  BUT, I have to have a plot.  Just so happens, I do.  Now, this children’s book is NOT going to solve the US fiscal crisis–it isn’t THAT complex, so, the rhyme scheme isn’t THAT difficult.

Wonder how it will work for MY fiscal crisis...

The challenge is making the rhymes sync with the storyline.  There are several online rhyming dictionaries that come in handy, and sometimes, when I come to a difficult one, I will move on to the next stanza, letting that “page” sit for now.  Rhymes come to me at strange times, most often in that weird, half-waking sleep I experience between 4am and 6am.   Please note, I don’t do any of this process on the computer (so far).  I do all my initial writing in one of a variety of sketchbooks I have laying about the house.  I write in weird orientations on the page.  I might rip a page out of the book and fold it and write different stanzas on different planes of the folded paper.  I just like to do it that way.  I don’t know why. I also write in pencil.   Now, pencils are important.  At least, they are to me.  I start with Ticonderogas.  That’s it.  Nothing else will do.  I keep a stock of these things hidden from the children, and good for me.

Writing Damsels and Dragons was an easy one.  I knew my story line, and I wrote the rhyming text for it over the course of about 4 hours.  Now, keep in mind, I wasn’t WRITING for 4 hours, or even sitting with the sketchpad for four hours staring into space.  I wrote furiously for a bit, and when I came to something that wasn’t working, I got up and did something else, like the dishes which ALWAYS seem to need doing in my house.

Always and forever.

Then, I would come back to it, and work on it some more.  I did all the writing in one day, but that doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes, it will take me a week or a month to scribble the words.  Once, I wrote a complete 24 page children’s book in about 2 hours, and that was NON-STOP.  Sometimes, I get lucky.  Most of the time, it is just average.

Yes, THIS was the "lucky" book...

Then comes the time-sucking part.  Actually illustrating.  And that is where I am right now.  For children’s books, the illustrations tell a large part of the story, not to mention entertain, set the tone visually for the book, and, I hope, give children and adults some art to look at during the course of their day.  To me, a children’s book is like a trip to an art gallery, and hopefully it is just as inspiring.

Wow, this museum REALLY needs to be vacuumed.

Anyway.  So, the first thing I do is I begin sketching with a goal.  The goal is ALWAYS to design a single page illustration to match a stanza of the story I just wrote.  I’m not looking for completely FINISHED work here–the sketches are all in my trusty Tidconderoga lead, no color–but, I want to get the layout and composition down as much as I can.  You can see that in the illustration below, which I scanned into my computer.

Pencil sketches rock. That's all. They just rock.

Now, this sketch took about 45 minutes to layout the way I wanted, do minor shading, etc.  I was also discussing my daughter’s life with her at the time.  If I had been able to focus, I would have had it done in maybe 30 minutes.  But, really, that’s my life.  My work–photography, writing, art, everything–is so integrated into my family that everything seems to take longer than it should.  The upside is that it really doesn’t.  I would have spent just as much time illustrating in one chunk and talking to my daughter in a separate chunk of time–actually, I bet it would have taken MORE time.  This is one of the maybe 20 or so layouts I need for the book, and I really like it simply because it echoes what happened when I photographed the dragonflies and damselflies for the book a couple years ago.  I am the kid with the camera–Zack–and my husband is the one holding onto the back of my shirt just so I don’t fall into the drink.  It was a precarious position to photograph ANYTHING in, let alone damselflies and dragonflies, so I felt it had to be included as a part of the story.  The one thing this illustration is missing is Flash, Zack’s beagle, who features prominantly through the Bug Summer books.

I love this dog. Seriously love.

And that’s where I am with this little project.  I am hopeful to be able to do one finished layout a day for the next month, and then be ready to publish.  HOPEFUL is the key word here.  Life happens for me, like it does for everyone else.  It’s the beginning of May now.  I theoretically could have this done by the beginning of June.  July is much more likely, but I’m keeping that a secret from myself, so I set my goal of June, and then we’ll see what happens.  After all, I started this thing fall of 2009.  An additional 30 days to make it as good as it can be is fine.  As long as I keep rolling toward the goal.  So, here I go.  The next post I write about this will have a few dandy finished illustrations….HOPEFULLY.

The writing part was much more difficult. Setting up a pattern of writing a thousand words a day, and sticking to it is much more difficult than P90X, trust me. I’ve done ‘em both. And for a while, I had the abs to prove it. Alas, my love for cheesecake and chocolate has torn them down.

How do I love thee? I can't count the ways....there are too many.

But getting up at Oh:dark:30 to bumble my way through a workout that will make me one sexy thang isn’t nearly as hard as hanging out in my bed by the cold glow of my laptop screen at midnight on a school night (no, I’m not in school, my kids are in school, which puts me on THEIR lovely schedule) where I bumble through a world that some days seems as clear as crystal to me, and other days seems to hide deep in the fog of my apparently non-functioning imagination. So, writing was the HARD part.

Publishing is easy.

Folks don’t realize it, but these days, ANYONE can publish a book. All you have to do is write it, find a printer or a print-on-demand service (I used CreateSpace for Buck’s Rodeo, and the children’s books have all been outsourced to a printer in New Jersey–Endeavor Printing), purchase an ISBN, and put the thing up for sale on Amazon. Boom. It’s THAT simple. You can do this. Anyone can do this. All those New York publishers are trembling as we speak. Apparently, book advances for authors are dwindling big time (so I’ve heard). There is this huge paradigm shift going on in publishing, one that portends so many different things, depending upon which expert you read. The world could be ending in 2012. Frogs could rain down from the heavens, swatting at all of us with their sticky pink tongues. Dancing bears are conspiring against us, preparing to take over the federal government.

Wow, they look like they're having FUN.

Or maybe, just maybe, art is becoming democratized. Perhaps, this is the model we’ve needed all along! People are creating and other people are consuming that creation, voting with their dollars and/or their screen views what is worth their time to read, to listen to, to look at, to experience. No longer is a middleman (publisher) necessary to get your work to the world. How cool is that!

How American is THAT?!

Or, maybe, I’m just a crazy-little-bedbug artist who wants to think all that. I dunno.

But I do know THIS. I love to write. I love to draw pictures. I love to illustrate. I love to photograph. I love to create. I believe that is the natural state for most of humanity. We are naturally creators of something, of everything. All that you see around you, from the paint colors on the wall to the rugs on the floor and the software in which I compose this piece was created by someone, or by several someones. All the goodwill, all the negativity, all the technologies and the ideas, all the beauty and the ugliness, someone (or several someones in concert) created with their own little thoughts and attitudes. Now, with technology, with the magical land of the internet, all of that can be for consumption. Sometimes, it’s for paid consumption, other times it’s all a freebie, but it doesn’t matter. Used to be, before telephones and radios, my reach was only as far as my voice could carry. I could only sell my books, my art, my ideas to whomever I could reach out and touch in real life. Now, I can sell to the entire world. I still need to reach out with my voice. I still need to touch people with my ideas. But that is the social media game, a game that I’m still learning the ins and outs of, that I play clumsily many times, that scares the crap out of me most times. But whatever the outcome of my book, it is all about ME, and how well I wrote it, and how well I promote it. No publisher is helping me here. I’m helping myself. It will probably take a long time. I will need to write more and more books–a one string banjo just doesn’t cut it in the orchestra of internet marketing madness. But that’s okay. Every one I write, I do better. It’s all skill building.

Working on the sequel now....wow...I AM a crazy-bedbug-artist....

You know, I said my kids go to school, and it’s true, they do. 2 of them go to public school, and two of them are homeschooled by yours-truly. They are doing their school time right now. They’re smart boys, both of them, blazing through curriculum quickly, and they’re very self-motivated. So, I’m having them write their own books. We’re going to start publishing them on a blog. They’re going to learn how to promote themselves and their ideas, whether they become authors or not. In fact, the skill of persevering through the tedium of writing a book, going through the publishing process, and actually seeing a copy in your hands is powerful. One of them loves to do comics. The other illustrates poems. We’re starting there. My oldest child is finishing up her last couple years at public school and loves to write. With my encouragement, she is going to attempt to write a book this summer, and publish it to Amazon as a Kindle book. What better way to get feedback about your work than to just GET IT OUT THERE. My youngest is almost 8, and she is already writing and illustrating 6 and 7 page stories.

Her latest story....I wonder how it ends...

She’s thrilled that I’ve given her the go-ahead to start blogging this summer (please, God, let THAT occupy her, pleasepleaseplease!) There are no publishers to stand in your way, to tell you you’re no good. You just jump in the pool. You learn to swim.

God, I love summer.

You get better and better. Slowly, you develop a following.

Anyone can do this. It is possible, for anyone and everyone. Get busy, folks. Live your life like art, and find a way to get it out there. Whatever it is you do, there is a forum out there for you now. The internet has a power.

Thunder outside. Frog legs, anyone?….

Ribbit.

The link is an article about they guy, Pearl Fryar.  He is my new hero.

http://www.humanflowerproject.com/index.php/weblog/comments/evergreen_surrealist_pearl_fryar/

His garden. I SO want to photograph this myself.

This is one image of his garden (Creative Commons under Wikimedia).

Now, this guy isn’t a trained artist. He isn’t a trained horticulturist. He worked in a factory that makes cans. CANS. He simply decided to grow this garden. And so he did. Just like the little red hen.

This speaks volumes to me.
People tell me, some in my own family, even, that I’m trying to do too much. That I should just not be so busy. That I cause myself stress when I’m trying to do photography (main source of income, and I like it, so I’m not stopping THAT) gardening (not on the level of Pearl, no, but again, I like it, it makes me happy to dig in the dirt, AND I use my garden in my photography work, so there) homeschooling (I am going to do what’s best for my kids, not bending on this one) and my writing and illustration (I am NOT going to stop doing that either, folks, it brings me too much pleasure and satisfaction). I’ve been told I’m crazy for starting to blog. But again, I’m finding that I really enjoy writing small pieces for grown-ups to read.

It baffles me that more people DON’T try to do the things that they feel some sort of inner drive to do. Maybe they talk themselves out of it. You know, the little person living in your mind that says “You’re never gonna accomplish this, no way, you’re not good enough”? Everyone probably has one of those little people. Sometimes they resemble a parent, or a teacher who discouraged you, but in MY head, I think that little guy is a miniature ME, a negative mini-me that wants me on the safe straight and narrow.

Jeeze, have I got the bugeyes or what?

The key is to lock that chick up in some sort of mental padded room where I can’t hear her. I would like to take a pillow and smother the little jack-wagon, but I don’t think critters like that stay dead. They rise again to torment, like a mental zombie, ready to eat at my self-confidence, my ambitions, my dreams.

That chick sucks. Really. I hate that chick.

I think we all have that guy riding around in our heads. Think of how many wonderful things WOULDN’T happen if people listened to their mini-me’s. All of the amazing, creative things in the world WOULDN’T even exist! There would be no televisions or computers or movies or books or great tasting food or waterslides. Imagine a world without waterslides.

I cannot live without waterslides.

All the good stuff in life, all of it, came from someone who smothered that little mini-me long enough to hold the courage to imagine and actually create. All of it. All the glorious richness we see around us, all the inventions, the Apollo program, the art in museums, the books on the shelves of the library (and on the Kindle, don’t forget that nifty gadget) and literally EVERYTHING we see around us. All of it is the result of creativity ignoring negativity. In fact, I believe creativity is the polar opposite of negativity. Creativity is positive thought in ACTION. And ACTION is the key.

I have a hard time going on vacation. Not actually BEING on vacation, but the anticipation of it is HORRIBLE. I feel like I’m going to die leaving my business behind. After we get on the road, after we break the inertia of our little small town, then I’m more than fine. I’m WONDERFUL. I’m picking out things to photograph, to write about, to remember. I add to my mental art files, broadening my base of sources for the next book, the next art piece. So, even my vacations are feeding my creativity. And, when I get back, I’m busy.

So, I don’t sleep a lot. I don’t nap. Sometimes I forget to eat. I walk the dog. I do my photography work. I homeschool my babies. I dig in the dirt in the yard. And I find time, maybe only half an hour a day, maybe sometimes a WHOLE afternoon, to do my thing. To write and draw and blog and imagine and create.

I am not where Pearl is. Yet. I love the fact that he isn’t trained in any of the work he does. I love that because I’m not either. I do it because I love to do it. I learn from doing it. I value learning from a process rather than a book. I teach my kiddos that—to find something creative that they love to do, and just DO IT. Don’t think about it. Don’t worry about it, even if all your results aren’t great. That is the process. Just keep at it, be patient with yourself. The work, and you, will get better and better and better.

Grab a pillow and suffocate that little negative mini-me hanging out inside your head. Squash him and all his negativity.

This feels GOOD. REAL GOOD.

Keep your boot on him and don’t ever let him get up. Do the work, whatever THE WORK is to you. Be patient and watch it grow, just like Pearl Fryar does.

I bet he buried his mini-me deep in his garden.

Good for him.

Let me tell you how big a deal I made of it over the past two weeks. Two weeks was all the lead time I had for this little appearance. My friend Jared (founder of the kid’s band, BETWIXT that collaborates with me on great school presentations and other creative stuff) arranged this appearance for us on a local (Omaha) morning tv show that has replaced Regis and Kelly now that Regis is gone. So, there are these two Omaha tv people that do this show, called The Morning Blend, which is a blend (get it?) of all sorts of Omaha light news and human interest stories.

The timing was great for me, because I’m just beginning to publicize Buck’s Rodeo, my new novel, so yay! The tv station sent me an email asking me for lots of info including talking points that had to be returned a week before the show, and I did that little piece of homework pretty well. I emailed it the day it was due. Good enough. I also planned to email up some illustrations from my books, but that one slid by. Oh well. I decided to print canvases of my illustrations and actually bring them up to the studio. They could be set decor for the band.

Mission Accomplished

For the first week that I knew I was going to be on tv, it really meant nothing to me. I would look at the calendar to schedule photography shoots for people, and skip March 26th because I would say to myself “no, have to be on tv for that one” and then I’d schedule on another day and promptly forget about the 26th.

Cue the spring time change. Spring forward. Sounds so cheery. Right. For me, it’s a spring detour to sleep loss hell.

I remembered 8 days before the show that I wanted a new dress. Now, I am NOT a big shopper. So, I decided to find it online and have it shipped. Ok, so, after mulling it over for a few hours on a few different sites, I picked out a dress that I thought was suited to my body type, was colorful and fun, and wasn’t expensive. Bam. Ordered that baby. Delivery looked to be 4 days before the appearance. Alright. Shoes I have. No issues there.

Nope. No problemo with the shoes.

So, I have lots of things going on in my life during this time period. LOTS of photography work to accomplish. Lots of homeschooling to do. Lots of dishes and laundry and dog walking and breathing and sleeping and all those other things that we do all the time . Hair. I had to figure out my hair. Then, stroke of luck, I was chatting socially with my hairstylist, told him about this tv thing, and he offered to get up at 5:30 in the AM(ouch) and do my hair for this. ALRIGHT. I was cruising.

So, there we go. Clothes. Shoes. Canvases of illustrations. I didn’t really have anything else to do except survive my workload until the day of the deal. Unfortunately, my psyche didn’t quite see it that way.

First of all, sleeping over the past two weeks has been impossible. (thank you stress and TIME CHANGE.) I’m laying in bed with talking points running through my brain. All the stuff I can cram in 6 minutes begins to jumble itself and reorganize into craziness. My photography workload seems to get deeper. Consequently, I get tireder. Add to that the not-sleeping thing. Starting to get crabby here. The house gets messier.

This is my desk. I didn't have the courage to show you the rest of the room.

I imagine it is probably because I am turning into a walking zombie due to sleep deprivation. Wednesday, the dress isn’t here. Kids aren’t picking up the slack around the house, and the hubby has his own problems—inspectors have shown up at his job, and he’s working 12 hour days with an hour commute, so he’s basically eating and mostly sleeping when he’s here. Time change doesn’t bother him. Okay. Disaster is starting to loom, at least in my brain if not in reality.

Sleeping like a baby....

So, fast forward a few days to Friday last. My dress STILL isn’t here. It is coming UPS. It has to either get here on Friday, or it won’t BE here in time for the show because UPS doesn’t do Saturdays, at least not in Sidney, Iowa if you just pay for the cheapest shipping. Okay. I am starting to feel the first flutters of fear. Tired fear. No. Rephrase that. Exhausted-why-in-the-world-did-I-ever-decide-to-publish-books-and-be-a-mom-and-a-photographer-all-at-the-same-time-oh-and-I-have-to-be-on-television-in-three-days-and-I have-NOTHING-to-wear-fear.

Saturday was a wash. I felt like I was swimming in molasses.

Yes. I'm swimming in this. MMMMMMM.

I had a list of things to do (I am a list-compulsive) but couldn’t STICK to the list. Running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Thinking of alternate wardrobe ideas, none of which thrill me. Then, hey, I find out UPS decided to deliver it to the Post Office on Saturday instead of driving two blocks to my home and dropping it off here. Since we have a PO box, the dress is here. Okay. I’m feeling mildly better. But TIRED.

But, I realize I don’t have jewelry. Seriously. I don’t wear much jewelry except for my wedding rings. I buy art supplies and camera stuff, not sparkly stuff. So, I call my husband to pick up some cheap bling at a store in the town where he works. I describe it in miniscule detail because I want what I want, and he doesn’t pick out jewelry because I never ask him to, and I see how he dresses, so I figure I better be exact. (Luv you honey.) I am starting to panic a bit about the talking points. Am I going to sound stupid? What if they ask things that aren’t on my list of talking points? What if my dress is too low cut and I look like a hooker?

Hooker?

What if I look old? (I am.) What if I look fat? (I’m not, but I sometimes think I am, and the tv puts on 10 lbs.) What if I look like an old, fat hooker? Wouldn’t it be better to look like a young, thin hooker? Or, and this one is the most important—What if my subject matter just isn’t interesting?

Sunday, the day before the tv deal dawns. I feel calm. I slept well. I focus. I work. I print canvases. Stretch ‘em. Talk to Jared and TJ–the band BETWIXT. Finally. This is how it’s supposed to be. I feel nervous anticipation, but no dread. My talking points are lodged firmly in my brain. I try on the clothes and shoes and accompanying undergarments. Not bad. I have a glass of wine before bed.

Ah.....

I sleep. I get up. My hairdresser does my hair and it is awesome. My dress is pretty good. I don’t feel too fat or hookery. My shoes are great. We are on time–actually early. Everyone gets there early. It is a small tv station–this is Omaha, after all. But, it’s gonna be fun. I think. They tell me I will be on toward the end of the show with the band. Okay. There are other people on the show too. A guy talking about hard drives and how they fail. Good deal. I had that happen to me once. Another person talking about college basketball championships. Fair enough.

And then, there was this guy. THIS guy. This guy was the headliner.

http://www.omahamorningblend.com/videos/143824776.html
Now, don’t get me wrong. Being GaGa’s ex-boyfriend and writing a book called The Drunk Diet is great. More power to him.   I haven’t read the book.  It could be a transformative read. It might very well be better than mine.  The title is provocative.  He most definitely has more money in the bank than I do.    He was there with his mother and his aunt.  He said “hi” to me in the hall.  (I am an idiot.  Until after the show, I had NO IDEA who the hell he was.  Pop culture FAIL.)   And believe me, I don’t think I’m all that. But, after seeing him and watching his interview, inexplicably, all my worries melted away.  And then, it was all good.

To see MY interview, which I have decided NOT to watch to protect my fragile sanity, click here: http://www.omahamorningblend.com/videos/143306866.html

Okay, goofballs. This was FARMTOWN.

My Secret Addiction.....

One of the largest wastes of time on the face of the earth. And yes, a few years ago (fall/winter of 2009) I got hooked on it. Stupid-stupid-stupid. Yes it was. Yes I was. And for a while, for a few months while the snows piled up and no one went ANYWHERE, I played it with a fervor. I could have written a new book or four. I could have cleaned my house or spent time with my family. But no. Instead, I planted pretend crops in a pretend field and hired pretend workers and arranged pretend windmills and barns and Christmas decorations in a pretend world. And wow. I thought I was satisfied.

This was just 6 weeks ago. The snow in '09 was MUCH deeper.....

Eventually, that winter was over. Eventually, the snow melted (although it seemed to take its own sweet time, I do remember THAT). And I was left with 5 or 6 months of my life that I’ll never get back. It was an addiction, of sorts. When I quit, I found myself jonesing for it, getting antsy, unable to be creative, kind of frozen for a while. My mind wanted to be there, under my carefully tended trees. A couple times, I allowed myself to just go there. You know, not plant anything, not shop, not do anything but stand under the trees. And then I realized, hey, this is crazy. There are freaking trees OUTSIDE MY HOUSE. So, I went outside and stood under the real trees and breathed real air.

Look, Ma! REAL TREES!

Those games are powerful stuff, I think. My family thought it was cute. For a while. They were mildly annoyed when I would worry more about the food growing in my fields than the food we put on the table at night. But, a few of them played as well, so we would hire each other to work and not worry about eating. Sounds like meth, doesn’t it? At least the “not eating” part. Public Service Announcement: Don’t Do Meth. OR Farmtown.

So, when it was all over, when spring came for REAL here in Iowa, and I was able to shake the magic, addictive spell of Farmtown from my synapses, I realized how stupid, and how wasteful those games are. I stay away from them now, all of them. But, I got something very valuable from my experience, something I thought I would never have. I got a FIRST READER.

I met this person in a chat room on Farmtown. A chat room masquerading as a pub or a bar or a saloon, I dunno, where your avatar stands around with other avatars and everyone talks in little thought bubbles which is okay for a while. Folks hire each other to work, or (and I will put this politely) search for romantic partners. (We all know that’s not REALLY what they’re doing, but hey, I’m a kid’s author.) It turns out, this person and I share the same sense of humor. We share much the same tastes in reading. It turns out, we became friends in a REAL way, and not just in a Farmtown way, or a Facebook way. This person has fixed my computer for me, even though I had to ship it two states away. This person and I communicate daily. And this person read Buck’s Rodeo entire, as I was writing it.
THAT is powerful stuff.

This is my FIRST READER'S late dog, Bandit.....no pix of FIRST READER...I agreed to protect the guilty.

If I hadn’t had input from this person, I doubt I would ever have finished Buck’s Rodeo. (I don’t know if I would have even STARTED it.) I would have gotten lost in the maze of imagination and ideas and just never tied everything together to the point where I could say DONE! I wrote for a year, solidly, and in a way, Buck’s Rodeo was my addiction AFTER Farmtown was my addiction. I tried to do a thousand words a night. Sometimes it was easy-peasy. Sometimes it was extremely hard. Sometimes, I didn’t do it. Sometimes, I would get down on myself for not having the right ideas. Sometimes I would want to chuck it in. Sometimes, I couldn’t see where I was going—my imagination was like a dark room, and the match that I was holding was guttering, guttering, burning my fingers and I was NEVER going to find the doorknob that led into the light. And when that would happen, this person would prop me up, and tell me to just keep swimming. And I did. And one day, I actually FINISHED the book. What a strange feeling. To finish something you have been addicted to. A kind of exhilerated, empty feeling. And through it all, my FIRST READER held my hand long distance.

Why isn’t my husband my FIRST READER, you may ask. And I will tell you, that is it because he and I share the same big things—values, morals, family goals, etc. But we don’t share the same sense of what’s entertaining or engrossing. He isn’t a reader of the kind of book that Buck’s Rodeo is. I love him, but it just isn’t his cup of tea.

This is my husband--cut himself shaving.

And for a first novel, which is extremely scary, I needed a FIRST READER who was at least on the same literary planet. And I got it. And then, my FIRST READER shared BUCK’S RODEO with a young relative, a niece, that was just the perfect age. I needed to try it out on a kid, to see if a kid would actually like it, you know. And for whatever reason, this niece thought it was a home run! So, she is a FIRST READER too! (Thank you, darlin’ Miss M!) And then, there was a high school friend of mine that I emailed it to….another FIRST READER. My daughter read it…..a few others, and you KNOW who you are.

I need to thank them all, to start a wave of gratitude to those people. If they hadn’t been there, I am positive I would never have finished the thing. Positive. So, thank you, people, for giving me the courage to access this story. You all are facilitators to my process. I hope to be sharing things with you again, soon.

Tonight, I will chat with my first FIRST READER. We will talk about the world and our lives and our families. I am waiting on my copies of Buck’s Rodeo so I can send a couple books two states away to those people who read it FIRST.

And it is all because of a Farmtown addiction: Buck’s Rodeo. My FIRST READERS. All of it.

Oh, and here’s a cool tidbit, to close it all down. My first-FIRST READER? The one I met in a “bar” on Farmtown, who lives two states away, and has fixed my computer? We have chatted online (not on Farmtown!) nearly daily and we have spoken on the phone a few times. But we have never met each other, face to face. Huh. I still marvel at that.

Ain’t technology wonderful?

If you would like to purchase a copy of Buck’s Rodeo, click here. Tracy has a free download of two of her children’s books as well, and a FREE download of the first chapter of Buck’s. Give it a try!

This is what happened when I tried to make her memorize the text on the back of the book.

So, I thought about ALL my books, including the novel. Is there a theme in all of them? And, it turns out, that as diverse as all the stories are and as LONG as the last one is, there IS a theme running through the whole dealio. (Sorry. Watched Napoleon Dynamite yesterday, and Uncle Rico says that. I love Uncle Rico.) So, here it comes. My sound byte. And I got it down to ONE WORD: Wonder.

I love wonder.....

That’s it. Wonder. You know, that amazing feeling you have nearly all the time when you are below 12 years of age? The world is big, the world is unknown, the world is magical, and you don’t have the experience yet to be sarcastic and crappy about life because, for the most part, life is pretty good. Life is about chocolate and chasing lightning bugs and cooking hotdogs over the fire and swimming in a crystal blue lake with your friends. Now, I know that this isn’t true for everyone. There are some really crappy deals out there for children. Child poverty is higher than it has ever been. Schools are oftentimes subpar. Parents are crazy/drunk/high/violent. There’s cancer. You can’t even quantify how awful that is. To quote the visuals in that Van Halen video: “Right now, God is killing Moms and dogs….because he has to.” Kids listen to the news, and listen to all sorts of discussions from the adults around them about politics and gas prices and people killing other people and they get the feeling that the world is not safe (which it ain’t. As the master, Stephen King said, “You can’t be safe on a skateboard…”) Then there’s that whole KONY 2012 thing, (and not only is that horrible, but I think the guy who set the whole thing up has lost his happy thoughts as well. Oh well. Another blog.) The world can be a HORRIBLE place for the little things, and that includes the little folks.

But, I don’t think that’s our natural state. I don’t think that’s how our brains are supposed to be wired. I think we are wired for Wonder. I think we want to look at the world through virgin eyes, just marvelling at the way the stars spread across the sky, at the sunset on the water, at the ladybugs on the flowers. I think there is a part of our hearts or our spirits or whatever, if we are a bit lucky, and if we have managed to hold onto it tightly enough, protecting it from the world, that will ALWAYS be 12 or 10 or 8 or 5.

EVERYTHING is magic when you're a kid.....

See, I go into schools and talk about my books to all ages of people, from the little kids struggling to make it to the bathroom before they have an accident to the teachers that have been there so long they are doing the same thing–trying to make it to the bathroom. We read my books–I blow up the illustrations on the big screen, and wow, it is WONDERFUL.

Bug Summer--Raining Ladybugs

I see it on their faces. I do art for them, on my Wacom pad, and on this huge paper with pastels.

Yes, that's me, with my back to the camera....

Again, wonder. We do hands-on art projects, where they get in on all the creativity, while they listen to some great tunes by the folk/rock band, BETWIXT(blog post coming about them).

My Boys, TJ and Jared---AKA BETWIXT

Wonder everywhere. But here’s the dealio: you can just see the kids that don’t feel comfortable with themselves. Maybe they’re wearing shabby clothes. Maybe their hair isn’t combed, or maybe (and this is somehow the most disturbing) they have a look to their eyes that says I have seen too much. I’m not supposed to see this much, I’m just a kid, but the grownups around me just don’t get it. I have seen too much. I see them, and it kills me a little bit. I want to help each of them. I want to roll back time and place them in a better situation. But, I can’t. I’m one person. The only thing I can do is try to make them forget about all the adult-created crap and give them their sense of WONDER back for a few minutes. It doesn’t matter how rich or how poor you are, where you live, the clothes you wear. If you can live each day as if it were really NEW, as if there is always something to be interested in….that is being rich.

And the cool thing is, usually, with the kids that are having a tough time, well, it doesn’t take that much to give them that wonder. A smile. Some encouragement. Their wiring for wonder may be buried a bit, but it is still intact.

They draw me pictures for me to take home. Sometimes they mail them to me. I know I’m not changing their situation. Except, maybe, for a little while, I am. Maybe, if they can read a story, if they can look at some art, if they can grasp a crayon in their fist and make magical marks on paper, maybe it gives them wonder, for just a bit. Maybe they can get lost in their own imagination for a while instead of drowning in the ocean of issues they didn’t ask for. And that is all I can do. It’s small magic, and in many ways, it is inconsequential, especially for adult problems foisted into children’s lives. But, as individuals, small magic is all that we have to give, most of the time.

This makes me EXTREMELY HAPPY....

But imagine, if all of us adults retained our sense of wonder, and encouraged it in the children with whom we are entrusted. If we all did that, one little instance at a time….incremental change, baby. My mind reels with wonder at what might actually happen then.

So, that’s it. Wonder.

In Buck’s Rodeo, there are four 12 year old middle class boys with issues that a lot of kids have–one of them has lost his dad. Another lives with a grandparent. Another has a divorced mom who is remarrying. The fourth has those crazy “helicopter” parents. They all live in Inclement, Iowa. They are friends, and they hang out in the lake in the summertime. They camp around a fire on the beach. There is an unexplained light in the woods, Grampa tells them a story about what that light is. They have adventures. There is danger and love and sneaking out the window after dark, and there is loss and death and friendship and hope. There is magic, of a sort. And there is Wonder.

Oh. And there is a beagle named Flash.

Flash splashin' in the mud....from Bug Summer--Raining Ladybugs....

When I was a kid, I used to be afraid of the dark. My mom (who LOVES scary stories and movies) used to tell us this “ghost story” called “Bloody Bones”, and in it, a child was sent down to the cellar to get a jar of pickles. Of course, there was “something” or “someone” down in the cellar, some sort of crazy, murderous guy or feral, toothsome monster, I don’t know exactly which, and the child sent down to the cellar was scared to go down there. Not because the kid KNEW there was something bad down there, but mostly because of kid-intuition about dark spaces underground. Natural enough, right? But there was lots of suspense there, because the way the story was told, the audience KNEW that there was something BAD in the basement. The child knew the cellar was bad as well, although she went anyway for this jar of pickles (and I could never figure out WHY the pickles were in the cellar–we bought pickles at the store and kept ‘em in the fridge…) Mom told this story GOOD. Not well. GOOD. She built it up, and we knew it was coming, we wanted to yell it out to the little kid going down the steps to just NOT GO DOWN THERE, THE PICKLES WEREN”T WORTH IT! Of course, the story ended with the words “Bloody Bones”, and it wasn’t a POSITIVE ending, if you know what I mean. My mom would tell us this story when we were children, whenever we squealed excitedly for it, (but we didn’t usually ask for it at night, you can believe that–bright sunshine was the timing of THIS tale) and we had heard it times and times before, so we already knew how it ended. But as with all children, the repetition did NOTHING to diminish the intensity of the story.

This is a shot of Mom and me. We LOOK normal...

Now, I didn’t tell my own kids this story.  I thought it would scare them.  And it probably would have, just like it scared me.  But in this day and age of “coddling the children”, I wonder if I should have told it to them, so they could have gotten the thrills and squeals out of it that I did.  To this day, when I go downstairs in the dark, I can feel the goosebumps rise on my arms in memory of my mom’s voice telling us this story.  And when I climb back UP the stairs, I always go at a swift trot, half of my brain convinced I can hear and feel someone (something) sprinting lightly up the treads behind me.  Ah, childhood.  Good times.

This is what my Mom dressed me up as for Halloween. Nope. No princesses here.

But, even though I didn’t tell my kids this story, and I monitor the things they watch on tv and in movies, they are afraid of things. Maybe BECAUSE I protected them from all these scary-fun things they are even MORE afraid. Of REAL things. And one thing I do know is that unwarranted, paralyzing fear sucks. It freezes you from doing things you really want to do, things that your soul cries out for you to do. So far, out of 4 kids, I don’t have ONE that will ride a roller coaster with me. And I LOVE roller coasters. They give me the same feeling that my mom’s story did—tightness in my stomach, a rushing heart, the world moving impossibly slow and crazy fast all at the same time and you know what’s coming, you can see the track ahead of you, but you just can’t turn away. Which is exactly how I feel about being on tv.

I didn't get my daughter up on this rollercoaster, BUT...

...I DID get her on this thing that shoots you up in the air like on Zombieland. She has never forgiven me. Ever.

.

But it’s deeper than that. I feel that way about people reading my new book. I wonder if the folks who have already read it are just being yes-men and telling me they love it because they think that’s what I want to hear. Every time I emailed the manuscript to someone, I felt like I was stepping on a roller coaster, or like I was pounding up the stairs with the monster running up behind me. My heart thuds rapidly, my stomach feels like I’m in free-fall. But, I would be lying if I didn’t say that a part of me is excited and happy. I feel lucky, too. If I get my 15 minutes of fame right now, well, I’m gonna enjoy it. It may be all I get.

I may have my mom tell her grandchildren “Bloody Bones”. I doubt if I could do it nearly as well as she did. It occurs to me that I remember it with such fond dread because I was a child of the 1970’s, and in this day of Paranormal Activity, well, it is just mild in the extreme. My own kids may laugh hysterically when she tells them. If that’s the case, I will have to up the ante a bit. I want them to know that delicious, dreadful excitement so that when they get older, and they get the chance to take a few risks, they don’t freeze. You gotta keep on skipping up the stairs, even if the monster is just a step behind. Maybe especially when the monster is just a step behind and you can feel its breath on your heels. Imagine how wonderful it is when you reach the magical top step (which makes all crazy monsters/madmen evaporate from this dimension) and you turn, and realize there was really nothing to be afraid of in the first place.