More on epilogues

I finished the epilogue! Well, the first draft of it anyway, which of course means that I've really finished nothing because there is lots of revising and editing to do, but at least I have something that resembles the final product completely written down. I thought finishing it would feel ... bigger somehow. Like the heavens would part and I'd hear angels singing the hallelujah chorus, but alas, no. Only silence. The whole thing was kind of anticlimactic, truth be told. Rather than smoking a cigarette or having a drink, I watered the plants and cooked dinner. Still, there is a certain sense of accomplishment. Right up until I shutdown the laptop knowing that a file named "Epilogue" rested snuggly inside, I remained a little unsure of whether I could do it, whether I could really put an end to something that I had given so much too for so long. Maybe the Hallelujah angels are waiting for me to get a publishing contract. I'm sure that's it.

The Perfect Storm

Yesterday got up to 150 degrees here in Kentucky. Well, almost. It's August, so the heat and humidity build throughout the day, getting slowly worse with each intake of muggy air, like slow torture. But it was all worth it around 7 o'clock last night. We heard something BOOM! outside, and Michael went to the door to look out because it sounded like something blew up. It had-- the heat. It had finally reached the boiling point and a wonderful storm blew in. It wasn't a scary, "turn on the radio for tornado warnings" kind of storm. It was just a nice summertime evening storm with wind and rain and enough cloud to ground lightening and loud thunder to be respectable. We listened to it while we ate chocolate fudge brownies that Michael made because I'm premenstrual and he loves me and values his life. He didn't toss them to me like raw meat through a lion's cage, but almost. Then the storm passed, the brownie was gone, and I fell asleep on the couch while Michael watched some boy movie on TV, which is pretty much my idea of a perfect evening.

The End ... maybe

With the end of the Harry Potter series, there is much talk of epilogues lately. as it happens, I am working on an epilogue of my own and am finding that it ain't so very easy. I have been writing on my fantasy romance for almost three (gulp) years now. I could say much about my creative process, but it can best be described as "slow." I'm cutting myself some slack though since I have had three brain operations during those almost three years. yes, possibly that is an excuse but really, can you think of a better one? So anyway, the book is finished (I'll wait while you cheer) except for the epilogue, which I thought I'd just crank out in a day or two. I'm slow, but hopeful, you see. But now it's been almost three weeks and still no epilogue, and I know exactly what the problem is. Oh yes, I know.
Once I get this book well and truly done, epilogue and all, then I have to begin the business of writing, and it really is a business. I have to write a summary, a synopsis, query agents, query more agents, and do countless other things that I probably don't even yet know that I have to do. I am not good with businessy stuff. Evaluating my day job's benefits package makes me twitch. Assessing retirement options gives me a rash. Just say "insurance form" to me and I start to hyperventilate. No, I am not good with business kinds of stuff, but if I ever want to be a full-time, published author-- and that is very much what I want-- then I'm just going to have to buck up and learn to deal with this stuff. The point is that it is just so much easier and so much less scary to keep rewriting this darned epilogue!

My Contribution to the Harry Potter Lovefest

Michael and I finished reading the seventh and final Harry Potter book (on audio of course) late Sunday night. If you are an HP fan, then you've already finished it and I don't have to tell you how amazing it was. It was everything we fans thought it would be, and more than we ever even knew we could hope for. Sure, we want to know more, but we will always want more. The Potter books are the foundation for an entertainment empire. They added countless words to our language in a way that hasn't been done since William Shakespeare. They brought millions of completely different people-- different in belief, age, culture, etc.-- together and gave them something to talk about. The books gave us a world to visit again and again and know that we can escape our own world and be completely immersed in the magical one. All of this sharing and bringing together and outpouring of the full spectrum of emotions is the result of one thing-- one woman's imagination. And therein lies the magic, the most amazing and powerful magic. Thank you J.K. Rowling.

What Kind of Question is That?

I haven't told a lot of people about my newly acquired urge to procreate, but the few I have told have been more than a little shocked. It seems I have acquired a reputation as a "baby hater" to use one friend's words, and that simply is not the case, although I get how people might think that-- "Baby Shower Hell" post below, for example. I have always been very pro-children, just more from a social policy standpoint than from a "pass me the precious bundle" standpoint. Well okay damn it! Can't a woman change her mind? So now people keep asking me why I want to have a baby. What the hell kind of question is that anyway? I am not often left stuttering, searching for words, but this question does it to me every time. Is there a right answer? I'm a straight A overachiever type, so if this is some kind of test, then I seriously have to get it right. It's what I do.
I do not need a baby to make my life complete. I do not need a baby to fill some gaping void in my life. My happiness does not depend entirely on my ability to reproduce. Do such admissions somehow make me bad mommy material? Is there some sort of maternal test that I have failed? Seriously, I want to know. I have to know!

Baby Shower hell

I went to a baby shower yesterday. as a rule, I don't attend baby showers. I beg off, politely decline, or just plain lie-- whatever is required to get out of them. This one, however, was for a very good friend who tried to get pregnant for two years and was declared infertile by her doctors before she did finally get knocked up. I'm extremely thrilled for her, so I sucked it up and went. It was a typical baby shower. they are all the same, I have learned, which is why I generally avoid them.
Upon entering the home of pregnant friend's mom, I was handed a teensy folded baby diaper and a straight pin and given instructions to pin the diaper to my shirt. People, I am all about accessories, but seriously now. and the thing is, I have yet to attend a baby shower where I was not so decorated. I tried to casually drop the thing in my attempt to pin it on, but some helpful soul spotted my difficulty and rushed right over to my aid. Gee, thanks.
Then we moved on to the games, which I won't bore you with-- partly because I wasn't paying real close attention myself, but I did manage to win a game that involved unrolling a length of toilet paper that most closely matched the circumference of the prego belly of the mother to be. The (A-hem) prize was a lovely little ceramic pig figurine. and gosh darn it all, I forgot and left that gift under my chair when I left. Shoot.
then came the gift opening portion of the afternoon's entertainment, which involved lots of oohing and ahing over things like frilly outfits and breast pumps and the like. and of course, that one woman who knows absolutely everything about all things baby was there. She comes in different disguises, but if you've ever been to a baby shower, you know the woman I'm talking about. She's the one who says things like, "Now those nipples are okay, but you know you really ought to get this other kind because they more closely simulate an actual nipple." and, "Now those pacifiers are the only ones to have. You'll be glad you got those. They are the best for oral motor development. Of course, you know not to let the baby have a pacifier until she's three months old, don't you?"
The United States government should arrange to have this woman sent to developing nations because she is apparently single handedly responsible for our country's low infant mortality rate. without her, no child could possibly reach adulthood. Absolutely not. Unthinkable.
But I went to the baby shower, did my duty as a good friend, and am allowing myself to feel all smug and saintly about it. But seriously, never again.

Excitement is overrated

I haven't blogged in a while. The reason being that the most interesting thing I have done lately is unload the dishwasher, and really, that wasn't all that exciting. Oh wait, now that I think about it, there was some dishwasher drama. Michael hates the way I load the dishwasher, which is a kind of chaos theory to clean dishes, so he usually starts the dishwasher and then I unload it, which is what happened this time. Except that he didn't start it. Or he didn't put in dishwasher detergent. We really aren't sure which one. either way, I was merrily going about unloading the dishwasher-- mugs and glasses first, then bowls, plates, and finally silverware. I was halfway through the plates before I realized we had a problem. We pre-rinse, so I just thought it was one or two plates that hadn't gotten clean, but further investigation showed me the magnitude of the situation.
"What the fuck?" I said, which miraculously tore Michael's attention away from the Sci-Fi channel. "What is the deal here?" I asked, holding up dirty silverware.
he said nothing, but peered inside the dishwasher, now mostly empty, for answers.
"You started the dishwasher, right?"
"I thought I did," he answered, and I knew we had trouble. I thought I did, is Michael's defense mechanism. he thinks that if he says "I thought I did" that somehow a spell of stupidity will be cast over me and I will naturally assume that the problem must lie with whatever inanimate object is in question, in this case-- the dishwasher. Because, he thought he started it, right? I mean, if he thought he did, then he really can't be blamed for any malfunction, right?
It's been a stressful time for us both. I understand that. So I opted to let the matter drop, but I told him there were now dirty dishes stowed where only clean dishes should be, and probably he should deal with that, which he did without argument. If dishwasher mishaps are the only excitement I'm to have just now, I should probably be grateful for my boredom.
I am back at work today. The return to pre-surgery normality is good for me. Plus it keeps me from having the time to think too much. I am a notorious think-too-mucher, and postsurgical thoughts are rarely pleasant. So I'm back at work, easing back into my ho-hum routine.