A long blabby blog entry

So, as I’m sure you few loyal readers have figured out, I’ve taken an unannounced hiatus. I really didn’t mean to not write anything for so long—it’s just very easy to not write on my blog. There’s always something else to do. I’d like to say I’ll post on my blog once a week. Okay, I’ll say it. I’ll post on my blog once a week. We’ll see if that really happens. If I could blog straight from my mind I’d have more entries than you’d ever want to read. Unfortunately—or fortunately for you, I can’t, so I haven’t blogged about anything in so long that I don’t know where to start.

How about a summary of memorable happenings in the last two months—has it been two months? Memorable meaning the things that for some reason or another they stick out in my mind. I hope I don’t bore you. You can always quit reading, so I’ll write it anyway…

The most major thing, and probably the reason I quit posting, is that my kids started school. Since my kids have never actually gone to school before (they were homeschooled) this was a major event. The first few weeks were exhausting for some reason, for the kids for obvious reasons, and for me too. This surprised me. I’m just driving them there. How tiring is that? Ridiculous I know. I don’t know what was up with that. I can only tell you that I finally stopped tearing up lately as I watched my little guy walk into the classroom and that I drive 150 or more miles a week—that’s a lot for someone who didn’t used to leave the house for weeks at a time.

Driving to school everyday is getting easier. Since I’m not a morning person I find it challenging to do much of anything soon after I wake up. I’ve listened to way too much Red Hot Chili Peppers (Saturn in particular). I can’t seem to put any other cd in for too long without sticking that one back in. It seems to be my driving music. I’ve learned to leave at least a half hour before school starts so I don’t have to stress myself out trying to get there. And I’ve learned that I have good reflexes after passing a truck within inches on a dirt road going fifty miles an hour—not something I recommend. I honestly thought I was dead. There wasn’t even time to speak it happened so quickly. I don’t usually drive that fast on the dirt roads—this lead me to learn something else, don’t drive when you’ve just been sick on your hands and knees on the lawn. Unfortunately I’ve been sick more days than I’ve been well since school started. Don’t know what’s up with that. Too many school germs I think.

The whole school world is something I haven’t experienced really as an adult. It’s so institutional, yet everyone there genuinely seems to want to do good for the kids. It didn’t take long for the word to get out that I’m a children’s writer. I’ve been asked by both my kid’s teachers to come talk to the class. More like bugged. They haven’t stopped asking. They’re act like they’re amazed that I have a book published. One teacher seriously said “I didn’t know you were famous.” And I told her it’s because I’m not. I resisted adding duh after it. It’s weird.

Also, the librarian asked me how much I charge for assemblies. That caught me off-guard. She said I could come in and do small group talks with all the classes if I prefer. I suppose I should get back to someone about something pretty soon, but for now I’m just ignoring it all. It’s too much. I probably should get together some sort of classroom talk sort of thing. I don’t know—I’ve never even been to one.

In another strange twist, the librarian offered me the substitute librarian job. I was in the awesome school library at the time (it’s bigger than our community library) and was so mesmerized I said I’d love to. Then I went and talked to the principal. She said what they’d really like for me to do is become a substitute teacher. Wha? K – 12. Um, no. Sometimes I think maybe, but really, no. So now I cannot have my lovely substitute librarian job. Well, I probably could but I’m waiting for my husband to make up his mind.

Why? Because he’s decided that he wants to open up a restaurant and whole foods store. Yeah, sounds like a lot of work to me. But hey! I’d never have to make breakfast ever again—unless he got sick, then I might have to cook for people I don’t even know and that’s just scary. So, as of yet we are still in the planning stages and haven’t made a decision. It’s a big decision. Not only would we be running a business, we’d have to move. I’m going to go look at some houses on Friday. It’s pure madness. And I could get a job at the public library right now too! Dreamy. You all are aware that I’m not even looking for a job, right?

I haven’t had an actual paying gig in years, at least ten. Selling Bedtime Monster was the first money I’ve made in so long, and it wasn’t much but I don’t care. It was the best paycheck ever. It would be nice to make some money though, but now the question is how. Too many choices all of a sudden. Life is so random. I just want to be a writer anyway.

And on the writing front I’ve had a couple of amazingly memorable things happen. I got an agent request on a partial. Holy bleep! I think about that guy every single day now and wonder if he’s thinking of me. Ridiculous I know, but I feel like he gets my writing. I sent him one manuscript and he said it was great(great!), but too similar to something he was repping, so I took a chance and sent him another one which he said he liked and had me send in the rest. I’ve been waiting a month and six days now, but I’m trying not to count. I even went on a subbing spree to try to get my mind off of it, but there’s really no getting it out of my mind.

Also, I got a personal back from a major house. Wow! She liked Lion and Mandrill but found it too similar to a series they publish and encouraged me to send it to other publishers. Now that’s something about publishing that is different from most businesses; if an editor likes something but finds it too much the same to their own product they encourage you to send it to their competition. It seems like in the corporate world they mainly try to squash any competition to keep themselves on top. Publishing is so much more civilized.

I could still go on. Maybe I’ve missed blogging. Hopefully I’ll be back soon to talk unabashedly about myself again soon. Once a week, right?