I went to my writing group on Monday night and we talked about the Hunger Games and how excited we were to read Mockingjay. At the time I was still reading Catching Fire so I wasn't sure if I was going to rush right out and get Mockingjay the second the bookstore opened. I claimed I would be able to be wait and maybe clean my house first.

Instead I finished Catching Fire on Monday night, staying up past my bedtime to finish it even and ended up biking to the bookstore on Tuesday morning to pick up a copy.

I haven't had as much time to read it as I would like because it is the most wonderful time of the year. The Minnesota State Fair opened yesterday and as usual I was there on opening day. I go several times every year and it truly is the Great Minnesota Get Together.

Opening Day highlights included a trip down the Giant Slide, Chocolate Covered Bacon, cloggers with a goose costume and a marching band playing Thriller in the parade. They stopped and did the Thriller dance with their instruments and most of them had some degree of Zombie make up.

My cats are kitten sitting. I'm not sure how I thought this would go but I told my friend that her new kittens could stay here while she was out of town for a week. The minute my cats saw the carrier they hid. They know that nothing good comes from the cat carrier. I may have actually broken my cat's heart with these kittens. He is sitting under the bed feeling sad and unloved. My other cat is scared of the kittens. She is scared of most things, but kittens, really?

Hunger Games-1, To Do List-0

Yesterday I had goals and a to do list a mile long. I was going to work out. I was going to an appointment in the suburbs. I was going to go grocery shopping. I was going to clean my house and I was going to write.

I did some of these things but I have to admit I did not have my heart in my to do list yesterday.

Normally I'm pretty focused on the Monday To Do list because it sets the tone for the entire week. With a matinee this Wednesday I would usually be super focused.

Instead I was reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

It is the book club selection at League of Extraordinary Writers and the third book in the series comes out this month so I figured it was a good time to see what it was all about.

I have to admit that it took until the end of part one for the book to really grab me in such a way that I would forsake my to do list but when I got into it I really couldn't put it down.

Seriously I had trouble falling asleep on Sunday night because I was thinking about the book and wondering what was going to happen next but I had to stop reading because I was too tired to remember to turn the page and keep my eyes open.

I submitted my manuscript to be considered for the class Advanced Picture Book Workshop and now I just have to wait until September 3 to hear anything. I'm nervous I won't get in but I guess if I don't get in I will know that my story isn't really ready yet.

Thursday was writing group day which means it is time to revise.

I have this picture book manuscript that I've been working on for a while and I'm thinking of taking a class at the Loft called Advanced Picture Book Workshop. But I'm a little nervous about it. I have to submit my story before the class to even get into the class. It is a little nerve racking because what if I don't get in to the class?

Plus the class is called Advanced Picture Book Workshop. The emphasis seems to be on the workshop part. I'm just not really sure if I can handle so much workshopping but I guess it will make me a better writer and will hopefully make my story the best it can be before I submit it.

In other news I'm reading The Hunger Games right now. I was reading about the training and I felt a little like I was training for something yesterday at my Gladiator class at the gym. Fortunately when I go to Gladiator class I don't have to fight to the death but it is still a fun class. We also do not have to wear the costumes. I did put a lot of people in the Gladiator costume for Halloween last year.

I've been talking with some friends about my childhood unicorn story. Mostly in that "OMG you wrote a story about unicorns too" sort of way.

We have even discussed having Unicorn Story Hour in which we all sit around and read our unicorn stories but then it turns out Steph got rid of her unicorn story during college when her mom took her to the attic and showed her a box of stuff she had been saving and asked her to take what she wanted.

I have been critiquing eight-year-old-Carrie's story. After reading through the story a couple times I discovered a major flaw in the piece. The big question I have for my eight year old self is if the unicorn is so powerful (she travels to a new planet and defeats a troll army) why doesn't she just stop her forest from being cut down in the first place?

In other news I'm going to be an Aunt again. I had this idea that I should make a quilt for the baby but then realized that while I can sew I don't want to apply that skill to quilting because I do not need another way to have unfinished projects. A trip to the art fair by my house has made me the proud temporary owner of baby quilt made by my friend Amy. It is so super cute and I hope the baby loves it as much as my sister and I loved our quilts.

Summer reading

I recently bought a book at Half Price Books.

I bought it despite knowing that I have a good stack of books to read and the I didn't need to add any more books to the "To be Read Pile".

The book was Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume edited by Jennifer O'Connell. It is a collection of essays by YA and Chic Lit authors about their experiences with Judy Blume books.

Since my childhood summers were all about reading Judy Blume books a book about Judy Blume books seemed like the perfect summer read.

I have to recommend this book to any Judy Blume fan. Readers who grew up reading her books can relate to the essays in the book. The lessons learned from characters are sort of universal and touched a lot of kids lives. The book included essays written by Meg Cabot and Megan McCafferty.

There are a couple essays about the book Forever by Judy Blume. When I was reading them I was stuck with how people reacted to this book. They often kept it hidden or it was passed around groups of friends in secret.

I think I read every Judy Blume book I could get my hands on from the time I was in third grade through high school. I read Forever sometime in my middle school years but I don't remember being worried my mom would discover me reading it. I didn't leave it at school or hide it under my mattress. I remember reading it out in the open like I would have any book. Although I probably did blush at the sex parts I don't remember thinking I shouldn't be reading that book.

My mom became more conservative when she got remarried but she still didn't freak out about what I read except the time I tried to get a subscription to Cosmo. She even defended me when her friends from church thought I was being rebellious by dying my hair. She said it was just hair. She didn't censor my music either.

She figured if a book came from the YA section of the library that it was OK for me to read. I think she thought if I was reading there were a lot of other things I wasn't doing. Maybe she knew that books had a lot of the answers I needed when I was growing up.

I remember when I wanted to read some of her Danielle Steele books she helped me pick the ones she thought I would like the best.

A few years ago my sister who is uber religious was talking about a certain book and how she didn't think that parents at her church should let kids read the book. My sister claimed the book would teach kids witchcraft. My mom jumped to the defense of the book, not that she had ever read it. She said it was more important for kids to read and if the book could get that many kids excited about reading she didn't think it was bad for them.

Whenever I think about growing up one of the things I feel lucky about is that my mom never censored my reading or music. I probably didn't think I had a cool mom growing up but now that I'm a grown up I'm glad I had a mom who was cool enough to let me read what I wanted to read.

Space Traveling Unicorns

I've done NaNoWriMo a couple times and written a novel at a slower pace. I don't like to tell people what my story is about right away because I want to protect the story. When you say you're writing a novel the next question is "What's it about?" My answer "Unicorns." (Note- my stories aren't really about unicorns I just say it to let people know that I'm really not talking about my project yet). If I need a little variety I'll say Vampire Unicorns or Zombie Unicorns.

This weekend I went home and picked up a "book" I wrote and illustrated in second grade. The cover was pink floral wall paper and the story was printed on construction paper written in my second grade printing font. My mom found it when she was moving and has been telling me about it ever since. She has been talking about how I was a writer even back then.

I remember making books in Miss Johnson's second grade class. Miss Johnson read to us every day and introduced us to the world of chapter books. She assigned me to read Dear Mr. Henshaw and I will be forever grateful for that because the book helped feel not so alone during my parents divorce. But she also had us make some books. I was really proud of the illustrations in my book about Easter but I couldn't find that book.

When I opened the wall paper cover and read the story I laughed so hard I cried. It was about a unicorn. But not just any unicorn. A space traveling, environmentalist unicorn with magic powers.

Like camp for writers

Today was day two of my writing class.

I'm trying to change things up and try something different so I took a week long class at The Loft on Writing the Short Personal Essay.

Here are things I learned so far.

1. The Short Personal Essay is not what I thought it was. I thought it was the entry I'm working on for the Real Simple Essay contest. Turns out it is more "literary" than that. We are reading essays from a book and using them as examples. They are reflective, lyrical and sometimes poetic. We talk about form and structure.

2. To be observant. Yesterday we went out on our own and observed a person we saw and wrote about them. Today we walked around the neighborhood on our own and observed a sound, a found object and a symbol of the past/future.

3. I have a hard time sitting still for long periods of time.

4. I am finding it easy to share my work in class. I'm normally pretty shy so maybe the last couple years of sharing work in class and critique groups has made me more comfortable sharing my work in class.

I have to admit that I felt a little like Harriet the Spy yesterday when we went out to observe people we saw walking on the street. It was fun and I think even if I never write a personal essay that I may use some of these exercises next time I'm facing writers block.

The form is short. The book we are using sets the limit at 2000 word. In picture books the limit on word count means every word is important and has to really mean something. I feel like that is true in the Short Personal Essay so maybe there is more in common between the two than I think.

More Vacation Adventures

Tomorrow I start a week long writing class at The Loft. Since usually there is a matinee or tech week that gets in the way of me taking a week long class I decided to take this class during my two weeks off.

OK really I wanted to take a class at Madeline Island School of the Arts but there weren't enough participants. I did go to Madeline Island last week to visit a friend who is working there this summer and to check out the school so I can make plans to go there next year. I biked, swam in Lake Superior, used a paddle board and swam some more and spent some time with my friends and making new friends at Tom's Burned Down.

I didn't get much writing done. A little in my journal remembering family vacations. My mom and stepdad would always take us for a week at a resort in Wisconsin. We would leave our house early in the morning and drive forever. Towards the end of the drive we would be passing resort after resort and I wondered why my parents had picked the resort that was farthest from our house. Couldn't they have picked something closer?

I have been to Madeline Island before. During these family vacations to Wisconsin we usually went on a trip to Bayfield or Madeline Island. Once we even went to Thunder Bay. I don't actually remember anything involving a big boat trip because my mom gave me medicine to prevent motion sickness. Being in a car on a ferry boat was like a double whammy. So when I visit places I visited as a child it is like seeing it for the first time.

I stayed with my friends who run boat tours of the islands at Adventure Vacations. The wind was too strong and the tours that did go out were to full for an extra person. I did consider walking to the marina and taking a sailboat tour but the waves were too much for me so I stuck to land and calmer waters in Big Bay.

My friend Jen says that despite how much there is to do on the island she still hears people saying they are bored. After spending a couple days on the island I would recommend coming to the island prepared. Bring a swim suit for sure. Maybe bring a bike over or rent a bike or moped from Motion to Go. My friend's store sells boogie boards, swim suits and pool floats. They also rent paddle boards which is a fun way to get out on the water if it isn't too wavy. I spent more time falling off the board until I gave up on the whole standing thing and decided to kneel on the board.

Vacation adventures

I have been in full on vacation mode.

My mom came to visit for the first two days of my vacation.

On Sunday we used the new Minneapolis bike share program, NiceRide. I've been wanting to rent a lime green bike since they showed up around the city a month ago. We biked to the Lyndale Farmers Market and ate at The Magic Bus Cafe because The Grateful Dog is my favorite summer food. My mother is shocked at my meat eating habits. After all I bike a lot and I eat vegetables, how can I possibly want to eat meat. I didn't really point out to her that this meat consumption is like a once a week thing but whatevs.

On Monday we rented pedal boats at Lake Calhoun. Wow. Pedal boats are much harder than I remember from the last time I was on a pedal boat when I was a kid. While we were struggling to move our cumbersome water craft through the lake we decided we wanted to get a closer look at some lily pads. There were a pair of ducks by the lily pads and one was stuck and the other one kept quacking and trying to help her duck friend. While my Mom and I were trying to pedal over to save the duck (an idea that would have taken at least five minutes and might have gotten us stuck in the lily pads) a guy in a kayak swooped in and saved the duck. Which made my mom want to rent kayaks today. We ate lunch at The Tin Fish.

So today back to Lake Calhoun to rent kayaks. After renting the kayaks I'm never renting pedal boats again. Also at $11 an hour what a great way to use use a kayak without actually owning a kayak. Not that it wouldn't be fun to own a kayak but I live in a condo and don't have the storage space for a kayak and at $150 for the season renting a storage spot by the lake makes the $11/hour to rent a kayak pretty reasonable. Being on the lake, out in the water was great and I think I need to spend more time doing this.

Vacation adventures continue tomorrow. I'm bringing some notebooks and pens and maybe I'll write. Or maybe I'll just swim, bike, kayak and whatever.

Next week I'm taking a writing class at The Loft. All week. All day long. Some people might not think of this as vacation but since many of my childhood and teen summers included a week long creative writing class at College for Kids I think this is like my grown up version of that.

I love my new bookcase

I have been resisting the urge to buy a new bookshelf for quite a while. I believed that since I read mostly books from the library that I wasn't acquiring new books but that is wrong. It turns out I have been buying new books- like the two bargain book shopping adventures.

This weekend the call of the Ikea summer sale was strong. I found myself getting in my car and driving to that wonderful temple of organization. I zipped through the showroom like a pro who has been to Ikea numerous times.

I love Ikea. Everything is organized and just being in Ikea makes me feel like I can be organized. Somehow no matter how many Ikea items I buy it still seems like my house doesn't look like the showrooms.

I found the bookcase section and decided on the BILLY

bookcase.

I brought Billy home and was able to assemble the bookshelf in about thirty minutes. Yay. The desk I bought a couple years ago came with an eighty page instruction manual and took three days to assemble.

Billy is amazing. The books which were previously on my childhood bookshelf easily fit on one shelf. All the books I had stacked in front of the books on my other bookcase and on makeshift "bookcases" a.k.a nightstands, end tables, and under the bed fit on the second shelf.

OMG there is still a third shelf. I love Billy. Clearly I was just fooling myself to think that I didn't need more bookcases. I'm also glad my bookcase came with a name name. It makes it easier to talk about how much I love my bookcase.

I haven't figured out what to do with my childhood bookcase which is now sitting empty and sad. I called my mom to make sure there was no family heirloom type importance but this bookcase has housed my books since I was reading The Monster at the End of This Book. There is a ring on the top shelf in the shape of a Sea Breeze bottle from my teen years. I might have a hard time letting go even though I love Billy.

I'm Back

I'm back from my little facebook/blogging vacation.

At first I thought that not checking my facebook a couple(OK more like five) times a day was going to be hard but it turns out it wasn't that bad. It was actually freeing. My house is a little cleaner but that could be from my new dish want and my revision is a little farther along.

The biggest thing I noticed was that I wrote(or cleaned) at times I would normally be on facebook. I wrote in the morning, when I had a spare half hour, before shows, between shows. Now normally I would think nothing of checking my facebook between shows and catching up on status updates but the idea of sitting and writing would feel somehow wrong. But it wasn't so wrong. Turned out I had to keep an eye on the clock but it was good.

I have gotten to the place in my facebook life where I don't update my status often. But the first day of my week off all I could think of was status updates. But without the status updates I put all those witty little thoughts in my journal.

One unexpected side effect of not facebooking was the amount I read. Now I'm not saying the books that I was reading were really hard but I read three books in the last week. Trixie Belden and the Mystery in Arizona, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Prom Dates from Hell. I'm a reader so I usually read about a book a week but I was excited to find that not reading status updates freed me up to read more books.

technology fast

I was going to write a post about my experiences teaching a craft at a theater camp but I'm going to save that for next week.

Instead due to the state of my house (it's a mess) and the state of my revision (not done) I am writing about the fact that I'm going to take a tech fast. See If I write about it on my blog I'll actually do it.

So starting tomorrow (cause I've already checked my facebook page today) I'm only going to check my email for a week. No facebook, no blogging for a week.

Hopefully I will use the time I usually spend on facebook to do things like revise my novel and clean my house.

I can already feel my productivity rising and my house is beginning to look cleaner. I'm planning to use my time between shows today for writing. I'll keep a list of all the things I accomplish during my week off from facebook/blogging.

Have a good week.

writing practice

I bought myself a writing book a couple weeks ago and I have a feeling that it is going to become my new go to book when I need a little jump start on my writing.

The book is An Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg.

This book has writing prompts and exercises to help you think about memory and writing.

Normally I write children's stories but I'm trying to stretch myself in other areas.

I love reading memoirs but whenever I think of writing my own memoir I immediately brush aside the idea because 1) I've never written for Spin or been a contributor on NPR. 2) I am not famous and I'm not connected with anyone famous.

I occasionally title my memoirs.

I wrote a story for Chicken Soup for the Runner's Soul that is being released this summer. When I read magazines with personal essays in them it occurs to me that I could do that. So I use my journal for this practice of memoir type writing.

This book has helped my writing practice. I look forward to working on the writing exercises. Writing about a memory of swimming or the end of something. The exercises usually say to write for ten minutes but I seem to lose track of time and I realize I've written for twenty minutes.

I've even been finding time to write on the weekends. I usually consider myself too busy to write on the weekends and I don't even try it but maybe it is because the book gives me permission to write for ten minutes. It doesn't ask for a word or page count. Just ten minutes. Surely I can devote ten minutes on a Saturday to writing about my beloved childhood pet.

If this book isn't on your writer bookshelf I recommend it.

Writing on Madeline Island

A few years ago the term was the Quarter life crisis was coined. It was something that people in their 20's experienced as they transitioned out of college and into the real world.

I have decided that I need to coin the phrase Three Quarter Life crisis for the phase my father is in his life. I miss the midlife crisis days when I came home one day to find he had purchased a BMW convertible and then a week later he bought a 45 foot sail boat. I really miss the boat.

Recently my father went to Mexico where he married a 27 year old he met in Cabo. *My parents have been divorced forever so this is OK*

This would be OK if it meant that my vacation to Alaska with my Dad didn't get cancelled. Bummer.

But rather than be bummed and feel out of control of my own summer plans I decided that this would be the perfect chance for me to take a writing retreat. My mom thinks it would be the perfect time for me to take an adventure vacation, but I don't think "hotel in the woods" is what the adventure website means when they say "camping".

So I've been researching writing retreats for the last week. I live in MN so Split Rock was where I started looking but alas the weeks I have off they are full. I looked elsewhere. I even thought about the Iowa Summer Writers Festival but that is in Iowa and I'm from Iowa so Iowa City is not a vacation.

Finally I discovered Madeline Island School of the Arts and this is where I want to go. The website didn't answer enough of my questions so I called today and found out, much to my sadness that the classes I want to take are probably going to be cancelled due to lack of enrollment.

It is the first year the classes have run and they aren't really listed in a lot of places that writers would see. I'm super bummed because this sounds way cooler than spending a week in Iowa City, even though I have happy memories of Iowa City. I'm not really sure how I found them. Maybe I saw an ad or something. They did not pop up on the multiple Google searches I did looking for a summer writing retreat.

The man who answered the phone was so nice about answering my questions and taking my name and number in case the class does run. He encouraged me to tell my friends about the class and I said I would facebook, blog, email and tell everyone I could. He told me he finds the telephone useful for getting the word out.

Re Vision

Yesterday was critique group day. I belong to two critique groups. One contains people who are writing middle grade or YA novels. The other group is mostly picture books. I attend both of them because it keeps me motivated. It isn’t that I don’t think my novel group could give feedback on my picture book manuscript or that my picture book group couldn’t say what they think of a chapter in my novel. But each group seems best at what it does.

The picture book group is sort of fluid and as people keep taking classes more people get invited to the group but the group manages to stay to about 4-6 people each week. So every time I go it seems like there is at least one new person there.

Usually it is a person who I haven’t taken a class with so we don’t have an established trust factor going on with regards to critiquing stories.

This week I brought a rewrite of a picture book that I’ve been working on. As I’ve mentioned before I’m trying to tell the story from the dog’s point of view in this story. The revision felt like a stretch creatively and I tried to tell more of the dog’s story. The version I brought was very rough and I know it needs more dialog, more show, less tell.

After my last critique group I was ready to do one of two things.

1) Give up on the story and hide it in a folder with my inexperienced stories from when I first started writing.

2) Submit the story to a kids magazine just to see if it could get published and not have to keep revising it.

But I didn’t. See I have a dream of this story being a picture book. Last time we met the ladies in my group had rewritten their stories so that some were unrecognizable from what they were before. They stretched themselves creatively by trying different forms. If they could do that surely I could look at my story with new eyes.

What do you do after critique groups? Do you go home and revise like crazy? Do you let the manuscript sit for a day and think about what it has done before diving in to revisions?

Rainy Days are productive days

Since Minnesota looks like this in the winter.

It means that summer must be enjoyed to its fullest extent. Which means on days when it looks like this I have a hard time sitting inside working away on my novel.

There are two solutions. Write at the coffee shop at one of the nice outside tables or use walks and such for sunshine fix/writing breaks.

This is a much better solution than my previous summers where I have dedicated my days to long bike rides and runs and then when it is time to sit down and write I am ready for my nap.

But yesterday was perfect. It was raining. Not one of those June just passing through thunderstorms. This was perfect all day rain. Which meant I could stay inside and work away without feeling guilt that I was squandering one of the perfect 100 days of summer.

When I came home from the gym I started working. I wrote in my journal. I worked for a while. I got laundry done. I got dishes done. I went to the bank. I went to Barnes and Noble and bought a book about writing. I revised some more. I wrote in my journal again because my life has been really journal worthy lately.

I had no idea there were so many hours in a day and how much I could accomplish when the sun was not calling me to play outside.

the end of a productive week

Today turned out to be a totally surprising day.

I was ready to spring into action as super nanny at the last minute for a coworker even though it meant not working on any of my writing projects today.

As I was putting on my back pack to go out the door to babysit I got a phone call saying the meeting was cancelled. Woo hoo.

Since I had already worked out and gone for a walk to enjoy the sunshine I took the freeing up of my afternoon to get some writing done. So I feel like this week has been productive.

So when I was reading my Nancy Drew books my boss noticed decided to lend me her entire Trixie Belden collection. So I decided to read these and I have to say that so far they are a lot of fun.

I am currently reading Trixie Belden and the Mysterious Visitor .

The thing that is great about these books, and Nancy Drew too, is that the characters are always looking for and finding mysteries which lead them into all sorts of adventures. The chapters always seem to end with suspense. I mean how can a reader possibly put the book down when Trixie is hiding in the hay loft of an old barn and has just been discovered by trailer thieves.

Reading through these books has been good for my writing as well. Even though my MC is not solving any mysteries I have been trying to revise my novel and am really trying to end my chapters with an exciting or mysterious finish that make people want to read the next chapter.

Holiday fun

I admit that I had fun on Memorial Day. Maybe even too much fun. The best thing about holiday Mondays is that everyone else has the day off too so it is more fun than my regular Mondays off. I threw out my Monday To Do List and decided to celebrate that this was the first paid holiday I've had in nearly 10 years.

I rode my bike to meet up with some friends at Fort Snelling State Park. So seriously if you live in the Twin Cities and you haven't been there you should totally go. It is so beautiful and not nearly as busy on Picnic Island as its neighbor Minnehaha Park.

There is a little lake to swim in and the Minnesota River to fish in.

I biked there and it was a lovely bike ride there. While there I played bocce ball, kickball, ate cook out food, played more kickball and swam.

I saw some wildlife.

Then I had to bike home. Back up the giant hill that leads down to picnic island. I was so tired at the end of my day that I struggled to stay awake until 9 pm. I did a little writing yesterday and am feeling back in the swing of writing today.

I did get a little surprise yesterday. Earlier this spring during the great show shuffle of 2010 I thought I was going to have 3 months off work so I applied for a part time position working with childhood literacy. I interviewed a month ago and really didn't think anything would come of it because they didn't have any part time positions left and because they didn't have any positions left in the city. So I was surprised to get called for an interview.

This part time job sounds like a ton of work but at the same time I am hoping that working to help kids read will help me be a better writer.

The Carrie Diaries

I have a confession to make. Somehow with all the commercials and hype about SATC2 I found out about The Carrie Diaries and when I saw it cheap at Target I couldn't resist putting it in my little red shopping cart.

What can I say. I grew up with the name Carrie in a world full of Jennifers and Lisas. It wasn't until I was in 6th grade that I really encountered someone with my same name. Also there are a gazillion versions of the name so while I knew Kerrys and Karis and Careys I didn't know a lot of Carries growing up. So naturally watching Carrie Bradshaw and her friends and their adventures in NYC was fun for me.

The Carrie Diaries tells the story of Carrie Bradshaw's life before moving to NYC. It is a look at her senior year of high school. During the book we meet Carrie's family and high school friends. We see her first steps into dating. She is dating someone who seems to be spending a lot of time with her best friend while on the other hand there is the nice guy from Brown who is interested in her but whose affections she can't seem to return.

I have to admit that this was not the best $13.50 I've ever spent. The problem with the prequel to Carrie's life is that I feel like I already know how it is going to turn out. This is probably why I made it through half of a Gossip Girl book as well. About halfway through the book I wasn't sure I actually had the motivation to keep turning the pages.

The other thing I didn't like about the book was that it seemed like Carrie and her high school friends smoke a lot. OK so I know this is realistic and that teenagers smoke and that teenagers in the 80's were probably more likely to smoke because of things like Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man. For some reason I have no problem with drinking in books but smoking in books bugs me.

I thought the portrayal of High School Carrie was good. There were things in the book that were universal to high school like dealing with the Queen Bee and figuring out where you want to go in life. Carrie doesn't have that nostalgic best-time-of-her-life view of high school. She has a dream of bigger and better things for herself.

I don't work in a book store so I don't know but I think this book is probably being purchased by fans of Sex and the City. But maybe the book will give Carrie a new generation of fans who follow her through high school and her adventures in NYC.

If you are a fan of the show/book my recommendation is to round up the Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte in your life and split the cost of this book. Then you will have a light summer read to share without the guilty feeling that you wasted your money on it.

back to work and reading

I'm back to work full time this week which means I haven't done as much writing this week.

I have done a lot of reading.

I started out reading a collection of speeches and writings by my mom's cousin that was published for her retirement. It was fun to read what she wrote. There were childhood memories and advice on sending kids off to school. I think one of the best things about reading this collection was the feeling that I maybe I wasn't switched at birth. The fact that there is another writer in my family tree gives me a little confidence in my own writing.

One of the speeches in the collection was about Nancy Drew which led me to pick up Nancy's Mysterious Letter this week. Reading Nancy Drew was entertaining. I love how the chapter's end with cliffhangers. I love some of the cheesy things in the books. There is one point where someone tells Nancy she's the best girl detective ever and she modestly says that lots of girls could be good detectives.

I also worked on the stack of books from the last Half Price Books shopping trip.

I decided to read the book Tennyson by Lesley M. M. Blume.

Tennyson and her sister Hattie live a carefree life until their mother leaves and their father goes to find her. Then they are sent to the family's decaying plantation, Agridoux.

The plantation was once grand but in the 1930's it is crumbling.

Aunt Henrietta is sure that the girls will save Agridoux by finding rich suitors and she begins training them in how to act like ladies.

Tennyson begins to learn the secret past of Agridoux and learns why her parents chose not to live there.

I thought the writing in this book was beautiful. The descriptions were amazing.

Writers will relate to Tennyson when she "fixes" one of her mom's stories but ends up upsetting her mom. From that point Tennyson feels like writing is her Mom's dream.

When she gets to Agridoux Tennyson begins writing again.

I highly recommend this book for the beautiful writing and for the glimpse into the history of the South after the Civil War.