I’m a list maker,  a task master and a goal setter. Nothing pleases me more than to tick off items on my list. I love mapping out my day, my month, my year, my life and checking off milestones as I meet them.

Anal? Yes. Absolutely.

In fact, I assert this mentality on others whenever I can. Who was the one who instigated the ‘Goal setting’ exercise within my critique group? Guilty. But don’t mock, the monthly exercise is still going strong two years later.

How many times have I set out to lose those last 10 lbs, itemizing each workout week after week? Moi. (But don’t ask me how well that’s gone…sigh)

So it should come as no surprise that in my writing work, I’m an outliner. Not your–and then this happens, and that happens, which causes this to happen–kind of outliner, but I definitely have a method to my, um, madness.

First I set up my Word document with all of my chapter headers in a neat document map. Ah, so pleasing to the eye. Then I put in a sentence for each chapter of what I figure is going to happen. Then I draft my first three chapters. Then I write my last chapter. Then I fill in the holes in between. What could be more logical, more sane, more civilized?

What I haven’t told you yet is the initial plan I start off with is usually NOTHING like the end result. You see, these mad gremlins leap out at me as I write and yell at me–”NO! Your main character would NOT do that, you idiot!!”  or “Don’t be a sissy, make him squirm!!” or “You need to kill that character. Do it! Do it! You know you want to!!” and the wheels fall off of my best laid plans.

And you know what? Even though the gremlins are ugly and they make me squirm and I want them to go away because I had a perfectly good plot before they poked their snotty little heads into my story, sometimes they’re right. So I pat myself on the back and say “Good now, I listened to you  and yes, you’re right, the story IS better, so get out of my manuscript, I’m the writer here.  Bugger off, ugly, snot-nosed gremlins, I have a book to write.”

So I keep writing, but now I have a NEW outline, a BETTER plan and I think it can’t be any better than this and I’m writing along my merry way, feeling pretty smug.  “I’m so clever,” I say to myself as I make my character squirm, just like the snotty-nosed gremlin said to and it works out great, and I continue along my NEW and BETTER outline. But even though I have planned and planned and planned…I hit a snag.

So I go have a shower, cause I do my best thinking in the shower. Maybe it’s all that steam opening up my pores and metaphorically it’s also opening up my MIND pores–yeah that’s it– and I’m thinking and thinking and wondering what ifs and I’m lathering, rinsing and repeating when all of a sudden there’s a tap on my shoulder and I look back to see this snotty looking, ugly gremlin and he flicks soap in my eye and I say “HEY!”

But the snotty looking, ugly gremlin ignores me and says, “You moron, I told you to make that character squirm and now look what you’ve done!” and I say, “But I did! And quit flicking soap in my eye.” and the snotty, ugly gremlin says, “Why not? That’s all you did to your character. A mere flick of soap in his eye. SO WHAT? You’re being too nice!! You’re making it too easy! RAISE THE STAKES! Don’t be a pansy!”

So I go back and see that yes, I have made it too easy. And darn that snotty, grubby no-good gremlin, but I take the plunge and RAISE THE STAKES and flick more and more soap in my character’s eye and my character now hates me but it makes him work harder and it makes him do things that I never knew was in him and makes other characters react to him in surprising ways and it makes the book better and the story more interesting and the ending all that more exciting…

And then I finish the first draft and have to start the process all over again.

Well, that’s the plan anyway…

So show of hands–are you a planner or a pantser?

I’m taking my lead from Susan Adrian (YA writer extraordinaire) and posting an excerpt (less than 200 words) from my WIP.

Here are a couple more of my blogger buddies playing along:

Rose D over at Rose’s Writing Journey
Jen H yonder at Random Thoughts
Carol S at Carol A. Spradling
Amy Dupire at Tickling the Muse

Let me know if I missed you.

So, here’s me:

This is an early reader book I started this week (for ages 6-9) . Not sure what I’m calling it, but I know my MC is a boy, his name is Shamus and he has four sisters. (Poor thing!)

Ham sandwich.

That’s what it feels like to be me.

Crusty bread on the top? That’s Bethany, my bossy oldest sister.

Then cheese. Swiss cheese. Like my older sister Lottie’s imagination. Full of spaces for ideas to get lost in.

My littler sister Tessa would be the mustard, of course. Sharp and zesty. Isn’t that what it says on the bottle? I wanna like mustard but it stings my tongue every time I eat it. Besides, ketchup tastes better.

And my littlest sister Ruthie? She’s that itty bitty piece of bread left over at the bottom of the bag.

So, where does Shamus Oliver Beacon fit in this family sandwich? I’m the ham in the middle. Two older sisters on top. Two younger sisters on the bottom. And there I am, the only boy in a family full of girls, all flat and squished up in between.

Please play along and do the same (post a snippet <200 words) in the comments here or on your blog (but don’t forget to let me know so I can come visit).

I’ve been tagged!

Rose D, you sly fox you. :-) Be sure to pop into Rose’s blog. As well as being a fabulous author, she’s also an accomplished artist.  WOW!

Oh, oh! And tagged by Amy Dupire too over at Tickling the Muse. Amy is an amazing children’s/YA author who will no doubt  be receiving wonderful news of her first sale soon! Very soon, Amy. I can FEEL it!

So, here are ‘da rules’:

a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. (I don’t do this, but will play anyway)
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things about me:

1. My middle name is Marie. (As in Jesus, Marie and Joseph)

2. I’m wearing flip-flops right now. (Pink)

3. I once performed CPR on a man in the middle of an intersection. (He lived! Yay!)

4. I LOVE animals, but don’t have a pet. (Except for a few fish in an aquarium. Do they count?)

5. Man, I’m not very interesting… I’m struggling on number 5…hmm…let’s see…Oh! I’m having a very good hair day. (I’ve been growing it out since last summer and it hasn’t always been a pretty sight) Vain, I know.

6. I started working on a new early reader series concept this morning. (Just because.)

So I’m not tagging anyone, but please feel free to list 6 random things about yourselves in the comments. This should be fun! 

Just messing around with my settings and design, trying to make things a bit more purty around here.

I’ve got my IT department on it (that being DH on his own laptop, sitting right next to me as I make ill-informed requests…)

Me:  Blue… no, fuschia.  No…definitely blue.

DH:  So, it’s blue then?

Me:  But with a fuschia swirl.

DH:  I told you we can’t do the tie-dye background.

Me:  But I like the tie-dye background, but not all grainy like that. Can’t you make it sharper?

DH:  It’s the way the image was created, it won’t load properly without losing resolution.

Me:  Ple-ea-sse?

DH: (in his best ‘Scottie from Star Trek’ imitation) Dammit captain! I’m an engineer not a magician!

Me:  Dancing penguins, then?

DH:  Do you really want dancing penguins or are you just mocking me?

Me:  I’m just mocking you.

DH:  Okay, just so we get that straight.

So, just wondering, what are some of your pet peeves regarding websites? What do you find most useful in an author’s website or websites in general? Any suggestions for me?

And just because, here are some dancing penguins:

Little C has a spelling test every week on Friday. Of course, every week on Thursday night, because I haven’t stayed on top of things and I’m a scatter-brained mother, Little C practises her spelling for the next day.  A few times, this didn’t go so well, but mostly, despite my ineptitude, she’s pulled it out of the fire and just had a few mistakes.  For the past couple of weeks though, I noticed something. The words were getting harder. Much harder. But Little C has been coming home with near perfect dictée’s.

So yesterday (Thursday, remember?) I pulled out the spelling words and had her write them out a few times, then tested her. Amazingly, she got them all right on the first try.  Curious, I asked her how.

“I just took a picture of the dictée in my head.”

I know that the idea of a photographic memory is poo-pooed by many scholars, but I’ve always had the ability to retain scads of written information, a skill that came in handy when studying for exams. This is also useful when revising manuscripts since I know instinctively where a passage is located on the page, the shape of the paragraph, what chapter, etc.

Could it be that Little C has ‘the gift’? Dum dee dum dum….

And no, I can’t memorize everything that’s in a room down to the last dustbunny (thank goodness for me) and I’m totally useless at matching games.

Another interesting discussion is happening on a writer’s forum I *ahem* frequent. It’s about another mind aberration called synesthesia. Apparently, some people see letters and numbers in three dimensions or with colour values. Others see numbers in geometric shapes or patterns.

Isn’t the mind a wonderful thing?

But just watch, Little C will come home with her dictée marked up in red pen, totally disproving my theory. Will report back…

I’m not the sickly type by nature (thank goodness) but have been to the ER twice in my life.

Once was while writhing in pain equivalent to 14 knives being impaled into my abdomen (not childbirth–kidney stones) and another was when a skin infection became unbearably painful during a long weekend.

 The first time, I was whisked in to a waiting emergency room, amidst withering glares from the weary occupants of the waiting room. The second, I was the one cursing the 15 people who skipped the queue before me while I worried my finger was about to fall off. So how exactly do ER staff prioritize patients’ care? While researching my latest non-fiction project, this is what I learned:

Each patient that comes through ER goes to triage. There, a nurse gives their condition a rating:

• Less urgent : like infected fingers (apparently).

• Urgent, but not life-threatening: like kidney stones (apparently).

• Immediately life-threatening: which I didn’t qualify for (apparently).

The sickest get seen quicker, even if they come in later.

So what about you? What are some of your ER stories? Where would you have landed on the triage rating?

Telesurgery is performed on a patient by a surgeon from a distance away. On February 28, 2003, the first hospital-to-hospital surgery was performed in Ontario, Canada. One surgeon worked at the patient’s side. The other was 400 kilometers away and operated with the help of a computer-controlled robot.

Trepanning is an ancient surgery dating back to the Neolithic caveman. Early man drilled holes through the skull to release the evil spirits that caused headaches or epilepsy. This operation was done without anesthetic (ouch!) with a surgical tool that looked like a manual drill (double ouch!).

Cool, huh? I love my job!!

Got a lovely note yesterday saying that my middle grade story, ACADIAN STAR , had taken second place in the Writer’s Federation of New Brunswick’s Literary competition:

2008 WFNB Literary Competition Winners Announced
By Kellie(Kellie)
Helene Boudreau of Markham, ON, takes Second place with “Acadian Star.” Third place goes to Lindsey Morris of Amherstburg, ON for “The Hotdog Bun.” Carmelita McGrath judged the Sheree Fitch Prize for Poetry written by a youth. …
Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick - http://nbwriters.blogspot.com/

Snoopy dancing!!

Kate Coombs has been writing stories and poems since she was very young, growing up in Southern California. Over the years she’s worked briefly as an editor of coffee table books and technical manuals, but mostly as a teacher–grades K-12 plus college and adult education. Right now she’s the teacher advisor for Los Angeles Unified School District’s home/hospital instructional program by day, mysterious masked children’s book writer by night.

Her published books are The Secret-Keeper, a picture book illustrated by Heather Solomon that came out in 2006 from Atheneum:

Kalli was the secret-keeper of Maldinga.

Every day the people of Maldinga straggled through the woods to the clearing where Kalli’s cottage stood. They came one by one, never in twos or threes. And one by one, they told Kalli their secrets…

The Runaway Princess, an intermediate comic fantasy from Farrar Straus and Giroux, also published in 2006. The latter was an ALA Notable Book for 2007, which thrilled her to no end.

      She went to the window again and leaned over the ledge. Below her she could see the pale top of someone’s head. Hanak had black hair like Dilly’s. “Hello,” she called.
      Whoever it was stepped away from the tower wall. “Nort?” Meg said, shocked. “What are you doing down there?”
      Nort held up an oversized spear. “Guarding you. What does it look like?”
      ”You are not my guard!” Meg cried.
      ”Am too.”
      ”Are not.”
      ”Am too.”
      Meg paused. “Where’s Hanak?”
      ”He’s busy at the castle,” Nort said. “You’ve got me. Royal orders.”
      ”I’ll give you a royal order, Nort the Short,” Meg announced. “Go shoot yourself in the knees with a crossbow!”
      Nort laughed. “Come down and make me.”
      With a furious strangled noise, Meg withdrew into the tower. She took a deep breath and surveyed her new domain. There had to be a way to get out of this place.

She has three other books in the pipeline, all inexplicably scheduled to come out in Spring 2010.

You can find out more about Kate at www.katecoombs.com

I talked about waiting in my last post. That anxiety-ridden state of indecision, with all its dangly loose bits and paralysing angst. Is there anything worse than having a carrot dangled in front of you and not quite being able to reach it. Worse yet, having it snatched away?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to want things. Right now, our household is waiting for two Very Important Events. Little M’s going to be 5 in exactly ten days and Little C is going to be 7, seven days later.  You can imagine the planning, pontificating and pining that’s been happening here! But really, isn’t that part of the fun? Isn’t making the invitations, planning the party games and choosing the menu all part of the build up for the special day(s)?

Me, I’ve been very busy lately. Been working on three non-fiction manuscripts (one down, two to go), writing a few science articles and immersing myself in revisions of a novel.  And LOVING it. This is exactly what I’ve been planning for, dreaming about and working towards for the past three years since I decided to pursue a writing career. It has taken 6 picture books, 4 early chapter books, 4 novels in various stages of completion, a dozen or so articles, a dozen or so contest submissions, more than 50 rejections and ten pounds to get here. (Okay, I could have done without those extra ten pounds, but whatever.)

Point is, even though I finally feel comfortable saying ‘I’m a writer’ when someone asks what I ‘do’ at cocktail parties,(um, I don’t really go to cocktail parties, but a girl can dream), I think anyone who is putting in the blood, sweat and tears should own that distinction. You’re not a writer because you get to see your name in print on some byline or a bookspine. You’re a writer when you sit yourself down and do it.

In other news, my new niece is here!! There’s nothing quite like the feeling of becoming a mother, to be wholly responsible for another human being. But that doesn’t start when the baby is placed in your arms. Doesn’t it start right from the time you know that baby is inside you? 

So whatever you’re waiting for, whatever you’re dreaming of, whatever you yearn for–let it trickle over you and revel in it.  Enjoy the ride and for now,  just live in the space between.

Because really, what’s more important–the journey or the destination?